The High Cost of Being Stupid

About a year into the pandemic, I was marveling at the anti-vaxers willingness to test their own immune systems often followed by their panicked attempts to jump to the head of the line in healthcare and even begging for a vaccine after being hospitalized and even just before going on a ventilator. My friend said, “Stupidity should not be a death sentence.” And I disagreed. “Stupidity has always been an evolutionary driver behind large scale mortality and morbidity, have you not heard of the Darwin Awards?” “Yeah, that’s true,” he admitted.

In his “The Basic Laws of Stupidity," Carlo M. Cipolla defined a stupid person as “A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.” Keep that definition in mind as we take another look at loud and illegal exhaust systems.(In the illustration at right, you can see Cipolla’s 4 classifications of human intelligence: Helpless, Intelligent, Bandit, and Stupid. If you follow the link to Cipolla’s article, you can learn a lot more about the characteristics of Stupid.)

Several years ago (2008, to be exact), I foolishly and optimistically wrote a Geezer column for MMM titled “Hearing Damage and Motorcycling.” I had some wild hope that there was a rational way to get motorcyclists to think about how much damage they were doing to themselves while they were irritating everyone else on the planet. I thought this statistic would be an eye-opener, “My generation, the Boomers, is experiencing a higher rate of hearing damage than our parents suffer at their more advanced age and the generation following us is even worse hit by hearing loss. The reason is noise exposure.” Not a chance. When I wrote that article, I owned about $10,000 worth of professional audio test equipment and had access to multiples of that number through my employer (a music school), friends in the audio testing industry, and professional relationships. Nothing I experimented with gave me any significant different data than my own gear. Riding a motorcycle is tough on your hearing, even if you are careful: good quality full-face helmet, high quality ear plugs, and a quiet motorcycle preferably with a decent fairing. Change any of those 3 decisions and you are gambling with your hearing. Once you’ve damaged your hearing, you are unlikely to live long enough for medicine or technology to bring it back.

My wife, for example, is definitely not stupid although she often falls into Cipolla’s “helpless” quadrant. She worked as a professional sculptor for 40-some years, which means she spent a lot of time with a Sawzall and shop grinders. She stubbornly resisted hearing protection for at least 30 years. Today, if she’s watching a movie or television, captions are always on. She misunderstands practically everything said to her, often comically. In any kind of crowd, the conversations around her are worse than meaningless. In the last decade or so she became almost meticulous about wearing hearing protection, the big earmuff things, but it’s too late. It doesn’t hurt to start protecting your hearing anytime, but once there is damage it will only get worse.

I was goofing off in downtown Red Wing yesterday when a pack of biker goobers and a couple of unnecessarily noisy diesel pickups went by. As usual, the noisemakers got the disgusted stare from bystanders that they so desperately crave, but it struck me that as awful as those vehicles sounded at 100’, they were at least 10-20 decibels louder on the bikes or in the truck. The inverse distance law of sound pressure decay masks that one obvious even to the math-disabled. For the motorcyclists, it might even be worse because so much of the exhaust noise that they are so proud of is field-restricted by the road under the noise generator, which means substantially more sound pressure is directed upward toward the rider rather than omnidirectionally toward the intended bystanding victims.

Since I started riding street bikes in 1979 I’ve owned three motorcycles with illegal aftermarket exhaust systems. I bought them used and they came with that crap installed by the original owners: a 1992 Yamaha 850 TDM with a Kerker exhaust and a 1999 Suzuki SV650 with an even noisier Two Brother’s Two-into-One M2-Oval Exhaust System and my beautiful Yamaha WR250X that came with a hacked up stock pipe. The TDM also came with the stock pipe, so I yanked the Kerker, sold it, and bought something useful with the money. The WR and SV’s original owners had tossed the stock pipe, but I found a super-cheap stock pipe on Craig’s List and sold the Two Brothers POS a couple of years later. I just tossed the hacked-up WR pipe. What I learned from those experiences is that all that noise did make me feel like I was going faster than I was (as The Marching Morons author predicted 70 years ago) and that riding either of those otherwise terrific motorcycles more than a couple hundred miles in a day was torture. The fatigue that kind of noise produces is uncomfortable and dangerous.

Which brings me to my point about the connection between illegal, noisy exhaust systems and stupid people. Yes, they are making a statement that they are untouchable by the law; which are often biker gangbangers themselves. Yes, they are irritating everyone they ride anywhere near. However, they are also driving themselves deaf in the process and deserve absolutely no sympathy when that bill comes due. So, in Cipolla’s terms, Stupid bikers are definitely doing lots of damage to the peace and quiet of every place they ride, and even causing some actual physical harm to those close enough for hazardous noise exposure. But bikers are “deriving no gain” from their noisemaking as every statistic on the planet demonstrates that loud bikes receive no safety benefit from their noise and, in fact, those same people are over-represented in crash, morbidity, and mortality statistics and for all of that the bikers are also making themselves deaf in the process.

That, my friends, is stupid.

“They Love Us!” turns into “Why Don’t They Like Us?”

If you are any kind of observer of the hilarious “human condition,” watching self-delusions dissolve into disappointment is particularly entertaining. The little tourist town where I live is a biker destination, mostly because the roads are straight and wide, traffic is moderate and generally at the local speed limits, there are lots of bars in Wisconsin and Minnesota small towns, and local cops on both sides of the state lines are terrified of bikers. It is a fact that pretty much the whole “economy” in these places are biker bars and filling stations. We get pirate parades from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Wisconsin, Iowa, and we’re on the parade path from all points east to the Sturgis gangbang. From May to September, the roar of poorly-tuned, oversized, and underpowered twins with straight-pipes completely obliterate the sound of Amtrak and freight trains that regularly pass through our village. It’s a “feature” our town’s tourist literature never mentions, but become immediately obvious to anyone foolish enough to visit Red Wing on a summer weekend. (During the Corona shutdown, the entire summer was filled with that pointless noise every day of the week, since Harley owners are, apparently, unlikely to be employed in essential occupations.)

On an eBike forum a while back, one of the odder characters who frequents that group was bragging about his Harley and how he’d “customized” it as insanely as he had mangled his eBike (installing at least $2,500 worth of “upgrades” on a $1,500 Rad Power eBike). Being a sucker for troll-bait, I foolishly replied with a comment on how much his neighbors must hate him (because of the Harley, not the eBike). Like the usual character of this sort who we all know and suffer, he came back with “No, they love me and everyone always comments on how great my Harley sounds.”

I know a lot of motorcyclists and non-motorcyclists. I have never heard any of them even mention exhaust noise when they are admiring a vehicle of any sort. I have, however, heard almost all of them curse a noisy vehicle when it interrupts their lives. Maybe that’s what the loud pipes folks call “love?” If so, that explains their typical bachelor in a swamp of beer cans lifestyle.

