#140 Change Is Gonna Come

 

All Rights Reserved © 2015 Thomas W. Day

My old MMM editor, Sev Pearman, sent a discussion group a link to an announcement from The Company about their prototype electric bike, Project Livewire. Expressing his Geezerly self better than me at my worst/best, Sev concluded, "I have zero interest in electric vehicles; pitiful range is but one of [my objections]."

My reply to that was, "The only thing that keeps me off of Zero's new bikes is the purchase price. Price per mile crushes internal combustion engines, but I don't have to worry about a motorcycle with a power train that could last 250000 miles. I won't live or ride that long. 150 miles is enough range for 90% of what I do and a 6 hour charge is fine. In a few years, capacitors should replace batteries, charge times will drop dramatically, weight and range will expand nearly exponentially for the size and weight, power and performance are already comparable to or superior to internal combustion, emissions will finally be as good as cars or better, and that fuckin' noise bullshit will be history. If you don't like maintenance, electric motors are the bomb. A bike you can tweek to your performance standards through a USB port is right on target with the current and last two generations of possible motorcyclists."

Sev's response was, "Blah blah blah No offense, Thomas, but this is the same 'in the very near future...' song that I have been hearing for 40 years. I distinctly remember reading this in both Popular Mechanics and Popular Science in the early 70's. Sorry, color me skeptical."

Obviously, I'm comfortable with skeptical. In fact, when it comes to the blathering of economists, southern politicians, the major media talking heads, and any so-called "authority figure," skeptical should be the default attitude. However, when scientists and engineers talk, I listen with a relatively open mind and some expectations. The fact is, no one writing for Popular Mechanics or Science was talking about semi-permeable molecular capacitors, lithium polymer batteries, lithium ion batteries, or even nickel-metal hydride batteries 40 years ago. Hell, sixty years ago Popular Mechanics and Science were babbling about flying cars and computers small enough to fit into a basketball gym and powerful enough to add really big numbers reasonably accurately. In 1989, some overly optimistic scientists claimed to have cracked the secret to cold fusion and the resulting inability of other researchers to replicate that experiment created enough psycho-babble from the media to convince the average schmoe that all science was fake and nuclear energy was at a dead end. Today, Westinghouse, GE, and a collection of foreign competitors are on the verge of making small liquid metal modular reactors available for applications from small electric engine power to portable electric generators and everything in-between. It could be a deal-breaker for the oil companies and revolutionary for electrical generation, but most people are fixated on Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the false cold fusion story.

Stay tuned, electrical generation could be the new cheap energy. Ballard Power Systems, a Canadian fuel cell manufacturer, is contracted with Volkswagen's fuel cell development program and a couple of large bus manufacturers with working prototypes in service, not to mention providing the power for Toyota's corporate offices in Torrance, CA. All kinds of science fiction stuff is happening right now and almost none of it was predicted or promised 40 years ago. About the only prediction that has been reasonable useful from the last 50 years has been Moore's Law. ("The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year. . .") Gordon Moore's succinct technology estimate has been reasonably accurate for at least 30 years and there is every likelihood that it will be revised upward with new technology.

If the USA was driven more by technologies than by idle and incompetent corporate back-stabbers and lazy and corrupt old technology billionaires, we'd be enjoying a whole new world of high efficiency transportation and putting a serious dent in the atmosphere's carbon content. A real war on the world's terrorists, begun back in 2001, would have crushed the oil cabal, launched the US into the 21st century with a vengeance, and revitalized our technology industries like nothing since the 1960's space race. Instead, we choked, took the easy way out and invaded Iraq hoping for a quick fix with that country's "oceans of oil" and blew two decades on militaristic decadence. Catching up is much harder than staying ahead, in any kind of race. Technology and change don't depend on American exceptionalism and all of those technologies we ignored are going ahead without us. Just ask the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and the struggling descendants of the world's great powers of the past: Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, England, Russia, and, even, China (only now crawling out of the ruins of its 4,000 year old civilization).

Semiconductor density is not the only technology experiencing exponential change. You know that bullshit small print thing stockbrokers hope you don't read regarding the odds that the stock they just conned you into buying will produce a profit (for you)?  "Past performance does not necessarily predict future results." Look at the chart on the right, that's what an exponential curve looks like as it approaches infinite change. Ray Kurzweil called this the "Law of Accelerating Returns." The steps in that chart are 50 year intervals and the X-axis is linear, but the Y-axis is more exponential than linear. The technology development required between the printing press and the telescope (a 200 year interval) was insignificant compared to going from what existed at the start of the space race to our world of cell phones, personal computers, and the Internet (20 years). The same comparison will be made between the last days of hydrocarbon-based energy and whatever comes next. The technological growth rate of the last decade will look absolutely stagnant compared to the next ten years.

Back to electric motorcycles, the only thing that keeps me off of one is the cost. Certainly not the cost of operation, but the cost of ownership. At 66, I can't justify a $10,000 motorcycle of any sort. I don't expect to live long enough to consider that a rational expense, especially in Minnesota where half of the year is lost to rotating my battery tender from the V-Strom to the WR250X. $5,000 is a whole different game. Zero's 2015 battery pack is expected to live for 2,000 charge cycles (at least 200,000 miles) before it deteriorates to 80% of new capacity (probably the recommended replacement point) at 185 city miles or 94 highway miles per charge.  At the current 6-8 cents per kilowatt, Zero's 1.4kW charge requirement makes for pretty cost-effective transportation. You just have to have a 200,000 mile life expectancy to justify going electric. I do not. If you are a decade or three younger than me, you should start thinking about what your first electric motorcycle is going to be, because that's very likely going to be a big decision in every motorcyclist's life in less time than you expect.

Published in MMM #140 September 2015

POSTSCRIPT: I'm hiding in New Mexico from MN's 2017 and the Trump bullshit and hanging with a mechanic friend who has a huge collection of battery powered tools. If anything demonstrates the rapid evolution of batteries, it might be powered hand tools. He has a selection of batteries from the last 10 years of impact tools that range from old Makita's 14V, 10W nicads to the most recent 14V, 40W lithium-ion batteries. The weight and size change is mind-boggling. The whole tool weighs less than the old battery used to weigh, by a long shot. Even recent technology batteries seem primitive in comparison to the new stuff.

Joining the Crowd

For most of my “adult life” riding either a bicycle or a motorcycle to work the instant weather permits has been a staple of my activities. “Weather permits” has meant any temperature above freezing and road conditions not including ice or snow. I don’t care about gravel in the corners. I did care, a little, about salt still remaining on the roads, but that usually just meant I washed off the bike more often than usual in the spring. It was a point of honor for me to not be among the “motorcycles are toys” crowd.

Not any more, apparently.

