Class M

Missa said:
For those in chat the other night: I'm offically a motorcyclest... now all I need is a motorcycle!

Hum... Kitchen.... motorcycle.... Kitchen... Motorcycle... which one do I need more?

Missa
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Harley. Forget the kitchen.
 
RogerT said:
Harley. Forget the kitchen.
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Oh, I can't do that. I just installed the nicest and brightest ceiling light/fan in my kitchen. Oh, you weren't talking to me? :rolleyes:
 
silver-eagle said:
Whenever motorcycles come up in discussion, there's always someone around to spoil the fun. Life is full of risk. It's all about managing and minimizing it. It doesn't matter if it's flying, driving, or crossing the street. You manage it and maybe you'll get out of life alive and well.
Licensed for 35 years, Thousands of miles, No near misses.
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Granted life is full of risk, but that doesnt mean that we have to go out looking for ways to kill or maim ourselves.

I rode donorcycles for years, rode one to CA just after high school, have owned 3 from that great maker of 2 wheelers in WI, if I was going to own one, it had to be the best.

One friday night i watched my best friend get killed on his BMW, but that happens and I kept on riding.

Then i went to the funeral of the daughter of a family friend, she was killed on a donorcycle, couldnt even recognise her in the casket, but i kept on riding.

One of my first calls as a paramedic was to an accident involving an employee of mine, who bought the second Harley that i had, they said before we got on the scene to slow down because our patient was dead, he wasnt, but would have been better if he was, lost his right arm, broke all of his limbs in numerous places, fractured his skull, put out one eye, he was 3 years recovering, lost everything he owned including his job, cant drive a truck with one arm. those things happen, I kept riding.

Then one beautiful summer night, we got a call to a deer vs motorcyle accident, two 17 year olds, on a BMW had been struck by a deer leaping from the side of the road, both had full face helmets, the 17 year old girls helmet and her head split like a ripe melon on the pavement, her brains were spread along a 40 foot long path, her face scraped off on the pavement. the upper part of her torso was on one side of the road, the bottom on the other, her legs were in the middle of the road, her friend the driver was even worse. I sold my last harley the next day.

It is one thing to take calculated risks, it is another altogether differant thing to continue to engage in an activity where the outcome is so totally out of your control and so instantly devastating.
 
wesleyj said:
It is one thing to take calculated risks,
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Life is a calculated risk. You could fall down in the shower, bust your head and drown in 1/4" of water tomorrow morning.

wesleyj said:
it is another altogether differant thing to continue to engage in an activity where the outcome is so totally out of your control and so instantly devastating.
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That's a bit extreme. Run that thought process out to it's logical conclusion and driving anything short of a triple armored sherman tank on the roads with several other high mass vehicles running collision control is wrecklessly engaging in an out of control instantly lethal situation..then someone will squash you like a bug with a NASA crawler... When it comes to it, on today's roads, smaller 4 wheel vehicles like mid size luxary cars are only marginally safer than a motorcycle. Ever see a lexus that's been taken out by a redlight running a hummer? Think getting headbutted by a high velocity steel bumper that doesn't even touch the door. Not pretty.

Riding is an out of control situation IF you let it be out of control. Take control the space around you and pick your routes and behavior accordingly. Stay very proficient, don't get stupid, maintain the motorcycle properly and dress for the crash. Motorcycles are not dangerous, crashing is dangerous. Actively control the risks and go out of your way to avoid the stuff that makes you crash and you'll be ok.

That's life though. Pick your poison. I'm probably orders of magnitude safer riding in traffic than walking from the parking lot into my apartment in the early evening hours and this isn't even the bad part of town...yet.

The highest risk thing I can think of is dying of boredom and monotony while trying to maintain infinite safey. Or maybe it's dying from the stress caused by trying to maintain infinite safety. Ah, to heck with it. I think I'll just go have fun and quit taking everything so seriously for a while.
 
Lawreston said:
And that, "Gee, I didn't even see you" statement so frequently heard wears a bit thin...........

HR
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Ain't that the truth. I had a cop pull out and cross 3 lanes of traffic to run me off the road last week. When I caught up to him at the next light that what he said. He pulled out his pad and asked if I wanted to wright a report. I told him no just open your **** eyes before you kill someone.
 
SkykingC310 said:
I like the Vintage look.
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Me too. I borrowed this aged beauty on my birthday. They are pretty quiet, except for the KACHUNK when changing gears. And the whole horizontally opposed thing is kind of interesting....your feet aren't quite lined up.

bmw1.jpg
 
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wesleyj said:
It is one thing to take calculated risks, it is another altogether differant thing to continue to engage in an activity where the outcome is so totally out of your control and so instantly devastating.
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Death isn't pretty no matter how it inevitably happens. Many careful, capable, conscientious pilots have found themselves out of control with instantly devastating consequences. Even paramedic pilots. :dunno:

(You guys have to see it more than many of us. I'm guessing that the "one day on, three days to recover" shifts aren't nearly cathartic enough.)
 
Hi Missa
Well you have gone and done it now, a thread that can rival the any traffic please advise thread. If you want to ride I say go ahead and enjoy life, its to short. As you know Missa you and I both know we never know when our time is up. Just be carefull and leave a way out. I also bought a old Honda just to ride to work about 12 miles each way but not alot of traffic on the way to work and none on the way home. I still take the back roads though just to tip the odds in my favor just a little.