Late last fall, I was on my usual ebike run for groceries when I got passed on the uphill section of my ride by a couple of goobers on illegally loud hippobikes wobbling down a straight section of county road. I could hear them coming a mile away, so I had a hand over my left ear when they passed. I got a one-finger salute from the biker broad when she passed me. I suppose she imagined I would be upset at not being her friend.

This pair usually runs with a pack of four or five other noise makers. They blubber and roar through our neighborhood several times every warm day and you can hear them for miles in all directions. The local cops are terrified of bikers, but they are especially blind to gangs of bikers. So, as a neighborhood and town we’re pretty much torn about on-coming nice weather. At least when it’s raining or snowing, we don’t have to listen to goobers on Harleys.

When I got to the stoplight at Highway 61, they were waiting for the signal to change and yelling at each other about some menial bullshit when the old fat guy started to lose control of his bike and fell over, knocking the broad and her bike into a tangled heap of black leather, crappy mechanical engineering, and fat people. Of course, neither one of them knew how to shut off their bike, so there was some flesh tangled in the spinning rear wheels and lots of squalling and shouting before the blubbering (human and mechanical) stopped. I watched the Laugh-In tricycle action and did my best not to laugh out loud.

The goobers were in the left hand lane when they tipped over, so traffic had two lanes in which to pass up the mess and until the light changed three cars made a right turn without doing much more than gawking at the bikers. Two pickups pulled up to wait for the light to change to either make a left turn from the center lane or go straight. Nobody made any effort to help the bikers untangle themselves. I was on the sidewalk where the pedestrian crossing button lives, so the trucks provided me with a nice bit of insulation from the biker pile. The light changed and three of us went on our way while the bikers struggled to untangle and pick up their oversized hardware and do whatever those folks do when they aren’t falling down or occupying bar stools.

I did my grocery run and came back the same route, about 15 minutes later. The bikers were on their feet by then, but the bikes were still down and tangled up. Now, I’m on the opposite side of the road and there is no traffic coming my direction, so the light is going to run against me for a lot longer than it does when there is car traffic triggering the intersection controller. I thought it might be entertaining to see how a fat old Santa Claus biker and a bar bimbo pick up their 900 pound hippobikes, so I waited a while before I pressed the pedestrian call button. I was right.

Santa Gangbanger’s full dresser hippobike was on top of the pile and he clearly had never picked up his motorcycle, let alone from on top of another equally oversized, overweight pile of junk. The two of them were high side of his bike tugging helplessly at the handlebars or trying to drag the bike by the front or rear wheel and I really regretted not carrying something with which I could film the action. At least a half-dozen cars and pickups and a couple of delivery trucks rolled past them, but nobody stopped to help and the goobers did pretty much everything but step in front of traffic trying to enlist some assistance. Biker bimbo discovered, for the nteenth time in her life, that outside of biker bars she wasn’t attractive enough to draw flies let alone human assistance. Santa Gangbanger probably wondered why his biker glare didn’t intimidate anyone into helping. Finally, the two managed to drag Santa’s bike off of the bimbo’s ride, leaving paint and chrome and plastic on the road. The two of them together finally righted both bikes.

When the light changed, we all crossed 61 and went on our merry ways. Me with a cool story to tell anyone I know (since most everyone in Red Wing hates motorcycles) and them with a sob story of how nasty people are to old, fat, noisy, incompetent bikers. “I thought they loved us.” Whenever this dichotomy rears its head in small towns, the bikers threaten not to spend their money in our bars and we mostly wouldn’t mind seeing the damn bars go broke and the bikers gone. If it were possible to get small town cops to do their jobs, this problem wouldn’t exist.

Where Could I Go on That?

My wife is worried about me, post-motorcycle ownership. We’ve been together for 53 years and out of 52 those first years I was sans-motorcycle for about five years total. We were young, poor as the servants of church mice, and generally vehicle-less altogether for most of those five years. She still, occasionally, calls me her “motorcycle man.” But I’m not anymore and, likely, won’t ever be again.

On a May weekend this spring, one that was finally seasonably nice, our southeastern Minnesota small town was cursed by the pirates out in their full ear-shattering, trajectory-unstable gory glory (7 motorcycle deaths for the weekend). Even before the coronavirus lock-down began, more motorcyclists had died in 2020 on Minnesota roads than last year, which had the most motorcycle deaths in 24 years. The difference between this year and last is that motorcyclists—responsible riders who do the AGAT thing, can ride competently, and give a damn about their neighbors and communities—are staying off of the roads to avoid becoming a unnecessary load on the already stressed local healthcare systems.

That leaves the highways clear for the bikers and other posers who have none of those socially responsible qualities and couldn’t pass a comprehensive motorcycle license test on a tricycle. Those idiots are falling down and getting run over, riding off of remedial curves over cliffs and into ditches and trees, and even failing to manage competent stops and rolling through stop lights and signs into intersections where they get squashed like bugs. After doing pretty much everything wrong and ending up in a hospital and a wheelchair, the typical biker response is to start whining about “right of way” law enforcement.

Obviously, any complication created by other road users will entangle these idiots, Consistently, the worst drivers/riders/whatever are the goobers on trikes of any sort. The overwhelmingly worst of the trike bunch are on three-wheeled Harleys and the next worst are on three-wheeled Goldwings conversions. The Polaris Slingshot and Can-Am Spyder big spenders are slightly down from that first bunch in overall incompetence and, sometimes, even wear helmets and other gear, but those trike pilots are still are just hopped-up wheelchair trawlers and they generally ride accordingly. There was a perfectly good reason why three-wheeled ATVs were banned in 1988.

When I sold my Yamaha WR250X this spring, the kid who bought the bike commented on a parade of noise-makers going by our house as he loaded up the WR. “My neighbor has one of those Harley trike-things. She had a stroke a couple of years ago and it seems like a good fit for her. She’s pretty brain-damaged.”

“From the mouths of babes,” this 17-year-old pretty much summed up my attitude about three-wheelers and their riders. So, when my wife asked me, “Have you ever thought of one of those things?” My answer was, “Not while I’m still able to think for myself.” After that, who cares?

The reason, of many, for my distain for 3/4 of a cage is “Where could I go on that?” Seriously, what can you do on a three-wheeler that you can’t do on every compact car ever made? Worse, the Slingshot gets 18mpg and the Spyder is in the 30s territory.