So far this year, I have ridden my motorcycle to school (I go twice a week.) exactly zero times. On a 55^oF spring Sunday, of which we’ve had several to this point, I’ve ridden either of my motorcycles exactly once. Today, the wife needs the truck for yard work, so she’s driving me to school and I’m taking the bus back home. It’s 35^oF outside this morning. With my heated Aerostich gear, that’s more than warm enough to justify riding to school. But I’m not going to.

I’m not sure what’s changed. I can’t help but suspect that my general attitude is tied to my disinterest/lethargy. “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” All of the smart people I know have been pretty much running on empty for the last six months. The energy has gone out of a lot of people who are usually pretty pumped up and sources of hope and good will for me. I, on the other hand, have done pretty well betting on what I used to think were worst case scenarios—professionally and financially—and assuming the worst has always been more fallback position. You don’t become a test engineer or a reliability assurance engineer and do well at it assuming every design was divinely inspired. You assume everything has fatal flaws and begin your day looking to find that flaw before the damn thing becomes a product and when it fails it’s your fault.

My usual distrust of my fellow American’s competence has fallen to an all time low. We are living in the early (and last) years of The Marching Morons society and it’s just going to get worse and maybe never better. When I’m in a 4,000 pound pickup, that translates into assuming no one is stopping for stop signs or lights, idiots will occasionally drift into my lane from any possible direction, every fuckin’ idiot is packing a weapon, and expecting a couple of key or coin scratches on my truck anytime I leave it in a public place. On a motorcycle that translates into full-time terror. A ride into the country is a fine riding exercise, a fair amount of fun, and the best way to explore my surroundings, but it’s not utilitarian. In fact, I am now a motorcycle-toy owner, since I’m not using my motorcycle for transportation.

#139 Two Approaches to Aging

Originally published in Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly #168 August 2015

All Rights Reserved © 2014 Thomas W. Day

Coincidentally, I had two very different conversations about motorcycling in the same week from over-60 riders who had pretty strong opinions about their motorcycle future. This may seem like a pretty pointless subject, especially if you are under 40, but motorcycle demographics are rapidly aging and our mode of transportation and recreation is coming to some sort of turning point in the United States and a few other first world nations. The average age of US motorcyclists is increasing by 2-4 years every 5 years (depending on who's statistics you believe). In the last 15 years, the number of over-50 riders has increased more than 250%. Unfortunately, that group of 60-and-older riders is 250% more likely to end up with serious injuries than their 20-to-30-year-old counterparts. "Middle-aged" riders don't fare much better. 40-60 year-old riders, were 200% more likely to suffer serious injuries than the younger group.

There are a variety of suspected reasons for these dismal statistics, including deteriorating skills, vanishing physical capabilities, inexperience and overconfidence, and the fact that older riders too often pick motorcycles to enhance their fading self-image rather than for practical and realistic motivations. Regardless of "why," older motorcyclists are less safe for a variety of reasons than younger riders and there are a whole lot fewer young riders than in previous moments in motorcycling's history. That decision day is coming for us all and this past week made that uncomfortably clear to me.

First, one of my oldest friends called and started the conversation with, "Do you know anyone who wants to buy a Goldwing?" Thinking he was giving up on being a ship captain and had decided to return to a normal motorcycle, I made a joke about the question. His reply was, "No. I'm serious. I'm done." After more than 40 years on two wheels, he had made the decision to pack up his riding gear and move on to other pursuits. All of his reasons were sound: three years of shoulder surgeries had reduced his upper body strength and confidence below his comfort level, his wife no longer wanted to ride with him, he wasn't riding enough to maintain his skills, his local riding friends had all cashed in their Harley's for boats, planes, and RVs. Other than admitting that I would regret not having taken more advantage of our years of riding together, I had no valid counter-argument. I put feelers out for anyone who might be in the market for a well-maintained Goldwing and that is that.  

Another friend, who has been riding fewer years and tends to ride bikes that are more vintage than competent came by the house a few days later to show off his new, current-technology ride. On the way to my place, he'd had a couple of near-misses and was pretty agitated about the state of Minnesota driving skills. An ABATE member, he went on a rant about how right-of-way laws still needed to be more aggressive "to get the dumbasses off of the road." I expressed my dislike for the concept of prison sentences for unintentional acts, which suddenly put me with the enemies of motorcycling on the "other side." No problem, I have spent my whole life on the wrong side of every argument; depending on who I'm arguing with, I seem to be on every side of every argument humans have.  I am the most radical liberal-conservative-middle-of-the-road person most of my acquaintances know.

The rest of the conversation was one-sided. Lots of ranting about how "people need to pay attention to those 'Start Seeing Motorcycles'signs" and how loud pipes make up for driver distraction and incompetence. You might guess that I was pretty uninvolved in the whole "discussion" by that time and just wanted to get back to cleaning my garage and digging the New Mexico sand out of my WR's crevices and crannies.

The two schools of aging motorcycle thought appear to be "it's time to quit" and "the world needs to be a safer place for me." I totally sympathize with the first group and am amazed at the second. Oddly, the "safer for me" crowd often sees itself as being all-American, tough guy, independent individuals. They are brand-conscious, pirate-posing, anti-AGAT (or any real motorcycle gear), and group-riding characters whose self-image is practically the polar opposite of what the rest of the world sees when they lumber past, deafening anyone within a couple of miles of their parade. As best I can tell, their riding defense system consists of a whole lot of denial. Old people (me included) are famous for denial tactics, but reality has a nasty habit of putting a mirror to anything you try to ignore too long. Deteriorating riding skills, lost physical capability, and arrogance are a poor combination on the road.

I can feel that "No. I'm serious. I'm done" moment creeping up on me at accelerating speeds. I have been riding since the mid-1960s and I have nothing left to prove as a motorcyclist to myself or anyone else. I have no delusions about where my skills are going or where my physical capabilities have gone. I past the "it's all downhill from here" moment about twenty years ago, optimistically, or thirty-five years ago, practically. I can't remember when I last believed that I could "do anything I want to do." I'm pretty much at the point of being happy just to be able to do an occasional thing more-or-less the way I wanted to do it. Things like brushing my teeth or putting on laced boots or lowering myself into a chair without falling the last few inches are on that list. I do not have any delusions that my presence on the highway creates an obligation for the rest of the world. They aren't out to get me. They don't even acknowledge I exist. The weaker, fatter, slower, dumber, blinder, and shorter I get, the more clearly I can anticipate hanging up the helmet and going shopping for a Miata convertible. I hope to not repeat my father's model and stay on the road until someone has to take responsibility for me and forcibly revoke my driver's license. I hope I'm as smart as my friend and start purging the motorcycle collection and equipment before I wind up in a hospital bed. I'll keep you posted on how that all works out. 

Beep Beep!

