Motorcycles save gas, but are costing lives.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

That’s pretty funny. What year CX500 did you have? Mine’s a '82. I actually still have it - though I only drive it a couple times a year. Still runs great though!

I do agree that dirt riding was a huge help. I had about 400 acres of pasture right next to where I grew up and free reign of all of it as long as I didn’t bother the cows.

I got into racing motocross for a few years down in Florida. It was a huge help for bike control and accident awareness and avoidance, but after coming up short on a double a couple of times and beating myself up, I decided to hang up my motocross boots. I was too big to be competitive anyway - at 6’5" and 220lbs I just couldn’t keep up with the guys that weighed half what I did but were on the same size bike.

22

It was a '79. Bought it from a coworker for a dollar. 30,000 miles on it. First gear went out, but it had enough power to take off in second. I put 35,000 miles on it and it wouldn’t die. Sold it when I got the Seca II.

23

Yes, yes, and yes. It’s not being on a motorcycle that’ll get you killed. It’s being careless.

Bikes do lack the added protection of a car, which is a risk factor, and people are more inclined to be careless on a motorcycle because they’re joyrides to a lot of folk. Take your car to work and take your bike out on weekends to goof around, that kind of thing. (I’m actually the opposite; I got the bike for commuting and I use the car on weekends to do stuff.) The silly thing is, and this may be just because I’m still a new rider, I’m still having fun on the bike even while being attentive and alert to the road. There’s no reason to be a total idiot just because you’re on two wheels instead of four.

My condolences to those of you who have lost friends, though.

24

That used to be me. Unfortunately the weather at this latitude does not allow me to do that anymore. (Besides, the car gets better mileage and burns regular fuel.)

25

Sorry to keep hijacking this thread. But, I don’t see a “CX500 owners rollcall” thread getting many hits.

Anyway, I drove mine for about 2 yrs without 1st gear. I figured it was all the wheelies and burn outs that I did as a stupid 16 (and 17 and 18,19 and maybe 20) yr old that stripped it.

I ended up buying a silverwing with a blown top end for $50 and stole the tranny gears out of it. Other than the 1st gear, it hasn’t given a bit of trouble in somewhere around 50K miles.

26

After I sold mine I was surprised to see so many CX500s around. When I had one, it was only me. When I didn’t, they suddenly appeared all over the place.

Maybe 1st gear was a weak point in the design.

Not a bad bike. Heavy, but decent power for a 500cc. I could cruise on the freeway at 70 or 75 all day with no problem. Comfortable seat. The quasi-Guzzi cylinders looked cool, and were handy on cold mornings for keeping my hands warm.

27

Hey guys, I had a CX500, too, from about 1980 to 1986 or so, when a semi-drunk driver hit me and totalled it. (My passenger and I escaped with minor scratches.) It was the first new vehicle I ever bought, and for the first four years it was my only vehicle while I was in college. I rode it year round, even in the snow a few times. I loved it.

It was my favorite bike until I got a 1989 Pacific Coast. That was a great bike, too.

In 25 years of riding, I had three completely non-fatal accidents, the worst of which happened at the lowest speed: I ran over some wet leaves at about 5 mph, fell off, and broke my collarbone. The other two yielded nothing worse than a bruise or scratch. (I always wore a helmet and other protective gear.)

28

Oh, thank god, it’s not just me seeing an increase in morons on the road. (Had someone in a shiny new crotchrocket splitting lanes in heavy traffic at 80 MPH yesterday… the traffic was doing 80, he was doing 95+.)

Lot more cruisers, too, some of them new and shiny, and most of them not being all that attentive. The annoying thing is them running in packs. I try to give bikers a little extra room, and when they run in packs, it means that four others slip in around me on either side, cutting in and out.

(This is different from the normal two-abreast standard riding pack, the recent ones have been a lot less… formal.)

29

Motorcycles save gas, but are costing lives.

True, but that reduces energy use too.

One less rider on the road, using up energy. And the base cause of current energy shortages is the increase in world population; most of those who die in motorcycle accidents are young (men), many of whom have not yet contributed to world overpopulation.

So from this cynical viewpoint, motorcycles save gas two ways.

30

I have yet to take my 80cc Honda Scooter out on the road and only practiced a couple of times in the yard. I will be taking the motorcycle safety course before jumpin on the road.

I’ve noticed here in the South, motorcycles are plenty and even more scooters are hitting the road. IMO, more people are aware of the bikers vs those up north where the weather is more of a factor.

I grew up with riders and spent many years on the back of one. SO just learned to ride and he took the course. Both of us wear our helmets as well.

Those of us that drive a non-motorbike, need to also be aware of our surroundings and watch out for bikers as well as other drivers.

31

waves

I’ve had an oncoming car turn across me through complete and utter failure of the driver to look where she was going. I hit the middle of her radiator at about p/4 *, left a quarter-ton of BMW where her hood ornament should have been and executed a three-quarter somersault to land several yards up the road. Shoulders, heels and ass touched down more or less together and after a brief count of limbs and extremities to reassure myself that nothing was broken, I got up, dusted myself down, and turned to see the driver getting out of her car bawling her eyes out.

I’ve dropped another bike on a dark wet November evening and slid several yards up the road on my right side. My elbow felt kinda dodgy for a few weeks and was quite colourful for a while, but it was usable. :slight_smile:

On neither occasion did I have leathers or body armour - just the mandatory crash helmet (which wasn’t needed, as it happened). So you don’t have to ride around inside a steel shell to get off alive in case of an OMGWTFaccident.

