This Is Who They Are

Mostly, I keep my political opinions on another location and, yep, I am a “libtard” as are all of the intelligent people I have ever known in my life. If there were ever going to be a moment where my mission, "Warning: If you're looking for a pleasant conversation about motorcycling from a frozen-north Minnesota Nice perspective, good luck with your search. As Bobby Dylan once said, 'it ain't me, babe,'" might skip a beat, “Keep moving buddy. “Nothing to see here.” Today, like all of this damn month, I’m pissed off.

We all know who “both sides” of this crowd are, don’t we? Motorcyclists have been grouped with “bikers” for at least 70 years, to our huge disadvantage and outright physical hazard. The helmet-less, muffler-free, skill-less biker crowd have made noise on the streets and in our legislatures to the total disadvantage of the actual 1-10% of motorcycle owners who use their vehicle as a goddamn vehicle. Every noisy-ass biker blubbering down a freeway, on a country road, or through neighborhoods is pissing off every cager and homeowner they pass and making enemies for the few of us who believe a motorcycle is a transportation vehicle with the same rights and responsibilities (that is the most unpopular word in the wingnut world) as every other vehicle on the road.

These rioting “protestors” are same people who think being asked to wear a mask to protect themselves and their community from a life-threatening virus pretend that being required to wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle on public roads or paying a health/life insurance premium for the privilege of risking their lives pointlessly is a “freedumb” issue. We know these people. Like the maskless fruitcakes, these butt-ugly jackasses think the rest of us want and need to see their scroungy (male or female) ponytails, weird-assed inbred faces (quoting Larry McMurtry, “One could have laid a rule from forehead to chin without touching either his [or her] lips or his nose.”),  faux-ZZ Top beards (apologies to Frank), and hear their mistuned, unmaintained junk-twin hippobikes for miles around. The rioters were the same arrogant, entitled, lazy-ass incompetents that motorcycle has been plagued with since a pack of misfit WWII “vets” decided to bring home the hell they supposedly opposed in Germany and the Pacific. Based on the number of German helmets, swastika tattoos, and white supremist paraphernalia you see decorating bikers and their rides, it’s pretty obvious that if they fought at all, they were on the wrong side.

Likewise we, unfortunately, know the cops who coddle and cringe from the biker gangsters, their illegal exhaust systems, and their traffic-snarling pirate parades. Those DC cops who were so courageous, when it came to piling on a 120 pound female BLM protestor or charging an unarmed kid with military weapons at a Occupy Wall Street protest, will just watch as a pack of bikers waddle through town making more noise than a Boeing 737 on take-off or attack the United States Capitol Building in an effort to overthrow an election. Worse, they’ll not only ignore the peace-disturbing noise-makers, they’ll direct traffic to accommodate the gangbangers or fascist, racist rioters. In the case of 1/6/2021 (we will remember this date like 9/11/2001), off-duty cops participated in rioting and attacking the police who defended the Capitol Building. Some even had the gall to claim “we’re doing this for you” while they attacked the police defending the Capitol.

There is also the fact that, usually, the biker gangbangers are white and look exactly like the goobers who overran the DC capitol police. Occasionally, the bikers will be Hispanic or black and, oddly, they will get pretty much the same treatment as their inbred white “brethren.” Huh? Imagine that. So, even when the police are not on the same side as the lawbreakers, they are terrified of them and, probably, their fellow collaborating officers. In the meantime, the taxpaying public is screwed coming and going.

As Hudson, Wisconsin residents discovered and I noted in “Running from the Outlaws,” when the biker gangbangers show up, the cops vanish. Like many of the DC rioters, the bikers usually have long criminal records which, for no good reason, never seems to prevent them from possessing firearms, threatening the peace and quiet of cities large and small, and appears to make them immune to the laws of the country. Why is that? Two reasons, the cops are terrified of anyone who might fight back in numbers even close to the force the cops might bring and the cops and the bikers/rioters are on the same side of most political arguments.

Two of Trump’s big support groups were (and are) bikers and cops. In a rational world, you’d think that would be totally impossible relationship. We don’t live in that world and I am fast becoming convinced we aren’t an animal capable of rational thought.

I became painfully aware of this odd cohabitation when I taught an “Experienced Rider Course” somewhere in the 2006 time-period. The “students” were 13 Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies and I was under the delusion that this might be one of the rare ERC classes that wouldn’t be deafening. Usually, ERC groups were biker “clubs” trying to skate through training to obtain insurance discounts for their gang members. Turns out, that’s the deal for training cops, too. Like the Iron Brotherhood gangbangers I wrote about back in 2013, these badged goobers were all-but-one on geeked-up Hardlys with illegal exhausts and more chrome crap than a 1960’s American car. The one exception was a very competent deputy on a Goldwing. The class was deafening, full of attempts to get on to the range without a helmet (against the state and MSF rules), and there were lots of the usual attempts to skip over or ride through the mildly complicated exercises. Maybe 2 of the 13 cops in the class were competent riders, with the Goldwing rider being more skilled by octaves above the other cops. I learned something in that class too, “Don’t expect cops to enforce laws on other biker gangbangers.”

Human history might be no more on the side of the MAGA goons than it will be on the Trump Republicans or the police who have fermented and inspired the white supremist and domestic terrorists that the biker culture best represents or the historically racist and anti-labor police actions of the recent past. Or not. If Hitler and Nazi Germany had won WWII, history would be on their side and we’d all be hearing and telling stories of how brilliant 1940’s Germany was in exterminating non-white people the world over. History is a story told by the winners and we have no idea who the winners will be, yet. Eventually, of course, it won’t matter. We’ll flip the world’s environment into a climate that won’t support human life or the planet will get clobbered by another asteroid extinction level event and none of this will matter. Humans will be gone and whatever life that comes next might not even know we ever existed.

Right now, honestly, that is a kind of comfort. I am so disgusted with my country, with 74 million American citizens who not only voted for fascism twice in 4 years but who so rabidly worship their “great and fearless leader” that they would rather see the nation’s fragile attempt at democracy fail than see their cult leader waddle off into the disgraced sunset (likely to see jail time and his seventh and final bankruptcy).

A Climate of Anxiety?

French censors sent this ad back to the lab because “discredit[s] the automobile sector [...] while creating a climate of anxiety.” Those snowflake car owners (or dealers and manufacturers?) get nervous seeing the effects of their products on television?

You Can’t Have It Both Ways

Gangsters and cops have similar problems; they both want to have the public’s fear and respect. Fear and respect are, however, not the same thing and you can’t have one and the other.

Fear is easy to generate. You just have to be willing to do things decent people would never do. Shoot a few unarmed minority kids in the back and you have successfully terrified a community. Dress up like Hell’s Angels, Banditos, or the Outlaws and make more noise than a freight train hauling 100 tanker cars while the cops pretend they don’t see or hear you and you’ve sent a pretty powerful message to the public, “Even the cops are scared of us.” That’s fear.
Respect is what cops get when they run toward an “active shooter” when everyone else is running away. Respect is what firemen earn when they go into burning buildings to rescue people. Nobody respects bikers, but bikers aren’t bright enough to know fear from respect or they don’t care as long as they can convince themselves that they’re getting respect from the people they’ve terrorized.

