34th Annual Teddy Bear Ride, sponsored by Harley-Davidson Financial Services
Sunday, October 25, 2026 · PLANO, Texas
About this event
The bears are not decoration. They go to children arriving at the Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County for a forensic interview about what happened to them — something to hold, the centre says, at the start of a journey to healing. The ride began in 1992, the year the centre opened, when about a dozen riders turned up to trade toys for hot chocolate. The custom builder Rick Fairless, of Strokers Dallas, is named as the man who started it, on the grounds that bikers are the best people on the planet and these children needed help. It is now the centre's longest-running fundraiser, drawing something near a thousand riders and two thousand bears a year. The route covers about sixty miles from Frisco down to the Harley-Davidson Financial Services headquarters on Alma Drive in Plano, which is the sponsor's own front door. The sight people remember is the bears themselves — strapped to sissy bars, bungeed to tanks, wedged into fairings, a few thousand of them moving at once. One year the escorted line ran unbroken for fourteen miles down Central Expressway.
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