Lawmakers add tax cuts for cycles, RVs to stimulus Boston Herald Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Ford teams up with Harley for newly inspired truck San Francisco Chronicle Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Harley-Davidson gains $600m boost BBC News Take a look at an interesting article we found.
There's something reassuring about the perfect symmetry of a man walks into a bar joke...especially in these unpredictable times.
February 19, 2009
You have to wonder what transforms mild mannered CPA’s, dentists, computer programners, normally sane women, into crazed, anything goes, (within reason) weekend warriors.
It's not all about the biker clothes.
Some of it has to do with Marlon Brando and Harley Davidson.
A biker tried to explain it once; Harleys might leak, but that leak marks your territory.
Naturally there wouldn't have been a motorbike, if there hadn't the bicycle. The history is a bit murky but historians agree that Ernest Michaux did invent the modern pedal-driven bicycle in 1861.
Then someone got the bright idea to put a motor on it.
Sylvester Roper built the first self-propelled two-wheeled machine in America. His was a two-cylinder steam engine, powered by coal. Although there was one small problem with a steam-powered bike; it didn’t have enough power to go anyplace.
Finally, in 1876, the internal combustion engine came into being, thanks to N.A. Otto of Germany. Not that it was perfect. The sparkplug hadn’t been invented yet, and somehow, the fact that it was charged by a bunson burner didn’t quite grab you.
Fellow German Gottlieb Daimler saw the potential and created the first gas-engined motorcyle in 1885. And Arthur Davidson, a 20 year old pattern maker, and Bill Harley, a 21 year old draftsman, capitalized on Daimler's breakthrough a couple of decades later.
In the century, since its founding, Harley Davidson has walked a fine line between its outlaw biker market, and selling "hogs" to weekend warriors.
So why risk your neck on a two-wheeled machine that weighs only a few hundred pounds? Non-dare devils want to know.
Novelist, poet James Dickey had one answer. From "Cherrylog Road."
"And I to my motorcycle
Parked like the soul of the junkyard
Restored, a bicycle fleshed
With power, and tore off
Up Highway 106, continually
Drunk on the wind in my mouth,
Wringing the handlebar for speed,
Wild to be wreckage forever."
Robert Pirsig in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance "said it in another way: "You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.”
So how do you find your inner weekend warrior? Snowboarding? Sky diving? Mountain biking? Taking the kids to Chuck E. Cheese? Extreme needle pointing?
With the Academy Awards coming up, we can always discuss our favorite biker flicks.
The Wild One imdb.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Easy Rider filmsite.org Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Invention of the Motorcyle ideafinder.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Riding motorcycles is for me-flying without wings, grace for the clumsy, power for the weak, dang...
Feb. 19, 2009 1:20 AM
Favorite biker movie?
43% 21% 0% 14% 14% 7%
Howdy: As a child I had several "mini bikes" that grew into Honda trail 50's and 70's. In 1973 I got a Honda Elsinore CR250M. It was an awesome machine and could really ride the trails. When the boys were born, my life took an "avoid risk" posture and I quit riding. Now my thrill is sailboats. Still have the wind in your face, adrenalin rush and now I can sit down and enjoy the ride. I can also share the adventure with other folks along for the ride.
One of the Marish brothers got the idea when we were in junior high school of mounting a lawnmower engine on a bicycle, and then mounting a lever and a wheel over an old fan belt -- which acted as homebrew slip clutch.
First, pull and pull on the handle to get the lawnmower engine going (amid a cloud of bluish smoke), then hop on the bicycle, and then -- oh so gently -- pull on the lever to get the fan belt moving. Usually with a sudden jerk it would catch, and off one would fly.... It was dangerous as hell, but no one ever got hurt...
Such it was growing up in a neighborhood where most of the dads were engineers or chemists -- and all the kids were nuts!
Riding motorcycles is for me-flying without wings, grace for the clumsy, power for the weak, danger for the safe, machine noise to drown out the human noise, vibration to calm a body and soul that is constantly rubbed the wrong way with the daily grind, sweet release from the tearfully painful mundane.
