1,000,000 Hits!

Thanks you for reading my blog for the last decade. It seemed like this benchmark might not ever arrive. The Geezer with A Grudge blog jumped to 500,000 hits pretty quickly, it seemed from my vantage point, and sort of crawled the rest of the the way to one million. That mark on the Google Blogger site arrived in late November and I wasn’t even paying attention.

There must be a thousand articles on the web with titles something like “Blogging is Dead.” For sure, at least from where I live, attracting readers to a blog is a lot harder without a print magazine (like Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly) to help draw traffic. I don’t get near the hate mail I was used to when the magazine was out there drawing fire. I’ve been a columnist for Fast Lane Biker mag for about a year and that venture has pretty much been a bust. Neither of the location where you can find my Geezer columns—GeezerwithAGrudge.com, Geezer on Wordpress, or Geezer on Blogger—have seen any sort of hit increase from my association with Fast Lane Biker. Probably no surprise. Fast Lane is pretty much a hard-core cruiser magazine and I’m still trying to figure out what I’m contributing to that readership.

The 1,000,000 hits were all on Blogger. The Wordpress site is still slowly approaching 100,000 hits, but I get almost no Russians and Chinese spammers and a lot higher percentage of Brits and Canadians on Wordpress. That is a plus on several levels. Unless something miraculous happens with my eyesight and the associated myasthenia gravis symptoms, I’m probably not going to be a motorcyclist again. However, I have 55 years of motorcycling experiences that has barely been tapped in this blog and I’m collecting a lot of insights into many things that affect motorcyclists and bicyclists by putting 3,000 miles on my eBike this past 2 years. I’m not done yet. Thanks for being here.

How Do You Know I “Can’t Ride?”

One of the local gangbangers was justifying his noise maker on the grounds of “safety,” and I recommended, as always, that he invest some time in learning how to ride competently. His response was, “How do you know I can’t ride?” A quick look at his social media page had turned up a picture of him on his goober-mobile and it was pretty much what you see in the drawing to the right. So, how do I know he can’t ride?

1. In this drawing, the “rider”¹ is wearing a jacket, boots, and jeans. No helmet, of course. While that isn’t even close to decent protective gear, the real gooberboy’s picture showed him in a wifebeater, lowtop tennis shoes, and a scraggly pony tail. I know he can’t ride because if he could he’d know how fast shit can go bad and how much blood, skin, and mobility he is going to lose when he hits the asphalt.
2. The bike the dude in the conversation rides is just as disabled as the mechanical junk depicted in this picture. Everything from the feet-forward rolling-gynecologists'-chair riding position to the extended forks to the low ground clearance screams “this is a crash waiting to happen.” Obviously, the rider and the bike are overweight and under-equipped to cope with any emergency. Actions like stopping quickly, swerving to avoid an obstacle, getting up on the pegs to add stability and reduce suspension-load (as if this thing has a suspension), or even turning sharply without running out of ground clearance because of the exhaust parts or hard-mounted foot pegs are all out of this “rider’s” reach because the “design” of the motorcycle is non-functional. I’m not an emergency nurse, but I’d join them in calling this a “murdercycle.” It’s a stage prop, at best, but a completely disabled and incompetent vehicle to the point that it might as well be a trike. You know that “closed course use only” stamp that’s on your illegal exhaust pipe? This vehicle should have “for garage candy use only” written on the tank.
3. What other clues did I have that led me to assume the character in this story can’t ride? My favorite reason of all, we got into this conversation from one of those “I had to lay’er down” stories. If you know much about me, you know I have no respect for that claim. I don’t care if it is made by some newbie or a motorcycle cop, if you fall down in your attempt to stop, you screwed up. You panicked, screamed, and fell over and tried to sell that as an intentional evasion tactic. Likewise, this goober couldn’t intentionally lay down a motorcycle with help in his garage. Just like the fruitcake in the drawing, he never uses his front brake for ordinary stops, but rides with a finger or three resting on the brake lever and when an emergency happened, he grabbed it and discovered that he had no idea how that brake works. In my character’s situation, that extended fork collapsed with the stress (Surprise!) and his already limited ground clearance vanished and he was instantly metal-on-metal. Then he “laid ‘er down.” Right.
4. Finally, this ain’t my first rodeo. In my 18 years of teaching MSF courses for the state of Minnesota I taught about 40 of the old ERC (Experienced Rider Course) and a dozen of the renamed version of the same course, the IRC (Intermediate Rider Course). I have suffered the abuse of loud Harley exhausts and spectacular rider incompetence and seen these characters ride straight through obstacle ranges because “my bike can’t do stuff like that” or stop about 20’ beyond the minimum exercise distance because “I’m afraid of the front brake.” There are exceptions, for sure, and they are exceptional. One of the Minnesota Expert Rider instructors is a Minneapolis motorcycle cop and he does amazing things on his huge Harley. Of course, his bike is pretty much bone stock (which makes it the most unusual of all Harley’s on the road). It isn’t loud, it has a functional suspension, and he is a spectacular rider. Otherwise, 99.999% of the time, I can safely assume if you are on a Harley, especially a chopper, you are not a competent rider because you are not riding a competent motorcycle. You might think the stereotype is unfair, but so is life. I love it when someone proves me wrong, but you will be going against the grain when you try.

¹ I keep putting “rider” in quotes because I don’t consider these characters in any way in charge of the direction of travel or speed their motorcycle takes. A more accurate description of these characters would be “handlebar streamers.” They are just dangling from the handlebars waiting for a crash to happen after which they’ll whine about how their “right of way” was violated or someone didn’t property sweep the street for debris or some other excuse that no actual motorcyclist would ever claim. When they crash, and they crash a lot, it’s never their fault and someone else is always supposed to get the blame and responsibility.

What Really Signals the End?

 

Selling your last and only motorcycle is pretty traumatic. From experience, I can say that it doesn’t feel final. You can always buy another motorcycle. And I could, even if nothing I ever own will never be as tricked-out and personalized as my last two bikes. I owned my 2004 V-Strom 650 and 2008 Yamaha WR250X longer than any other motorcycles in my life. I put more miles on a few other bikes, but those two were as close to being “friends” as inanimate objects can be for me; even more so than my guitars or my favorite microphones. Still, if I found myself recovering from this MG thing and felt confident in my ability to go places and return reasonably safely and reliability, I could find a satisfactory motorcycle, saddle up, and ride off into the sunset. It could happen, but it likely won’t.