# 138: Tires Make the Man

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Thomas W. Day

I am officially retired as of this summer. "No more pencils, no more books, no more rules, no more teacher's dirty looks." Ok, the dirty looks came from me, but I'm done with that too. The next time I hear some kid complaining about how hard school is, I'm just going to laugh at the pampered little cell-phone addict. I, officially, do not have to care any longer. One of the best things about being retired is giving up on all pretense of concern for dress codes. "What are you going to do, fire me?" The people who mismanage America's businesses solidly buy into the old adage that "clothes make the man." Since the only skills required for modern American managers are dressing themselves and pulling credit towards themselves while shuffling blame off on their underlings, that's understandable. It's hard to see the pulling and shuffling stuff, but even a CEO can identify a nice suit. I have spent most of my career ignoring dress codes or pushing their boundaries closer to my own comfort zone. Starting this summer, my comfort zone will creep closer to full nudity. Avert your eyes or don't sneak into my backyard uninvited.

In the motorcycle world, our suits are on the wheels. Your tires say a lot about what there is to know about you as a rider. Your bike could be a cluster-fuck of vintage bits cobbled together with gaff tape and pipe clamps, but if your tires are good you're officially well dressed. On the other (and more typical) hand, your bike may be a shining example of everything Cruiser Magazine says is "all the rage" (clearly a gay biker magazine) or a plastic-fantastic full-race liter bike that Cycle World calls "all pimped out," but if your tires are bald you are undressed. If a motorcyclist looks at your tires and mutters "chicken strips," you've been outed as a poser and a the kind of rider who crawls through corners and blasts down the block as if he were being chased by Barney Fife (look him up, youngsters). On the other hand, some tires say nothing but good things about your sterling character.

Sportbikers have a tendency to be proud of balled up bits of rubber clinging to the outer edges of their tires. If you are a racer, that's just expected. You can't successfully race anything on two wheels without pushing the boundaries of traction at all possible angles. If you are a street biker, you are a goofball who likes to push traction to the limits' edge and are probably about as fun to ride with as a wasp trapped in the helmet. There aren't a lot of places on the street where leaning a bike over far enough to touch a knee to the ground can be called anything but "reckless." The sad fact is that almost every sportbike sold is over designed for any practical street application and that probably explains why so many of those motorcycles fall into the "less than 1,500 miles per year" category. Off of the race track, they are just rich kid toys with no more practical use than a plastic Star Wars laser sword. The tires tell that story repeatedly. 

Cruiser owners generally have more concern with the polish of their white sidewalls than traction or lean angle. In fact, cruiser lean angle is about topped out where the sidestand puts the bike when it's parked in front of the usual bar. You can't blame these guys for chicken strips, since straight-up is about the only way to ride a cruiser. However, a lack of concern when the tire wears down the inevitable center says a lot about the owner of an already-disabled vehicle. Motorcycles with marginal suspension, cumbersome maneuverability, and as much mass as a Prius can't afford an on-the-road tire failure. When you've given away every advantage a motorcycle has in the road warrior battles, you can't blow off swapping out that bald rear tire because it's a hassle. Tires are the only real clothing a cruiser has.

At the other end of the style spectrum, dual purpose riders sometimes make a big deal out of their off-road worthiness. Seeing a KLR parked in front of a coffee shop shod in full non-DOT knobbies with narry a scuff on the side knob sprue nubs and the soft middle of the tire worn down to a bump is always good for a laugh. You might as well paint "dirt" onto the bike as imagine that other motorcyclists are going to be impressed with your tales of off-roading. Any trials rider knows that a pretty mild tire pattern can carry the average motorcycle through some seriously rugged stuff. Pretty much anything will haul a Lampkin straight up a wall. You don't need knobbies for the occasional dirt road. But you'd know that if you ever rode that thing away from pavement.

The guys who almost never pose as anything but themselves are real touring riders. With 100,000 miles on the odometer, they know the only thing they can't scrimp on is their tires. A Goldwing will putter along with watered-down Canadian gas with an occasional ping or two, but a flat tire in Butt Fuck, Wyoming is downright life-threatening. These guys will tape a $1-store cupholder to their handlebars, but the only money they save on tires comes when they install the skins themselves. There is nothing funny about getting stuck in Whitehorse with a wreaked tire. You won't make it back out of town for less than $600 and you might spend twice that again on a motel bill while you wait for the shop to get around to installing your tire. Don't even think about asking the Honda dealer if you can just buy the tire and install it yourself. Being "well dressed" on a 10,000 mile tour means having brand new tires on the bike and a second set wrapped and ready to drop-ship in the garage; postage pre-paid so your wife or best friend can just fill out the shipping label and drop the tires off with UPS.

I might be naked in the backyard, but my bike is always well dressed and there are two complete sets of replacements in the back of the garage waiting for the next big motoring social event. You never know when you might be invited to go somewhere and do something cool. Wouldn't want to violate the only dress code I've ever honored.

Donny and Me

Donald Trump is, possibly, looking at becoming the first US President in the history of the country to actually be impeached. His connections to Russia are likely to be the reason why. It's not in me to feel sorry for Donny, but we do have a weird connection. The Geezer with a Grudge blog also seems to attract more Russian attention than I'd expect. Check it out:

Google Blogger Monthly History

	Pageviews
United States	1784
Russia	1627
Canada	49
United Kingdom	40
Australia	30
Germany	28
China	16
Poland	16
Netherlands	13
India	10

I wonder what they see in a weird old guy babbling about motorcycles?

Safety Training and Us

About a year ago, David Hough wrote a LinkedIn article about the California motorcycle training experiment and the MSF’s repsonse: “Changes in CA training.” It’s a pretty good read and some of the comments were as thought stimulating. A lot of MSF instructors are beginning to reconsider the purpose of training, especially in light of the newest MSF new rider program that appears to be taking an even more simplistic approach to putting butts on motorcycle seats.

A Brush with Reality

As part of an article I’m writing on safety training, I landed on Wikipedia’s page on “motorcycle safety.” Here is a grim reminder of what we regularly face experiencing in a motorcycle crash:

Consequences of accidents:

Once the collision has occurred, or the rider has lost control through some other mishap, several common types of injury occur when the bike falls:

• Collision with less forgiving protective barriers or roadside "furniture" (lampposts, signs, fences, etc...). Note that when one falls off a motorcycle in the middle of a curve, lamps and signs become impossible to negotiate around.
• Concussion and brain damage, as the head violently contacts other vehicles or objects. Riders wearing an approved helmet reduce the risk of death by 37 percent.
• Breakage of joints (elbows, shoulders, hips, knees and wrists), fingers, spine and neck, for the same reason. The most common breakages are the shoulder and the pelvis.
• Soft tissue (skin and muscle) damage (road rash) as the body slides across the surface. This can be prevented entirely with the proper use of motorcycle-specific protective apparel such as a leather jacket or reinforced denim and textile pants.
• There is also a condition known as biker's arm, where the nerves in the upper arm are damaged during the fall, causing a permanent paralysis of arm movement.
• Facial disfigurement, if in the absence of a full-face helmet, the unprotected face slides across the ground or smashes into an object. Thirty-five percent of all crashes show major impact on the chin-bar area.