I've ridden since high school, well over a decade. I've been through a couple bikes, I've rented or borrowed different brands and styles. I could care less about the label, its the horse that rides you into the sunset...its the experience not the brand name to drop. I'm not into the biker-crowd, in fact I am anti-biker. I like to ride alone or just with family members. There is no joy for me in "looking cool" or acting tough, it is about the way that I can breathe on my motorcycle that I can't anywhere else.
Me, alone on the bike, no music, no passengers, no a/c, no heat, no schedule, no deadline...smelling the asphalt and road salt, feeling the change in temperature around every bend, wholly experiencing the environs that I skim through time after time.
I hardly rode at all last summer...no time, never enough time, too many demands, this place, that person, THE project, hurry hurry hurry, run run run, don't STOP! I missed the freedom of the road, then I went out to stop time the way I used to on my bike, and I found myself afraid and hesitant. Time for safer hobbies my practical adult self said, and my carefree child self cried but knew it was time.
Still smile when I see a truly beautiful bike that is a sort of velveteen rabbit, not shiney and new...but loved until the wear shows. Still cringe when I see something that looks like an aluminum christmas tree on 2 wheels, ridden by someone who is looking to make sure everyone else is looking at them.
more on the honor rollI hate feeling old and practical at 29, it is depressing.
On motorcycle branding. Had an acquaintance who LOVED all things Harley, and she didn't know how to ride a motorcycle. That's not the sad part. The sad part is that she always told anyone who would listen that she was saving up for a Sportster (I recommended the Heritage softail, but no one listens to me). Over the 5 years that I knew her, she spent enough on Harley memorabilia to plaster around her house...including 2 HD tattoos on her body (what the heck?!?! Advertise for free for them? )...that she could have paid her mortgage off in cash, or brought a brand spaking new MV Augusta for her and her closest friends.
Common sense, not so common.
M.I.
Apologies to everyone else.
My, what creative friends we have...eh? They hadn't planned on gettiing weathered in and having to stay.
I wasn't kidding about that guy spending time every day finding something good to say about someone. You just never know who?
They made a little video of themselves sitting on the couch, feet up on the steamer trunk that serves as a coffee table, wearing their glasses, my hats and reading a huge pile of papers.
The motto of their institution of lower learning seems to be: "We can't fail them all..
can we?
He reads three people here, one is you, one is Willie and one is not.
I made him find and send you Stoney's Hymn because it seemed rude not to have done so. It took an hour.
I kind of hope he intends to stay more in touch now that he has figured out how.
iS
STONEY, here's a hangover from yesterday:
A man walks into the top of a door frame...
because you have given me the big head. I'll try to deserve the praise later. We'll just call it deficit spending, right?
I was watching Neil Young's Heart of Gold last night. It may be the only DVD I have ever seen where I enjoyed the music loop for the main menu. And things only get better. And despite what Ronnie Van Zant said ( A Southern man don't need him around anyhow) Mr Young's stage presence is endearing and self-deprecating. I won't tell you about how he describes his early life as a chicken farmer ( he may have been 10) or how totally HOT Emmy Lou Harris looks. What I want to share is how he talks about his father's dementia. He starts out by saying "A lot of us are getting to the age where our parents are dying..."
It's just a song intro, but I expect it is related to what Nachista and Cap'n Neptune were saying. A lot of us are getting to the age where we are aware of risks and responsibilities. Everything you told your mother at 16 about how safe motorcycles are is still true, but so is all of the stuff she or your father told you back. And then there is the time.
I think one of my first posts was about a father, sensible and methodical, dull even, who rides a Harley. I do not know which model, but I am sure it was the least expensive one. Somehow he manages to balance his one-step-this-side -of-an-actuary thought process, his need for consistency when he tries to tell his 19 year old son about how to live, and his own desire to get a few bugs in his teeth. Maybe it takes a thousand CCs to tote all of that around.
Somehow I know a lot of doctors and we all know what THEY say about donor-cycles. But if you spend time around horses or woodworking tools, pretty soon you start hearing about some surgeon who loved them, but just decided the risk was too great.
I talked recently on the phone with an online friend. We had developed a loyalty without hearing each other speak and so, for me at least, there was a little shock of a reminder that I might not move as fast as the rest of the world. For instance I might not really have a solid, well defined point here.