Contemplating the current state of decline in both motorcycling and the United States in general, for a brief moment, I thought about Cyril Kornblulth’s The Marching Morons novelette for the zillion-th time since reading that story sometime in the late 50’s:

“The motor started like lighting a blowtorch as big as a silo. Wallowing around in the cushions, Barlow saw through a rear-view mirror a tremendous exhaust filled with brilliant white sparkles.

"Do you like it?" yelled the psychist.

"It's terrific!" Barlow yelled back. "It's—" He was shut up as the car pulled out from the bay into the road with a great voo-ooo-ooom! A gale roared past Barlow's head, though the windows seemed to be closed; the impression of speed was terrific. He located the speedometer on the dashboard and saw it climb past 90, 100, 150, 200.

. . . Watching them, Barlow began to wonder if he knew what a kilometer was, exactly. They seemed to be traveling so slowly, if you ignored the roaring air past your ears and didn't let the speedy lines of the dreamboats fool you. He would have sworn they were really crawling along at twenty-five, with occasional spurts up to thirty. How much was a kilometer, anyway?

We’ve arrived, long before schedule, to Cyril’s predicted future. At least he did ‘t predict flying cars as compensation for being surrounded by the Marching Morons.

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.

Hardly Riders and Laugh In

More Hardly riders doing the Laugh In tricycle bit. “I hit that [invisible] hole in the road,” sort of like “I had to put ‘er down.” It always means, “I screwed up and fell over totally out of incompetence.” These guys always remind me of the Laugh-In tricycle gag. How can you ride this badly and still take your badass biker posing seriously?

Making Friends Wherever We Go

A little more than 20 years ago, my oldest daughter lived in Daytona Beach. My grandson was born there. When she first moved to that beleaguered city, she really loved the place. She lived easy walking or bicycling distance from the ocean, work was a short bike ride every morning, the weather was almost always perfect, her rent was cheap, and the hospital where her son was born (prematurely) was very competent. And then the first month of March rolled around and with it rolled in a half-million bikers and their noisemakers. Her last year in Daytona, 2000, was a record breaker (until 2006) with 15 motorcycle deaths highlighting the 10-day “event.” The noise and pollution from that many illegal motorcycles in a confined space with “law enforcement’ turning a blind eye to everything from burnouts on residential streets to guns fired at all times of the day and night to wannabe gangbangers hanging out anywhere there was something to slouch against convinced her that Florida was no place to raise a kid. It also made things a little tense between us for a while, when she was reminded of my daily motorcycle commute. 

My experience with biker events started long  before that. In 1974, my local (Nebraska) Suzuki dealer was looking to make a dent in the off-road racing sales and service and winning an event or two at the Black Hills Motor Classic was one of his marketing targets. I got tagged to help with his entries in the hill climb, the motocross, and the cross country races. I planned to ride a TM250 for the last two events and we both thought we’d take a shot at the hill on a TM400 Cyclone with big paddle-style tires. 1974 was the first year, I think, for vendors and he’d brought stuff to sell; dirt bike stuff. I think we knew we were in the wrong place with the wrong stuff the moment we drive into the pit area. The motocross event was so normal it was practically non-existent. There were only a few riders, mechanics, parents, and people who looked like they belonged at a motocross and a lot of people who looked like they came straight out of a Dennis Hopper-cast biker movie hanging around the vans, trailers, and any bike that wasn’t being watched closely. We immediately scrapped out plan to camp out in the pit area in tents and opted for waiting to see how things played out at the first races. 

Later that day, the kind of stuff for which Sturgis became infamous began to happen; fights, drunks staggering through the pits looking for fights, tools and bikes stolen, motorcyclists hassled by bikers, and it was really obvious that this wasn’t a motorcycle event. Sore loser performance art? I was pretty much stuck in South Dakota until my friend made up his mind. Since the only things I’d brought were my riding gear, I snagged a ride east with some folks who had also decided to give it up for lost and go back home. They dropped me off in Rapid City and I found a bar near a motel on the west end of town and a phone booth (remember those?). I called my wife to let her know she didn’t have to worry about me getting banged up on the motocross track. A few hours later, my Suzuki dealer/friend showed up; frustrated, bummed-out, and angry. Things back in Sturgis got worse after I left and he’d seen all he needed to see of bikers and the Black Hills Motor Classic. Almost 50 years later, I do not remember what his past experience had been with the event, but I am pretty sure he’d raced there at least a few times previously. We drove straight back home that evening. Back home, there was lots of bad press about the gangsters and hoodlums who had run wild in South Dakota. Being known as a motorcyclist wasn’t a good social move for a long while. 

The next motorcycle rally/event I intentionally experienced was the Steamboat Springs Vintage Motorcycle Weekend in Colorado that ran from 1981 to 1998. Steamboat ended, when the high-rent development in that once-really-cool-town ate up all of the rideable real estate and priced motorcycles out of town. I started going to Steamboat in 1992 and went every year from then to the end. It was a great motorcyclists’ event. For at least 5-6 years, the event was really popular with the local folks, too. That is UNUSUAL! Typically, the locals hate motorcycles, motorcyclists, and bikers by the time an event is over. I’ve spent a lot of miles prowling around South Dakota and if you aren’t on a Harley you will often get an earful of what the locals really think of bikers and the Sturgis train-wreak. For a surprising number of years, that was not the case for Steamboat Springs.

For one, the only noisy bikes at Steamboat were the race bikes--on the track --where noise and race bikes belong. For two, Steamboat wasn’t a gangbanger event, but a motorcycle event that was more about motorcycles and riders than any of the previous two described events could ever hope to be. Instead of partying like drunk circus bears, the late evenings in Steamboat were often folks sitting around a campfire telling adventure touring or racing stories. The motorcycles, both the competitors’ and the fans’ motorcycles, were unusual. No chrome and LED gunked-ujp hippobikes or suspension-mangled sportbikes, but lots of odd and interesting stuff I never saw before and haven’t seen since; outside of coffee table books. The thing to takeaway from Steamboat is that motorcyclists and motorcycles don’t have to be Public Enemy #1. as weird as it sounds, a motorcycle event could be about creating good will between the 99.999…% of the public who do not ride motorcycles and those of us who do. Otherwise, it’s safe to assume motorcycling’s days on public roads are numbered and we’re likely to end up as the same kind of history as horses and buggies and all of the other unlicensed recreational vehicles. Think about it.

Seven Dead in New Hampshire

A motorcycle group called "Jarheads MC" ended up in a group crash that killed seven members and injured several others. A friend called to ask for my take on the crash. I don't watch much news these days, the news is always depressing and increasingly stupid, so I just wander through the tail end of my life singing a Steely Dan song, "Any World I'm Welcome To." While we talked, I checked out the news on the web. I know I was supposed to be feeling compassion for "fellow motorcyclists," but the news report didn't generate much of that from me. I have phased from ambivalence-to-numb regarding the dumb stuff that happens to bikers decades ago. (Motorcyclists are different and I do still care about stuff that happens to them.)

