Irony: 101

If this didn't cost someone his life, I would have been rolling on the floor when I read this:

from the Associated Press

Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike's handlebars and hit his head on the pavement.

The accident happened Saturday afternoon in the town of Onondaga, in central New York near Syracuse.
State troopers tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse that 55-year-old Philip A. Contos of Parish, N.Y., was driving a 1983 Harley Davidson with a group of bikers who were protesting helmet laws by not wearing helmets.

You can read the rest here.

I live in a no-helmet-law state (Pennsylvania). It's not easy being a motorcyclist here. When I have conversations with folks here about riding motorcycles, I frequently get someone glaring at me with the 'organ donor' face. It's as if they're having one last look at me before I meet some untimely fate on The Schuylkill Expressway; like I have some kind of death wish.

The culture of motorcycling here is under substantial stress due to the frequency and severity of motorcycling incidents, especially those involving head injuries. A University of Pittsburgh study done in 2008 found a 32% increase in head injury deaths and a 42% increase in head injury hospitalizations in the two years after Pennsylvania repealed its universal helmet law in 2003. This increase happened in spite of the growing number of motorcycles on the roads.

You can read the study here.

Now, imagine there's a gang of people in your city who look like Nick Nolte. If you befriend any of these folks, there is a possibility s/he might take a picture of your junk and put it on the internet. Now, some people will simply choose not to make friends with a Nick Nolte; they'll be pretty safe. But others will remember his work in Paris, je t'aime or Affliction and think, "Well, Nick Nolte can't be that bad, can he? I mean, he's a halfway decent actor and an interesting guy. Let me see what he's about." All of a sudden, the government makes clothing optional in your town, and now these Nick Noltes are snapping 32% more junk this year than they did last year. They're able to defame 32% more people on the internet, that means more people getting fired, or ostracized, or even arrested for indecency in cyberspace. If that happens year after year, then you're simply going to start fearing, dismissing, or hating everyone who looks like Nick Nolte.

That what happens when helmet laws are defeated. The general population develops an ever-growing and illogical fear of motorcycling due to feats of ignorance and Darwinism, which leaves the careful ones to bear the criticism. Personally, I'm growing impatient with the view of motorcycling in this place. I shouldn't need to reconcile my choice to ride based on someone else's lack of judgement or preparation.

If I'm still living here when the helmet law debate comes up again, I'm getting on the front line of that fight. A declining mortality rate makes everything easier. It certainly would have for Mr. Contos.

peace.

Reunited!

Today I rescued this beauty from the icy slumber of winter storage:

This is my 2000 Suzuki SV650S. I bought it in 2008 and I've put at least 15000 miles on it during our time together. We've had wonderful riding experiences in five states and two countries. It has a 649cc 90° v-twin engine and Dunlop Sportmax Roadsmart tires. Since we've been together, I've upgraded it with Galfer Wave brake rotors, Napoleon Bar End Mirrors, a Gorilla security alarm, Trail Tech Vapor gauges, and a 2005 Kawasaki ZX-10R rear shock absorber. And the work hasn't ended. This season I plan to convert it over to more upright and back-friendly handlebars and remove the slightly more aggressively positioned clip-on bars.

For the last four months, my SV had been in storage in a facility on the outskirts of Philadelphia. This morning my cousin Nina and I loaded up into my Nissan Xterra and drove out to the storage unit. When I lifted the door and saw my bike sitting there covered and undisturbed, I felt like Marty McFly opening the cave where Doc Brown had hidden the DeLorean. It was like finding a lost treasure.

I rolled it out into the sunlight to install the battery and see if I could get it started. It took a little while, about five or six minutes, but I finally choked and gassed it to life. It sounded better than I remembered. When I first got into motorcycles I was initially drawn to the sound of an inline four. But now the sound of a high performance v-twin engine does it for me every single time.

After we let it warm up for 10 minutes or so, I put on my riding gear and hit the road towards home. And even though the temperature must not have been much over 40° it was a magnificent feeling to be back on my bike again. I can't get away from the pleasure I feel when I am a part of the environment through which I'm traveling rather than passively observing it from the confinement of an automobile. When I got home, my fingers were stinging with pain and my nose was running faster than Usain Bolt. And I had loved every minute of it.

Get ready. You can be sure more motorcycling blogs will be coming soon. C'mon spring!

peace.

A Quick Thought on Motorcycling Responsibility

A friend of mine (let's call him Marley) just bought his very first motorcycle ever, a 2005 Kawasaki ZX-6R. It looks something like this:

For all intents and purposes, this is one of the most powerful and capable models in the middleweight class of supersport motorcycles. It's so capable, in fact, that Keith Code's California Superbike School used a fleet of these (or its predecessors) as their instruction bikes from its inception in the late 1970s until 2009. It's the kind of motorcycle that can get away from a rider really quickly if not operated with respect for its ability.

I can't help but feel concern. Here's why.

Consider some numbers for a moment. This bike produces 105 hp at the rear wheel and weighs 430 lbs with a full tank of gas. In the same year, the base model Toyota Corolla (the best selling passenger car name plate in the world) made 130 hp and weighed 2,670 lbs. It turns out that when you do the math, the Corolla has 97 horses for every 2000 lbs of weight it has to move, or 97hp/1 ton. The ZX-6R has 488 ponies for every 2000 lbs, or 488hp/ 1 ton. To give you an idea of how incredibly insane that is, the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport (which is the 3rd fastest production car one can buy) offers up 474 hp/ 1 ton.

It's not my desire to infringe on anyone's freedom to do or buy whatever they like. I'm all about people choosing their own way. However, I can't help but feel an amount of frustration when people like Marley aren't given full disclosure of this type of information before making this kind of decision. I mean, this cat's a smart guy. He's not an idiot. I'm sure if he would have known that he was purchasing a machine with this type of performance capability, he would have probably considered other options. And yes, he took the motorcycle safety course and that's a wonderful first step. NO, HE DOESN'T HAVE A JACKET OR GLOVES YET. And, most likely, no one properly measured him for a correctly fitting helmet.

But someone did sell him what basically amounts to a bicycle that can do 160+ mph. Priorities much?

Odds are, Marley will be fine. The bike is going to scare him at least once in the first week. He's going to be super-pissed when he drops that thing in the driveway after forgetting to put the kickstand down. That fairing is going to cost a grip! But other than that he'll probably not have any major incidents.

Nevertheless, we as motorcyclist have to be better than this. We must create a comfortable and safe learning environment for our beginner riders. We cannot simply throw them to the wolves of speed and horsepower to fend for themselves. There's nothing out there for them but pain (physical and monetary) and eventual disinterest. The experiences they have in the first steps of their two-wheeled journey will have lasting effects on the rest of their motorcycling lives. We have to make sure those experiences are as informed, as aware, and as inspiring as they can be.

peace.