Oh, yeah...I have a couple of scooters. One is technically a motorcycle, at 150 cc, but I find it big and a little bit clumsy compared to the zippy little 50 cc. I wouldn't park either of them within a hundred feet of a real motorcycle if I could help it. I wear a helmet and I try to lean back so I won't look like one of those guys who is hoping to get from 27 to 28mph by leaning forward. And I try to remember how many times larger an SUV is than I am.
But I busted up my front teeth on a plain old bicycle when I was long past the age of knowing better. We pick our risks, I guess.
And that's better than being caught picking your nose.
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-walt-babyboomers-blurb,0,1036393.blurb
I am soooo sorry, but I just couldn't resist.
But with a surname like mine, well I guess I'm allowed.
Loved that, Janet. It's perfect for a biker friend of mine. She fell in love with the Harley brand and could probably compete with nachista's pal on how much HD crep she's bought over the years.
Her story is the cautionary tale you tell your kids.....bought bike, deer hits bike, leg broken in 12 places, numerous surgeries, lost job, on disability.
You WILL put your eye out, kid!
When I was in my 20s I visited a friend in DC and then hung out in Dupont Circle (back when it was a hang out spot for the 'unusual people'). I saw a couple playing some strange board game I'd never seen before... (It turned out to be the Oriental analogue of chess: 'Go'). We got to talking and it turned out he was a competitive motorcycle racer. The topic turned to strange and scary things he'd seen in races -- like the guy who missed a turn, zoomed off into a woods, and emerged unscathed since he'd missed every single tree trunk! I remember his safety rules: (1) always wear leathers (so you don't leave your skin all over the roadway should you go down; (2) get your leg out of the soon-to-be bottom side of your bike if you can (hundreds of pounds on your leg is not good); (3) hold onto the bike as it slides (when something impacts, better the bike than your body); and (4) always wear a helmet (scrambled brains are non-functional). I pretty much decided then and there that watching was a better idea than participating....
Years later (in Thailand) I found out that our military superiors, ever conscious of losing their financial investment in our (hopefully) trained bodies, did not want any of their tax dollars to be wasted in unneccessary deaths. And statistics showed that the death rate per mile on motorcycles was FOURTEEN times that of riding in automobiles (i.e. buses or taxis, since we couldn't have cars in Thailand). I sort of circumvented the 'ban' by riding my bicycle downtown, dodging cars, potholes, trucks, other bicycles, samlors, and pedestrians. Sheer insanity, though it was on base that I had my only accident (stone cold sober, I might add) on my bicycle: broken avicular (that's in one's wrist), and a concussion.
Now, as I drive down the freeway at 70 and watch folks whiz past me on motorcycles at 95 -- weaving from lane to lane, sans helmet, dressed in shorts and T-shirts --I simply think, 'Unbelievable!'
And then I think, 'You're getting old and crochety, dude!'
Motorcycles are still in my future.
(pssst. Our host has put a lot of good stuff on sale.)
YOUR ECONOMY NEEDS YOU. DO YOUR PART.
I have a few friends who ride ~ I enjoy going for a ride on a friends cycle every once in awhile, but I learned in High School that it just wasn't for me. So I am content to watch along with Doc Nolan & maybe every once in a while grab a ride with a responisble driver.
My Grandmother though ALWAYS wanted to ride a Harley she got her chance at the age of 81 & She LOVED it.
They dont' call them "Donor-cycles" for nothing. In 2008 more Marines were killed in Motorcycle accidents than in combant in Iraq. Bikes can be a reasonably safe and fun past time, again I say...Common sense, not so common, especially in the male 16-35 demographic.
Love this quote from the Wild One.
"What're you rebelling against, Johnny?"
"Whaddya got?"
I know of a great "back way" to OBX. It's perfect and popular with the Harley and the "Crotch Rocket" set.Get into Va Beach.....find the "Court House" in the old Princess Anne County area.Pick up Princess Anne Rd.This will take you south thru Pungo,Blackwater, Creeds andMunden all the way to Knotts island and the Knotts island Ferry.Take 168 south to 158 south...the rest is easy. This takes you thru parts of what I like to call 'Virginia's Bayou. A little side trip to the Blackwater and Northwest rivers are , near Old Pungo Ferry Rd. is quite nice too.