If you’ve followed the train of my thoughts over the years, you know I’m not fond of being owned by stuff. I own a lot of motorcycle stuff, not even close to the least are my two Aerostich Darien suits. Sandwiched between the two Dariens is a non-descript black armored nylon jacket that my wife liked a lot and a Cortech DSX jacket with the now-extinct Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly logo embroidered on the back. I’ve had the grey Darien suit and the Cortech jacket since 2006, the black nylon jacket for at least 30 years, and the HiViz Darien AD1 prototype and off-the-shelf Darien AD1 pants since 2011. I have put more than 100,000 miles on the pair of Dariens, crashed in sharp gravel and survived in the grey suit, had my lack of attention to traffic rescued by the HiViz suit (more than once), and had hundreds of wonderful conversations started in coffee shops and motorcycle events by the embroidery on the Cortech jacket. (Don’t minimize that last one. I am, by nature, a loner and an introverted  wallflower. Possessing a conversation starter is no small thing for me.) 

Behind those jackets are the last of 3 full coverage helmets in their storage bags. That small group is left over from a pile of on and off-road helmets I gave away when we left Little Canada in 2015. On the bottom of that shelf is a large plastic storage box that houses spare gloves, cold weather gear, storage bags, tank bags, camping gear, and stwo sets of MC boots: my Gaerne Goretex road boots, and a pair of barely-used Icon Patrol Boots.

On the other pole, is the Giant Loop saddle bags for the WR, a couple of Camelback water storage packs, an Aerostich courier bag, and a couple other shoulder bags. In the garage is a toolbox full of special motorcycle tools, an Aerostich wheel balancer, a bead breaker, and a box full of farkles, parts, and stuff I never got around to putting on my bikes before I sold them.

This kind of gear will be hard to get rid of because, as I always told my motorcycle safety students, “Buy the best gear you can afford and buy a motorcycle with whatever money is left.” I did that. So, if I sell or give away my gear, going back to motorcycling will be at least a $2,000 entry fee; before I even look for a motorcycle. At my age, fixed income, and overall motivation level, that resembles an insurmountable obstacle.

Back in the 70s, my riding gear was pretty basic: a 3/4 helmet, lineman’s boots, very lightly armored coveralls, Justin roper gloves, and a set of hockey shoulder pads I wore under my nylon jersey and canvas jacket (in cool weather). In the mid-70s, I blew it out and bought a pair of $100 Malcom Smith ISDT boots and within a month, I’d high-sided and crashed practicing for the weekend motocross and, when the bike landed on my heel as I slid face-first toward a pile of busted-up concrete, I ended up with all of the toes on my left foot broken and had to have that boot cut off. I did not spend big money on gear again until I moved to California in 1983 and, thanks to a wet, cold spring I mail-ordered a brand new Aerostich Roadcrafter and ventured into a life in real motorcycle gear; mostly. I admit, during those early years I occasionally went for comfort and just a simple leather jacket and jeans instead of the ‘Stich, but I have been very lucky for most of my life. By the time I left Colorado in 1995, I was a committed AGAT guy and there have been more than a few times when that habit saved my skin, skull, bones, and life.

I have discovered a different kind of emotional attachment to the riding gear than I had for my actual motorcycles. Obviously, I was closer to the gear, pun intended. I never slept on the bike, but there were more than a few sub-freezing nights that I slept in my Darien suits and a few where the Darien backpad and my gloves provided a picnic table sleeping mattress. Through my gear, I got to meet and become friends with Andy Goldfine, Aerostich’s owner and chief designer, and the crew of that great American company. Over the years, I’ve spent at least $3,000 with Aerostich, attended 3 of their Very Boring Rallies, and used RiderWearHouse as an excuse for an afternoon or weekend ride to Duluth too many times to remember. I bought the Gaerne Goretex boots from Ryan Young, in person, at one of the US Trials Championship rounds at Spirt Mountain in Duluth. At least three of the coolest camping trips I ever enjoyed was done on my Yamaha WR250X with the gear stored in my Giant Loop Coyote Saddlebag. I took my grandson for a 3,300 mile motorcycle trip to, through, and back through the Rocky Mountains—and home again—wearing my Darien. I wore that same suit to Alaska and back, for 13,000 miles in 26 days, in 2007. Again, in 2009 I wore that gray Darien across Canada from Sault Ste. Marie to Quebec City to Halifax where I picked up my wife wearing that black nylon jacket, her luggage, and we slogged 100 miles through the worst rainstorm I’ve ever experienced.

Damn, I have some attachments to this stuff, but someone else will get use out of it and my kids won’t have the slightest idea how to find it a home. I’m gonna have to do it.

Geezer Column October: What Really Signals the End?

Where Is This All Going?

If there is an upside to the apparent end of my motorcycle life, it might be that I sold the two motorcycles while there was still a market for them. I sold my “big bike,” my 2004 Suzuki V-Strom last spring for pretty much Blue Book list with almost 100,000 miles on the odometer. My Yamaha WR250X went this April for a decent price after two weeks on Craig’s List. I suspect the arrival of the economic stimulus checks had something to do with that sale, although the buyer was a 17-year-old kid from Wisconsin driving a newer pickup than I will ever own.

Rural Minnesota’s coronavirus lock-down isn’t overwhelmingly restrictive and my wife and I have taken a couple of leisurely drives along Wisconsin 35, south toward Lacrosse. With an immune deficiency disease, I’m the posterboy for this disease’s “most likely to suffocate” award. So, we don’t stop where anybody else is standing around, we don’t shop, stop for restaurant food, or spend much money. We’re just breaking the plague quarantine routine for an hour or so. The last time we made that trip, I counted 17 motorcycles for sale parked in yards and driveways in a 40 mile drive. It is a glutted market. The overwhelming majority of bikes for sale are cruisers and the dominate brand on that used market is Harley. 

Harley’s current economic situation, only slightly worse than before the Trump Recession due to a decade of declining sales, is reflective of that change in the seas. Motorcyclists and, especially, bikers are getting older, from a 1985 median age of 27 to a 2003 average of 41 and somewhere between 51 and 60-something (depending on whose stats you trust) by 2020. In the US, motorcycles are just expensive recreational vehicles to 99.9% of riders; most of whom are too incompetent and timid to commute or ride in city traffic. One aspect of those statistics is grossly and incorrectly skewed by the fact that practically every US driver who ever took a motorcycle license test automatically renews that endorsement for a few bucks every 4 to 6 years; because they can without any evidence of riding competence. So, actual rider age is probably lower than those numbers but actual motorcyclists’ numbers are also far smaller than the estimated 10 million households (who are mostly storing a motorcycle under a tarp in the back of a shed). Like that motorcycle endorsement, many bike owners reflexively pay the tabs every year for a motorcycle that rarely travels further than it takes to move it out of the way of the lawnmower or snowblower. 

What does it mean for motorcycling? Hell if I know, but I know a lot of people in the industry are beginning to hedge their two-wheeled bets into other recreational areas.