Honestly, the whole Wikipedia section is worth reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety

Weird or Not Weird?

Only slightly more homo-erotic than the usual Harley crap:

Swarm Intelligence or One More Distraction?

Continental is hyping a product called eHorizon that supposedly will “enable motorcyclists to see around corners.” Theoretically, eHorizon “informs bikers in advance of obstacles along their route such as road works, accidents, oil or water on the road, or traffic jams and enhances safety not only for them but also for other road users.” The options are going to be a display that will sit somewhere on your motorcycle’s console or a (gag, hack, puke, etc) phone app.

Myths and Technology

http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/3-motorcycle-myths-that-wont-die

Riding Shotgun

Riding Shotgun is a book by a friend of mine, Paul Schaefer, who is also a motorcyclist, an anthropologist and college anthropology instructor, and a Wisconsin organic farmer. Regretfully, there is no motorcycle content, but since Paul is full of motorcycle content, I thought I’d pimp the book here in case you need something to read.

Riding Shotgun is a little bit Elmore Lenonard, in that there are multiple plot lines running in parallel and independently. The characters are well-developed and interesting and so it the story.

‘nough said. Go buy the book.

Why I Don’t Care What Financial Analysists Say

First, to be upfront and honest with you, my youngest daughter has been some kind of financial analysist for most of her career. She absolutely resents my belief that only rich people give advice worth listening to. Because her unemployed husband spends money faster than the Denver Mint can print it she will probably never have enough money to fit my model. Second, I’ve blown off the jabbering of most of that class of employable talking head beause their use of the English language is too imprecise for me to take them seriously. A couple of years before the last crash (they will be coming a lot quicker in the near future until we stay crashed) those nitwits often said, “Home ownership is at an all time high.” The only person I’d known who actually owned his home was my father. The rest of us just rent from banks instead of landlords.

So, now those geniuses are predicting a bad year for Hardly, “Harley-Davidson officials worry economic and political uncertainty globally lowers spending for their products. Plus, HD’s most ardent fans may be aging; young riders may not replace the older fans.” “May be aging?” Now shit, Sherlock. What planet do you yokels squat on? Hardly’s fans are not just aging, they are petrifying. Buying a Harley is the kind of thing a guy puts on his bucket list when the bucket is too fucked up to hold water, eggs, or sandwiches. Hardly and Indian are betting the farm on the oldest segment of an already ancient demographic. For years, the MIC has been pretending the average age of motorcyclists is holding steady at something between 48 and 60, depending on the study and the state and who the results benefit. If my own observations amount to anything, I’d bet the average new motorcycle buyer is closer to 60 than 40 and had a crap load of money (at least $85k annually, according to a couple of recent surveys).

For example, NHTSA says that the average age of motorcycle riders killed in crashes was 42 in 2014. Since you’d expect a good number of motorcycle deaths to be the clueless “youth death squad,” that means a boat load of that age offset must be coming from the way-over-50 crowd. That’s one way to thin the herd. From the experience of several hundred beginning motorcycle classes, I’ve often suspected that Hardly was a secret Republican plot to eliminate a lot of Social Security costs. Admit it, that’s not much different from the Republican healthcare plan, “Just die, will you?”

One thing I have always believed about predictions of all sorts is that nobody knows anything. I have given up trying to figure out what kind of idiot choices and fads humans will follow off of a cliff next and I wouldn’t put my money on shorting Harley Davidson. I wouldn’t buy a Harley, either.

Product Review: Giant Loop Kiger Tank Bag

All Rights Reserved © 2015 Thomas W. Day

One of the most hostile reviews I've ever written and had published was of my frustrating experience with my Wolfman Enduro Bag. As much as I've hated that damn thing, I didn't find a suitable replacement for a V-Strom tank bag until Giant Loop came out with the Kiger. To sum up this review in one sentance, everything I had come to dislike about the Wolfman bag is a non-issue on the Kiger.

First, even with the rain cover, the Wolfman (and practically every other enduro-style tank bag) isn't particularly water-resistant. The first day I installed my Kiger I taught a Basic Rider Course at Century College where, about two hours from the end of the range-portion of the course, we were hit with a gully-washer. I had my V-Strom covered, but I had to pull the cover because the wind was so strong the bike was rocking hard enough I thought it might topple off of the centerstand. I hadn't double-protected my stuff with the Kiger's optional dry bag and the storm hit so quickly I didn't have time to latch one of the bag's buckles. 40mph-plus winds blew the rain parallel to the ground for a half-hour, blowing over half of our motorcycles, flooding the drains, and drenching everyone and everything; except the stuff inside of my Kiger tank bag. At least three inches of rain fell in that short cloudburst and none of it, not one drop, made it into my tank bag. First test, passed.

The Kiger and my V-Strom on an urban "adventure" during the Minneapolis Art-a-Whirl.

The next big issue I had with the Wolfman Enduro was stability. The Wolfman bag's "laminated foam sides" quickly turned to saggy pillows that took up space in the bag while providing ziltch for support. Initially, the Wolfman Enduro bag was the only substantial-sized bag I could find that was narrow enough to stay out of my way when steering, but when the foam sides failed so went the steering clearance. The Kiger's zipperless-clamshell design and materials make the bag almost rigid. The zipper-less, clamshell lid defines the top portion of the bag's structure and the foam-reinforced 22-ounce vinyl-coated polyester foundation holds the overall shape. The 4-point security system keeps it all exactly where I want it. The zipper attachment to the harness makes the bag easy to swing aside for a gas fill and the whole thing (except the harness) comes off easily so you take the bag with you. The Kiger is a 9 liter bag--rear 9.5″ tall, front 6″ tall, 8″ wide, 12″ long--which is large enough for a bike cover, gloves, boot covers, some tools, with space left over for stuff in the interior mesh pocket.

I'm still unclear on how this works, but it does. The clear vinyl map pocket is touchscreen-friendly; even when I'm wearing my Aerostich Deerskin gauntlets. This is a big deal, since I'm cheap and my Garmin GPS is a long ways from waterproof. There is a water-tight route for a power cord (USB on mine) into the map pocket, so running out of juice can be avoided.

Everything I wanted for this bit of travel storage was provided by Giant Loop's Kiger. It's a great bag and one that I fully expect to outlive my V-Strom and end up on whatever my next bike turns out to be. As always, the best place to buy Giant Loop products is directly from the company's website: https://giantloopmoto.com/.