Alone am I, maybe in never having ridden a motorcycle. There are reasons: In seventh grade, a classmate was killed riding his, and we went as a class to his funeral. WHen I reached high school, the only boys who had motorcycles had also slicked-back hair; some were WWII vets late taking advantage of free education; and all were 'off-limits.' And yet, and yet...a (female) friend from HS and I spoke recently of HS (watching wildlife creep into her yard to eat what she puts our; she's the one I told yall about), and agreed that while we don't want to re-live them, and have had more adventures post-then than during, we do wish we'd gotten to know more people. In a big class like ours (400+) you tended, then (don't know what they do today) to know your own circle of friends, mostly dated within it (my one excursion 'outside' was a waste: he could scarcely make a complete sentence; I, heretofore the shy wallflower, was delighted to date the star of basketball and baseball in a school that consistently won state championships in both. Scary to ponder how heaven helps not only the working girl, but teenagers, especially shy ones. Imagine if we'd married the people we dated. Not every story is as lovely as Stoney's, which I'll never forget. We mulled over what wonderful folks we probably missed, and they us.
Turned-up collars, ducktail haircuts, too much whatever on that hair set them apart -- but how interesting those boys-men-boys must've been. And more worldly-wise than any of us.
Willie, I find your paean to Stoney beautiful, even knowing nothing of context. You and he and john move me; your words stay.
Welcome obie1952, sorry I forgot yesterday...we were talking food, which grabs all my attention, 'specially MACKDADDY's Valentine dinner and her once-a-month brunches. MMmhmmmmmm
Pam, when we were discussing grits, polenta, etc., I meant to ask have you a good recipe for poletna? Because I like anything cornmeal (certainly dressing, which I'll eat leftoer, cold), polenta interested me the first time I saw it. I sliced it, browned it in butter, and with lots of coarse black pepper it was pretty good. But there must be a world of ways to use it; I've consulted a few cookbooks, will consult others, but I haven't bought one in a while, and polenta is a recent addition to our Fresh Market's shelf so perhaps a new cookbook is the answer. Oh -- someone said 'recipes on internet.' I never THINK of that since this forum is my first anything-of-that-sort. I'll try it, but if anyone has tried-and-true ones...
Topic? oh, yes...well, my offering is now you know why I never had the pleasure. My daddy's elder brother, though, had a motorcycle with a sidecar, which I only heard about but thought incredibly romantic. That was in the boys' misspent (I plagiarize Willie again)youth before their parents sent them off to Riverside Military Academy 'to straighten them out.' That was the way of things BM (before marriage) back then, I guess.
I DID read and love Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, however, and drove twice weekly to James Dickey's graduate seminar on poetry at USC, an invigorating and learning experience on lots of levels.
Hobbies, who has time for hobbies? Although extreme needle point does sound promising.
Hey I NEED an Etreme Needle Point Course ~ Then maybe I will finally get the Tablecloth done for T&C that they were suppose to get for Christmas 2007.
Good Day fellas and ladies:
Nobody can out do me today!!! I have a sleek, beautiful, black and silver deluxe "easy rider" motorcycle sitting in my garage right now!!!! Along with a red and black formula one racecar, a John Deere tractor and wagon, a golf cart, and a monster truck. Oh yea I guess I'd better mention that that are all electric, hold no more than 100 lbs., and go 3 m.p.h. max. I don't even have room to pull my car into our 2 car garage due to the fleet of vehicles that my three grandsons own. So that's the extent of my motorcycle knowledge. I am spicy in my old age, but that's where I draw the line. The thrill of the open road doesn't intrique me at all. I get my kicks from far less dangerous ventures.
My dream machines.........
This beauty.....
http://www.indianmotorcycle.com/TheMotorcycles1/ChiefDeluxe/ChiefDeluxeFeatures/tabid/155/Default.aspx
or, more likely.....
http://www.vespausa.com/scooters.php#/overview/Vespa%20GTV%20250
or, as a last resort.......
http://bitsandpieces1.blogspot.com/2007/02/pee-wee-hermans-bike.html
..
Peter....ya beat me to the Indian....
a dear friend rebuilt one of these in his living room a few years back...
