Under a cloud

Older readers will remember Joe Bfstplk from the L’il Abner comic strip. He was the character constantly followed by a black rain cloud; a jinx who seemed destined to be forever leaving one disaster after another in his wake.

What brought me to this was the recollection of one of the more memorable experiences from my long-past days teaching the Basic Motorcycle Riders Course.

One of my students was a young man, 20’ish, who wanted to get his motorcycle license. The first hint of trouble came when he was having a lot of difficulty balancing the small dirt bikes we used for training. As it turned out, this was the first time he had ever been on two wheels as he had never learned to ride a bicycle! Okay, I thought, we can deal with that, and eventually I got him wobbling around the training area, very slowly, in first gear. So far so good. He only fell off a few times and didn’t hit anything or anyone (I was mostly worried about me!), and he actually got his feet up on the pegs once or twice. Progress.

Once he stopped tipping over, it was time to introduce him to second gear. At this he was completely lost, totally unable to grasp the underlying concepts of gear shifting. The bicycle analogy didn’t work because he’d never ridden one. Shifting gears in a car had no relevance because he’d only ever driven automatics and never really thought about what the 1, 2, D on the shift lever meant. But reverse he got, with all its obvious uselessness on a 125 cc dirt bike. Out of ideas, I brought a senior instructor over to try and explain it. No go.

But with faint hope we persevered, and so followed a period of him racing across the training area at 30 mph in first gear, the engine screaming in agony, or stalling because he was trying to start off in 4th. He was simply unable to process the concept of matching engine speed to road speed.

After a couple of very frustrating hours – for both of us – he realized he wasn’t getting it, and so we agreed that perhaps motorcycle riding was not in his future – at least if he wanted a future. I gave him his money back and he left the course early, much to the relief of the entire instructional staff.

Then two weeks later I read in the newspaper that an apartment balcony had broken free and crashed onto the balcony below it. Fortunately there were no injuries, but the balcony belonged to … you guessed it. My student.

Joe Bfstplk would have been proud.

When fashion and motorcycling collide

you get this.

The best argument I’ve seen yet against mandatory helmet laws.
H/T to Bike EXIF.

Two wheels and conditions awareness

Let me preface this post with the comment that I hope this guy has a full and speedy recovery. But c’mon. What was he thinking?
I fully appreciate the need to get back up on two wheels as soon as possible once spring is in the air, but this accident was almost guaranteed to happen:

• The temperature in Ottawa this morning was –13C (8F) with a wind chill of –25C (-13F).
• We have had successive thaw-freeze cycles over the past few days, so ice patches are common on the roads. And at those temperatures, black ice is also common, especially at intersections.
• Even without ice, tires simply do not grip as well on very cold pavement – a particular problem for motorcycles with small contact patches.
• Finally, at 7:30 in the morning, it is barely light out as the sun has just crested the horizon.

We don’t yet know who was ‘at fault’, whether ice was a factor, the rising sun blinded one of the drivers, or the 41-year-old rider simply froze (literally) at the controls. But regardless, this accident would not have happened, and two people would not be in the hospital, if he had only applied some common sense and left his scooter in the garage for another week.

We are all fighting the urge to get out there, but let’s do so safely.

(Photo: Wayne Cuddington, The Ottawa Citizen)

Older riders

Shortly after we moved into our last house, an elderly gent stopped by one day when I was washing the Norton in the driveway. Turned out he lived just a couple of doors away and used to ride one himself – a 1956 Featherbed as I recall. He said he had been thinking about getting another bike, but this time it would have to have three wheels because his balance wasn’t so good and he didn’t feel he could handle the weight safely any more. He was, “almost 80 y’know.”
Anyway this went on for a month or so. I’d be outside puttering around and Fred would show up for a chat and to ask my advice on Honda versus Harley, or trikes versus sidecars. I knew nothing about three-wheeling, but that didn’t stop us from spending time just shooting the breeze.
And then one day Fred showed up on an old Harley Servi Car he’d picked up from somewhere. Cosmetically it was in pretty rough shape – in fact it looked ugly as hell - but it ran well and Fred was in seventh heaven, riding again. Every day he’d be out driving up and down the street, with a huge ear to ear grin on his face. He’d make the odd trip to the grocery store or the beer store, but he generally stayed pretty close to home as he  got accustomed to his new wheels.
Finally one day he had to drive into the city to take his bike in to the shop for some routine maintenance. I watched him head off, all leathers and gloves and helmet and goggles and bright orange safety vest. His wife Marjory stood on their doorstep, wringing her hands with worry about “the old fool” – her pet name for him whenever it came to anything motorcycle. I must admit a certain amount of concern myself, but nothing to be done about it now.
But sure enough, a few of hours later I heard the old Harley as Fred came putt-putting down the street. I walked over to his place as he parked it and had just started to ask how the trip was when Marjory came racing out of the house, hugely relieved. “I just heard on the radio” she said, “the police were warning drivers on the Queensway about someone travelling the wrong way”. “I was worried sick about you.”
Fred, pulling off his helmet, replied, “Nothing to worry about, I’m fine.” Then added, “But it wasn’t just one person going the wrong way, there was hundreds of them.”

The Wearable Motorcycle

Since Gottleib Daimler’s first gas powered motorcycle in 1885, the basic design hasn’t changed. Sure there have been lots of technical advances (thankfully!), but today’s mainstream motorcycles still consist of two wheels, separated by a propulsion system, on top of which sits the operator. 
That hasn’t stopped people from trying to redefine the motorcycle though. For example, we’ve got the Carver One, the McLean Monowheel, and the Can-Am Spyder, all looking for their own place in motorcycling history.
   
But if you want to see a real paradigm shift, you have to look further, to something like this: The Wearable Motorcycle. Very cool.