The Dominoes Are Falling?

Only a short while after Polaris announced the Victory Motorcycles are goners, Eric Buell Racing gives up, again. In their January 28 press release, the company said, “The company, which is the sequel to Buell Motorcycle Co. that Harley-Davidson Inc. owned for more than a decade before dropping the brand in 2009, says it will begin a wind down of production operations next week.” And “This difficult decision was based primarily on EBR facing significant headwinds with signing new dealers, which is key to sales and growth for a new company. In addition, EBR has had limited production in 2016 and 2017 that was under goal. The combination of slow sales and industry announcements of other major OEM brands closing or cutting production only magnified the challenges faced by EBR.”

Well, nuts. That is about it for US production of anything resembling a world class competition motorcycle.

Losing the Travel Thing

All my life, “getting away” has been a theme. I grew up in western Kansas and anyone with any sense at all wants to escape that hell hole as fast as possible. I got started with a lifetime of “camping” there when I snuck out Saturday nights with a canteen and a blanket or a Cub Scout’s sleeping bag to hide in the basement ruins of a Catholic college that had been wiped out by a tornado. If I made it out unseen, I could get out of 2-4 hours of Methodist sermons and Midwestern religious hymn-howling. My motivation for making my great escape was pretty great and getting away has been a theme of my life since.

For most of my adult life, my “career” was a collection of low-to-moderate income, high-pressure repair or engineering jobs with a fair amount of middle and upper management thrown in to extract any fun my job might have provided. Managing most people is about as entertaining as herding chickens and managing management is even more painful and unrewarding. Add to that a house full of girls and women, two daughters and a wife, and I regularly needed to “get away.” For a couple of decades my getaways were off-road motorcycle racing and backpacking into remote areas.

For the move to California in 1983, running from the Reagan recession that pretty much wiped out non-military/industrial jobs in the Midwest, I bought my first street bike since I “borrowed” my brother’s Harley Sprint in 1963 and stripped it down for flattracking. The trip to California in late March of that spring was my first adventure tour, since I rode through 400 miles of sleet, snow, and ice storms to get to southwestern Texas where the winter weather finally let up. It was an adventure, for sure. I probably shouldn’t have survived that trip, since I knew practically nothing about safely riding a motorcycle on pavement. My CX500 was poorly setup, marginally ridden, and completely inappropriate for the places I forced it to go. That ride and that motorcycle started a whole chain of events in my motorcycle life, though. I didn’t really think of myself as a “motorcyclist” before that first 2,000+ mile long late-winter/early-spring slog.

At least 250,000 miles later, I’m beginning to lose that identity. This past summer, I rode my V-Strom to Colorado and back. For the first time in all of the years I’ve been touring, I did absolutely no prep work on the bike before I left. I didn’t even do a needed oil change. I have no excuse. I was looking forward to the trip, I think. I knew how long the trip would be. I’d done a fair amount of work on the bike the previous year and, then, barely rode it at all. So, I had some false sense of security that somewhere, sometime I’d already done the prep, but I knew better. I just didn’t come up with the motivation to crawl around the bike doing the things that needed doing. The end result was a fairly high-tension trip with the only real fun moments coming off of the bike when I was hanging out with a friend at various Colorado hot springs.

There was no “escape” in that trip. I had lots of work to do at home, none of which I dreaded or needed escape from. I’ve been everywhere I went on that ride and there was almost no adventure to the trip, except for the tire failure in Nebraska and that wasn’t particularly entertaining. I even avoided a short dirt road section in Colorado, opting for pavement to preserve my too-many-miles chain and sprockets, while my friend took the high and unpaved road. I skipped Pike’s Peak on the way back, something I never imagined I’d do. Other than doing long miles on the interstates, my ride to and from Colorado was totally atypical for me. It didn’t really qualify as an adventure and I didn’t at any time feel obligated to turn it into one. Honestly, most of the time I just looked forward to it being over and being back home working on my projects.

I suppose Trump should be inspiring some motivation to get away, but even he and his band of merry Brownshirts are not doing it for me. For the last three years, I have been talking to a company that specializes in South American motorcycle tours.I sort of had Peru on my bucket list, but even that just seems like more hassle than fun these days. I think might have lost the travel thing.

Things that Make Me Puke

If you were ever confused about how lame cruisers are, this ought to put the nails in the coffin for you. Nope. I haven't read it. It just appeared on my local library's "New Fiction Book" page and I had to chase down a jpg of the front cover just for you folks. 

This combines two things I despise more than almost anything else in literature: romance and western bullshit. "After years spent trying to remember her past, Mojo Sheepshanks just wants to put it behind her. She’s finally got the life she always wanted—sisters she loves, a career that keeps her on her toes and Tucker Darroch, the handsome cop who’s stuck by her against all odds. But for the people around her, moving on is hard to do. Tucker can’t seem to let go of his past, while Mojo’s sister Greer is being blackmailed for secrets in hers. And Mojo’s stuck in the middle again."

Is there anything about that story description that makes you want to read the book? If there is, 'splain it to me Ricky.

On the other hand, if you are interested in figuring out what makes your brain do really dumb shit, I can not recommend Michael Lewis' The Undoing Project strongly enough. I'll be thinking about the things I learned in this book for years. Some of the choices I've made as a motorcyclist, buying motorcycles, not buying motorcycles, and on an everyday basis are all up for review now. As always, Michael Lewis has kicked my ass.

Who’s Surprised?

Polaris dropped a big #2 on the cruiser market this week with their announcement that Victory is a has-been. “Polaris Industries Inc. (NYSE: PII) today announced it will immediately begin winding down its Victory Motorcycles brand and related operations. Polaris will assist dealers in liquidating existing inventories while continuing to supply parts for a period of 10 years, along with providing service and warranty coverage to Victory dealers and owners.”

Blowing a little smoke up their fans and vanishing customers’ asses, they followed that in the formal announcement with “Several factors influenced today’s announcement. Victory has struggled to establish the market share needed to succeed and be profitable. The competitive pressures of a challenging motorcycle market have increased the headwinds for the brand. Given the significant additional investments required for Victory to launch new global platforms that meet changing consumer preferences, and considering the strong performance and growth potential of Indian Motorcycle, the decision to more narrowly focus Polaris’ energy and investments became quite clear.” Don’t hold your breath for Indian to last long. Polaris has been hustling too little, too late, with almost no future market awareness for years. Me-too is not a business plan.
Their customers were buying a vintage image, now it’s a vintage product and brand. They ought to feel “special.”