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1946-indian-chief.htm
Eve's mention of a motorcycle with a side-car set me off a "Googling" ‘cos I remember wishing for that very same thing on this sight. It was the very first link that took me back to May 24, 2008 and we were all sidetracked by the idea of "pimping our favorite Peterman"
Back then I had mentioned "What I always yearned for but couldn't quite take the leap of faith for was The Motorcycle with the Side Car", which eventually led to s discussion of driving it at night and howling at the moon....and pole dancing.
Now that is exactly what Bilbo Baggins tried to warn us about when he mentioned that by just stepping out onto a road, why it could lead you to just about anywhere...
Janet Sturgis,..
Now that's a beauty. I'd probably want to allways park it in my living room.
Peace out.
This weekend warrior is off on another shenanigan (http://sandinmyswimsuit.com)
On stupid phone right now. Snow is coming down hard.
Never ridden a Hog. But I get it. Loved the poem. It's how I feel when I run. It's why I run. Especially when I'm tearing through the woods and it serendipitously spits me into an open field. I feel like a race horse, just outta the gate.
The bikers have always been so helpful to me in pinches on my adventures. Modern-day cowboys.
iStoney,
Can't begin to describe the giddiness of getting to office, opening email and seeing HouseGuest in my inbox! And then to see he was telling me a story, not only ABOUT my iStoney, but FROM iStoney's infamous iMac!
Magical day. Giddy. I will hunt him down if he does not stay in touch.
Signing off. Weekend war must commence.
M.I.
Some of my favorite custom designs...
http://www.exilecycles.com/
All of which are powdercoated by my good friends and amazing powdercoaters at Andrew's Powdercoating in Chatsworth...
http://www.powdercoater.com/
http://www.powderthis.com/
If you call and talk to Sandee directly and get her going on Arabian horses she may just give you a discount.
HOG, isn't a motorcycle, technically it stands for Harley Owner's Group.
M.I.,
We had breakfast so early that most of the other diners were still out.
Guy never has a hangover. They got off and back to school before lunch.
It occurs to me: I have two e-mail accounts on this computer, he has four.
You get compound sentences from the man. I get links and then: "Read it yet?"
War?
iS
Thanks Nachista, I wondered what that stood for. I know absolutely nothing about HOGS except how to cook one!
Anybody ever see THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN?
And then there is THIS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lCH5JgWCZY
If you have better, let's see and hear it. I believe Mr Thompson is as good as it gets.
Stoney ~ the M&M's Miss Ive is promising are MINE ;) Please just send your white flag to me & call it a day..
http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/dictionary/A.htm
"HOG" vs "Hog"
WT,
Anthony Hopkins did shine in that movie.
rings90,
I had nothin' but Houseguest has weighed in. They're evidently close personal friends.
Did he mention Chuck E.Cheese? Only been there as a grandparent but I have a long held belief that a guy outside that place with a pitcher of martinis would have to work but about two days a month.
This may somehow be stepping into the land of the cliché, but whenever I hear it this one I cranks up the volume, close my eyes tight, feel my heart pounding on the inside of my ears while the music pounds the outer drums and all the while wearing a shiite eating grin even though I may swallow some bugs on my magical ride.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGFfO5fUvE&feature=related
As a teenager, I never gave my parent's previous lives much thought. I was grateful and proud, though, when my dad defended me against an evil, constipated 8th grade English teacher who insisted I cut his class. My dad's response was, "when I cut class, I didn't show up at all."
Later, upon commission of naughtier deeds in high school and getting caught, my dad would scold and punish and then chuckle when he caught me doing the exact same thing the very next day. Yeah, sometimes we were not very clever but I rarely got caught at it.
Imagine, then, my surprise and delight at finding out my dad, Mr. Staid, Responsible, Rock-Solid Perfect, actually owned a Harley while in college. Early 1950s, he bought it so he wouldn't have to hitch from Chicago to OK to college. Not only that, NO helmet! Total admiration was complete when he shared the secret for free repairs.....simply wait until something was about ready to go and then agree to let a pal borrow it.
Stoney Chuck E Cheese is living dangerously...that ball pit is Pink Eye waiting to happen.
Janet hog came from HOG, or if it is a bike built during Harley's AMA days then its just called a trash wagon.
I hate it when guys who think that because they are male that means they are an expert on bikes, walk up to me on mine and start touching my bike and clicking their tongues and asking me what year my "hog" is...its a freaking Yamaha dudes, el-cheapo Japanese horse and not that impressive. They would NEVER do that to my brother on his Ducati.