One of my least favorite gigs when I was teaching "motorcycle safety" classes (which especially deserves the quote hint in this situation) was trying to run an Experienced Rider Course with a pack of bikers. There would typically be 11 bikers on 11 totally illegal hippobikes with, at best, one or two competent riders in the group and four or five totally incompetent bikers and the rest in-between but closer to incompetent than competent. And every one of those hippobikes made as much noise as a 1940's farm tractor without a muffler of any sort. The worse the rider, the louder the pipes. The level of entitlement and foolishness from the group would just reek, "I am a member of a gang and we're scary. I need loud pipes on my bike to warn you that an incompetent fool is sharing the road with you. Take care of me because I can't take care of myself." The worst-of-the-worst for this kind of course would be a gang of "law enforcement officers," who would not only be lousy riders on illegal bikes but the most arrogant, entitled folks on the planet. Nothing tops a cop who is also a military veteran for someone who believes the world owes him fear disguised as "respect." Regardless of the make-up of the group, they too often all brought their required helmets strapped to the bike seat or in a saddlebag, just to make sure the instructors knew they didn't believe in that shit. So, when I hear one of the many stories of biker gangs getting involved in one more multi-vehicle pile-up, I'm not surprised, shocked, outraged, or even particularly interested. These are the people who overwhelmingly make up the 30-40% of all motorcycle fatalities that are single vehicle crashes.

In one report of the crash, a relative of one of the dead bikers said of the truck driver, "As long as he pays a price. He has caused lot of harm to a lot of families. If has a problem, he shouldn't be on the road. If he is a bad actor, he doesn't belong on the street. He caused enough of a tragedy. Enough is enough." I wish that rule were applied to motorcyclists. "Enough is enough." It's time motorcyclists were required to take responsibility for their lousy driving habits and the total criminal irresponsibility of pirate parades.

As usual, the cops are confused and irrational. “The pickup driver, Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, an employee of a Springfield, Massachusetts, trucking company, was not seriously hurt. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating, said he was interviewed at the scene by police and allowed to return to Massachusetts.” First they sent the truck driver home after taking his information, then they drove to his home and arrested him on a "fugitive from justice" charge, then released him again. Nothing like muddying the waters of an already dumbed-down American media machine and the Marching Moron public. Bikers are riled up and the tiny portion of the American public who can think are wondering what really happened and if anyone will ever know.

I think it's safe to assume the eye witness reports from the bikers will be useless. Most likely, they didn't have a view of what happened, due to their concentration on riding within reach of each other, so anything that happens seems like an unavoidable hole opening in the earth. A surviving rider said, “It was just an explosion . . . with parts and Al and everything flying through the air. He turned hard left into us and took out pretty much everyone behind me. The truck and trailer stayed attached and that is why it was so devastating . . . because the trailer was attached and it was such a big trailer, it was like a whip. It just cleaned us out.” If that’s true, it sounds like 1) the truck driver was passing after the first bike or two went by and plowed into the middle of the group or 2) turning at an intersection not realizing the oncoming traffic was moving so fast or 3) fooling with his cell phone or some other distraction and wandered into the opposite lane and panicked. In the picture above, the road is pretty clearly marked as a no-passing zone.

An uncle of one of the riders said, ‘‘The truck was coming in the opposite direction. It’s hard to figure how he could hit 10 motorcycles without getting out of the way.” Obviously, the bikers were following way too close for safety. What else would they be doing. That rolling bowling pin crap is one of many reasons to stay away from group rides, especially pirate parades. I hate to think the uncle was wondering how a truck pulling a trailer could have avoided 7 bikers. The real question is how did 7 motorcycles end up tangled together by one truck? Motorcycles only have one practical defense in all traffic situations; maneuverability. Hippobikes, of course, are not real motorcycles and are really just suicide machines looking for a place to happen. So, it's not hard to figure how 7+ motorcycles couldn't find a way to get out of the way. Their typical reaction is to scream, panic, and fall over (that's "I had to lay 'er down" translated to plain English).

There are some curious aspects to the biker group, though. Only one of the fatalities was over 60. That's depressing. I keep hoping that younger people will learn from my braindead generation's many mistakes and stay away from Hardlys and the incompetent biker crowd. There is nothing that I like about motorcycle packs, peaceful or otherwise. They are “rolling bowling pins” and this truck driver almost got a ten pin strike. I have had a strong opinion about lines and biker parades for all of my life. I want to feel more compassion for these folks, but it mostly affects me like reading about a group of climbers getting killed free-climbing Yosemite's El Capitan; except without the admiration for the climbers' courage and physical skills. I guess this is more like hearing a bunch of young fat people  whine about their diabetes, physical disabilities, and likely premature death while gorging themselves on McDonalds Fatty Meals: what did you think was going to happen?

Horsemeat for Bikers?

Some local guys were jawing on-line about the NY Times article, “No easy ride: Motorcycle industry is in deep trouble and needs help fast, panel agrees.” Like the industry, they blamed the usual suspects for the death of their favorite noise-makers: “the bubble-wrapped Millennials,” “the ultra-liberal lefties,” “tree huggers,” blah, blah, etc. Mirrors are tough on old guys. We look in them, see an accurate reflection and desperate want something else. The problem is, pretty much, us. We’re old, we’re irrelevant, and most of two generations wants to have nothing to do with imitating us.

Mostly, I read the Times article as a pretty accurate accounting of the lazy and braindead folks who represent US motorcyclists and the industry. The AMA and ABATE are just fronts for the butt-pirates who have turned off every sentient person possible with their noise, totally overrepresented crash, mortality and morbidity statistics, and general hooliganism. Nobody represents motorcycle commuters, the only motorcycle group that isn't about conspicuous consumption. The AMA is almost proud of how few actual motorcyclists are regular riders and ABATE is just a drinking club that dabbles in politics and writes sympathy/love letters to gangbanging “brothers behind bars.”

As for off-road access, it's not "liberals" who are shutting down access to public land; it's ranchers, conservationists, residents near the parks, and the people who have to provide unfunded rescue services to the nitwits who go off trail, terrorize livestock, wreak property, and end up tangled in barbed wire somewhere it will take a helicopter to bail out mommy's special little douchebag who has no insurance, no money, and suddenly believes in national health insurance. I’ve run a couple of events and watched dozens of off-road facilities go down in idealistic flames when their customers do everything possible to piss off anyone in the vicinity of the event, park, or private property. Motorcycles attract anti-social types and it’s harder than hell to cope with all of the forces that aren’t interested in putting up with spoiled children. I suspect if everyone were being honest, that would turn out to be a big part of the reason trials got bumped from Spirit Mountain and trials is the least obnoxious of all motorcycle sports. I KNOW that was why there was only one Merrick County enduro.

