I am sitting in a Volkswagen dealer while I wait for service to be completed on my girlfriend’s car. A bored salesman chats with me sporadically, and I make the mistake of saying, “I don’t own a car”. His eyes light up like I’m fresh meat. For the next ten minutes I try to convince him how much of a motorcycle nut I really am and it goes something like this…

You must miss the AC during the summer months here in Phoenix.

I deal with two months of hell and enjoy the other 10 month of riding. I’m not going to buy a car that I use two months out of the year only.

Pretty dangerous with all these crazy drivers.

I’ve gotten used to them and keep a close eye on other drivers. You just have to maintain your space, be attentive and you’re fine.

You need balance though. Can’t have just a motorcycle.

I find balance in my checking account with the extra cash that isn’t going to a car payment every month.

You only live once though, ya know.

That’s why I bought a second motorcycle

He tried to get me to go on a test drive. He even said he would drive while I continue to play on my laptop, but kept giving him a disinteresting “Nah.” After a while of these games he finally gave up and walked away defeated.

I know he was just doing his job, but I thought it was a funny exchange, and a glimpse into some of the reasons why I prefer motorcycles over cars.

The following post was written about two years ago. I found it in my blog’s drafts and decided to share it after all this time.

A coworker of mine died last Saturday in a motorcycle accident. The rider was traveling too fast while a car made a left turn in front of him. I went to go see where it happened, partly out of respect, but mostly out of morbid curiosity. I saw the road damage before I noticed the street sign. The white dust they thrown down to soak up the oil was still clinging to the asphalt. I walk around the site and noticed broken cable from a turn signal and shards of the plastic fairings. The sight of a broken foot peg, sends chills up my spine.

I’ve been riding for two years now. My worst fear is being lulled into a false sense of security. I read accident reports, statistics and look at gruesome photos from riders involved in crashes to remind myself of the realities. The stories incite sympathy. I analyze the statistics with a detached curiosity and I wince at the photos.

All of those combined didn’t add up to the sight of that snapped foot peg.

Cars making left turns is the single greatest cause of fatal motorcycle accidents. At every intersection you have to scan for this threat among many others. “Does that left turner see me?” “Does the truck behind me see me?” “Does the driver to my left see me?” “Does that kid near the crosswalk see me?” We all take our invisibility pills before you hop on our bikes. Perhaps I never needed one. I’ve felt isolated throughout most of my life. I go unnoticed and blend in throughout the day.

Now my life depends on people acknowledging my existence. You are utterly alone, and the only recognition the world gives you is a head on collision, a side swipe or a rear end.

On the way home from the scene I trail behind traffic and spot a left turner waiting to make his move. As the last car passes he accelerates quickly and he whips a U turn as I rock on the throttle and swerve to the right. Not a close call, but I make sure it didn’t turn into one. After every close call I don’t feel angry anymore. To be angry implies that it should have been otherwise, but wishing it wasn’t so won’t save you from all the negligent drivers on the road. Instead I smile and congratulate myself on another successful maneuver and then scold myself for not doing better so I don’t lull myself into a false sense of security.

After looking at this entry my perspective two years ago seems foreign to me. At least now a days I can say that I’m not as negative and don’t feel as disconnected and defensive about the world and my fellow drivers. We’re all out there trying to survive in one way or another.

The AMA has distributed a video public service announcement to news outlets across the country. Titled “The Distracted Driver,” the 30-second video uses a touch of humor to address the serious issue of inattentive drivers.

I’ve never seen this video on TV…then again, I don’t own a TV. Has anyone see this in their area? A good video, but I wonder how much coverage it actually received.

Original Source: AMA, MSF kickstart efforts to promote Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month

In 1973 Ted Simon set out on a four year journey on his 500cc Triumph T100-P that took him around the world. Tales of his travels were incredibly inspirational for me personally. The book is not merely an account of what happened when. It seems silly to call this a trip. Traveling for four years qualifies as a complete change of lifestyle.