I think you mean AM F, Nachista, not AMA. The AMA is the doctors. American Machine and Foundry, better known as sporting goods makers... There's bound to be a balls joke in there somewhere.
Great link, Peter Lake, I do not think you need to worry about cliches and subtlety here. And your link dates back from when he was earning the title The Boss instead of acting like he was The Man. Of course, we were all a lot younger then.
yes, AMF, AMA was a typo on my part. Harley's stock exchange abbreviation is HOG as well.
Actually...legend has it the pig was an early mascot of the racing team in the 20's hence the nickname"hog" ....."H.O.G." only dates to the 80's...two different words..different spellings. One is a longstanding nickname(hog) and another is an acronym(H.O.G.) that is a clever reflection of that nickname.
I'm not tryng to be contentious, just clear on proper usage....PEACE !!!
Clear communication is key to solving the world's ills...
I can vouch for Chuck E. Cheese as far as living dangerously.
This wasn't the clip I was looking for but I do love Gonzo's unstoppable spirit! I was looking to find the Muppet Show's Miss Piggy (that ever lovable hog) with Link Hogthrob, in their leather jackets on motorcycles (HOG's, of course), with a group of other pigs on their bikes, and I think I remember them singing "Born to be Wild"...the things I recall...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tRPEd_LGIQ
Eve - I don't have a recipe for polenta that is very good. So far, mine have all turned out a bit on the watery side. I saw a picture on the Internet for one that looked delicious, with wild mushrooms and parmesan cheese, but I was unable to find the recipe that went with the photo. I'm with you - I'd prefer making a tried-and-true recipe from someone I know (especially if they can give me helpful little hints) than to just attempt a random one online.
I rode a motorcycle - once. I remember loving the sensation of being open to the wind, the thrill of the noise and power, and the feel of the road. I also remember not anticipating the stops and starts very well, which resulted in the smacking of my helmet against the helmet of the guy I was hanging onto...he never took me out again. I'd try once more someday, if given the chance.
I've uploaded a biker photo of my "flapper" of a grandmother, who loved to ride her beau's (later to be my grandfather's) Harley-Davidson - in 1925.
I have landed. Sitting in bay of hotel room window, reading posts.
Stoney. Did you just say "compound sentence" to me on my rare escape from the horrid red pen?! I kid.
And, Rings, Stoney is correct. Houseguest did send a pigeon to my inbox. With one word. THE correct word.
Which leads me to the purpose of this note. Stoney, just what kind of an operation are you running over there? Multiple email addresses for vagrant house looters?! I love that HouseGuest wrote, but that means you could, too. And should. And tell me how we can all get passes to Stoney's liquor cabinet and iMac parties!
Off to meet the girls I met ten years ago,at their salon, in these here parts, when I walked in one day and asked them to hack off my braid, "because I have a date with my ex."
Them: oh. You want to look perfect!
Me: no. He hates short hair.
We've been close ever since.
Hi all:
I have had a fair amount of experience with owning and riding motorcycles both on and off road. When I moved to my current house, where rurality is eminent, I bought a Suzuki motocross bike to amuse myself, only to realize that its loud rice-burning sound basically alienated everyone within a two mile radius.
In my opinion, the best motorcycle-themed film is an early film by Paul Verhoeven, when he was still in the NL and hadn't yet come to Hollywood. It's called "Spetters." It's themed around a Dutch dentist, Garret Wolsink, who filled cavities during the week, and was a profoundly succesful motocross racer on weekends.
Neptune: I am entering in the JP photo contest a picture I shot about 20 years ago during one of my many many trespasses onto your land. It's of some trees in a frozen bog during an ethereal and ephemeral moment early on a Sunday morning.
Doc: the closest I have ever come to being killed was on a rented dirt bike that was still street-legal in Phuket. Driving on the left isn't hard to do, but there was a moment during a morning ride where the instincts just didn't kick in. I laid the bike down in the road in an extended skid ending under the front of someone's sedan. It almost could've ended in a stuntman's flourishing bounce off a hood. Despite the momentary fright, it was just a simple mistake, and I resumed riding undeterred.