I freakin' love the argument promoted in the Times article that, since the motorcycle companies don't know how to sell to anyone who isn't already a motorcyclist, it's the job of motorcyclists to keep their business alive. That pretty much wraps up my argument in a Trump-quality gold plated ribbon. The industry is so obsolete it doesn’t even know how to sell its own products. How dumb is that?

Motorcyclists owe the industry their time and energy? For what reason? It's just a vehicle or, worse, a rich kid’s toy. If no one wants to play with them, they should disappear. There is no good reason for motorcycles to be the noisiest, most polluting, most dangerous, least efficient vehicle on the road and not even have to pay their own way with motorcycle license taxes (You know they don't in Minnesota, right?). You gotta provide some social value or you are just a welfare deadbeat if you still expect the public to foot your bill. By now, motorcycles should be knocking out at least 100mpg, emitting puffs of exhaust water and nothing more, and be bicycle-quiet. Instead, the stuff we get is barely 1980's technology and most of it is from the 50’s.

As for the Millennial bulllshit, you guys are just fuckin' old. You need to visit one of the boxing clubs, martial arts clubs, wall climbing clubs, bicycle racing clubs (off road, long distance, closed course, etc), and packing maker's groups. Those places are all about Millennials. Sure, there are lots of pampered Millennials. There are also lots of pampered, overpaid, underworked, barely-skilled X-gens and Boomers. My parent's’ generation paid a pittance for Social Security and jacked up the benefits until the system was almost broke before they elected Reagan who stripped that fund for his military-industrial buddies. Change just happens. Characters like Max Biaggi whined that all of that stuff crippled MotoGP riders while Rossi and the next generation just cranked ‘em up faster and leaned ‘em over further. Old people always complain about the next generation. “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise,” said Socrates. One of the fastest riders/coaches I know is just raving about Honda's auto-transmission. I love well-implemented ABS and throttle mapping, even though I don’t own a bike that has either.

Face it, 90% of everything humans do is always crap. You don't think millennials packed Washington with a bunch of superstitious, anti-science, spoiled trustfunders do you? If humans touch it, it will be screwed up. If humans deregulate something critial, it will be a disaster. Always. We’re just a braindead species desperately trying to fire off the 6th Extinction just to see which nutty death cult got it right.

That “wimp” label is nothing new, either. I have heard horse owners making the same “you are a bunch of wimps” arguments about motorcyclists since I was a kid. That is sort of valid, too. Keeping track of two empty skulls is twice as hard as managing one. That’s why I don’t ride horses. Your hippobike might seem “really big” compared to a dirt bike, but it is a twig compared to a 15-hand, 2,200 pound horse. Try laying one of those babies down in an intersection. On the other hand, try going faster than 20mph for more than a mile on a horse. Talk about limited range between extended fuel stops, horses are barely better tranportation than shoes.

Kill the Wabbit, Please

[Should that be “Kill the Wabbit, Pweese?”]

A friend proudly put a picture of his Honda Valkyrie on Facebook the other day. We, in jest (I hope) had a few words about his opinion and mine regarding this chrome-laden hippo bike. When the Valkyrie first came out, in 1996,I thought it was the butt-uglist motorcycle ever produced by anyone, including the gods of ugly; Harley. It arrived in a variety of horrific paint schemes, all Harley-replica stuff, and every year until 2003 when Honda quit puking out these damn things it got uglier. I didn’t know, until recently, that the Valkyrie was a US-made Honda, from Marysville, OH. Figures. They probably coudn’t find any Japanese tasteless enough to work on it.

There is only one thought that comes into my mind when I see a Valkyrie, usually stationary with a “for sale” sign duct-taped to the windshield.

This one is pretty good, too.

I wish I could claim this as an original thought, but the credit belongs to a friend, Brett Rihanek, who spontaneously made the connection the second he saw the first Valkyrie ad.

Regardless, the Honda Valkyrie is still the posterchild for all of the gross Boomer hippobike excess that led up to the Great Recession and the current motorcycle downturn. 720 pounds of blubbering, over-complicated (six 28mm carbs?), waddling incapacity. You can not go anywhere on this motorcycle you couldn’t travel more comfortably in every cage ever built. To put a cap on the grossness, Honda topped their ugly-fest with the Valkyrie Rune. This POS goes so far beyond ugly that I don’t have a category for it.

Sound Familiar?

Bloomberg just published an essay titled, “The Motorcycle Industry Is Dying.” Not a new concept and much of their analysis has been seen here first, but it’s slightly comforting to see some one else get it. The article puts a lot of weight on the new Honda Rebel 500 and I have to admit that is entertaining. I rode the Rebel 250 for the first time in a MSF class a couple of weeks ago and it is awful. There is nothing about that motorcycle that would have enticed me to get into motorcycling.

“Honda’s Rebel is the latest entry in a parade of new bikes designed for first-time riders; almost every company in the motorcycle industry has scrambled to make one. They are smaller, lighter, and more affordable than most everything else at a dealership and probably wouldn’t look out of place in the 1960s—back when motorcycling was about the ride, not necessarily the bike. They are also bait for millennials, meant to lure them  into the easy-rider lifestyle. If all goes as planned, these little rigs will help companies like Harley-Davidson coast for another 50 years.” Good luck with that daydream.

I personally can’t imagine anything other than a hoard of electric bikes in the $5,000-territory that will turn the motorcycle economy around, but power to them for finally waking up and discovering Boomers are dying off. “A motorcycle is a picture of discretionary spending, and they can be tricky to finance even in a healthy credit market. Even now, with the stock market on a historic bull run and after the U.S. auto industry posted its best year on record, traffic in motorcycle stores has stayed slow. In 2016, U.S. customers rolled off with 371,403 new bikes, roughly half as many as a decade ago.”

Too little, too late has been my analysis for the last decade. This author sort of agrees, “The problem, however, with this sudden industry pivot to younger customers is that it may be coming too late. For years, it was too easy to just keep building bigger, more powerful bikes.“ It was easier and Boomers were dumb enough to buy into pretending that 60 was the age of midlife crisis. Ride down WI35 and look at all the Harleys out on the front lawns for sale. It’s over boys, now what are you going to do? One problem with a lot of these little motorcycles is that they aren’t as energy efficient as many cars. If anything makes motorcycles a purely recreational toy it is lousy fuel economy.