Bikes I've Owned and Loved (a lot or a little): 1975-1980 Suzuki RM 125(s)

 

Over the last 30 years I’ve tended to forget about the small collection of RM’s I owned, raced and rode, and maintained. Mostly, it has been because my “ownership” was often dubious. On my old Geezer with A Grudge webpage, I didn’t list my association with the RM125 at all. I simply forgot about the bike in context with anything other than being a racer’s mechanic for half a decade. Contrary to what you might have expected from me there was no ill-will involved. I didn’t hate the RM125, as I did the Kawasaki KLR600 or the Suzuki TL250. I just never thought of them as “mine.” Maybe they weren’t.

I was wrenching for a kid who worked for me at our day job and who was regularly in contention for the Nebraska 125 Expert (A) Class state championship. For about 3 years, we spent almost every weekend together; him racing A class 125 and me in B or Enduro class and working on his bikes. Mostly I raced my Rickman 125 because it was my regular ride and it was mine. Mike had a deal with a local Suzuki dealership for super cheap bikes and below dealer cost parts. He went through a lot of parts, including engines, frames, suspension bits, wheels, etc. In fact, I occasionally had enough spares to build a spare bike or two. A couple of those bikes ended up under me when I was a B Class rider. I’m not sure who, officially, owned them. I know I sold at least one of them when I cashed out of my off-road bikes in 1981.

My impression of the RM, especially after the Yamaha Monocross bikes showed up at local tracks, was that the bike was light, powerful, and grossly under-suspended and the frame was way too flexible to be stable. I still remember riding behind one of Yamaha’s guys at a moto in Genoa, NE watching the YZ track through the ruts and over the busted terrain almost like the track were paved while I was being slung from one side of the course to the other by every large and small obstacle because the RM’s frame and suspension practically worked against each other and me.

Also, unlike the YZ’s, Suzuki’s philosophy with the RM motor was that the engine parts should break in quickly rather than last a long time. I knew winning racers in Nebraska who went two seasons on a motor, piston, and rings. Our Suzukis needed new rings every 3 motos, new pistons every third ring replacements, and 2-4 cylinders every season. If money, time, or energy made us decide to put off a ring change, Mike would always lose power toward the end of that 4th race and either ride desperately to hang on to his position or not even have enough engine left to be able to ride desperately.

If it weren’t for most of the cost being someone else’s money, we’d have dumped the Suzukis after about 1976. None of the RM cost came out of my pocket. For a lot of that period, I was still selling Ossas out of my garage shop/dealership and if I could have afforded to race what I sold I would have. I loved the Ossa Phantom 125 and it kicked the RM’s ass every time Mike and I practiced with either one of us on the Phantom. I never took a Phantom to the track though and most of my customers were play racers and didn’t put the bikes to much of a test. So, I don’t really consider the RMs to be something I either owned or loved.

Catching Up

Sometime this next year, 2017, I’m going to catch up with my own past. A few years back, I closed a website and moved all of my Geezer with a Grudge history to this blog, one article per week at a time. The next week’s article was published in MMM on July 2015, which means by sometime in 2017 I’ll be putting my current MMM article on this webpage about the time MMM puts it on their own webpage. At that point, it’s possible that my “output” will slow down considerably. The other possibility is that I’ll get a new burst of inspiration and start cranking out stuff way faster than MMM can choke it down and I'll end up posting it on the blog to keep from swamping my editor. Or Victor will fire me for pissing on loud pipes and oversized motorcycles and lousy riders and everything I do will end up here first.

Or some combination of the above.

Making A Dangerous Bed

All Rights Reserved © 2012 Thomas W. Day

(First Published in Rider’s Digest #189, June 2015)

Back in my Colorado days, I used to hang out with a trio of guys who had a variety of motorcycle skills. The leader of the pack was Brett, a guy who practically grew up on motorcycles and who is one of the nicest, most patient and loyal people I've ever known. I have considered Brett my best friend for two-thirds of my life, even though I haven't seen him more than a couple of times in the last ten years. David was a newbie to motorcycling, but he had taken an MSF course and had a pretty good grip on his skills and physical and mental limits. Richard was slightly less new to motorcycling than David, but had started off thinking motorcycling was going to come naturally to him and discovered it didn't. He'd crashed his bikes a couple of times, trying to keep up with Brett and me, and had moved from overly confident to massively paranoid. By that time, I'd been riding for twenty-five years and had way more confidence than skill. I'd moved to Colorado from California by myself and was wallowing in my independence and a relatively responsibility-free, semi-single-guy life. So, my moto-motto was "Shut up and ride." I even wore a t-shirt with that printed on the front and back.

One "feature" of this collection of diverse skills was an assortment of different start-up times for a ride to anywhere. If we were going to ride to downtown Denver for coffee, it would take anywhere from five minutes to an hour-and-a-half for the four of us to be ready to roll: five minutes for me and ninety minutes for Richard, for example.

One weekend, we decided Pikes Peak needed climbing one more time before the mountain riding season ended. Brett and I did most of the planning and we picked a filling station on the south end of Aurora for the rendezvous. Our start time was 7:00AM with some margin to accommodate the late risers and slow movers, but 8:00AM slipped by with one of the guys still "on the way." The first part of our route was going to be Parker Road (Colorado Highway 83) south to Colorado Springs. It's about 80 miles, via 83, to Colorado Springs and another 35 miles to Pikes Peak Park through some backroads around the Springs. Two-and-a-half hours on a slow day. Once you got into the park, the old road was 19 miles of beautifully unpaved twisty mining trail to the top. (This year, they finished widening and paving the whole thing and there is no more point in seeing the damage done than there is hoping that Newt Gingrich is married for life, this time. When the Peak was unpaved it was "America's Highway." Now, it's just a tourist path.) We had a breakfast plan for Colorado Springs, but with the late start Brett and I decided to move the meal to the café at the top of the peak. An hour after our start time, we had a mild disagreement about waiting or going.

Since I hadn't planned on plodding along at the pace the two newbies would be setting, I decided to meet them at the park. We'd done this a dozen times in the past and Brett and I sorted out where we'd be about when and agreed that if the pack didn't catch up to me at the base of the park by 11:00AM, we'd meet at the top. That settled, I hit the road. I'd loaded camping gear and a change of clothes, in case I decided to take the long way home after the Pikes Peak trip. I took a few deviations from the short route to the park, hoping that the guys would catch up or pass me. Still, I arrived at the base of the park on time and waited a half-hour in the tourist center before I bought a pass and headed up the mountain. We had some late season rain that year and the road was pretty torn up from traffic and erosion, so it was in perfect condition and I pretty much had the Peak to myself. I got to the top pretty quickly, for me, and figured I had an hour or two to myself before the pack arrived.