Recently, our city police chief was asked, on Facebook, to explain the law surrounding Minnesota’s idiotic “Road Guard” legislation. Obviously, the questioner was pissed off at being detained by some nitwit pirate waving a pile of even dumber gangbangers through a public intersection. Being at the tailend of my life, between myasthenia gravis and CHF, I’ve pretty much had it with political correctness and fear. So, I commented on how stupid I think that whole law and pirate/gangbanger biker parades are. The response was expected and predictable, including the hilarious claim that pirate parades raise money for charities; as if it is impossible to contribute money to charities without the noise and air pollution of motorcycle exhaust.

Honestly, I didn’t expect any sort of rational response from either the police chief or the bikers. The bikers are flat out fun to fire up because they are consistently a pack of clueless nitwits.I really do hate the "road guard" legislation and our simpering wimp legislature totally bend over and took it up the ass from ABATE and the biker/gangster crowd in passing this total joke of a law. Asking working people to wait while a parade of incompetent jerks on tractors pretends to be doing something important really highlights the decadence in our lawless, irrational Failing Empire. There is NOTHING about a biker parade that is worthwhile and, at the least, a rational society would relegate this sort of silliness to unpaved farm roads. 

And that is exactly what I think.  

Assholes Everywhere

The comments on this page are hilarious.  My wife saw something like this silliness on EuroNews this morning and was convinced I'd be impressed. 

Putin rides like a conservative politician; terrified and awfully. He and his asshole biker buddies are exactly the kind of nitwits we have parading around the Mississippi River Valley every weekend. I'm tellin' you, the apocalypse can't come soon enough. Humans have clearly down-bred to the point of no return.

Because They Are Organized

All Rights Reserved © 2017 Thomas W. Day

At the 2015 International Motorcycle Show, I stopped at the DNR's booth to pick up the latest trail maps and while I was there I asked why there are so many trails accessible to ATVs and snowmachines and so few for motorcycles. The answer was pretty simple, "They are organized." It struck me that we motorcyclists are the equivalent to Will Rodger's politics, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." Likewise, I'm not a member of any organized motor vehicle group, I am a motorcyclist.

ATV owners have ATV Minnesota and a few dozen other political active groups.  There are about as many Minnesota snowmobile groups as there are Minnesotans. Snowmobiliers We have a group that battles against helmet laws, the almost perfectly useless AMA, and a hand full of gangbanger biker "clubs," and the Shriners. It's not really that bad, but when it comes to political action it sure seems like we're as unlikely to band together for a common cause as Democrats are to show up to vote more than once every two or four years. We are not an organized political force. Yeah, we have the AMA and Always Beer at the Event, but those two entities have different agendas: the AMA wants to put butts on seats for its manufacturers and ABATE fights helmet laws and sells beer. Neither of those agendas do anything useful for motorcyclists who actually ride their motorcycles; let alone doing something for commuters and people who who use their motorcycles for regular transportation.

Outside of pretending that helmet laws are freedumb-oppressing unreasonable regulations, responsible exhaust noise and pollution are anti-safety, and wasting money on ineffective "safety training" while opposing rational licensing laws, what has ABATE or the AMA done for motorcyclists? They've wasted our money, for one thing. I guess that's more like something they'd done to us, rather than for us.

Every year, gangbangers wearing "colors" and pirate outfits show up at the state legislature in late January for the "ABATE of Minnesota’s Annual Bikerday at the Minnesota State Capitol." This is when they attempt to demonstrate that bikers are scary assholes and that our government and elected officials should be afraid of them. "Important" policy recommendations like "No Change to the Adult Motorcycle Helmet Law," "Oppose Changes to Motorcycle Insurance Requirements," "Curtail Profiling of Motorcyclists in Minnesota," and "Improve Motorcycle Training and Awareness" are their talking points. Look it up, they aren't shy about the bullshit they've been spouting for a couple of decades or embarrassed at the awful motorcycle safety statistics produced by their political "success." Like the gun lobby, it's more important to them that they "win" than that Americans and motorcyclists' quality of life is improved.

As for off-road motorcycle "organizations," it's even harder to find examples that anyone outside of the groups' clubhouses know about. In fact, the DNR guy I spoke with (and a friend who works for the National Forest Service)  didn't know there were off-road motorcycle groups in the state or nationally. That, to me, is more understandable than the lack of on-road motorcyclists organizations. Off-road riders are often independent, adventure-riding, solo types. That sort doesn't easily get drawn into organizations, meetings, or politics. Racers only belong to organizations like the AMA because it's a necessity for some events. Like me, lots of racers have tolerated all of the bullshit they can stand by the time they quit racing and remaining a member of the AMA and suffering more of that incompetent bureaucracy is not likely something they'll put up with when they don't need that membership card to go racing.

The on-road crowd seems like it would be a natural for effective politics: they often travel in groups, wear uniforms, go to meetings, and don't seem to have any sort of aversion to political rallies. Since 2007, the AMA has lost 28% of its already paltry membership (this link is to an excellent article by ex-AMA employee and Lifetime AMA Member, Lance Oliver, and you should read it). There are lots of reasons, all good. One would be that the AMA hired a failed politico wingnut asshole, Wayne Allard, to "represent" a group of people in an organization that is increasingly old, white, paranoid, uneducated, and timid/conservative. Meanwhile, the motorcycle population oddly includes women, minorities, and people under age 48 (the AMA member's average age). Another reason for the AMA's continued irrelevance would be it's failed "leadership." Since Rod Dingman took over in 2007, not only has the AMA steadily lost membership the organization (loosely defined) has been running in the red for several million dollars every year. Dingman, however, is still receiving a quarter-million dollar salary and getting big bonuses for his failures. He's turned the AMA into a dysfunctional and inbred bureaucracy, mostly staffed and mismanaged by non-riders. So far, nothing has come along to replace the AMA and that isn't a good sign for the future of motorcycling.

Organizations in general are not doing that well in the "age of information." People don't join trade or recreational groups the way we and our parents did. "Virtual participation" seems to be the way younger people want things to work, but it's not working very well for them, so far. The people who can make changes are the ones who show up. The lobbyists and politicians and bureaucrats who make and enforce the rules are always there at every city council, county commissioner, state legislature, and federal congressional meeting. They show up. They get what they want and the rest of us wonder why. You can have a million tweet readers and twice that many Facebook followers and still accomplish nothing until you show up in force.