The owner of Aerostich, Andy Goldfine, has talked a lot over the years about the value of motorcycling to society and he and his company sponsor events that try to illustrate motorcycles utility; like Ride to Work Day. In his blog, Andy talks a lot about the motorcycle market from the perspective of someone whose primary business is selling gear to the tiny percentage of motorcyclists (not bikers) who ride every day and depend on their motorcycle for transportation. That group appears to be shrinking and Aerostich is looking around for their next market. It’s possible it might be serious eBike riders (the fastest growing segment of the US two-wheeled industry).

Our position in the world is reflected by motorcycle data, too. Lance Oliver, in his blog The Ride So Far, reflected on this in his essay, “The U.S. market is increasingly unimportant in the motorcycle world": “Here in the United States, we have a way of making ourselves sound bigger than we are. We call ourselves ‘the Americans’ even though we’re a small part of the Americas and we hold a World Series without inviting other countries to participate. In the motorcycle world, however, it’s impossible to mistake the fact that the U.S. market is becoming smaller and less important with every passing year.” The 2007 Bush Great Recession really illustrated that when a 90% reduction in Honda’s US motorcycle sales resulted in less than a 3% decrease in their world motorcycle sales. The world is growing and the American Century ended at the millennium. Maybe that was the real Y2K bug?

In this country, motorcycling is a lame excuse for “lifestyle goobers” and barely a recreational vehicle. I think that sucks. The old fat guys on Harleys, and their unemployable offspring, have sucked the life out of motorcycling as transportation. Their 500 miles/year posing flat out turns off anyone who might otherwise think a motorcycle is “cool.” Their pirate parades generate more hatred toward motorcyclists than all of the Hells Angel movies ever produced. Their insistence on white privileges without responsibility makes every motorist on the highway want to “unintentionally” wander into a motorcycle’s path just to watch the likely Laugh-In tricycle action. When a pack of biker gangbangers gets squashed on the highway, most people think, “good riddance.”

As cars become safer, quieter, more fuel efficient, tolerating incompetent and arrogant bikers becomes less sustainable. What do we do to try and mitigate that? We slap louder pipes on our lawnmower-motor “hawgs,” collect in even bigger gang demonstrations, campaign for special treatment and even more roadway privileges, and make greater “contributions” to highway crashes and mortality while fighting rational licensing, helmet, and traffic safety laws. Any fool could see where this is all heading, but we’re special fools and we’re going to drive this chopper right over the cliff.

Mufflers Are for Pussies?

A few weeks ago, I wondered why it was so hard for Minnesota city and state cops to figure out how to enforce Minnesota’s vehicle noise laws. Minnesota State Statute 169.69 states: "Every motor vehicle shall at all times be equipped with a muffler in good working order which blends the exhaust noise into the overall vehicle noise and is in constant operation to prevent excessive or unusual noise, and no person shall use a muffler cutout, bypass or similar device upon a motor vehicle on a street or highway. The exhaust system shall not emit or produce a sharp popping or crackling sound. Every motor vehicle shall at all times be equipped with such parts and equipment so arranged and kept in such state of repair as to prevent carbon monoxide gas from entering the interior of the vehicle. No person shall have for sale, sell or offer for sale or use on any motor vehicle any muffler that fails to comply with the specifications as required by the commissioner of public safety." This, of course, is a fairly stupid law that was clearly written to satisfy some federal minimum for noise pollution and clearly does nothing to protect residents from semi-grown children who just can’t get enough attention in any positive way. Minnesota is not alone in the “gutless noise laws intended to do nothing” category. Based on this map, I’d say there are 9 states with enforceable laws (which doesn’t mean they enforce them) and the rest are pretty much lawless by design in this regard. 

I made the mistake wondering this on a local “Ask the Chief” city webpage and got a totally bullshit answer from the Chief, “Yes, the State of Minnesota law covers muffler vehicle noise." But he made it clear that it was the job of local residents to, literally, identify and detain lawbreakers and, then, to prove the vehicle violated the law. So, no, there is no actual Minnesota vehicle noise law and please don’t ask again. 

A side-effect of asking this question was that that a bunch of local bikers got downright hysterical about the thought that someone might think their noise-making was illegal and should be fixed. One of those geniuses said, “mufflers are for pussies” as his justification for needing more attention than spoiled 13-year-old girls. 

Someone else replied, “I thought that’s what Harley’s were for?” And things went downhill from there. It is true that actual motorcyclists scoff at the macho posing of the boys and girls on Harleys. It’s hard to pull off macho when you can’t exit a stop sign competently. 

I do, however, think the second guy was right on the mark. Harley and the cruiser genre only have one defining “feature” to brag about: low seat height. In every other area important to actual motorcyclists, cruisers are deficient or defective. They are, to put it politically-incorrectly, “girls’ bikes.” Not women, but girls. Real women don’t ride Harleys and they don’t mess with handicapped motorcycles. 

The rapidly vanishing American motorcycle market seems to be clueless about where American buyers are today. And bikers are doing their best to drive away any likely new riders with IQs into the mid-double-digits and the kind of behavior that puts the lie to “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.” This is from the crowd whose purpose appears to be making as much noise as possible while looking like a sad collection of down-and-out Shriners who either lost their uniforms or couldn’t afford the Knights of Templar suit and the fez. No one with a spec of self-respect would want to join that gang and, apparently, hardly anyone does. 

Way back in 2011, when US motorcycle sales were still not recovering from the Great Recession anywhere near as fast as the rest of the economy, the AMA’s Rob Dingman and the M.I.C. spokesman Peter TerHorst said, “The three biggest problems facing motorcycling today is noise, noise and noise.” That was the last gasp of reality from the AMA. The gangster crowd, who probably don’t amount to a tiny fraction of the AMA membership, scared the AMA “leadership” into abandoning this issue and losing even more members over the next decade. Since disclosures about the organization’s bleeding money in the early part of the last decade, the AMA has been really aggressive about courting members and really reticent about telling members how the “organization” is doing. In this case, I think it’s safe to say that “no news is bad news” and I doubt that I know a single AMA member among the hundreds of motorcyclists I know. Of course, none of my friends ride so badly they need noisemakers to let the world know an incompetent is in the area.

Geezer with A Grudge in Fast Lane Biker July

Socially Responsible Motorcycling? When?

About one third of Minnesotans had been obeying the state’s social distancing rules by the time the rules started going away. Even fewer bother with masks, especially outside of the Twin Cities, and that two-thirds who aren’t taking any more precautions than they did back in January. Of course, they  are constantly whining that the “the rules aren’t working.” Rules, of course, only work when people obey them. Which brings us to motorcyclists.

