Riders' Digest: Another Word from the UK

Here is a rare opportunity to get to read a pretty decent publication for nothing. Paul Compton sent a link to the new on-line Riders' Digest so I could look at an article called "A Labrador Called Harley," but the whole magazine was pretty interesting.

For example, on page 71 there is an article titled "Group Riding: What's the Story?" with which I disagreed on every point made and where the "statistics" used would have made Mark Twain perfectly satisfied with his conclusion ("There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."). Similar to the argument Keith Code made a few years back regarding the safety embedded in liter bikes over smaller machines, the author finds comfort in numbers and conclusions that a Republican economist might avoid.The statement "The group ride is a relatively new and fast growing area of motorcycle culture," is so blatantly stupid that I practically put my fist through the computer screen when I read that bit of foolishness. Group riding has been around, especially in the biker gangster crowd, since the 1950's, at least. Sixty years is "relatively new" by who's standards? The author, Heidi Bailey, sites her sources as "a new study conducted earlier this year with the
help of over 1200 bikers of all shapes and sizes has started to examine the issue," but never bothers to identify that "study." She has that in common with Keith Code who also claims that training improved motorcyclists' mortality statistics, but never worries about showing evidence of that claim. However, mine is just one point of view and her's is probably more the majority view of safety in numbers or whatever the justification behind trains of motorcycles may be.

Paul's recommended article contained a quote that I may use for the rest of my life, ". . . Essentially, every new Harley is an old bike. Old engine, old frame, old idea. That’s what the customers want." Damn, I wish I'd written that. The author, only identified as "Oldlongdog," kills his topic. Another line that came close to home was, "To a biker a Harley is a bike; to the uninitiated wannabe a bike is a Harley." Paul is right, I loved every paragraph of the column and will bookmark the magazine for regular reading. I wish I knew who Oldlongdog is, I'd look for his writing, too.

The dog-portion of the Harley-Lab article reminded me of a joke I heard from an old guy in Nova Scotia, "What does a Labrador dog and a Harley have in common? They both like to ride in the back of pickup trucks and drool." The funny part of that joke, for me, was the fact that in Nova Scotia, a "Labrador dog" was not a breed of dog, but dog from Labrador.

It's tax time in the US, so my recreational reading is limited to fiction that will take my mind off of my difficulties by focusing on my favorite fictional philosophy, "killin' people who need killin'." That's a Bill Hickok quote, but  I think it still applies to most of modern culture. However, I'm going to keep working my way through the Digest because it's one of the most interesting magazines I've read in years.