That's why, as lame and unrepresentative as they are, ABATE gets its agenda on the calendar. They may not get bills passed, but they apparently get good ideas squashed or ignored. The rest of us don't even know there is a legislative event to attend and participate in, but ABATE's lobbyists and members were there on Minnesota's Bikerday at the Capitol to make their case and to make the rest of us look even more irrelevant in the process. It's not like anyone is fooled by a couple dozen pirates wandering around the state capitol building. We aren't even close to being 1% of 1% on the highways on the best of days. Everyone knows that, including the politicians. Until we actually have an organization that represents the best interests of actual motorcyclists, fewer people who matter will take us seriously until they decide to stop dealing with us altogether.

I Don’t Know What to Think

My first thought was, “What a pair of posers.” I’m still waiting for a second thought. However, here’s the press release and you can make up your own mind, then tell me what you think.

My primary, cynical-self thinks this is more anti-helmet, Harley-poser promoting bullshit.

Sens. Ernst & Peters Launch Motorcycle Caucus

Apr 04 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Gary Peters (D-MI) announced the formation of the first-ever Motorcycle Caucus in the United States Senate. The life-long motorcycle riding senators will serve as co-chairs of the caucus, and will advocate for a multitude of issues on behalf of both motorcycle riders and manufacturers.

“Some of my most cherished memories include motorcycles, from delivering messages as a young girl to my dad while he was working out in the fields, to riding through the rolling hills of Northeast Iowa with family and friends,” said Senator Ernst. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to encourage thoughtful discussion and solutions on behalf of motorcycle riders and manufacturers through my new role as co-chair of the Motorcycle Caucus. Throughout my 99 county tour of Iowa, I have heard from many of these folks about some of their priorities, including improving safety, infrastructure, and energy efficiency. These concerns are shared by folks across our great state and country, and I look forward to working with Senator Peters toward solutions.”

“I’ve loved motorcycles since I was a kid, and I started a newspaper route to buy my first motorcycle at age 11. To this day, I believe there is no better way to see Michigan’s beautiful scenery than by bike, whether I’m riding to meet with constituents and small businesses or taking my bike out on the weekend,” said Senator Peters. “Motorcyclists come from all walks of life, and I can’t think of a better way to bring together a diverse and dedicated group of advocates to discuss everything from safety concerns to manufacturing. I’m looking forward to working with Senator Ernst as co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Motorcycle Caucus to foster these important discussions and find common ground with motorcycle lovers across the country.”

Subjects I Avoid

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Thomas W. Day

I grew up with the advice, “Never mention politics or religion, in polite conversation.” I didn't follow that advice, but I heard it a lot. My father and I did a solidly poor job of even honoring the spirit; and our relationship pretty much proved how valid that guidance could have been. For most of my life, being who I am seems to reflexively cause that polite rule to be abused. Something about me appears to inspire the most degenerate, least informed, nosiest and noisiest, least sober, least credible evangelists into a doomed attempt to “spread the word” at the expense of my peace and quiet. (Trust me, I’ve heard the spiel—and have been hearing it since I was a child—and no matter who you are, who you represent, what god(s) you follow, what key you’re going to sing in, or what line you’re going to take, I’ve been there and heard it.)

So, today’s experience at the library was just one in a long line of related bad experiences that have made me want to move to my Montana retirement mansion (at right) and keep a loaded shotgun by the door for greeting all visitors. I do play to fire a couple of warning shots to the head to get your attention, so be ready to duck if you show up unannounced. On the way out the door and back to my bike, a guy ran me down to ask where I’d bought my official MMM jacket. You can’t get there from here, but I aimed him at Bob’s Cycle Supply for the next best thing. He argued that they didn’t carry it although I’d been there earlier in the week and they were still in stock at that time. Trying to politely escape (my first and often repeated mistake), I pulled off the jacket to show him the brand and model label and kept trying to get to the bike. I reminded him that the MMM portion of the jacket was custom and, probably, unavailable.

When I mentioned that the jacket’s denim cover is pretty worthless but that the armor in the jacket wasn’t bad, he said “Road rash is like military patches. It shows who you are and where you’ve been.”

I disagreed (compounding my above mistakes) by saying “Neither says much, since the military gives away that stuff in Cracker Jack boxes and you can buy impressive-looking patches and pins at most Army/Navy stores or pawn shops and bicycle, skateboard,  or falling-down-concrete-stairs scars look pretty much like motorcycle rash unless you’ve ground off a limb.”

That inspired a long, boring story of his career in the Air Force (my least favorite of a list of least favorite government agencies) [My father-in-law was a Korea Air Farce "warrior" and what I mostly learned from him was that if you are married to an Air Farcer you should avoid as much physical contact as possible. They get the clap more often than squirrels get nuts.] and his simultaneous experience in some sort of military biker gang. From there, he slid into a story of hitting a deer and surviving mostly unscratched. His “armor” in that incident was having spent a few moments praying over his motorcycle before leaving the bar for home. The deer hit his bike (a big Yamaha V-Star of some sort), bent some fender bits, and left some fur on a side case but he and the deer survived without serious injury. Therefore, praying worked. I should have kept moving, but I had to tell him that my more-pious-than-anyone-I-know brother had a similar dust-up with a deer and he ended up with a busted up ankle that has plagued him for the last five years (the deer didn’t survive). Knowing my brother, there was plenty of praying going on before he left my parents’ house for home and even if the praying wasn’t done over his motorcycle, it was done as well as that ritual can be performed. I remain unconvinced that the library dude added anything meaningful beyond what my parents and brother could do. The idea that his angel was more focused than my brother’s is simply ludicrous. That inspired a lecture about believing vs. something I couldn't identify, probably due to my heretical nature.

Still trying to get to my bike, strap my gear on, and escape without more comment than necessary. He made some comment about all the gear I was wearing (not that close to AGAT, but a lot closer than his street clothes). I let that one pass, but did make a less-than-respectful comment about pudding bowl helmets. Surprise! That was the only kind of helmet he owns. More conversation to ignore as I plugged my ears and pulled on my helmet. Before the ear plugs sealed up, he expressed surprise that it took me so little effort to put on the helmet.

"It's just a hat, dude."

As best I could tell, the one-sided conversation swung from ranting about helmet laws to being pissed off about the "safety Nazis," but I had the sense to ignore that bait and fired up the WR. As I struggled to back the bike out of the parking space while he attempted to strategically position himself in my way, I caught snippets of unwanted information about his engineering career, his plan to dominate the three-string guitar market (He was not a player, but had read something about cheap guitars getting trendy.), and an offer to co-write something about something. I escaped cleanly, without have exchanged names or other useful information.

When I got home and told my wife about the experience, she marveled at how hard it is for me to get away from salespeople and talkative drunks. "Must be genetic," I replied. I always had way too much trouble getting away from my family and the same sort of conversations.

"No," she said. "I think you're just dumb."

Possibly. When pressed against this kind of wall, I usually look to my hero, Mark Twain, for an explanation. The best I could find was, “I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.” Pretty much the same thing my wife said.