Thanks to some slimy legislation promoted by Minnesota ABATE in 1982, the minimal contribution Minnesota motorcyclists make to the state’s highway funds comes through gas taxes. Fees collected for motorcycle endorsements pay for motorcycle safety training exclusively, which is mostly wasted money. Minnesota uses the MSF program which has steadfastly refused to subject its training program’s outcome to any sort of evaluation. In fact, MSF instructors are cautioned not to tell “students’ that there is any relationship to the MSF’s training and becoming a safer motorcyclist. Based on my own 18-year experience as an MSF instructor, I believe the training we provided was as close to the absolute minimum possible to hand-hold the least capable riders through the endorsement test. In other words, we put a lot of butts on seats, which is what the MIC/MSF are all about. So, our every-4-year endorsement money pays for a barely-used bureaucracy and the few hundred miles a year the typical Minnesota motorcyclist rides generates a few bucks in gas taxes to pay for the roads we ride’ and crash on, to great taxpayer expense. In 2018,  the estimated economic cost to Minnesota for motorcycle crashes was $1,875,540,500. The numbers aren’t in for 2019’s even higher number of crashes and fatalities, but they will be soon. As of early June, we’re on our way to setting a new state motorcycle fatality record in 2020.

Back in 2013, I compiled a database of miles traveled by collecting odometer readings from Craig’s List ads across the country. One of my readers transferred that to Google Docs format and readers/riders from across the country entered data. Eventually some asshole decided to crash the spreadsheet/database, but by then I had learned that the typical motorcycle gets ridden about 1,400 miles a year with a strong modal average at about 750 miles. Most people who call themselves “bicyclists” beat those road miles by a long ways well into their 70s.

So now that, as a society and thanks to the novel coronavirus, we’re asked to reduce our exposure to each other and to try and reduce the load and risk on our healthcare system what are motorcyclists doing? The usual, anything but something useful. I should rephrase that statement, motorcyclists are doing what they usually, being careful, going AGAT, and maintaining a small social and environmental footprint.

Bikers are the problem. Bikers are out in force, riding in their underwear, protected by magical napkins on their bald heads, making as much noise as possible, and spewing fuel and mayhem where ever they go. Bikers, on the other hand, are proudly members of the two-thirds of Minnesotans who could give a flying damn about anyone else. Their biker “rights” so grossly overwhelm any responsibility they might accept for their actions that they are beginning to attract attention from the public and, sooner or later, legislators.

As of early June, 2020, 29 people have died on motorcycles on Minnesota roads and highways; the majority are single vehicle crashes and the overwhelming majority are the pirate biker crowd. We’re on track to beat or equal the previous 1985 high for the state’s motorcycle deaths. I guess we’re “lucky” that attention has been diverted from our fatalities to Covid-19’s devastation. Bikers aren’t happy with losing that focus, though. In my small town, we have had multiple biker gatherings that are practically begging to be viral hotspots and, when they are, I’m sure we’ll hear all sorts of whining about “government tracking” when the bikers get the blame for spreading Covid-19. In our area, restaurants have been allowed to reopen with outdoor seating and decent spacing, but our local biker bar is flaunting all of that and their customers are dragging tables together and making a show of pretending to be tough boys and girls. From what I’ve seen (and experienced with asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia) I suspect that tough façade will collapse about the time they can’t breathe. Drowning in your own fluids is the ultimate waterboarding.

Imagine the attitude of overworked and stressed healthcare workers working without adequate PPE, staff, and other resources when some dill-hole in a pirate outfit is wheeled into an emergency room suffering injuries from recreating on a motorcycle. Do you really think people who label bikes “donorcycles,” “murdercycles,” and a collection of other even more graphic derogatory names are going to be happy to risk their lives on people who are too lazy and arrogant to even bother with a helmet? Do you think they should be required to care more than you do? Good luck with that. If your argument is “they knew what they were signing up for,” get ready to hear “right back at you big, bad bikerboy.” At the least, they are going to take special joy in scraping the rocks and asphalt from your road-rashed ass.

This video is of a New York biker gangster funeral procession back in early April. On their website, these characters claim they were “social distancing and being responsible.” You judge.

Where Did All the Miles Take Me?

As of April 27, 2020 for the first time since sometime in early 1969, I do not own a motorcycle. That one brief hole in my motorcycle life between early ‘68 and late ‘69 was due to the distraction provided by young marriage and the struggle to provide for two people without any marketable skills. This time the break is going to be more long-lasting.

All of last summer consisted of a discouraging bout with ocular myasthenia gravis and constant double-vision. It was the first year in 50 in which I did not ride a single mile on a motorcycle. This year, I had reason to hope I might get another year behind the bars and my eyesight might stay under control for a bit. After all, it’s twenty-twenty, right? But the double-vision came back early and mean this March and so did my steroid prescription. At 72, adapting to being one-eyed and that eye not being particularly reliable is proving to be a daunting task without the complications of motorcycling. Odds are good that I will lose my driver’s license if it continues; and I should. My father had the same disease at the same age and, in the end, a brother-in-law optometrist was forced to take away Dad’s driving privileges after he had rear-ended four cars in four different crashes in 18 months. I DO NOT want to be my father. All last spring and most of the summer, I limited myself to very short daytime drives to necessities and my eBike just to avoid that fate. So far, this year, my vision is under control for about 10 hours a day. When I get tired, the left eye starts to wander. Bless you prednisone.

It appears that my motorcycling has become one more of “grandpa’s stories.” But between now and then, I estimate there were close to a million miles on two wheels. I “estimate” those miles because I mostly didn’t think about them while they were passing under my feet. Between 1965 and 1983, the motorcycles I owned might have come with odometers but that device along with the rest of the console, lights, reflectors, fragile stock fenders, factory levers and footpegs, factory exhaust systems, suspension parts, and large parts of the motors ended up in the scrap pile of unnecessary or insufficient stuff that came between me and successful off-road competition. I bought my first real street-legal motorcycle in 1983, a 1979 Honda CX Deluxe, and put 130,000 miles on it in a few short but intense years. A succession of sport bikes, small tourers, dual-purpose, and adventure tourers followed. I think the fewest miles I put on any of my motorcycles might be the last one, the Yamaha WR250X only had 37,000-some miles on the odometer when I admitted defeat and watched it roll out of my driveway.

Obviously, I’ve been preparing for this for a while. Way back in 2016, around the time I re-took the MSF Expert Rider Course, I wrote rant  “#148 Creating A Baseline” for my Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly column. I wrote (to myself) back then, “Nothing about being able to take a low speed left-hand turn and stop with the front tire in a box is demanding in any way to a competent motorcyclists, regardless of the bike. Nothing about weaving through some widely spaces cones and making a right hand turn should confuse or confound a half-decent motorcyclist. Making a moderately quick stop from 12mph in first gear is not complicated. A 12 mph "swerve" around a huge fake obstacle ought to be second nature. If anything on that test baffles you, either your motorcycle or your skills are totally out-of-whack.” 2017 was the first year I racked up more bicycle miles than motorcycle miles since I was a kid. So, I created an evaluation for myself, “So, every March from here out I'm going to go through the old routine but after an hour or so of practice, I'm going to run through every one of the nine BRC exercises and the day I can't do all of them ‘perfectly’ (no cones hit, no lines crossed, fast enough, and clean enough) the bike goes up for sale and I'll fill the space in the garage with a small convertible. I might buy a trials bike, but that will be the end of my street riding days.”