Regards Mike
 
flykelley said:
Hi Missa
Well you have gone and done it now, a thread that can rival the any traffic please advise thread. If you want to ride I say go ahead and enjoy life, its to short. As you know Missa you and I both know we never know when our time is up. Just be carefull and leave a way out. I also bought a old Honda just to ride to work about 12 miles each way but not alot of traffic on the way to work and none on the way home. I still take the back roads though just to tip the odds in my favor just a little.

Regards Mike
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Agian, it's not like I live in SE MI anymore. What road around here can't be considered a backroad?!?!? I takes about 35 min to reach I-80 then And it's status as a major road is still a little questionable in my book when comparing it to I-696. I'm luckly to see 10 cars on the way to work that are not parked. I think this may have been part of what gave me the courage to persue the Motorcycle licence. It's all about developing skills, minimizing risk and having fun. I'm lucky that my boss and 3 other co-workers ride too. It gives added saftey to have them looking out for me as I develop the road skills. When Ron was developing the skills the three of them rode single file, Rick in the lead (with me lazily enjoying the back seat of his goldwing) navagating, pointing out road hazzards, keeping him away from traffic and giving him an example of recomended lane useage. Then Ron who was actually setting the pace, Rick was keeping an eye on him and would adjust speed so he was far enough to challeng him to speed up as comfortable but close enough to keep an eye on him. Then Forrest brought up the rear watching him and keeping traffic off his 6. Once I have a bike they will be doing the same for me.

Life is short, Live hard, play long, love boundlessly.

Missa
 
vontresc said:
P.S. Kent stop calling it your plane....didn't you know it is MINE now?
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Tach hours in N271G since 1/1/06:

Kent 41.58 #1 in the club
Pete 25.40 #5 in the club

MY plane. :p ;) :D
 
jangell said:
Watch every car. Every car that you see IS going to jump in your lane and shove you off into the shoulder. Every car IS going to pull out in front of you.
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Best advice I've seen yet. It's true, and I tell my trainees the same thing. Everyone is an idiot. Expect them to do things that are stupid beyond your wildest imagination, and once in a while you'll be pleasantly surprised when they don't.

Unfortunately, nobody really truly believes it until they get hit. That's not something you want to happen in a motorcycle. (Though I guess it's not something you want to happen in a truck either.)
 
<lots of gore snipped>
John,
You know, GA flying is about even with motorcycling on the safety scale. You aren't being a whit safer by flying than by riding. (what's a "whit", anyway??)
The question of the day, concerning each of your lovingly described scenarios, isn't how they ended up, but rather how they came to end up that way? You show me two 17 year olds dead from a motorcycle, I'm going to wonder how the rider was riding. You show me any number of dead motorcyclists and I'll wonder how long each of them had been riding at the time of the accident, what their physical condition was, how they had been riding, what the traffic had done around them, etc, etc, etc. Each of those things has a direct impact on their direct impact!

Yeah, it's possible to have been riding for a long time and still have an unplanned get-off. I did, after 500,000 miles and decades of experience. But that experience kept it from being worse than it was.

There's more to it than just the simple, insistant repetition of "donorcycle"...
 
etsisk said:
There's more to it than just the simple, insistant repetition of "donorcycle"...
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OK. The orthopeadic surgeon who put us back together kept calling them "murdercycles". :D
 
After riding many years and hundreds of thousands of miles, here are my words of wisdom:

1) Never go 153 mph wearing nothing but shorts and sneakers. Edit: and sunglasses.
2) Do not ride under the influence of LSD.
3) Assume at all times that any car (or truck) you can see, hear, smell, or imagine is about to try to kill you. Govern yourself accordingly.
4) Put sunscreen on your nose.
 
Ken Ibold said:
1) Never go 153 mph wearing nothing but shorts and sneakers. Edit: and sunglasses.
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Are you sure? If I rode around like that I'm sure I wouldn't have to worry about the other traffic as they would either stop dead in their tracks or drive off the road at the sight of me. :blowingkisses:

Missa
 
Missa said:
Are you sure? If I rode around like that I'm sure I wouldn't have to worry about the other traffic as they would either stop dead in their tracks or drive off the road at the sight of me. :blowingkisses:

Missa
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Now that is funny:goofy:

Regards Mike
 
Missa said:
Are you sure? If I rode around like that I'm sure I wouldn't have to worry about the other traffic as they would either stop dead in their tracks or drive off the road at the sight of me. :blowingkisses:

Missa
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It's not the traffic, it's the bugs.

:yes:
 
Ken Ibold said:
It's not the traffic, it's the bugs.

:yes:
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Man, a Palmetto Bug hit at that speed would damn near knock you off!
 
Bill Jennings said:
Man, a Palmetto Bug hit at that speed would damn near knock you off!
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Even a cloud of gnats would feel like you'd been hit in the face with a handful of gravel.

I would imagine. :rolleyes:
 
Bill Jennings said:
Man, a Palmetto Bug hit at that speed would damn near knock you off!
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Yeah my uncle hit a bird dead in his chest going let's just say faster than he should have on some Milwaukee Iron.....He lived, bike was totaled and boy was he bruised up good!!! We laugh about it now.
 
jangell said:
Watch every car. Every car that you see IS going to jump in your lane and shove you off into the shoulder. Every car IS going to pull out in front of you.<snip> Every time I come up on an intersection where a car could pull out in front of me..Off comes the throttle. I cover the brakes and get ready.
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No kidding! I queried Google news for motocycle "pulled out in front" and couldn't believe how many RECENT stories there were:

http://news.google.com/news?sourcei...&q=motorcycle+"pulled+out+in+front"&scoring=d

Granted, the first one is that the MOTORCYCLE pulled out in front of a car... gotta be careful about THAT too!!
 
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