Motorcycle Miles Traveled

One of my least favorite aspects of motorcycle safety statistics is the wildly optimistic "miles traveled" numbers that seem to be spouted by everyone from the dreaded AMA to the MSF to NTSA. I do not believe the average mileage traveled by motorcyclists is anywhere near 10,000 miles per year. But how do we get real numbers?

It struck me this morning that we have a ready source of data, CraigsList and eBay. So, I started paging through CraigsList ads this afternoon, copying down the bike year and miles advertised, tossed them into a spreadsheet, and did some calculations.

Observation and experiences are powerful tools. I realize that what appears to be isn't always what is, but I also realize that people making political claims are often motivated to tell less than the truth about . . . anything. One of my least favorite statistics is the "miles traveled" numbers that are used for motorcycle safety data. I simply do not believe that there are nearly as many motorcycles on the road as the industry, safety organizations, and, even, the government claims.

The Kelly Blue Book, for example, posts the following statement, "Obviously mileage will vary from year to year and model to model. A simple guide could be to consider the type of bike you are looking at: If the bike is a sportbike 600 c.c. to 999 c.c., and since these bikes are traditionally weekend only bikes, you can expect to see lower miles, about 3,000 miles per year. Tourers or Sport Tourers usually see a lot of miles, but these are generally freeway miles, between 5,000 to 6,000 miles per year." Those are silly numbers, based on fantasy. NHTA is considerably more conservative with an estimate of 1,943 miles per year for the average motorcycle. I'm not sure I buy that, either.

When people sell their motorcycles, they are pretty much forced to provide credible mileage numbers, so places like CraigsList, eBay, and local newspapers are pretty useful resources. In about a half-hour on two different days, I collected data on 60 motorcycles. So far, my data indicates the average mileage is about 1,425/year with a standard deviation of 863 miles. So far, there are some radically low-mileage outliers. The most annual mileage I've seen is 4,700/year over a 12 year lifetime. My own mileage tops that, but I'm trying to ignore anecdotal data and only collect "for sale" data to keep the information consistent and believable.

I created my own data gathering tool, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, that allowed me to enter data that I found in various locations and make some statistical assumptions from that information. Because I'm lazy, old, half-blind, and don't feel some kind of compulsion to do all of this on my own, I' originally posted the spreadsheet on my website for others to play with. A much smarter guy, William Wahby, transferred my Excel sheet to a Google Docs format:(Geezer with a Grudge: Average Mileage) where any of us can add data. If you want to add some bikes from your region, you'll see we've included the following data entry fields for you to work with:

State

Date Sampled

Make/Model or Description

Year

Miles

These are all data entry fields. The rest of the data fields -- Miles/Year, Miles Driven, and the statistical analysis fields -- calculate mileage automatically when you enter data into the Year and Miles fields. Please just enter the traditional two-letter State designation into that field. The date format is automatic: DD/MM/YYYY. I'll take pretty much anything for Make/Model. 

This is the kind of data collection that you'd think/hope NHTSA and the states would be collecting and using for analysis proposes. From what I've been told, they don't bother.  To the right is a charty of what our data looks like, so far. Pretty disgusting, don't you think? One thing this absolutely points out is that the overwhelming majority of riders don't need a bike bigger than 150-250cc. Any damn bike will hold up for less than 2,000 miles a year and how fast do you need to go if you're only going to be on the bike for less than twenty hours a year?

Vanishing Point

All Rights Reserved © 2011 Thomas W. Day

We're banned from using the wasted lane-splitting space on roads and freeways. When we are stuck in congested traffic, we aren't allowed to reduce that congestion by filtering to the front of the line. Some states single out motorcycles for DUI and inspection stops. Fuel wasting stop lights are designed to ignore us. Our license fees are way out of line in regard to the damage our vehicles do to roadways and our need for road maintenance. Urban public parking often bans motorcycles. Drivers are encouraged to risk our lives by distracting themselves to lethal incompetence with communication and entertainment centers, food and beverages, and soundproof sleeping accommodations. Someday soon, the highway of the future will be a robot-controlled, wired-in, GPS managed, glorified passenger train with no room for any sort of two-wheeled vehicles.

And what are we up in arms about? The right to be stupid.

Motorcycles are being shoved from the road and all bikers care about is the right to hear the wind whistling between their ears and to irritate as many people as possible with illegal exhaust systems.

The Philip Contos thing still irritates me. A guy kills himself fighting for the freedom to kill himself. If he were trying to damage motorcyclists' already pitiful public image, he couldn't have been more effective. Between the YouTube parade of hairy gangbangers on noisy two-wheeled tractors and Contos' demonstration of suicidal lack-of-skills, he made international news. Seriously. Enter "Philip Contos" into a search engine (put it in quotes, so you're only getting hits for this guy) and watch 17,000 or more articles appear with titles such as "Embrace Your Right to be Stupid' or "Biker Protesting Helmet Laws Dies of Head Injuries from Crash" or "Darwin Award Nominee - Philip Contos" or "Philip Contos Goes Head Over Heels At Anti-Helmet Rally" or any number of sarcastic headlines describing Contos' 15 minutes of infamy that reflect the public's low opinion of motorcyclists. Thanks, Phil. We needed that.

This is a freedom we're willing to fight for? When real freedom is vanishing in all directions, when access to public roads, practical use of the roads we pay for (at least with property and fuel taxes, if not with licensing taxes) is in jeopardy, we want to pretend that baring our heads to the tender mercies of asphalt and concrete is a "basic right?" Not me. If I'm only going to live so long, get into so many battles, and have limited energy for all of it, I'm going to pick my fights. I disagree with the helmet protest and I'm on the other side of the loud exhaust battle, so fighting for these silly issues is one of the many ways "motorcycle organizations" (almost as oxymoronic as "military intelligence") alienate me.

Most likely, the AMA, ABATE, the Motorcycle Industry Council, and the rest of the characters representing every point of motorcycling view but that of the daily commuter and the safety-oriented, law-abiding rider could care less about my nickels and dimes. I not only don't own $30,000 garage candy, I haven 't bought a new motorcycle since 1974. I am more likely to put my time and money into Occupy Wall Street than motorcycle political action for anything less than a movement to legalize lane-splitting or off-street downtown parking. If cagers have to wear seatbelts, motorcyclists should reasonably be expected to wear helmets. If I can't stage a 120dBSPL rock concert in my backyard, the pointless noise made by gangbangers and cager-squids in Honda Accords and rednecks in RAM pickups should be restricted to legal limits.

I am aware of the fact that my opinion doesn't matter. The money is behind the other arguments. Aftermarket companies sell loud pipes, bike manufacturers hustle the gangbanger or the squids-in-wife-beaters image, and even the politically-correct-and-connected AMA is only half-heartedly promoting safety and neighborhood-friendly exhaust systems. Even the MSF is afraid of offending the noisemaker crowd, because you can show up for an "Experienced Rider Course" on a bike that will deafen your instructors who have no way to send away a motorcycle that was, apparently, legal on the public streets.