This spring with the world wobbling between one and multiple dimensions I realized I couldn’t see well enough to even score myself competently. I wrote up an ad for the WR, put it on Craig’s list, and waited for cash to arrive. I did, a few weeks ago, wander over to the parking lot where I used to teach the Basic Rider Course and take the test on my eBike. I did ok, but riding a 70 pound, 20-mph-max  eBike competently is a world away from a 300 pound 50hp motorcycle, let alone a cruiser, big touring bike, or even my old V-Strom 650.

At this point, I think my motorcycle stories will all be told in past tense and there are lots of them left to tell. Like my oldest daughter’s tee-shirt used to say when she was a teenager and I was still a young man, “I only wish I could ride as fast as Dad remembers he did.”

Music and Motorcycles

Years ago, I sold my 1979 Honda CX500 to a good friend who used the bike to move from LA back home to Idaho. At the time, I thought I was doing him a favor because good old LA was killing him and he needed to cut free of all of the crap that held him in place. Moving by motorcycle is one of the best ways to give up crap that you don’t need. He made it to Idaho, restarted his music career there, cut some records, toured with some big name acts, and quit riding the motorcycle because he was afraid he’d fuck up and damage his hands. After one winter in storage, mice chewed through the bike’s wiring and started a fire that burned down his garage, turned the CX and a car into ashes and scrap metal, and convinced my friend that motorcycles were in his past. 

My wife saw James Taylor on Late Night with Seth Myers and we had an argument about Taylor’s age. (I thought he is my age. She thought he is 5-8 years older.) I looked up his stats on Wikipedia and I was right, he is three months older than me. However, while I was browsing his history, I hit this bit, “On July 20, he performed at the Newport Folk Festival as the last act and was cheered by thousands of fans who stayed in the rain to hear him. Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months.” I did not know that Taylor lost six months of his career between his first Apple Records release and his first Warner Brothers record, Sweet Baby James. 

A more well-known motorcycle career alteration was Bob Dylan’s 1966 motorcycle crash that occurred the month Blonde on Blonde was released. When Dylan reappeared, he was dramatically lower energy, with the country-music-influenced John Westly Hardin in ‘67 and Nashville Skyline in ‘69. By all accounts, Dylan’s crash was more of an ego bruising than a serious injury, since he mostly moped around in a neck brace for a few weeks and was never hospitalized for injuries. Dylan was a notoriously awful motorcyclist. As Joan Baez recalled in her biography, “He used to hang on that thing like a sack of flour. I always had the feeling it was driving him, and if we were lucky we'd lean the right way and the motorcycle would turn the corner. If not, it would be the end of both of us.” Lucky for Bob and his Nobel Prize future, he quit riding motorcycles before they finished him. Although I recently read an interview with Mark Howard, a record producer, who claims to sell an occasional cobbled-up cruiser to Dylan. Hopefully, Bobby just collects them. 

Piano Man Billy Joel got whacked on his Harley in ‘82 by a cager running a red light and, for a time, had concerns that he might not play piano again. Billy still rides and even has a Leno-style collection of motorcycles. Mostly, he’s a Moto Guzzi fan, but he owns 70’s and modern Japanese bikes, Harley collector bikes, and some customs. He still rides, although not particularly well. 

Duane Allman famously ended his career and life crashing into a stopped flatbed truck hauling a crane; hardly a hard-to-see or avoid obstacle. Allman was, like Dylan, a notoriously mediocre rider and, worse, he had a fondness for disabled, strung-out choppers which played a prominent part in his demise. Berry Oakley, the Allman’s bass player, rode his Triumph into a bus 14 months later. The trajectory of that fabled rock and blues band was forever altered and mangled by the loss of those two key members. 

A more typical Rock and Roll motorcyclist even was Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler’s 1981 crash, mostly caused by his drugged-to-oblivion state of mind when a tree jumped in front of him. Lucky he crashed on the way to pick up his daughter from a babysitting gig, rather than afterwards with her on the bike. 

Billy Idol, a classic rock nitwit, wandered through a stop sign in 1990 and met a car at moderate hippobike speeds. He broke an arm and a leg badly enough doctors almost had to amputate. In 2010, Idol crashed again. Big surprise. 

Some of the rest of rock and roll’s biker mistakes are Dire Straights’ Mark Knopfler, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis and Chad Smith, Richard Fariña, and, of course, Bono managed to mangle himself (fractured shoulder blade, humerus, eye socket, (orbit), and pinky finger on a bicycle. Waiting in the wings is Justin Beiber. If you’ve seen him demonstrate his “skills” on YouTube, you know that goofball is going to tear up a bunch of tattoos any day now. 

As best I can tell, music and motorcycles are a bad mix. But motorcycles and most things don’t mix well, so that’s not news either.

Anger Issues

In a post on a Facebook motorcycle group (Yamaha WR250X & WR250R), a new owner’s asked what sorts of farkles and upgrades he should buy for his new bike and someone suggested, “If you add an exhaust, power commander, air filter, sprocket, and tires it's a whole new bike.”

And I agreed, “Yep, way louder and worth at least $1,000 less” and referred the original poster to my “Seat of the Pants Performance Comparisons” essay. Oddly, several of the wannabes and hooligans from the group commented that I must have some “anger issues,” apparently based on either the content of that Geezer article or the fact that doing all of that expensive crap to a decent motorcycle makes it worth less and that bit of reality pissed them off. 

And I’m confused. The whole point of putting a loud pipe on a motorcycle is to piss off as many people as possible, it is also obviously evidence of “anger issues.” While those noisy bikes are a cute expression of a passive aggressive personality disorder, it’s entertaining to hear the accusation of my anger issues when I point out their anger issues (an example of “gaslighting” if there ever was one) Psychology Today has some good stuff about identifying gaslighting and putting in its proper place; for example, “11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting.” These days, we’re so used to hearing that kind of irrational argument on the nightly news that it almost sounds “normal.” Those comments did, however, start me to thinking about the many reasons motorcycling in the United States is becoming a vanishing act. 

It’s pretty obvious from the riding posts and comments these guys put up on this Facebook page, being a good rider, especially a racer, isn’t in the cards for them; regardless of their age. Their claim to riding fame is repeatedly straight line wheelies, usually in completely inappropriate places. I grant you the fact that doing a wheelie is a cool trick, but it’s even cooler (and harder) on a bicycle than a motorcycle and just as pointless a “skill,” unless you are getting that front wheel light in order to get over an obstacle. Mostly, though, street wheelies are a hooligan act of juvenile rebellion. Anger, in other words. 

And, if I sucked that bad I’d be pissed off, too. 

