My view is:
If you do a wheelie and you live thru it, don’t break any bones or scratch your paint job, you’re cool!
But:
If you take a spill, you’ll look real stupid!
And if you do wheelies often enough, it’s only a matter of time before you look stupid.
My son had a boss that had a sport bike. He loved looking cool while riding. The off ramp to his office had this really neat S bend in it that he used to take all leaned over and flat out. Then one morning the traffic was backed up and as he came around the first part of the bend, he found out that he was about attempt to break several laws of physics. The first being if it takes X feet to stop from Y speed, there is no way in hell to stop in X-200’ The second law being no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time.
His bike hit a glass truck and he came off the bike like a sidewinder missile leaving an F-18. His head attempted to remove the glass carrying rack on the truck and his pelvis attempted to remove the guard rail on the other side of the truck. Despite his best efforts he was unsuccessful in his attempts to break the laws of physics.
He lived, but let’s just say the child ain’t right. the elevator no longer goes to the penthouse. Dude is short both the beans and the rice from having the full combo plate.
This guy ain’t cool anymore. There can be a fine line between cool and stupid, and sometimes it isn’t obvious.
I saw a group of sport bike riders recently not only popping wheelies on a crowded interstate at above legal speeds, but also standing on the seat. Incredibly stupid.
A lot of these sports bike guys are adrenalin junkies with super-fast bikes that are assholes. Take it to a track, idiot. And wear a helmet.
I come from parents who used to do a lot of biking. Honda GoldWing 1200, full-dress with a trailer type biking, camping and going to races.
None of us understand the crotch-rocket crowd, and think they’re pretty stupid.
Not impressed.
It’s not just a matter of doing something that he could mess up easily, but doing something that is distracting enough for other drivers to distract them into accidents and aftermath behind him.
Just a couple of weeks ago I was just starting to go through an intersection when a motorcyclist in the lane to my left shot past me and reared up into a wheelie. He was quickly out of my sight, as we were approaching the rise of an overpass. I was thinking, huh, it would really complicate my day if I get to the other side and this guy is strewn all over the road. And what are the odds, anyway, just because this is only a block from the most accident-prone intersection in town? I was pleased to be passed again, this time by a cop who pulled the guy over. I hope the guy can learn his lesson the easy way.
Absolutely. It reminds me of pulling up to a corner, checking left, and then having some idiot swoop about 5 feet in front of my bumper as he rides his bicycle on the wrong side of the street. I just about killed that guy, and it would be his fault, but I don’t want that.
A motorcycle going down is likely to start a big pileup as people try not to run over the rider.
Me too. Every time I head up north to camping country there are guys on crotch rockets doing stupid things like that, usually on the 400. I had assumed it was illegal in a “reckless driving” kind of way and didn’t realize it was specifically mentioned (ETA: ) in the Highway Traffic Act.
Stunt riding in traffic is assholish behavior. Hey, you wanna spread your brains all over the highway, feel free. But don’t take out 5 or 6 people with you.
The phrase is ‘squid’. Because that’s what he’s going to look like when (not if) he loses it.
Hmmm…this thread reminds me of an incident that took place about 25 years ago on the I-10 freeway in Ontario, CA. A vivid memory it was since it was over half a lifetime ago. I remember seeing a roundish sphere of metal that used to be the main chassis of a motorcycle along with the remainder of bike parts scattered over all 4 lanes of the freeway for about 500 feet. “Wow”, I thought to myself, “Must be going at least 100. Hopefully he had a helmet and leather on him (always assuming it’s a ‘him’)”. “Ambulance probably took him to the hospital already.”
Uh, Nope.
Another 250 feet further down, after traffic being narrowed to one lane, laid a huge piece of what could most accurately be described as “rump roast” without any extremities nearby, scattered out of sight. No head (or helmet), no arms, no legs, just bloody piece of rump roast.
How “cool” was that?