All that probably makes the proponents of motorcycling's two big issues feel in control. They are fooling themselves. All around the country, local, state, and national politicians, traffic safety engineers, and planners are hearing complaints from communities, medical professionals, urban traffic planners, and insurance companies about the real issues motorcycles present. Very little of what they hear is positive. In fact, the story motorcyclists present is so overwhelmingly negative that we have about as much social clout as a climate scientist at a Tea Party convention. With many (or most) motorcycle "clubs" on the Justice Department's Gang and Terrorist Threat Lists, getting grouped in with "bikers" may be a fast route to Guantanamo for all of us.

So, how do we fix the mess we're in? While it might be too late for motorcycles and motorcyclists to fix a public image that is so wrong we're practically in the gangster category, we've got nothing to lose but energy we're going to burn sooner or later. 

Eight Bikers Walk into A Bar

Since the police and city and state bureaucrats are virtually useless when it comes to confronting the biker gangbangers, we may be left to hope the Mob takes care of this problem in their less subtle way. [As if they are on different sides of this war on the rule of law.]

Easy Fix, Never Happen

All Rights Reserved © 2011 Thomas W. Day

The news report read, "Hennepin County attorneys say that on the morning of Oct. 7, 2010, 20-year-old Amanda Elizabeth Manzanares was driving without insurance and under a restricted instructional permit when she drove her car across the centerline of Excelsior Boulevard in Minnetonka and struck a man riding a motorcycle. The man suffered severe injuries that have, to-date, required $500,000 in surgeries and other medical care. . .

"After retrieving Manzanares' cell phone at the scene, Minnetonka police investigators found a series of text message exchanges and calls on Manzanares' phone that were made and received in the minutes surrounding the collision.

"But, according to court documents, Manzanares denied using her phone at the time of the accident, telling Minnetonka police she had “blacked-out,” was tired, that she hadn't taken prescribed medication and that she was still getting comfortable as a driver."

This is what passes for "news" in modern America. Tainted, slanted "information" intended to inflame the unwashed, illiterate masses without providing any solutions, context, or depth. Back when he was funny, Dennis Miller defined television news as a series of unimportant but bad things we could all be glad didn't happen to us.

Don't get me wrong, Manzanares ought to prosecuted for nearly killing an innocent bystander with her miserable, incompetent (for whatever reason) driving. But by shining a bright light on this pitiful excuse for a human being, the law and the media are doing their damndest to distract the blame from the real criminals in this all-too-common sort of incident; cell phone providers. On one hand, television reminds us at every cop-show opportunity that any cell phone can be tracked if it is on. If it can be tracked, its trajectory and velocity can be determined. If all that is true, any communications attempted while the phone is in motion can be terminated. End of problem.

Driving while yapping on a cell phone use is clearly an example of driving while incapacitated. Every study that has examined the relationship between driving drunk and driving while asking "whut r u doin?" has found that cell phones are linked to driving mental retardation. One study (published in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society) found in simulated driving conditions that drunks (at least those with a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level) are better drivers than cell phone yappers. None of the drunks crashed in that study, while three cell phone morons did.

Why it took a study to identify this character of cell phone abuse says more about academia, society, and capitalism than it tells us about the actual problem. Any half-conscious motorcyclist knows that you stay as far from a cell phone user as the road permits. They are erratic, marginally conscious, and as dangerous as gangbangers. I'm no less worried about riding near a cell phone user than I am about trying to get by someone who is tossing out the occasional empty beer can or has an Easy Rider rifle rack loaded with automatic weapons.

If you're brand new to this planet and these United States, you might ask, "Why is this tolerated if the solution is so simple?" The reason, dear alien life-form, is money. The slim splinter that remains of our democracy is dedicated to the idea that the profits of a few override the security, health, safety, and quality of life of the nation and its not-rich citizens. Those trust-funded, grossly overpaid and under-skilled corporate executives who are the only real beneficiaries of the death and destruction their products cause (not the cigarette executives, this time) are more important than the lives of every other person on public roads. Why that argument doesn't hold true for alcohol-pushing corporate executives is a little inconsistent, but I'd bet it's because the cell phone execs are richer.

Of course, my electronic trigger isn't the solution I'd recommend in an ideal world; too passive and forgiving. Personally, I'd rather see cell phone manufacturers forced to install a spring-loaded 4" spike in every cell phone that would be triggered by cell phone use at any velocity exceeding 10mph. At worst, the cell phone user would have some part of his/her anatomy skewered for violating rational cell phone laws. At best, one more idiot would be spiked from the gene pool.

Honestly, I don't expect either idea to take hold in my lifetime or before the next comet blasts an idiot wind across the planet and restarts the evolutionary cycle. The rapid degeneration of our species depends on the right of the dumbest and most corrupt evil spawn's access to every damn toy their idiot heart desires. So, my favorite solution is dead in its tracks. Second, the attention deficit disordered have grown to depend on knowing what their friends and family are doing at this very second and they are perfectly happy to kill anyone in their path to have that knowledge. What's the worst thing that can happen, being prosecuted for "felony texting and driving?" That sounds slightly more serious than unpaid parking tickets.

Getting Geezerly

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

I've noticed a change in my attitude since turning 60. I care less and less about the future of the things that won't affect me. This is fairly significant, since I am sort of notorious among my friends for living as much in the future as the present.

A fair number of my Geezer columns, beginning with the first one from 1999, are about how motorcyclists' anti-social behaviors are likely to affect motorcyclists' access to public roads and parts of cities. It's happened before and it's going to happen more. Even dumps like Daytona are reconsidering the effect motorcycle invasions have on their residents' already miserable quality of life. Lots of lesser "traditional" motorcycle destinations are opting out of the loud pipe, hooligan-behaving, tough-guy-dentist, vandals-took-the-handles secondary effects of going after the motorcycling dollar.

Fortunately for me, I don't go to any of those events or places. Even more fortunate, I live in an insanely conservative country where progress and innovation has been slowed to a crawl and change rarely comes in less than a generation. For example, we're going to be the last industrialized nation to ban lead from manufacturing processes. We are more concerned with the inconvenience manufacturers will experience if they stop pouring that metal into our drinking water than we about poisoning our children. If something that big doesn't get fixed instantly, how long will it take cities to rid themselves of pesky, but rare and insignificant and non-socially-redeeming, motorcyclists? Seriously, even though motorcycles are not in any way part of "smart highway" planning, how many decades will it be before this country moves to that kind of vehicle? In the Land of the Brave we're conservative (timid, afraid of the dark, terrified of change) and we won't do anything rash, innovative, or sensible in a hurry. The oceans may rise up and float our cities away and we'll still be debating who will pay for any technology change.