Years ago, I belonged to a sport bike group that, occasionally, rented a closed course and provided racing training. The guys who taught the classes were all intermediate-to-Expert local racers and some had serious skills. The “trainers” were all on liter bikes and when a retired pro racer from Wisconsin showed up with his bone stock 1980’s Honda 250 two-stroke race biker a bunch of the instructors decided to turn a few laps unencumbered by students, rookies, and novices. The 250 owner went out with them.
 
All of the liter bike guys had “exhaust, power commander, air filter, sprocket, and tires” and some had even spent dyno money trying to make all of that aftermarket crap work together. Regardless, they got their asses handed to them by the old pro. They could make lots of noise in the straights, but when they puttered (by his standards) through the many curves in the track he ate them alive. Often passing 4-5 bikes in a single tight corner. After lapping the whole pack one or two times, he came in followed by some of his victims. 

Before packing up and heading back home, he was generous enough to let a couple of the faster guys ride his 250 and they were foolish enough to loan him their liter bikes. Then he tore them up on the corners and the straights, lapping everyone on the track in less than three laps. With modern big horsepower and sticky tires under him, he spent most of the course sideways, playing with traction and front wheel levitation. At least one of the guys who’d loaned out his bike borrowed a friend’s pickup to haul his bike home because his street tires were melted down to the belts. 

There is a lesson here. The overwhelming bulk of characters wasting money on “exhaust, power commander, air filter, sprocket, and tires are people who would be better served signing up for a few dozen track days. When you watch those YouTube packs of street hooligans, you see a lot of no-talent nitwits flaunting the law, expressing their teenage anger issues. Mostly, the aftermarket industry is catering to suckers who hope some add-on part will be the magic bullet that will hide their inabilities. The problem is that it’s not the bike that slows you down, it is your skills. It’s not the bike that makes you fast. It’s being fast that makes you fast.

Assigning Blame, Taking Responsibility

A blast from my past called this weekend, wanting to talk about his summer’s misfortunes. We’ll call him “P” to protect his ego and our relationship. In early August (2019), P was sailing down a country two-lane, minding his own business, and assuming that Minnesota country roads are, somehow, safer than urban freeways and byways. (Statistics consistently demonstrate that this is a motorcyclists’ delusion. In 2018, for example,31 of 57 or 54% of the state’s motorcycle fatalities were in areas with populations under 10,000 and the majority, 22, were in rural, unpopulated areas. 913 motorcyclists were injured that year and 49% of that total were injured on those same low population roads.) 2 motorcyclists were killed and 102 were injured in the state’s over-250,000 cities; the Twin Cities, in fact. P, oblivious to the hazard of country roads, was riding somewhere between 55 and 65mph on a sparsely-populated stretch of the road, when a pickup pulled into his lane, partially shielded by a downed tree next to the driveway the pickup was exiting from. Mayhem resulted and P ended up with a multitudinous-fractured femur, a broken back, and a separated shoulder.

Fortunately for P, he was wearing actual motorcycle gear including a full-face helmet and armored jacket. As he said, “I didn’t spill a drop of blood.” Unfortunately for P, he has a long recovery ahead of him and he is not fond of physical therapy. He’s been here before. Several year ago, he was riding in fairly congested traffic and, bored with the pace of movement, he was occupied trying to read the call sign of a passing small airplane when he struck the stopped car in front of him. He flew over the car and, while he was airborne, he decided, “I don’t want to hear Tom lecturing me about not wearing a helmet while I recover from this” and he shielded his head with his arms just before tumbling into a ditch. The end result of that crash was a severely massacred pelvis from which he has yet to fully recover. To his credit, P took total responsibility for both that crash and his less-than-complete recovery. He also started wearing a full-face helmet and, at least, an armored jacket when he rode. A life-long Harley guy with a long history of spectacular crashes, the bike he crashed on the last two times was a big BMW touring bike.

I’ve ridden with P, maybe twice, but definitely once. We met at a small town a few miles from his place, for a Fourth of July fireworks show. Afterwards, for whatever reason, we decided to go back to his house before I headed back home. Both of our spouses were riding passenger on that trip. P immediately took off in the dark, on familiar country roads, putting some distance between us. I made a half-hearted effort to keep him in sight, but I do not ride fast, ever, with a passenger and since I knew where we were going I was not particularly upset to make most of the trip “unguided.” Since then, he’s often reminded me of that incident and of the fact that he was a “lot faster” than me on those mostly-gravel country roads. I do my racing, when I do it, on closed courses and I am never impressed with people who imagine racing on public roads is something to brag about. My wife would make short work of me if I ever play-raced with her on the bike.

Like many motorcyclists and bikers, P’s problem is that he imagines that he is seen, because he is a big guy riding a “big bike.”  While P’s BMW didn’t have loud pipes, P has ridden bikes with minimal muffling for most of his life and always deluded himself into thinking physics is his friend when it comes to sound and defensive riding, he suffers the false idea that people are looking for motorcycles. Even in a fairly motorcycle-friendly state like Minnesota, there aren’t enough motorcycles on the road any given day for a typical cager to have any reason to be watching for them. When we don’t amount to 0.001% of the total traffic on good days, asking drivers to “Start Looking for Motorcycles” is as silly as asking them to watch out for unicorns. Bicycles, pedestrians, old men on power wheelchairs, and kids on tricycles are far more likely things to be looking out for than motorcycles; especially motorcycles approaching a blind intersection (or driveway) at 60-65mph.

This is exactly the kind of situation where motorcyclists have to be watching out for everyone else. Even if, as in P’s case, the cager gets the blame for the crash, P might still be crippled-for-life or dead . . . but in the right. The price for being right is higher than I want to pay. To be clear, I am not afraid of being dead, but I practically terrified of being maimed and crippled. During the brief period when the MSF’s Basic Rider Course actually talked about risk management, I used to tell my motorcycle students that any crash short of a tree falling on you or a tornado blowing you to Kansas was the motorcyclist’s fault for not anticipating and avoiding the situation. If you think everyone else is looking out for, or responsible for, your safety, you will be disappointed and, probably, hurt or killed.

March with Fast Lane Biker Magazine

Book Review: A Craftsman’s Legacy

A Craftsman’s Legacy: Why Working with Our Hands Gives Us Meaning is one more book by someone who left the corporate world for the world of making expensive garage sale bait for the 1% and a few fools who want to “be like rich people.” Like Shop Class as Soulcraft and the rest of the raft of books by people who make incredibly expensive toys, furniture, and “art” for the idle rich, Legacy’s author, Detroit custom cruiser builder and reality television’s Eric Gorges from the show of the same name as the book, attempts to vilify the world we live in and glorify the world the average person never lived in; the Never-Neverland when people made beautiful things for money and ordinary people could afford them. There have been times when a few working people found enough spare time to make beautiful things for themselves, but usually working people just slaved away their days and lived in squalid tenements or on barely-sustenance farms and a few people made beautiful things for the ruling classes. The rest of the working classes lived with hand-me-downs and mass-produced products; just like today.  

