Cycle-wary

Great article.

Yeah it is too bad these particular machines are allowed on the public street system. I could not drive my highly regulated and much safer, seat belted, air-bagged four wheeled car around with a big hole in it's muffler while spewing excessively toxic fumes but yet these addicted riders are allowed these special freedoms.

There comes a time in every sane rider's life when they realize: 1) the odds of a seriously debilitating or life-ending mishap are stacked horribly against them; 2) they are not immune to the laws of physics, weather, or random acts of stupidity commited by inattentive drivers; and 3) giving up the two-wheeled life is an altogether better choice than expecting those you care about to continue reliving your senseless death in a bike crash. For me, that realization came at age 28, after several close calls.

I chickened out at about 24, after laying down my bike after making a simple turn in perfect conditions.

So, Don, how is the gas mileage on your car??

Are you aware of the typical gas mileage a motorcycle gets?

aside from a BSA twin with flames painted on the gas tank decades ago, i confess to riding rice burners. one was a honda 500cc vee twin, shaft drive, liquid cooled, red-lined at 10,000 rpm, shift out of second at 50 mph. i raced once with a young harley rider on hwy 33 below casitas springs. he had the costume on, sleeveless levi shirt, keychain on belt loop, tattoos and bandana. we got near a hundred and had to slow down. he laughed and shook his hands, the vibration tingled them, fun but illegal.
another nice bike was the yamaha 500cc single, a thumper, plenty of torque, leap across the intersection before the driver on the right remembered where the accelerator pedal was, throw it around bends on casitas pass, only weighed 264lb!
i liked your dad's words, "if it does more to you than for you....." now if i could just apply that to my vodka intake. nothing like grabbing a handful of throttle and having enough power to straighten one's arms. hang on!

one last comment; a friend in ojai restored a knucklehead. when i entered his tiny house the entire motorcycle was in pieces on the floor in his living room. he brought it back to life and it was a dramatic day when he first cranked her up. it had the suicide clutch and shift lever. pat faughnan was his name, now lives in SB i think. there was a very good article on motorcycling in harper's of all places. i can't transfer it from my email to here.

"Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone" -John Mellencamp- (From "Jack and Diane")

Your dad hasn't lost the thrill of living, which ironically, despite it's dangers, will probably add many years onto his life. Either way, he's gotten more out of 65 years than many get out of 90 years.

loonpt; 30 mpg. But I hope you don't want to get into a silly discussion about mpg; unless you want to crunch the differing mpgs of a dead or paralyzed 2 wheeler. I'd calculate the mpg for the deceased at zero. But depending on the vehicle of an LVN for a surviving acutely injured you could calculate a rather high mpg. I admit I don't even know how to calculate the mpg if you forego an LVN and instead a relative stays at home 24/7/ 365 as a caregiver to rotate every 2 hours around the clock and wipe twice a day. It is your choice but my discussion here is for concern is for safety and impacts to the environment we all share and live in, regardless of all these thrilling and invigorating options promoted by profiteers.

It's life--you get to pick your own damage, be it motorcycles, vodka, pot, and even meth (although too many blindly get into seriously addictive drugs, and then are stuck).

@DonMcDermott
Do you realize that no matter how much "safety" equipment is mandated to be in/on cars, the U.S. will never be able to fix the one part that would make a difference: the driver. Mechanically, it's a spiral, where cars get more powerful and go faster, which causes more damage in a crash, which leads to more safety equipment, and more weight, which requires more horsepower (to get the same--or better--performance), which makes the car go faster, and so on, and so on. . . .

Sure, modern bikes are crazy-fast, but cycling also falls into the baliwick of Darwinism.

Disclaimer: I started riding at 15, and am almost 40 now. Recently, I just got a new bike after a layoff of about a decade.

It amazes me that I never, ever hear about the inadequacies of the two-wheeler driver? Are they 100% idiot-free? Hmmmm. My experience(s) on the highway (I commute about 500 miles a week through LA and IE traffic) offers a different take. There are just as many idiots on two-wheels as there are sittin' on four and 18.