With that knowledge behind me, I have quit worrying about the future of motorcycling. Whatever happens, won't happen to me. At best, I have maybe 10 years, 15 tops, left to ride. More likely, I'll fall off of a cliff, contract some nasty cancer from my years of industrial chemical exposure, trip over my dog and fall down the stairs, or blow a gasket in any number of clogged vessels or organs. The future of motorcycling is not likely to change in my lifetime. None of my kids have chosen to be motorcyclists and I don't see that as something to worry about. My grandson might become interested, but he probably won't. I've lost the capacity to worry about generations beyond the ones I know personally.

That “freedom” has a cost, though. Recently, a younger, more politically involved friend asked my opinion of helmet laws. For the last 25 years I’ve had a split mind on this issue. On one hand, I’m a fan of Darwin’s selection of the fittest and am all for getting the stupid out of the gene pool. On the other, I’m worried that if too many of the unfit kill themselves on motorcycles their surviving relatives will rise up and campaign against the existence of “murdercycles” on public roads. As I explained that pair of concerns I realized I had passed the point of caring about the second hand. My explanation was blunt, honest, and very politically incorrect. It happened so quickly that it was out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying.

Another friend, a non-helmet wearing friend, was part of the discussion and was obviously offended by my lack of concern for his offspring. That’s the other effect of aging on me; I’m less sensitive (and I was always insensitive) to who I offend. Honestly, I’m less afraid of the consequences. At work, this has resulted in a feeling that I’m “bulletproof” to the politics and backstabbing that goes on in an academic institution. The worst thing that can happen is that I will get fired. If I get fired, I’ll find some other way to occupy my time and pay my bills. I have a good gig, but there are other good gigs.

In personal relationships, I worry less about what will be thought about me and more about saying what I mean to say. Getting old sucks, creaks, hurts, aches, and provides occasional stabbing pain. However, it is sort of liberating. If "the worst" that can happen can only happen for a short duration, how bad can it be? It's not like I'm going to be disabled and suffer through the prime of my years. My prime passed about 30 years ago.

The older I get, the higher my tolerance for pain becomes. Getting out of bed is more painful than crashing a dirt bike was 35 years ago. Bending over, running, squatting, reaching over my head, twisting, and flexing any joint provides a constant reminder that my body is increasingly fragile and rapidly decaying. The choices are: 1) avoid pain by not doing anything or 2) get used to pain and keep doing stuff.

For a while, I'm going to chose to keep doing stuff. If the rest of you choose to screw up motorcycling, I'm not going to worry about it. You can't screw it up fast enough to mess up my time on the road.

NHTSA Crash Data for 2008

NHTSA has published two interesting bits of 2008 data: the Motorcycle Helmet Use and Head and Facial Injuries analysis and the 2008 Motorcycle Traffic Safety Facts data. Some of the more sobering facts from the Motorcycle Traffic Safety Facts analysis was "NHTSA estimates that helmets saved 1,829 motorcyclists’ lives in 2008, and that 823 more could have been saved if all motorcyclists had worn helmets" and "Per vehicle mile traveled, motorcyclists are about 37 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a traffic crash." Motorcylists are more likely to die drunk than any other vehicle operator and the state with the highest percentage of drunk motorcyclists deaths is Deleware. New Mexico riders are the least likely to be wearing helmets, at 4%.

10 Reasons NOT to Wear A Helmet

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

I've spent way too much ink ranting about why helmets are good for you. I'm a believer in protective gear, but that's just me. Most crash landings begin with a face plant, so I think anything short of a full-face is mostly pointless. You can argue that the DOT thinks a beanie-brain-bucket is "protection," but I'm unconvinced. The federal government is the last place I'd look for technical advice.

If you have some question about how well your gear will work in a crash, put a bow in your do-rag or button down your beanie and slam your face against a hard surface. If you snap off your front teeth and break your nose, you might decide to buy a real helmet before you try the same exercise on hard, unforgiving asphalt at 30mph.

Lots of solid cases have been made for every piece of protective equipment that is sold today. Other than the "live free and die young with a really gory corpse" and the "I scream like a baby when I put one of those boxes over my head" arguments, not many people have spent time (or beer or mixed drinks) coming up with good reasons not to wear a helmet, especially a full-face helmet. So, with a beer and a mixed drink in hand(s), I thought I'd give it a shot.

1. Nobody will ever say anything you want to hear. You are past 25, so you'll never enjoy any new music beyond this point. You ride without a helmet because you are trying to destroy your hearing.
2. You can’t smoke inside a full-face helmet. Cigars are especially incompatible with face shields and such. Since smoking is one of those "little suicide" activities, making the step to a larger, less passive, suicidal activity (riding helmet-less) is a short jump.
3. You can't eat or drink and ride. Even jerky is tough to filter through a face shield. Forget about ice cream cones. Since you're proud of your stylish American bulk, you are more concerned with getting your daily caloric intake than worrying about the goo inside your skull. You ride to eat and eat while you ride.
4. Hip wrap-around sunglasses won't easily stuff into a helmet, so, you're stuck wearing dorky geek glasses. This has inspired several shade manufacturers to make dorky geek glasses and call them hip. My last visit to a Harley shop was made much more entertaining by the collection of $5 tinted industrial safety glasses being sold as designer shades for twenty-times what those same frames (made of more durable materials) would bring in a welding supply shop. Looking like a geek has never been so expensive.
5. You can't pick your nose and wear a helmet. Even if you could get a useable finger past the shield, the chin guard gets in the way. Personally, I think that's a good thing because a small pothole and a cruiser's suspension would probably result in a finger poking through the back of your skull.
6. Telephones, you gotta have 'em, but you can't do telephones and wear a decent helmet. These days, nobody can do anything or go anywhere without a cell phone, so it's damned important that you be able to answer the important question of the day (which is either “Can you hear me now?” or "Where are you now?" or "Waz up?") whenever it's asked. The entire planet revolves around the concept that someone's lack of planning is someone else’s emergency, no matter how trivial the problem. Wingers display insane levels of connected-ness lunacy with headset installations in their helmets and Microsoft Office displays on their face shields. You, however, simply need to be able to answer the phone when it rings.
7. An excellent reason for not wearing a full face helmet is that you have nothing to lose. You hate your job, your wife is having an affair with your boss, your kids are on crack, and you're broke. What's the worst thing that could happen? You crash and survive, but are stuck at home recovering on the couch while your wife and boss hold business meetings in your bedroom.
8. Good hair days, you can’t have ‘em and wear a helmet. Helmets will turn any hair style to a greasy pancake look. Which raises an important question, does Donald Trump ride to work every day? Is his bad hair because of a helmet or did an ugly squirrel curl up and die on his head and the Donald hasn’t taken the time from his busy, motivational day to have one of his Fox News eunuchs scrape it off?
9. The "vision thing." From listening to years of lame excuses about helmets obstructing vision, I've decided this isn't about being able to see, but it's about being seen. Racers, two and four-wheel varieties, wear helmets and nobody needs to see better than those folks. After spending $45,000 on a custom cruiser, you probably want people who know that you have that kind of credit line. We're all equal inside a helmet and you're probably not happy about that.
10. Finally, the best reason to not wear a helmet is that you know your genetics have absolutely nothing of value to contribute to the human race and you want to make the ultimate Darwinian sacrifice for the greater good of the species. Good for you. Your contribution to the universe will not be remembered, but you are still doing a good thing. Consider immediate sterilization so that no nasty little accidents happen before your nasty big crash.