It could be a bigger trend than motorcycles, though. Driving, in general, has lost a lot of appeal to practically everyone.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Meets the Triumph Rocket III

And there is a Harley ad that is unintentionally funnier, unconsciously dumber, and depressingly repetitive and mindless. Nothing like 100 dressed-alike posers pretending to be independent thinkers to remind us that we’re always #1 in being dumbasses.

Sometimes I think Hardly's marketing department is trying to make it easy for comedians. For example, compare the end of the Hardly ad to a more substantial piece of art:

The last time I found two videos so perfectly linked was when I watched Led Zepplin's "The Song Remains the Same" right after "Spinal Tap." Honestly, sometimes I think "The Company" is setting me up. Sometimes, I feel like the fat kid picking on the kid in a wheelchair on a junior high playground. They just make it too fuckin' easy.

Fighting Over Small Stuff

When I first started teaching MSF classes, I tried to take every opportunity to ride the state's motorcycles in the course demonstrations. I felt that I had a pretty good grasp of the program's text and post-exercise analysis, but I was still doubting the concept of "traction" and some of the other core principles we were teaching. When I became an instructor, the qualification process "proved" that I could ride well enough to teach the course but I wasn't yet completely convinced. After my first year, that was no longer an issue and I found plenty of opportunity to ingrain the ideas and practices into my normal riding routine.

Like most of the state's instructors, I would still rather "ride than talk." For the next six or seven years, anytime I was given a choice between talking or riding I always chose riding. There is an aspect of showing off in doing the demos that is probably unhealthy and less-than-useful for our students. I have yet to work with an instructor who doesn't do some of that and I sure do. However, the compulsion to ride over standing around yakking and hanging out seems a little out-of-place with a group as diverse as our instructors. About five years ago, I began to ride my KL250 to class and most everywhere. When I moved to the small bike from my V-Strom my interest in demo'ing on the state's bikes began to decay. When I bought the WR250X, riding over talking took a big hit. Most of the time I pick whatever option will move the class along the most efficiently. If the other instructor talks too much about stuff not in the program or "enhancing" the same material until eyes glaze over and brains shut off, I'll take more turns talking. If it's taking too long to setup the range and do the demos, I'll ride. Otherwise, I don't care which I'm doing.

The fact is, my WR is so much more fun to ride -- everywhere -- than anything MNDOT owns that I don't get much out of riding the state's bikes. Figuring this out made me realize something about my co-instructors: they don't have anything as cool as the state's bikes to play with!

This all reminds me of a couple of neighbors and friends who own large, noisy motorcycles that require rearranging of the garage before the motorcycle can peek out of it's winter hibernation hole. Both of these guys are terrified of riding on the freeway and neither put more than a thousand miles a year on their bike. I am clueless as to their motivation for owning a motorcycle, other than the obvious fact that they have tied some of their self-identity to the idea of being "a biker" and owning a motorcycle is a prerequisite for that fantasy. That is a lot of stuff to mess with for a delusional self-image, isn't it? Insurance, maintenance, giving up useful garage space to a useless toy, frustration, and the continual disappointment that must come with looking at the tarp-covered hunk of hippobike every time you strap into the old family cage.

Knowing that most of my co-instructors drive a cage to their classes and all of the few who ride are one liter-or-better gigantatrons, I suddenly have something slightly like sympathy for their desire to ride something fun. Now, if I could only convince a few of them that small bikes are more practical than large.

The Gift Horse's Mouth

Back in late April, Tousley Motorsports had an event that has left me questioning my sanity. The dealer hosted a Victory "Kick Start the Season Event" where Victory got to show off the brand's line of motorcycles and their famous "Victory girls." Because there was free food and an opportunity to test ride any of Victory's products (except the girls), I ventured forth.

As evidenced by my experiences test riding for MMM, I sort of assumed I'll ride anything once. After sampling the food and watching the girls for a while, I wandered among the bikes to see what I might like to try out. I swung a leg over the Vision, the Judge, the Crosscountry, and the Hammer and walked around the rest of the models they had on display and ready to ride. I couldn't find anything to ride.

I admit that riding to the event on my WR250X didn't put me in a mood to straddle a hippobike. I didn't intend for that to happen, it's just the first thing I grab if I'm going somewhere. In comparison, everything Victory has to sell looks and feels 1942'ish.

The sound of those huge things rolling in and out of the parking lot didn't inspire interest, either. I could have sworn we have noise ordinances in US cities and a DOT/EPA that limits the noise from commercial products? No? So much for overbearing government regulations or even reasonable regulations. The first thing Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, or any other famous lawman did when you come into town is take your guns and put them in lockup. If we had any semblance of law and order in the US, the cops would confiscate bikes without mufflers. Damn that was noisy. I put my earplugs back in after I finished eating.

I started writing this rant when I came back home that evening, after a nice long off-pavement ride north of the Taylors Falls. I read it and decided to sit on it for a while. This morning, I looked at my "drafts' and reopened that experience. Some things change, some don't. Forty years ago, I would have laughed at someone offering me a ride on a bike like these. I wasn't much interested in anything that was street legal, but gigantic, underpowered, noisy machines that have no ground clearance, can't turn inside an airport runway, and are decorated with as many useless dinglebobs as a rapper's pimpmobile just wouldn't have been interesting. I didn't even like seeing bikes like that in the parking lot at a race because it always meant trouble. Twenty years ago, a friend was in the market for a "real bike" and he drug me to a series of dealers to look at Harleys, Honda Shadows, Kawasaki Vulcans, and the rest of the usual suspects of that ilk. I rode a few of them, hated them all, and couldn't wait go get back on my Yamaha TDM to erase the feel and smell of "new/old bike." After riding a Harley Sport something-or-other, I left him to his search and made a run up Mount Evans to wash away the memories. The next day, I took the long route through Ramparts to Colorado Springs to Pikes Peak and divested myself from the cruiser crusade. He bought a Sportster and it still lives in his garage, twenty years older and with less than 5,000 miles on the odometer.

At the Tousley/Victory event I only lasted for about as long as it took to inspect the plastic bits on the Victory Girls and eat a hot-dog. The memory of my disinterest in $20k garage candy has stuck around a lot longer. I get called "motorcycle bigot" about once a month by someone reading the blog or my MMM column. That is too serious a label. I don't hate these things, I just don't care about them. If they were the only motorcycles available, I wouldn't be a rider. I like my Escort station wagon better, as transportation and as a piece of engineering. Cruisers and golf are for old people, like bridge and senior housing and polka dancing. I'm only 64. Maybe later.

Ride with the Gunny?

This is the most baffling ad campaign I've ever seen. What is the attraction to riding a hippobike with a grumpy old guy? If that sells bikes, Honda should pay me to take squids out on the CBR250R. Hell, I'll even yell at them if that adds value. I'll check their hippy credentials, harass them about their poor riding skills, and hand them over to a cop for special attention at the end. We could fill a local jail with violators if that sells bikes. What do you say?