  • Math geek for “a 45-degree angle”
32

I’ve had a motorcycle endorsement on my license for 25+ years and haven’t ridden for the past 15 (although I ride on the back on a semi-regular basis). The only test I ever took was the written one with the road test being the ride around the cones type. When I moved to another state, all I had to do was transfer the license, endorsements and all.

If I were going to ride again, my butt would be in the first available safety course though.

33

:smack:

34

To look on the bright side…

In addition to the dumbasses who think they can ride a bike because they can keep it upright in a straight line, I should think another factor of the high accident rate is drivers being unfamiliar with motorcycles in traffic, and the spike this year is a surprise they haven’t adjusted to. I’m hoping that as time passes, drivers will accept that there are more two-wheelers on the road, bikes and scooters alike, and will incorporate that awareness into their driving habits, thus reducing that particular risk factor.

Yeah, I’m probably being optimistic.

35

We’ve seriously considered getting my husband a bike for commuting. Gas prices are killing us (as in second largest line item budet expense right behind the mortgage.) He’s hesitated because of the safety issue. He’s not familiar with two wheel driving and isn’t quite comfortable with the thought of driving 60 miles a day on an unfamiliar vehicle.

We would both take the state safety course if we did buy him a bike. It’s just plain stupid not to. Of course, there are a lot of idiots out there. I had some stupid motorcyclist run a red on a left turn right in front of me this afternoon. He’s lucky I was paying attention even when he wasn’t.

36

Untrained motorcycle drivers can be a danger to themselves, but they rarely hurt someone in a car.

Cars are as great a danger to motorcyclists as anything else. Two days ago there was an article in our paper about how a cyclist, stopped by the side of the road in the rain, was struck and injured by a car. Two other cyclists stopped to help, and while they were doing so another car struck them, running over the man injured first, and killing him. I was once a passenger on a motorcycle that was struck by a car. It swerved widely to the right to make a left turn, not even seeing us.

37

I started driving on in 1996 in a Yamaha V-80 (2strk) and three years ago I moved to a Honda CGL-125 (4strk).
As you can see neither are blazing bolts of lighting, I mostly did 60 km/h on the Yamaha and 80 on the Honda.
Aside form the gigantic number of people drining without helmets (some of them carry them in the hadlebars…company policy for courriers to have one), there are those who have BIG bikes and drive like there’s no tomorrow.

It is more dangerous than a car, but if you’re really paying attention and never try to show up or break any records, a motorbike is a nice way of going from point A to point B.

38

Look into a touring scooter (AKA maxi-scooter or luxury scooter), like the Suzuki Burgman or the Yamaha Majesty. You’d still need a motorcycle license and the motorcycle safety course is recommended, but they’re reportedly easier to operate than motorcycles, primarily because of the automatic transmission. The seats are generally more comfortable, they have much more storage space, the center of gravity is lower (I think) providing for more stability, and they get similar MPG (the Burgman 650 gets 45-50 MPG, I believe). They’re pretty powerful, too; although Suzuki is reticent about giving out certain information, the Burgman 650 has been clocked at a 120 MPH top speed, and I presume the 400 has a top speed around 80 MPH, so they’re decent for highway travel as well.

I was originally going to get a Burgman, but the availability a couple of months ago was nonexistent in my neck of the woods, and I wound up falling in love with my Kawasaki Vulcan.

39

Thus saving even more gas. Sounds like a win-win to me.

40

I grew up riding dirt bikes 3-wheelers and quads, I learned the physics of motorcycle riding back then, that said, I still took and passed a MSF course before I got my first street bike, an old '83 Yamaha Virago Midnight 920, yes my first street bike was a 920cc monster!

the Virago was quite docile though, it was a standard bike with an upright riding position, a nice low center of gravity, and a nice loping idle, I could put it in first and just putter around at idle, perfectly safe, perfectly stable, but twist the throttle and the bike jumped to warp, I tested it’s 0-60 time in under 3 seconds (just a hair under 3 seconds)

I got about a season of riding out of that bike, even though it was in bad tune, next season it would have cost far too much to fix it (I bought it off my freind for $150, and it needed $400 in repairs just to get it running semi-reliably) and parts were no longer easily available, I sold it when I moved back to Maine, got what I paid for it, I saw it as a good learning experience

two summers ago, however, I had an experience that made me re-think the whole motorcycle commute thing…

I was driving home, on Rte 236 in Eliot, Maine, a long, flat, dead-level road, about 5 miles of ruler-straight, flat road, in the mid-afternoon sun, I saw the flashing blue lights of a police cruiser ahead, as well as the red and amber lights of an ambulance, there was a dark shape in the middle of the road, vehicles were being directed around it, as I approached the dark shape, I saw it was a Harley cruiser laying on it’s side, a pool of dark fluid around it, no less than 100 yards away was a dark green Honda Accord on the side of the road, hazard flashers on

As I passed the Harley, a chill went up my spine, it felt like I had driven over a grave, as I passed the Honda on the side of the road, I saw the woman in the drivers seat with her head in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably…

A few weeks later, I was talking with a customer at work, he had ridden in on his Harley V-Rod, and I was admiring it (and coveting it), we started talking motorcycles, I relayed the story above…

He responded “yeah, I knew that guy, he died that day, hit by a car, the woman never saw him coming”

…my blood ran cold…

…for some reason, all my desire to ride a motorcycle ended that day…