I think I've provided sufficient justifications for those cute little bikini-beanie "helmets" and the 100% Dacron-reinforced do-rag fashion statement. Even though it's very likely that any crash you may have will result in a face-plant, it's important to consider there are a lot of important things that you can't do while wearing full face protection. What's a little cosmetic surgery and a lot of dental work worth compared to the important issues discussed in this highly academic analysis?

As spectacular as my list is, you can probably think of even better reasons to avoid protecting the insides of your skull. Feel free to contribute your best justifications.

Consumer Repellants

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

Every once in a while, I check out ClusterFox New’s website to find out who is advertising there to be sure I don’t buy anything from their sponsors. It doesn’t mean much to anyone but me, but I’m the only guy I have to satisfy at this late point in life. Likewise, this afternoon--when it turned out that I’d managed to escape my class and arrived early for my wife’s birthday party at my daughter’s home—I found myself with a rare couple of unoccupied hours and an appetite. I’m near downtown Minneapolis, a place with a plethora of great restaurants in nearly every area of the city, and I’m not on a budget or in a hurry. Where do I go?

Dinkytown has great burger joints and designer beer. It also has parking meters and a boatload of underemployed metermaids. Downtown restaurants are practically abandoned buildings at 2PM, but they are surrounded by those damn meters. Riverfront? Nope, brand new meters as of last fall. So, I ended up in a neighborhood bar with “famous” hamburgers and I’m set for the next couple of hours.

The ‘burbs live off of consumers’ rejection of “urban planning” stupidity customer hostility. If I were an owner of a suburban business, I think I’d try to get myself elected to a major city's City Council so that I could increase the number of parking meters and metermaids. I think repelling consumers from the city would be at least as effective as an advertising campaign. I wouldn’t have to pay for the parking meters and metermaids, so on a cost-basis the political campaign might be a lot more effective use of my time and money than advertising. That might explain why so many city council members live outside of the urban centers.

At the least, I think urban business people ought to use accurate terminology when they are describing these meter plagues. I’d call them “consumer repellants.” Parking meters are probably the most effective way to reduce downtown congestion, over-stimulated downtown business activity, and all of the complications that come with customers and money-changing in a living city. Far better to force all of that nasty commerce on to the suburbs where they are better situated to deal with business.

St. Paul, for example, has shed the shackles of capitalism and opted for a purely government-based economy. Every significant downtown building is jammed with city and state offices and workers and that has saved the city from having to mess with sales taxes, traffic, and inflating property taxes. The City of St. Paul is an abandoned ghost town the moment all those city and state employees head back to the suburban homes. So much volume vanishes from the downtown area it almost feels like you’ve entered a low pressure zone if you stick around past 4:30PM in downtown St. Paul.

Minneapolis, on the other hand, has extended metering hours to 10:30PM, so that city’s metermaids prowl the streets looking for stragglers to punish and the rare visitor to downtown restaurants and bars. Duluth just began a major campaign to rid itself of tourists and Canal Park visitors. It will take a few years, but that brilliant strategy will soon solve both city's’ nasty downtown business problems.

For her birthday, this September, my wife wanted a trip to Duluth. Because she was feeling guilty about making me drive our cage through Wisconsin on our anniversary, she pretended she wanted to take the bike. We've done this trip a few dozen times in the last decade and it has always been one of our favorite things to do in Minnesota. The weather report for Duluth was for a 60% chance of rain. She wanted to hang out in Canal Park. Duluth downtown parking is motorcycle hostile and I couldn't think of a good reason to deal with the hassle. I suggested we take the cage so she'd be comfortable. She drove. I read a book.

A couple of years ago, I was forced to travel through downtown Cincinnati and I was amazed at how effective that city’s parking meter solution had been. That large, once-booming downtown was absolutely abandoned on a perfect Saturday afternoon. I think you could walk naked through Cincinnati’s streets and nobody would notice. It was amazing! Cincinnati had such an effective parking meter program that the Amtrak station’s parking lot was teeming with metermaids, like sharks who’d sniffed blood in the water but who’d arrived too late to sample the kill. As I loaded my gear on to my bike in front of the station, two Cincinnati metermaids stopped to warn me that I had ten minutes to move or they’d “have to” ticket me for illegal parking. As I pulled out of the loading zone, they looked absolutely lonely with the station lot back to its natural empty status.

When I toured North Dakota, I was sort of impressed with that state’s attitude toward ghost towns and empty business buildings. It seemed to me that a year or two of abandonment was justification for bulldozing a building or town. I wonder how long it will take for the major cities to take this approach? St. Paul has a “World Trade Center,” but if al Qaeda had blown up that collection of empty office spaces nobody in the state, let alone the nation, would have noticed. The city could save itself a lot of energy by knocking down at least half of the downtown buildings and making something useful out of the space; like more empty parking lots. At least you don’t have to heat a parking lot. It’s not like the city’s metermaids are so busy that adding a couple thousand more spaces to their route would cause an inconvenience.

Snell Loyalty

People are loyal to the oddest things. For a couple of decades scientists and testing engineers have questioned the Snell standards. A key part of Snell's standards is the dual impact (same location) test and the 300g internal impact allowance. Those two bits mean that the helmet must be harder (less able to spread impact) both on the shell and in the internal impact liner. A while back, Motorcyclist magazine did some of their own testing and cast some aspersions on the Snell standard. More recently, the New York Times published a piece called Sorting Out Differences in Helmet Standards.

I'm not here to argue the standards. I read the Motorcyclist article and was impressed with the authors' thoroughness. At the time, I'd traded my comfortable old (highly damaged) Shoei X11 (a Snell helmet) for a brand new non-Snell HJC CL-15. The new HJC was the first non-Shoei, non-Snell helmet I'd owned since the early 1980s. That first HJC was the first of three HJC helmets that I've owned since. While my Shoei's have saved my bean from several scrapes, nothing about the crashes I've experienced have tested Snell's extreme standards. I'm, apparently, inclined to get off at 20-50mph, on dirt trails and deep gravel or sand, and I have yet to land on top of my head. I have scraped the paint off of the side of my full-face helmets and gouged the snot out of the faceshields.

On a MN motorcycle chat site, the responses to the NYT article went like this:

• "The advantage in my eyes to a Snell rating is that I know the helmet's been validated to the guideline. "
• "Until the standards are re-written its just a holy war and I'll continue to wear my RF1000 helmet replete with 05 Snell standards. "
• "My helemts [sic] (full face always) have always been snell rated, but I am an Arai loyalist and they don't make anything less than snell rated--and honestly--I wouldnt want it any other way."
• "Usually the NYT limits its coverage to political and scientific thingsthat they don't understand. Now they've added international standards setting to the stew."