Like most of the folks who were inspired to quit their day jobs by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Gorges makes the ridiculous mistake of thinking that the goofier and less functional a product is, the more artistic it is. For example, the motorcycles he cobbles together are as non-functional and unridable as a three-legged horse. Unlike Persig’s ZaTAoMM reliable and practical Honda CB77 Super Hawk 305, nobody is going to cross the country on one of Gorges’ strung-out cruiser abortions (like the “One [2] One” bike pictured below a few paragraphs). Most likely, whoever bought this ridiculous thing will trailer it anywhere this bike travels. Like the genre’s role model, the Captain America mess that recently sold for $1.2M and could barely be kept inside a highway lane for the filming of Easy Rider, this kind of art(?) does not qualify as a motorcycle. Even Fonda, who barely deserved being called a motorcyclist, admitted that his Captain America creation was so “squirrely” that the motorcycle scenes were simplified to mostly straight line riding. These weird collections of parts and artwork are not real motorcycles, but they are insanely expensive. They might be art, but they aren’t “craftsmanship.”

Too much of Gorges’ handwringing and the “woe  is all of us” bullshit spewed here is of the “nobody does real work anymore” variety. Gorges does not recognize modern engineers and product designers as craftsmen because what they do is so far above the metal-doodling he does that it would be as impossible for him to relate to modern engineering as it would be for Donald Trump to have an intelligent business conversation with Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. People who made swords, hammers, blew glass, and turned pots were the engineers of the 15th Century and back. Today, they are the struggling privatives trying to convince the rest of us that they are keeping skills alive. For what, the post-apocalypse? In the meantime, engineers have moved on for at least two centuries past Gorge’s technology and skill-set. 

A lot of Gorges’ “craftsman” stars and role models unintentionally make the point that almost everyone you know might be an unheralded craftsman/artist. While it is interesting to imagine that these artists who “gave up everything for their art” might be the finest examples of woodworkers, glassblowers, metalworkers, potters, engravers, and painters in the country, the fact is that almost every mid-sized-and-larger community has examples of those same skills in its midst. They might not ever be profiled on television or in a book, but they are out there. People do extraordinary things in their spare time, even people who do boring white or blue collar jobs during their working lives. More to the point, though, is that people make incredible products using their hands, technical skills, and tools Gorges couldn’t imagine. 

I admit that a big part of my lack of enthusiasm for Gorges’ book is his perspective on motorcycles. As far as he is concerned, there are 3 types of motorcycles: “choppers, which have a long front end and skinny wheel; bobbers, which have a short rear fender and stubby front end; and diggers, which are long and low.” I, of course, think any of those bike forms are hillbilly crap that do not deserve a “motorcycle” designation. There is an aspect of A Craftsman’s Legacy that disrespects function and mindlessly worships form. I have no use for that attitude. Some part of my own attitude comes from the fact that I spent a good bit of my life in manufacturing and I know how much actual craftsmanship is required to make reliable, functional products. 

There is a panhandling aspect to Gorges’ craftspeople that really puts me off; like the occupations that survive from begging for tips. Many of these people have chosen a lifestyle that depends on others feeling sorry for them and paying exorbitant prices for items they could find in a Dollar Store. Gorges asks us to “Support these people, this world, and this way of life. Turn your appreciation into some concrete (money).” Like cashiers who point to their tip jar as if they have done something special by pouring coffee into a cup. 

Finally, I firmly believe that everything that requires skill is improved by every generation. You may be one of those age-addled characters who imagines that “good music” stopped being made in 1960, 1970, 1980, or whenever, but you’re wrong. Likewise, most 1970’s era pro basketball players wouldn’t make the team for, even the freakin’ Clippers, today. Michael Jordan would have a hard time playing on a winning team today. It’s true that many people knew how to repair their cars and motorcycles in the 1950’s; because they needed to. A vehicle that lasted 25,000 miles without needing major work in 1950’s was a celebrated rarity. Today, we call any vehicle that fails before 200,000 miles a “lemon.” Modern electric cars are knocking down 300,000 miles without a major repair. 

Today, if I had to go to battle with a 15th Century sword I’d just use it on myself to get it over with efficiently. Any modern weapon would do the job at a safe distance, regardless of how skilled the sword-wielder might be. Vintage “skills” are that because they are no longer state-of-the-art and, as such, are obsolete. If you think someone with a hammer and coal-fired forge can turn out a better steel tool than a modern factory, you’re only fooling yourself. If you don’t think a modern adventure touring motorcycle isn’t as well-crafted as one of Gorge’s hippomobiles, you don’t know what the word “craftsmanship” means. If you think someone cobbling out plodding, non-functional “choppers, bobbers, and diggers” could get a job on a modern factory motorcycle race team doing . . . anything, you are probably the ideal reader for A Craftsman’s Legacy.

How Stupid Do You Think I Am?

When a young man I know learned that I’m selling my motorcycle, he immediately said, “I’ll buy it. You’d have to finance it, but I’m good for it.” 

I immediately thought, “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” 

This kid is a 20-something, wanna-be motorcyclist, who had an 80cc dirt bike when he was a pre-teenager, making him (in his mind) an “experienced motorcyclist.” To make up for his lack of a motorcycle license and riding skill/experience, he even asked me to give him a free MSF course; since I’m a retired Minnesota MSF instructor. 

I’m selling a $4000 motorcycle. I’m 71 and at the point in life where if I see a light at the end of the tunnel I’m pretty sure it’s the Grim Reaper’s train. What part of this transaction sounds intelligent from my side? Or even his side, for that matter? The risk in that loan is insane. When he crashes it and his wife tells him to get rid of it or hit the road, I’ll be stuck with a mangled motorcycle, little-to-no-money for my long-shot self-financing bet, and the scary possibility of assuming some liability in his crash(es). I would have to be stupid to take that bet. 

I’m not brilliant, but I’m not stupid. (As I often do, after writing that statement I check the heels of my boots to see if there is straw sticking out; since I obviously look like someone who just jumped out of a farm truck.)

