ABOUT US
A social motorcycling community
WHO WE ARE
Sydney West Riders is a social motorcycling community that was founded by twin brothers Kevin and Steven Lam in June 2012.
The group conducts weekly rides every Wednesday to unite riders across Western Sydney. Over time, the group grew exponentially to over 13,000 members (still growing) and became engaged in numerous community projects with charitable organisations and local businesses.
This included raising money for Youth Off The Streets (2014), Nepal Disasters (2015), Whitelion (2016), Inspire180 (2017), Kids Under Cover (2018), Fusion Western Sydney (2019), Reachout Australia (2020) and Inspire180 again (2023). Some of these rides attracted up to 100- 200 riders respectively.
- To unite riders and build a platform for their riding journeys
- To improve positive publicity of motorcycling to the general public. This is achieved through supporting local organisations, charities and individuals.
- To empower and inspire others, especially youths.
- To collaborate with partners to produce innovative films that promote the creativity of members from the motorcycling community.
12,000+
MEMBERS
$15,000+
FUNDS RAISED
500+
EVENTS
12+
YEARS TOGETHER
HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?
The Sydney West Riders are reaching their 12th year and are still growing rapidly, with over 12,000 Facebook members now. It has been a roller coaster of a journey, starting with a simple idea by twin brothers, Kevin and Steven Lam, which turned into one of the largest social motorcycling communities and newest track day provider in Australia. This idea created lifelong friendships, relationships, opportunities, a movement for youths, unity of riders, and so much more.
The SWR journey from our late teens had been very exciting, memorable, confronting, and emotional. When we started the group together, we had no direction and certainly didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. We were discovering as we went along, while also developing and transforming as individuals. By sharing our story, we hope to inspire others to turn their ideas into reality, even if it’s not about motorcycling, because you never know where it will take you. As you move forward and stay on your path, opportunities will come up, such as SWR becoming a track day provider in 2019.
Our story begins in 2012 when we both managed to save enough to purchase our first bikes after flipping burgers at McDonald’s. We struggled through the Learner course, trying to grasp the manual process of operating the motorbike. There were times when we thought it wasn’t for us, but reminded ourselves that we had already purchased the bikes.. Kevin a Honda CBR 250RR and Steven with his Hyosung GT250R.
Purchasing the bike was easy, learning to ride was hard, but letting our mum know was the toughest part. As a result, we actually bought and left the bikes at a friend’s house and occasionally visited them just to sit and warm them up and feed our excitment that we were now “motorcyclists”. We were so satisfied with the purchase that we wore motorcycle jackets around the house and told her it was for the snow. After her suspicion grew, Kevin and I finally had to bring the bikes home.
The moment we arrived home with the bikes, she screamed in shock. Through her eyes, I felt that we had lost her love and trust. She didn’t talk or look at us and resented us for a good week. Gradually she began to accept our rebellious actions with the help of our sister. She confronted us, saying that if we did anything like this again, she wouldn’t be our mother anymore. We understood that she didn’t want us to be on bikes because she loved us very much and had witnessed many accidents back in her home town and seeing families torn apart from fleeing the Vietnam war. Dad on there hand was totally cool with it, go Dad!
The start of our riding experience was exciting but somewhat ordinary. We only knew a handful of riders and often used the bikes for commuting to work or going on local cruises together. It was when Kevin came up with the idea of creating Sydney West Riders that things started to change. At the time, I was not supportive of the idea and was very against it. I just didn’t think it was appropriate or suitable to have a group led by a learner rider. The real reason was that I was concerned about being embarrassed and judged. The group started with just myself, Kevin, and our neighbour Chris Bui. From there, we added whoever we knew and their friends who owned a bike. It became a ripple effect of riders from our area, Cabramatta, particularly Asians because of our meet location and early networks. Little did we know that our primary Asian-based group (at the time) would become targeted among other motorcycling communities later on.
Our first-ever SWR meet was on the 14th of June 2012 at Cabramatta Hungry Jacks. I still vividly remember that night and the riders who came along; Chris, Cathy, Troy, and Chitra. The excitement of having four bikes riding together was insane. The feeling we had that night is not even close to the much bigger rides we have today. It was a breakthrough for us, something new, and something we never thought we would be involved in. Despite it being just a short ride through Cabramata and Canley Heights, it was the night that marked the beginning of our extraordinary journey.
The Sydney West Riders story continues to be written; we’ve faced many challenges over the years but have always been reminded of our vision and stuck to the principles of Kevin’s first-ever group post.