I think it's interesting that a testing lab can generate so much customer loyalty, even with other testing labs, scientists, and engineers disagree with those results. No, I don't know what that means. Yes, I'd love to hear your opinions.

Getting Cranky about Patriotism

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

In an extended email conversation with a reader about positions I've taken in this column over certain motorcycle brands, motorcycle styles, and motorcyclists, I found myself getting downright belligerent over some issues that I really don't care about at all. When that happens, you have to wonder "why"? I did the wondering, but it took me a while to figure out the why.

Our conversation had devolved into a question of patriotism vs. owning and riding motorcycles. His side of the discussion included a lot of terms like "Jap bikes" and "rice burners" and that always puts me on edge. In a way, those terms are childishly humorous and the users of the terms tell us a lot about themselves, unintentionally, when they are so relaxed about one set of derogatory terms and wouldn't think of calling another collection of motorcycles "Wop bikes" or "Kraut bikes" or even "Yankee bikes." In self-defense, I've taken to calling a certain group of motorcycles, "cheese burners."
After getting past that, we got into why he was so encouraged by my mechanical problems with my KL250 Kawasaki Super Sherpa. He was more than pleased to know that I was less than impressed with how Kawasaki (and lots of other manufacturers) retain the countershaft oil seal. Somehow, his several-thousand-dollar problems with his American-made motor were less irritating knowing that I was wrestling with a $5 oil seal.

All through this bit of our conversation, I found myself becoming more irritated than the subject warranted. The next morning, I awoke knowing why: I don't care if a product is "made in America," but what I do I want is American products that are made really well. I go out of my way to buy products like those made by Aerostich because they are made better than the equivalents produced elsewhere. It doesn't hurt that Aerostich is made in Duluth, but if the stuff was crap I wouldn't be a customer.

A couple of decades ago, I worked for a pro-audio company that proudly advertised their products were "Made in California." The legend on the box was intentionally printed to resemble the labels on foreign manufactured products. Every product was designed and assembled in California and we were kicking the snot out of Ramsa (Panasonic), Yamaha, and other imported products in our market. We used Texas Instruments and Motorola parts (many of which were manufactured in Singapore, even in 1983), Japanese passive components, and locally built chassis parts. It was a great company and we made terrific products. I left in 1991, because I'd had all of southern California that I could stand, but I still loved working for that company making those products. We were state-of-the-art in a mid-tech business with extremely demanding customers.

Today, that same company has all of its products fab'ed and assembled in China. I'm glad I'm not there to have been part of that transition. The sales and marketing bozos were always bragging that "we're a design and marketing company, not a manufacturing company." They are probably happy as pigs in crap that the company no longer has the skills to build its own products. Our designs were driven by customer requirements and our close connection to the manufacturing floor. Our marketing was embarrassing, at best, and if the products hadn't been exceptional most of our rock and rolling customers would have avoided our products so as to not be connected to our foolish advertising. You only have to be a brilliant marketer if you suck at design and manufacturing.

Now that the economy has caught up to the reality of our national unproductive output, a lot of people are complaining that Americans don't know how to build products that Americans or anyone else wants. American labor builds products just fine, but American management couldn't manage a lemonade stand without government assistance. Last year when the economic "experts" were claiming that the economy was solid because "home sales were strong," I thought these morons were on crack. How can an economy survive when it is based on people leveraging the places where they live for food, clothing, and transportation? I should have put more of my money where my mind was, because it's now obvious that national economies have to be supported by something real: manufacturing, farming, research and development, and services that actually produce wealth instead of just moving mythological wealth from bank to bank.

I'd love to buy an American-made motorcycle (although I'd probably have to buy it used to fit my own economic situation), but I want something designed for the 21st century, not some silly-assed replica of the overweight, underpowered crap street riders put up with in 1955. Yeah, I want an American-made motorcycle, but I want a great American-made motorcycle, not just a few decrepit frame parts that were welded around a collection of Asian electronics and an imported motor. My American motorcycle would have to be light, reasonably quick, able to negotiate dirt roads and poorly maintained two-lanes all day long , and reliable. I wouldn't be buying it for the image or out of some phony patriotism, but because I thought it would take me where I want to go the way I want to go there. Anything short of that would just be disappointing.

I Still Don't Like Cruisers

Holy crap! Yet another reason to dislike Harley's. I stumbled on this picture following a Google chase for something completely different. Once I got side-tracked into this subject, I found a couple of other goofy links.

For example, the creeps from Orange County Cycle donating one of their abortions to McCain and Palin at a rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUR4m3xh8zk. Those boys can really define and fabricate "ugly." You have to give them that.

This last April, she was again hanging with the Teutul freakshow. While it's true that "there is no accounting for taste," there must be some sort of retribution due for having no taste at all. No? Damn, that's some ugly motorcycle and the guy who is feeling up Palin is pretty creepy looking, too. I have to admit that I really like Palin's LA hooker shoes, though.

Last, but not least, one of this blog's readers sent me this picture, claiming that it was Palin's personal ride. Say it isn't so, Sarah. No one running for President of these United States should ever, ever be caught dead, alive, or in a zombie state on something as freakin' godawful ugly as a pink Harley. That is a national disgrace. There ought to be a law against subjecting the innocent public to viciously tasteless stuff like that bike.

So, why did they?

Here is an interesting article on an issue that directlyaffects motorcycle safety: Why Did the Feds Bury Data on Cell-Phone Dangers? 3/4 of a year ago, several journalists reported that NHTSA had completed studies that found that "showed that all cell phone use is as hazardous as drinking and driving.” They determined this 6 years ago, but Bush's DOT cronies squashed the study results because their cell phone sponsors didn't want the information to affect sales and phone use. Screw the fact that thousands of lives (as many as 2600 per year since 2003) could have been saved, AT&T's execs needed their million dollar bonuses. It required the death of a 12-year-old boy and the dedication of his father to determine why the government decided to withhold this information and the legislation that the knowledge should have inspired.

As a motorcyclist, I put cell phone use near the top of the driver activites that inspire me to move as far from that vehicle as possible. Personally, I'd like to see a simple system that links a phone's GPS to the activation of the cell phone. If the phone is moving more than 10 mph, a small charge in the phone should ignite blowing the ear off of the phone user. That cosemetic damage could serve as a modern version of the "red 'S.'"

Motorcycle Accident Statistics

There are some articles that need repeating. If you haven't seen the Motorcycle Accident Statistics article on webBikeWorld, you should. The original article was well-written and researched, but the reader comments are often far better considered than the source. In fact, if you don't want to take the time to read the original article, skip to the Reader Comments and Owner Feedback near the bottom of the article. Readers such as "J.W.", "E.C.", and "P.S." contributed valuable insight into the cause and effect of motorcycle crashes and deaths.