Ted was a writer for the London Sunday Times. Throughout the book I could sense ways in which this journey has transformed him into something else. Here are some excerpts I found inspirational:

Finally the bike is poised over the water between the two boats. The outstretched arms can only hold it, by they cannot move it, and it is supported, incredibly, by the foot brake pedal, which is caught on the ship’s rail. Muscles are weakening. The pedal is bending and will soon slip, and mt journey will end in the fathomless silt of Mother Nile. At this last moment, a rope descends miraculously from the sky dangling a hook, and the day is saved.

I have just ridden that motorcycle 12,245 miles from London, and absolutely nobody here, watching me, knows it. As I think about it I have a sudden and quite extraordinary flash, something I never had before and am never able to recapture again. I see the whole of Africa in one single vision, as though illuminated by lighting. And that’s it. I’ve done it. I’m at peace.

During the following 24 hours I could conceive of only two possibilities: I would be deported, or I would be tortured and killed. As time passed I became increasingly pessimistic. I could get nobody to talk to me or listen to the simplest request. [...] It became impossible then to believe that the way they were treating me was merely through accidental neglect. It had to be deliberate. I could no longer accuse myself of paranoia.

[T]he “motoqueros,” all owned expensive three-cylinder Suzukis, and kept every spoke polished. They gathered in a special place in the evening, like a floating motorcycle showroom, and looked enviously at my scuffed and battered workhorse parked among them. I could not help being saddened that so much fine machinery was so completely underused. It felt almost sinful. If only machines could speak to each other, I thought, that would be a conversation I would to overhear.

Only four of the twenty spokes on one side of the wheel were left, and the rum was a terrible twisted shape. A few seconds more and it would certainly have collapsed. I shuddered to think of mangled mess that would have left. As it was, I spent one of the nastiest hours of the journey rebuilding the wheel in a twilight plagued by squadrons of vicious mosquitoes.

The circle I was describing around the earth might be erratic but the fact remained, it was real circle. The ends would meet and it would enclose the earth. I would have laid my tracks around the surface of this globe and at the end it would belong to me, in a way that it could never belong to anyone else. I trembled a bit at the fates I might be tempting.

If you would like to read more about Mr. Simon you can visit his website at http://www.jupitalia.com/

At a party last week an interesting discussion formed about motorcycles. Actually I take that back, it was more like a lecture on motorcycles. A young gentleman saw my motorcycle gear and asked, “What do you ride?” I answered and then he followed up with “How fast have you gotten it up to?” *DING* *DING* Squid Alert! I try and not answer those kinds of questions. My favorite responses is “Fast enough” or “pretty fast”. My ambiguity spawned off a discussion among a couple others about how fast the Hayabusas and ZX-14s go. My good friend says “Aw man I want one so bad.” I tell him, “No, what you need is a 500CC bike or less.” He scoffs at the notion, unable to believe that I failed to realize that the size of a motorcycle’s engine is directly correlated to the amount of fun one can have on it. Bigger is better right?

“I just don’t understand why people buy these ridiculously powerful machines. When this,” I stick my hand out to demonstrate a closed throttle position, “and this,” I rotate my hand slightly, “is the difference between life and death, I don’t understand how such a machine can be enjoyable as your first motorcycle.” I break eye contact with everyone and everything comes spilling out, “I mean most riders cannot even safely control half of that machine’s power safely, and when you are able to it’s too dangerous on public roads.” The GSXR guy interrupts and says, “Yea but on some open expressways it’s fairly safe to get up to those speeds, especially if you’ve surveyed the area first.” I reply, “Absolutely, I admit to doing it myself, however any idiot and throw open the throttle and head in a straight line. What the hell is the fun with that?” I realize I just implied that he was an idiot, but I keep going, “I have more fun going 20MPH on a switchback than I would going 200MPH down a straight away.”

I sense that I’m getting a little preachy and back off. The expressions on people’s faces are a mixture of polite confusion. Polite because they realize that a very sensitive issue has been brought up and they should tread lightly as if we were discussion the abortion issue. Confused because they realize that this guy is talking about motorcycles with such a passion that is on par with abortion activists.

It’s lost on them all.