Your Take?

My most recent Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly rant, titled "Motorcycle Bigot,"  drew a bit of fire from a couple of cruiser fans. One of the funnier replies of outrage said, "I love ya man, although I do believe that your tearing down of the rides of a good  percentage of the motorcycling world based solely on you narrow opinions is unwarranted.  I love them all, from the Amazonas to the Zero, from 50cc mopeds to the 2000cc sled, and though you would never catch me owning a Gold Wing, I'd never deride in public (other than as the subjective subject of a road test) any person's choice of ride.  I know that every rider has reasons for riding what they do and I may never understand those reasons, but it is not my business to understand, and it certainly not my place to call a whole group of motorcyclists' choice of rides 'hippobike' and liken them to Falstaff.  I'm almost positive that most of the 'cruiser' owners reading that article will think that you are describing them, not the bike, and I'm confident that they will take this very personal."

I don't have much faith in human capacity, but I'm interested to see how this plays out. So far, I have two flames and six attaboys and the magazine just came out this weekend. Of course, what he calls "tearing down of the rides" I call criticizing mediocre engineering. For a guy who often derides political correctness, he appears to be sort of wimpy when it comes to motorcycles. As I said in the article, "In respect to motorcycles, my first thought is, 'Get over yourselves.' Nothing about disliking a particular type of machine is anywhere near as despicable as racial hatred or intolerance." When it comes to cruisers, they are barely past toys and I really can't take a toy seriously. That would be as silly as considering banjos serious musical instruments.

The Laugh Machine

That is the VT1300 in the foreground, the V-Strom in the middle,
and the WR250X in the back. The shot is taken straight out from
the VT1300.

 This morning, I picked up a Honda VT1300CT Custom Interstate to review for MMM. This thing is an amazing hippobike that probably does everything hippobike buyers want a bike to do. It's long, low, loud, and fat. In fact, when my wife saw the bike in the garage, she said, "Wow! That's an old fat guy's bike." And it is.

The Interstate's seat height is a troll-like 26.8". It's almost a foot shorter than my WR250X's seat before I dropped it a bit. If you can't swing a leg over this monster, dude, you are a cripple. Stay up tonight, watch a little Channel 29 and get that number for the guy who will get you your Hoveround for "no money out of your pocket."

There are all kinds of prices to pay for a low seat height. For example, at right the WR250X is in the foreground, the V-Strom in the middle, and the VT1300 at the back with ground clearances of 10.5", 7", and 4.5". Four-and-a-half inches of ground clearance with no rider! You couldn't drive that thing over an ant hill without being responsible for a massacre.

Honestly, if all I owned was a Honda VT1300 I doubt that I'd ride more than a couple of times a year. The bike is a total pain to get out of the garage, and that's when it's in the front of the garage. I don't think I stopped and started twice competently in 140 miles today. The Interstate makes me feel weak, old, and uncoordinated. I'd feel sorry for all those hippobike riding ERC students I've insulted over the years, except they picked the damn things to ride. It's not my fault they can't ride what they bought. I can't either. Feeling sorry for someone struggling through a corner or wobbling away from a stop light when they had options that included actual engineering is like feeling sorry for a fat man at a basketball court. "You don't have to eat everything you see, you know?" I know I didn't (have to eat all that stuff, that is.).

Finally, the last straw was being seen on that monster. No, I'm not worried about my reputation. I trashed that years ago. This was more of a funny bit than an embarrassing bit. When I ride my WR250X into the city, I get a lot of kids (people under 40) asking about the bike. Men, women, boys, and girls notice the WR and comment on how cool it looks. On the big Honda, the demographics of the positive commenters jumped up about 20-30 years. Lots  of blue hairs mumbled "Nice bike" as I wobbled toward them at stop lights.

Great. Grandma likes the VT1300. Gotta get one to pick up those hot near-mummies.

Bigger is Better?

All Rights Reserved © 2010 Thomas W. Day

Often, when I'm hanging out with a collection of motorcyclists the conversation gets around to "What bike would you buy if money was no object?" The answers are predictable, most guys go for the biggest, most expensive model they know of. BMW and Motoguzzi1200's, Aprilla and Ducati liter bikes, HD and Victory hippo bikes, Goldwings, Concours, and Hayabusas often top the lists. 600 pounds seems to be near the low end of the average dream bike mass. I, clearly, don't dream big (or heavy) enough. My dream bike would weigh no more than 250 wet pounds (wet), be fuel injected, be road and off-road worthy, and would reliably tolerate long highway hauls loaded with gear.

Right now, the only bike imported into the US that gets close to that set of specifications is the Yamaha WR250R. I don't know about the WR's reliability, but almost everything else about the bike is aimed right at me. The $6100 price tag is out of my range, but I can wait for a reasonably priced used one to drop into my lap. I always do. The WR is a little tall for me, but I can deal with that, too.  The 2-gallon tank is a problem, but there will be aftermarket solutions. Owning a WR would be an excuse to exercise more, lose weight, and maintain what flexibility I still possess. An advantage of dreaming small is that my dream bike is a lot more likely to fall into my lap than is a $20k+ pipedream that I'd be afraid to ride where I am likely to want to go. At my age, practical dreams are more interesting than impossible dreams.

One of the few MC industry rags I read is Motorcycle Consumer News. Every year MCN does a "performance index" rating of every recent motorcycle they have tested, and is sold in the US. Every year, the performance index produces the same winners and losers in their five-ball "MCN Rating system." The only under-1000cc bike to receive an "excellent" rating was the Yamaha FZ6R. Every other top rated bike was 1000-1200cc and all but one of their winners gets the kind of fuel mileage you could expect from a mid-sized sedan. "Performance" is obviously a tricky word. Like beauty, it's all in the eye of the beholder, but since we've all experienced $4.50/gallon fuel--and we know we're going to see it again--it seems to me that economy ought to be rising to the top of the priority list of performance specs. When that doesn't happen, I suspect that some reality-disconnect is going on in the evaluation system.

Since I commute on my motorcycles, I care about mileage as much as any other performance measurement. The 2006 Ninja 650R got the decade's all-over best full-size bike mileage at 65.4mpg and that model came close to an "excellent" rating (four and one-half balls) for the year. The same model dropped 10mpg the next year and its Versys cousin is 20mpg less efficient. The Yamaha XT250 knocked down 67.8mpg in their testing and the WR's are 10mpg under that with substantially improved performance. So, one big thing I care about is sort of covered with the WR250X.