My bike, a 1992 Yamaha 850 TDM, was coated from the wet road and my chain was bone dry and caked in clay. I found some rags in the tourist trap's dumpster and filled a milk bottle with water to get started on some maintenance. I scrubbed off the muck from the chain and gave it a WD40 rinse before applying fresh chain oil. It didn't need it, but I went through the chain freeplay adjustment routine. After cleaning up the frame and engine, I made the rounds of all the fasteners, making sure everyone was in place and tight. I was parked right on the edge of the old tourist center's parking lot, so the workshop view was spectacular. I pulled the air filter, which was clean, and reapplied some fresh filter oil for no reason other than that I had it out and I had the oil with me. Short of checking valve clearances, I'd done everything I could think of to the bike.

So, I went back into the tourist center and had breakfast; a couple of donuts and a large cup of coffee. I walked out back and got into a conversation with a cog railroad conductor about the first and last train trip of the year, which often involved pushing a lot of unexpected show up or down the track and a lot of scared passengers. He went back to work and I was bored.

As long as you don't exit the park, you can ride up and down the mountain all you want for your park pass. So, I decided to ride down the mountain and meet the guys on their way up. I did that, twice, and, still, they weren't anywhere to be found. In 1992, none of us had cell phones so calling wasn't an option. I wasn't really worried, but closing time was approaching and I didn't want to be stuck on the mountain in the dark. Finally, just a few minutes before the visitor center closed, the three guys rolled into the lot. Brett looked pissed. I couldn't figure out the other two guys' expressions.

It turned out that, in spite of the late start, Richard and David insisted on stopping for breakfast, which burned an hour-and-a-half. After eating, they plodded along at a barely faster than walking pace until they got to the park. To "celebrate" riding the mountain, before they'd ridden the mountain, they stopped at the park store and bought "I Rode the Peak" patches for their jackets. Once they started up the mountain, the pace slowed even more. The switchbacks, the wheel ruts, the deep drainage ditch on one side and the steep drop-offs on the other combined to make the last few mile sheer terror for Richard and David. Brett stuck with them, dedicated friend that he is, and had about as much fun riding the mountain as he would have had in a dentist's chair; although the chair might have been a faster ride.

As they rolled into the lot, a park ranger was herding the straggling tourists to their cars so he could close the lot's gate. The guys didn't even have time to take off their gear before they were being hustled off of the summit and back down the mountain. That might have been a good thing, since riding downhill scared is much worse than riding uphill and they didn't have time to work up a good batch of fear before they were on their way down the mountain. The first few miles were the roughest, especially with the road in end-of-season condition and some pretty energetic bursts of wind near the top. They paddled around the sharpest of the corners and I took up the rear so that Brett could at least go down the mountain without herding sheep all the way. After we left the parking lot, I shut off my motor and coasted behind the guys, stopping every mile or two to let them get a ways ahead of me so that I could collect enough momentum to roll through corners without having to push. It took a good bit more than an hour to get to the park entrance. The gate was closed, the park was abandoned, but it was easy enough to get the bikes around the barrier. Just before the park road merged into Manitou Avenue, I saw Brett parked just off of the road. He was in much better humor, since he'd had time to find an ice cream shop and had drained a large milk shake while waiting for us to crawl down the mountain.

It was dark and riding back home via I25 was the only practical option, since Parker Road would be filled with deer and antelope for the next few hours and none of us was up for picking antlers out of our teeth. The guys settled for finding a cabin in Manitou Springs for the night. I was all for snagging a campsite in Garden of the Gods or just heading out Colorado 24 for Buena Vista and finding a campsite where ever one turned up. David and Richard convinced me that I wanted to hang with them for the night by insisting that they would cover the cost difference between a campsite (free, if I camped between Manitou and Buena Vista) and the cabin. Like an idiot, I became a follower.

They had a cabin site in mind and found it quickly. It was a two bedroom cabin with two fold-out beds in the huge living room. I took one of the living room beds. Our plan was to get the room sorted out and walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner. So, I was going about that when I dropped the damn bed on my left foot. I was pulling out the frame, expecting it to swing up before it lowered to the floor. Instead, the bed shot out about two feet and dropped like a spring-loaded anvil; right on my big toe. I'd pulled off my boots at the door, so there was nothing between my foot and that assassin's weapon and it almost amputated my toe.

In moments, the toe turned black. It was bleeding like a stuck pig, so I used up all of the stuff in my medical kit to medicate and bandage the bit toe to it's nearby partner. We went to dinner, me shoeless on my hobbled foot. I drained a bottle of some kind of painkiller to try to sleep that night and woke up to find that the toe nail had lifted off of the toe, in spite of my having drilled a neat pressure-letting hole in the nail and taped it tight before I went to bed. I could not get my left boot on, so I had to cut the boot and gaff-tape it together; once my foot was in it. Walking was miserable and awkward. Shifting was painful and had to be done with my whole foot or heel. Buena Vista was out of the question. Getting back home would be an achievement.

We had breakfast in Manitou Springs. I set out ahead of the guys under the assumption that they'd probably catch me and, if I ended up stuck on the side of the road unable to ride, we'd work out a plan to get my bike and me home. Once I hit the interstate, I was pretty sure I'd make it home and that didn't turn out to be a problem. The next day, my doc pulled the toe nail, stitched a patch over the exposed toe, and put my toe in a brace that would be my hobbling partner for about two weeks. The bone at the end of the toe (distal phalanges) was crushed.

For the next several months, I took a lot of crap about being the "big bad bike racer who was crippled by a hide-a-bed." Obviously, the real reason I ended up crippled was that I stayed back to be a nice guy and escort the slow guys down Pikes Peak. Not only do "nice guys finish last," but they might even get hurt for the effort. Screw being nice. "Shut up and ride."

My New Career

A friend and ex-student sent me this along with a note asking about my “new career” as a chopper rag model. I admit, it does look a lot like me, but I did NOT model for the drawing. Honest.

TurboBike, When You Know You’ll Never Grow Up

“Turbospoke is a complete exhaust system that fits to any bike and makes it look and sound just like a real dirt bike. Turbospoke is based on the old 'baseball-card-in-the-spokes' concept, brought right up to date. The realistic engine sounds are created using long lasting plastic cards, a clever sound chamber and an awesome megaphone exhaust pipe which really amplifies the sound.” Sounds more like a drawn-out fart than a motorcycle engine, but . . . I guess that’s a “real motorcycle sound” if a Harley is a real motorcycle.

Is This Like the Others?

During the parade season, there is never a shortage of noise makers in Red Wing. However, as a motorcyclists’ location . . . not so much. I don’t know why that’s a fact, but it is. When I first moved here, I set out to distribute MMM to the various places I thought might attract motorcyclists (not necessarily bikers, but actual motorcyclists). I hit the college cafeteria, local restaurants, the library, and the bike shops. After a couple of months, I got the bike shops set up with their own supply of magazines, but I quickly noticed that there was no point in replenishing the other locations because the first set of issues were still there. Two years later, some of those first magazines are still waiting for readers.

