Motorcycles

I ride motorcycles.

I like motorcycles - riding them is fun, and good for you (as long as you don't fall off or something.)

I think everyone who aspires to drive anything with more than two wheels should start out on a motorcycle or a motor scooter and survive one year on that before being allowed in anything that won't fall over if you don't pay attention.

If my suggestion were followed, we'd scare off (or kill off) a large number of folks who would otherwise have got licenses to drive cars, but who are t0oo stupid or incautious to be trusted with a weapon like an automobile.

A motorcycle will teach you to pay attention. The reward for not paying attention is usually something like road rash, which is painful. Pain hurts. It gets remembered, and when it gets remembered in connection with a particular behavior, the tendency is to avoid repeating that behavior.

Motorcycles will, for the most part, accelerate faster than cars, and stop faster than cars. That combination will keep a rider out of trouble when not used without caution. Like anything else, excess combined with lack of forethought will lead to pain - but it will be an instructive pain.

With today's automobiles, it is quite possible to roll a number of them up into a ball and learn nothing from the experience because of the protection afforded by belts, air bags and crush zones. Sliding down 150 yards of asphalt, on the other hand, will abrade even the strongest pair of jeans and heat one's arse and ever remove a few layers of perfectly good skin. If it has ever happened to you, you will remember it.

Motorcycles are cheap to feed - some to the point of the ridiculous. A small but highway-worthy motorcycle can deliver 60-70 miles per gallon, although it won't deliver the acceleration of a larger motorcycle. Speaking of which, there are some motorcycles that are truly obscenely fast - but like the television or the automobile, there are controls that the user/driver can employ. these insanely fast motorcycles respond quite well to small throttle increments instead of large throttle increments and even deliver good gas mileage in the process.

Contrary to popular belief, properly designed and maintained motorcycles are quite stable at speed because of the gyroscopic action afforded by the wheels. You may remember this phenomenon from your bicycling days. It takes work to make a moving motorcycle fall over - the faster it is moving the harder it is to make fall. Over the years I have fallen many times - but never at speed; always while walking it around a parking lot.

When you ride, you get to relax because it seems as if there is so much more time for everything to take place - and so much more to see, to hear, and to smell. Instead of bting in a glass cage, you're right out there with all the live stuff. Leaves are brighter, birds are more noticeable, and the road is much more interesting in its curves and corners - they intrigue you and you want to pay attention, instead of becoming anesthetized, as is wont to happen in a cage.

Oddly enough, even a heavy motorcycle can be picked up by almost anyone if you know how. If you don't know how, a 350 pound motorcycle is damn near impossible to get up off its side (particularly if the gas tank is laying on one of your knees) - but if you know how, a 66-year-old fat guy with bad knees can pick up a bike weighing nearly 800 pounds. I know that, because mine weighs near 800 pounds, and I resemble that 66-year-old fat guy in two ways - my age and my weight.

Anybody that thinks a motorcycle might be a giggle is urged to find a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course and take it. It won't cost that much, you won't need a motorcycle (they are supplied as part of the course experience) and you won't learn any of my bad habits. The instructors are uniformly excellent, and you'll either enjoy it so much you'll head right out for a motorcycle store (if wifey doesn't veto it - and if she does, send her through the course....) or you'll know you don't want to do that - and you won't be stuck with a motorcycle you really don't want any more and have to sell.

Motorcycling does not discriminate against ages - I know motorcyclists pushing 90 that are still riding. Granted, some have gone to trikes or sidecars because they are concerned about the weight - but they still put themselves out in the air among the birds, leaves, bugs and other critters and grin all the way to wherever they are going.

Motorcycles are safe when properly ridden, cheap to feed, and cause smiles. What more could one ask?