The fun-factor is really going on with the WR. Supermotos are the most amazing motorcycles to put on a track, practically all kinds of tracks. They turn like bobcats, stop on fractions of a dime, go fast, go anywhere, and look cool. Yamaha says the WR is, "The cure for the common commute."

The only thing the WR doesn't have is bigness. In our crazy country, big is better. The WR is small. Tiny, almost. I don't know how well Yamaha is doing with the WR250's, but if history repeats itself I'd be amazed if they are selling well enough to justify importing them for more than a few years. That means new prices will fall, used prices will fall farther, and you could have bet your birthday dollar that I'd own one before too long.

All this internal rationalizing went on while the other guys were discussing their dream bikes. When I was asked about my choice, I coughed up the WR250X and almost nobody knew what it was. Everybody knew it was a "wimpy" 250, though. That was enough to get the jokes flowing. "Why not just get a bicycle?" "Two-fifties are girls' bikes." "Beginners' bike." And so on.

If bigger is better, we have an explanation for our fascination with obesity. The bigger we get, the bigger our bikes need to be. I suspect that logic is unhealthy. I'd rather look oversized on a small bike than right on a hippobike. Even more important, I'd rather be able to take my little bike places where I'm disinclined to walk or drive a cage. So, I'll put my WR250X "girl's bike" against your liter sportbike or your hippo-bagger any time, as long as I get to pick the course. I'll choose a few hundred miles of dirt road with a few sand and mud sections thrown in for entertainment. If you make it to the end of the route, I'll be waiting for you with the next section all picked out.

This week, I snagged a used WR250X for the kind of price I wanted to pay and in reasonably wonderful condition. The view outside my garage is still depressing and will probably remain so for a few weeks. So far, this is the 2nd snowiest winter in recorded Minnesota history and we have 7 days left to "enjoy."  That's ok. I need to install a lowering link on the rear suspension, take advantage of Yamaha's 1" suspension drop, and sort out the tires (apparently, Avon Distanzia DP tires are the deal for me). The previous owner was one of those vile people who actually has legs and working body parts, so he'd set up the bike for his 36" inseam. I need a ladder to get on the bike and I dismount like a pony express rider. By the time the snow melts and the roads thaw, I'll be ready to ride.

Handicapping

All Rights Reserved © 2010 Thomas W. Day

I recently taught an MSF Experienced Rider Course (ERC) with another refugee from our magazine. He is a serious rider with a small collection of motorcycles in various states of abuse and deterioration and an even bigger collection of small businesses and personal responsibilities. The result of that complicated mid-life is that his motorcycles don't always get the love and attention the need and deserve. The result of that result was that on this Sunday morning, he had nothing to ride. So, his choice was to give up the class, use one of the state's motorcycles for class demonstrations, or turn over all the demos to me. To cover his bets, he'd already pulled one of the state's Suzuki GZ250's from the trailer when I arrived.

To satisfy as many people as possible, the state provides us with a fair selection of motorcycles for the Basic Rider Course. We have small sport bikes, a couple models of dual purpose bikes, some standards, and some cruisers. Why an experienced and talented rider would pick the GZ250 from that assortment is the inspiration for the title of this rant. The GZ250 is a clunky-shifting, long-wheelbase, uncomfortable, awkward and imprecise mini-cruiser. If you want to look like you know what you are doing, this would be the last bike you'd pick for demonstrations. (I've written before about how dumb I think cruisers are, so this isn't going to be that discussion.) His reasoning for picking the one bike in the trailer that he didn't like riding was: he was handicapping himself with a poorly designed motorcycle so that student's wouldn't be able to claim he was "cheating" the course on an easier-to-ride bike than the implement they'd brought.

Many of us who teach the ERC get that response from the hippobike crowd when we demonstrate on our motorcycles. So, we compensate. I usually ride my 650 V-Strom for these classes, although my everyday ride is a 250 dual purpose. Unless I'm going some distance or need the carrying space the V-Strom's 3 cases provides, the 250 does my commuting job pretty damn well. So, when I ride the V-Strom for an ERC, I'm handicapping myself for the benefit of the many characters who bring over-sized, hard-to-ride motorcycles that overwhelm their skills and physical capabilities. I guess I'm trying to show some sympathy for their poor choices. The more I think about this, the dumber it seems.

At the other end of the learning spectrum, when the MN-Sportbike guys throw one of their Hedonistic-Enthusiasm parties and I'm able to sign up, I often bring the 250. It's more fun to ride. The only way I can keep up with my group is to go fast in the corners, since everyone is going to hammer me on the straights. I learn more about cornering and I push my own limits harder on the little bike. Did I mention it's more fun to ride?

In emergency situations, I'd rather be on the little bike. It's stops faster, turns quicker, is able to leap tall curbs in a single hop, is as happy riding in a ditch as on the pavement, slips between practically any traffic space, and, if I find myself lying under it, it doesn't weigh much. Splitting lanes in an emergency maneuver is way easier on the 250. Swerving away from a traffic obstacle is effortless and doesn't even require much thought.

It's obvious that lots of American motorcyclists think that buying a big bike is like buying a big car: bigger is safer. That is about the dumbest rationale I've ever heard. When you are vaulting over the handlebars, you want the smallest motorcycle you can imagine in the air behind you. It's hard to come up with an emergency scenario that would justify being on a large motorcycle. In any crash situation, the highway, traffic, engineering, and nature have handicapped motorcyclists to a sensational disadvantage. We don't need to give up any more than we have already donated to make this demonstration seem "fair." When you are on the top rung of that risk-taking ladder, it's past time to start looking for any advantage you can find.

Even when I'm demonstrating on the V-Strom, I get "That's easy to do on your bike, trying doing that on my Giganticusmaximus " My response is usually, "Why would I want to do that?"

Seriously. Why would I want to ride a motorcycle that was designed by a committee that has the group intelligence of a Spinal Tap audience? Hell, my 650 is too big for the stuff we're doing on this range. My 250 would be perfect here, but I'm handicapping myself with a road bike so that you won't feel bad about not being on the wrong motorcycle for your skills and our purposes. If you think this U-turn exercise is easy on my V-Strom, you'll really be disgusted at how easy it is to do on the bike I ride everyday.

By the way, I put 5,000 miles on my 250 last year, what did you do on your 1800 Hippodromeopotamus? Are you going to ride that thing, or just watch it deteriorate in your garage? You can't ride it, right? You're afraid you're going to crash it and kill yourself because it's too big, too powerful, and you don't have the skills to manage it. You should have bought a 250 for your first bike, but you didn't want to look stupid. You missed that bet, dude. You can't look dumber than when you are selling your $25,000 motorcycle for $5,000 with 2500 miles on the odometer and a rash of scratched up chrome from when you dropped the bike in your driveway.