Lucky for me, Red Wing has a decent Suzuki and Yamaha dealership, but I don’t know why. The dealership seems to retain the same collection of “new” and used bikes for at least a couple of seasons, probably until another dealer or wholesaler takes them off of their hands. If it weren’t for boats and ATVs and snow machines, I suspect we’d lose that dealer. The Polaris/Victory dealer never seems to have customers and I’d guess someone is burning up a trust fund with that venture. Likewise, the local community college offers a summer full of motorcycle safety classes, but 3 out of 4 of my last season’s MSF classes cancelled due to lack of interest, including an Intermediate Rider Course that wasn’t supposed to cancel under any conditions. On a typical work day, it’s rare to see more than one of two bikes on the road and most of those will be touring riders passing through town.

It’s a mystery. Red Wing and the surrounding territory is a massive riding resource. We have twisty roads and small towns with history and good food and recreation. You can’t beat the river valley for upper Midwest scenery; it’s the closest thing to mountains we have for 650 miles. As a mostly-dirt rider, I have more interesting country roads and marginally maintained back roads than I know what to do with. It is incredibly easy for me to burn up a tank of gas in an afternoon without doing more than crossing pavement every 50 miles. There is even a few sections of actual off-road riding from abandoned farm roads that haven’t yet been converted to farm land.

Outside of the summer pirate parades, it feels like motorcycling is on its last legs here. All of the riders I know are over-50 and most of them are on the edge of giving it up. The kids I meet who talk about buying a bike and learning how to ride just talk about it. It’s not a practical thing for them, for whatever reason. There is some off-road activity in Elsworth and I should get over there to check it out. But . . . it’s Wisconsin and a battlefield of starving small towns and bankrupt counties all overstaffed with highway patrol and sheriff’s deputies haunting the backroads to make their quotas. I cross the river only when I really need to.

#137 Foot Out, Rider Down

The Geezer with a Grudge Column

(Originally published in Minnesota Motorcycling Monthly Magazine.)  

All Rights Reserved © 2014 Thomas W. Day

A friend sent me a note this week, complaining about the godawful scooter and bike skills he witnessed near the UofM. He said, "When I was instructing, a favorite thing to yell at students (and sometimes regular folks) was 'pick up your feet'. For some reason that horrible habit has re-entered the consciousness of people that think they know how to ride. A few days ago I watched a young guy on a scooter (wearing a helmet, with shorts and flip flops) stick his left foot out as he arced through the intersection. This evening I watched a young hipster (flannel shirt, rolled up jeans with lace up boots) on a Sportster leave an intersection making a left turn with his boot out like he was at the Springfield Mile. Just a few blocks later, I watched an overweight middle age guy on some bloated metric cruiser wobbling away from a stop sign with his feet down as he tried to gain momentum and stability. Unfortunately he too was wearing flip flops. At that point I was ready to stick my head out and yell."

I'm not sure what to say about this. His comment was inspired by a rant on the GeezerwithAGrudge.com site, after one of my weekend classes. I had a young man in the class who was convinced he was an experienced off-road motorcyclist. Every turn was accompanied by him sticking out his foot like he was planning on sliding it around a quarter-mile dirt track. There was nothing special about his speed and his steering input was more bicyclist tactic than dirt biker. I repeatedly told him that if he hooked a heel on the asphalt he might be looking at tearing up body parts from an ankle to a knee to a hip.

He kept saying, "it's a dirt biker habit."

I kept saying, "It's really just a bad habit."

So it went for the day. Apparently, so it is going for lots of riders everyday.

Honestly, like cager tailgating and throttle pumping I think it's a byproduct of kids who play video games deluding themselves into thinking they've done something real. When my wife sees someone flying through traffic, crawling up the ass of every car slowing down the fruitcake's progress, she says, "There goes another video game fool." What she means is that kids who grew up playing dumb crap like Grand Theft Auto or Forza Motorsport have been conned into thinking their "competence" in that moronic game translates to their ability as a car driver. Trust me, punk. It doesn't. Likewise, "success" with MXGP - The Official Motocross Video Game has no connection to actually riding a motorcycle off-road. Not one iota of a relationship. None. Nada. Here's where the real difference lives: if you crash your virtual cage or bike, you restart the game and try again. If you crash your real cage or, especially, bike, you might be dead or so mangled you'll wish you were dead. Video games are (wait for it) games. Racing is a sport. The difference is one is played by effortlessly twiddling your fingers while you stuff your face with Cheetos® and the other is one of the most physically demanding sports in the world.

So, just because your virtual "rider" sticks his foot out for every slight change of direction that does not mean real motorcyclists need their feet in the air to turn a motorcycle. That is what the handlebars are for. The tripod method of turning depends on poor traction (so your foot will slide and the rear wheel will spin) and great footwear so your foot and ankle will provide that third leg of stability. Some of the fastest off-road riders reserved sticking a foot out for extreme situations where it was absolutely necessary because of the injury risk involved. Getting a picture of Roger DeCoster sticking a foot out took patience and DeCoster won a Gold Medal at the 1964 International Six Days Trial, was the 1964 Belgian Observed Trials National champ, collected five 500cc Motocross World Championships, and won 36 500cc record-setting Grand Prix races. Putting an unprotected foot out in a low speed, poorly-executed city street turn is just a demonstration of sorry cornering skills.
 

Anyone dumb enough to stick a flip-flop-shod-foot out toward concrete or asphalt deserves to be fitted for a pegleg. I am not exaggerating. That is one of the world's dumbest moves, right along with wearing shorts and a tee-shirt on a motorcycle. Why not ride naked? You might as well. It's not like that teeshirt is going to be any sort of protection when you are sliding down the road. Remember, you're the idiot who needs to poke a foot out to turn a perfectly competent motorcycle at walking speeds. It's not like anyone smart is going to put money on your riding skills. The house odds are that you are going down, hard, sometime soon. When you do, there is going to be a lot of skin left on the road and you will be making some plastic surgeon very happy (and rich) for a very long time; if you live.

This is when someone who loves you should be suggesting you get some training. Most likely, it might be a good time to get your motorcycle license, too. Since 20% of Minnesota's motorcycle fatalities are unlicensed "riders," (If you're not skilled enough to get a license, you're barely a glorified passenger.) it's a safe assumption that lots of those foot-turners are unlicensed and uneducated riders. Even better, if you want to be the kind of rider who really needs to stick a foot out in corners, sell your scooter or street bike, buy a dirt bike, and go racing. Believe it or not, being on a race track is a hell of a lot safer than riding poorly in traffic.