From that conversation, I started to think about a bank or anyone else financing a motorcycle. It wasn’t that long ago that Harley-Davidson had to be bailed out by taxpayers for its own inability to manage loan money; to the tune of $2.3B. If Harley, a company that rarely wastes precious cash on frivolous things like engineering and competent product development, can’t find safe buyers for its hippo bikes, who am I to gamble in that market? Pretty much anything a bank would get involved in would be a $6,000 to $40,000 loan to a person who is probably 15,000 times more likely get killed than, for instance, someone asking for a car loan. A company insuring a motorcycle and loan is about as dumb as the bank making the loan, too.
Bankers are not a group widely known for their brilliance, outside of their own closed and in-bred circles. If you’ve read All the Devils Are Here or The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, you know that what passes for financial skills in these declining years of the United States empire is pretty dismal. Bankers are notoriously financially foolish with even their own money. In fact, the people most of us trust to hang on to our cash are not that smart or good at their jobs. Bankers and other financial gamblers will pay $100 and more to “win” a twenty-dollar-bill in an auction, in a crowd of other supposedly money-wise nitwits. These are the people who will loan you money to buy a brand new $40,000 Harley Davidson; even knowing that the odds are good that you won’t live long enough to pay off the debt. Just as dumb, the insurance industry is betting that you won’t actually ride the damn thing (which is, actually, very likely) which will self-limit their risk to your death and the destruction of the item they are insuring. 

If you have any money squirreled away with a bank, the fact that institution would gamble on a loan for a motorcycle and that someone else (maybe in the same bank) is dumb enough to insure that motorcycle for comp and collision ought to scare the crap out of you. Seriously. How does that not bother anyone with cash in a bank? 

Back to my own situation, I have never loaned money to anyone in my life. If a friend or relative is hard up enough to ask me for money and I have it, I consider it a gift. If I get paid back, I consider that amazing. If not, I never expected repayment and won’t be surprised when it doesn’t happen. That old Shakespeare rule, "neither a borrower nor a lender be" has always made sense to me because of the line that follows, “for loan oft loses both itself and friend.”  As for loaning money for a motorcycle purchase, do not count on me to even be willing to make a gift toward that dumb idea.

Fast Lane Biker Column: December

https://www.fastlanebikerdelmarva.com/geezer-with-grudge/

What Did You Think Was Gonna Happen?

Every weekend, I’m treated to parades of unskilled, noisy bikers wobbling through our small tourist town. Typically, 4-to-20-some bikers will ride, in staggered formation no more than 20’ apart, at 50+mph into town, often rolling through stop lights and signs because most of the riders are incapable of making basic traffic maneuvers: like stopping and starting competently. While the bikers, I’m sure, have images of the rest of us envying their “freedom” and bald domes shining (scroungy ponytails waving) in the sunlight, I am always reminded of herd animals grouping together under the flawed theory of “safety in numbers.”

There is a good evolutionary reason why antelope, gazelles, water buffalo, and cattle pack together in dangerous situations. The “good” part of the reason only applies to the young, fit, and quick. The predators will quickly identify the old and crippled and go for them, rather than waste their precious energy on the hard-to-catch young, fit, and fast. A pack of motorcycles all jammed together in an idiotic “rolling bowling pin” formation is, by default, a herd of old and crippled herbivores.

For decades, whenever we pass bikers in pirate underwear, my wife says, “They’re having fun now.”  What she means, of course, is that those characters are so unaware of how precarious their existence is that they are blissfully unaware of how close they are to death, dismemberment, and general purpose mangling. If “ignorance is bliss,” pirate parade participants are some of the happiest people on the planet.

In the August 2019 issue, ABATE’s Ed Berner wrote “I’m tired of my brothers and sisters dying on the road because drivers are distracted or just don’t give a crap about anyone else.” When 30-40% of fatal motorcycle crashes are single vehicle incidents, you have to question that analysis. Knowing that more than a quarter of motorcycle crash deaths are solely the fault of bikers, you’d be statistically clueless to imagine that the other 60-70% of fatal motorcycle crashes are primarily the fault of cagers.

Mostly, I believe motorcyclists are dying out of disability: drunken driving behavior and a fair amount of their own “distraction” while they wobble down the road. Bikers are pretty much willingly hopping onto suicide machines dulled with  “learned helpless syndrome” created by loud exhaust noise that causes mental and physical fatigue, distraction from useless and dangerous pack-formation etiquette, loud sound systems, on-bike cellphone use (hands-free and otherwise), handicapped by the mostly functionally-disabled motorcycles bikers choose to ride, and the general-purpose resistance to obtaining decent riding and defensive driving skills. Complaining that the suicide machines are actually doing the job they were designed to do isn’t any sort of solution.

Until retiring this year, I had been an MSF/MMSC Motorcycle Safety Instructor since 2001. I have taught dozens of what we used to call the  “Experienced Rider Course” (ERC): now more-accurately relabeled the “Intermediate Rider Course” (IRC). Many of those classes were booked by biker clubs, often ABATE chapters. The hallmark of teaching those courses was too often excessive noise and general rider incompetence. Out of all of those courses, I only saw one rider on a big Harley who could actually handle that motorcycle competently and he was a retired motorcycle police officer with a stock exhaust and a mostly-stock motorcycle (He did have some Iron Butt farkles.). All of the other biker characters usually plowed through about half of the IRC exercises as if the cones were merely suggestions. Often, they would just park to the side of the range until the “impossible” exercises were finished.

At the opposite end of Berner’s death-and-destruction tale has been my 50-some-year association with motorcyclists (different folks than “bikers”). Counting the last two decades of hanging out with motorcycle safety instructors and the rest of my life with off-road racers, motorcycle journalists, adventure motorcyclists, motorcycle commuters, and Iron Butt riders, I have not personally known a single person who died riding a motorcycle. I have witnessed three motorcycle deaths in the last 50 years and two of the three were 100% the fault of the motorcyclist and the other was at least 50% due to the incompetence off the motorcyclist. I didn’t know any of those bikers. The riders I’ve worked and hung out with are, at best, entertained by the biker cult and, more likely, disgusted by the whole incompetent macho pirate-parade silliness. Among my friends, you won’t find a single  bike with ape hangers, straight pipes, disabled front brakes, gynecological-exam-position road pegs, handlebar stereo systems, paddle-boards, or useless chromed geegaws. No novelty helmets or bowls, no chaps, no vests, gangster patches, or bandanas. No trikes, either. Those people depend—first, second, and last—on their riding skills, the capabilities of their motorcycles, AGAT, and unwavering focused attention on the road and other road users for their safety; not idiotic and useless legislation, billboards and bumper-stickers, or self-defeating “advocacy groups.”

Like my favorite t-shirt says, “If loud pipes save lives, imagine what learning to ride that thing  could do.”

Fast Lane Biker Column (November)

 
 In  a ridiculous number of ways, my years with Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly has been oddly rewarding. I was putting this one to bed when the magazine decided to call it quits. I'd have loved to see it in MMM, but I missed the window. You wouldn't think there would be anything educational or financially rewarding about wasting a few dozen hours on a beater '70s Honda street bike, but there was.

Fast Lane Biker Geezer Column (October)

Fast Lane Biker Column #2

 

At the least, this is curious. My title for this Fast Lane Biker column was "Making Friends Wherever we Go." I think they have decided my subtitle will be "It's Not What You Don't Know" for everything I write for them.