I rode Honda 90 and 70's as a kid. That was the end of my motorcycle career. Maybe one of these days, I like the Urals with the sidecar (true 1940's engineering available now), maybe an Enfield or a BMW.
I know a lot of bikers, they ride to ride, might wear a harley tee once in a while or they may not ride harley's and have other fast bikes. They have usually ridden all their lives. I have seen a lot more adopt at midlife the harley lifestyle and buy the new big harley. I guess whatever floats your boat.
Nachista, I do love the Exile Cycles. Russel did something new and very old putting the fat front tire in the front. The things just look BAD (good). His designs just work.
Peter Lake, must add that if we all rode Pee Wee Hermans' bike, the Whizzer (okay, there is something wrong with all of that in one sentance), we would be much better off as a country. We lost something when the car replace the bicycle.
i think i've figgered-out that to respond to a comment from a few days ago, i simply post on the current day--true?
i'm too scared of the consequences of motorcycle misfortunes to enjoy the wonders available to riders--i've held-on in a few short rides & drove a motor scooter some, but it feels too risky to me to go hog-wild.
Olivia, if u pass thru here we can go for a spin in my old car.
Georgia, did u like Peggy's site/blog?
bd
Growing up tomboy in a crowd of guys, bikes were inevitable, I suppose. I started out at 14, on a Yamaha 60cc dirt bike, plenty fast enough to kill myself, and I came close a few times, trying (and succeeding!) to keep up with the boys down dry river beds, through saplings on deer trails, and all over the power line cuts. We went anywhere the pavement ended, and I spent a lot of time showing my taillight to the sheep in their big iron too. Yes-I did have an attitude, and it was way bigger than the Kawasaki 90, or the Yamaha 250 that followed. I got run off the road, and had so many near-misses that I went bigger and bigger, thinking surely they'd see THIS one! By the time I was 18, I was riding a Harley. My brothers helped me find an old hardtail panhead retired cop cycle. It was a standard 883cc bored out to 1000, bad lifters, fishtail exhaust, apehangers, and a sissy bar. Solid black with a bit of chrome, no key-just a killswitch. No speedo, no crash bars (HA!), suicide clutch, stick shift, NO ELECTRIC IGNITION. I had to learn how to jump that monster and not break my leg. At 120 pounds, it was some feat to get him going. He weighed near 800. I learned how to do the lifters, tune it up, and make it scream. I'd go out in the summer in a halter top, cutoffs, helmet and sneakers. Seemed ok to me-couldn't afford those lovely tight leathers, darnit.
No one ever hit me on that big boy, but I did get some looks, and a few comments. "Daddy let you ride his bike, girly?" "Your boyfriend is gonna be SO pissed when he finds out you're out on his hawg!" That sort of thing...I'd take off my helmet, shake out my hair, give 'em the gotohell look, flip the kickstand and strut off. That's me at 18. I intimidated a few guys, I'd say.
I got hit on a friend's Triumph, and swore off all of 'em, to this day. Working trauma and ER only made me wish I'd done so sooner. I hated the three-wheelers, and the fours aren't much better. Prone to flip, they've caused a lot of para- and quadriplegia. I told my kids if they EVER got on one of those suicycles, as we called them in ER, I'd jerk a knot in their tail.
I raced souped up go-carts and minibikes, and helped to restore a 41 Chevy my brothers took on. I love machines that go, but a head injury is nothing to shrug at. I guess everything's a trade-off, it just depends on what you want to wager...
OLIVIA:
A truly fascinating Resume !!! Where the Hell were you when I was trying to put together an All Girl Pit Crewe ???
My love for Motorcycles is a little hotter than average, but my ownership was limited to a BSA Bear Cub, that was dependable, but wasn't really a threat to the Triumph Tiger Cub or the Harley 10 ... Love Harleys beyond them all, and don't like Rice Burners at all - - Yeah, Yeah, I know all about all the Jap Crap World Records ... but thats just a flash in the pan ... Harley is THE HOG !!! I have spent most of my life in or inder a Car, but I am still looking for a '47 Harley Flathead Twin to Restore someday ....... But at least, I can tell my Grandkids that I have Blogged with the Little Rock Road Rocket !!!
Ivan, I was just waiting for your call, darling! I was all hot to be Girl Number One-what happened?
Cheers,
Rocket Girl