Poll: Motorcycle riders only, please

[Onomatopoeia]

I was going to choose the option ‘I’ve been riding for a while, nothing serious’, but I don’t know if you’d consider 2 years a while. Both my wife and I own motorcycles. We’ve never been injured in any way, or in an accident, although my wife did drop her bike once.

We don’t ride a lot, and not nearly as much as I told myself we would. I’d say we take the bikes out 2 to 3 times a month, only on the weekend, and only in good weather when it is warm.

I’m probably not the type of rider you’re looking for in this thread.

[commasense]

I’ve been riding for years, slight injury that didn’t change my outlook on the hobby

I rode for 25 years and came off the bike three times. The first occurred after less than a year of riding, was at the slowest speed, was the worst in terms of physical injury – a broken collarbone – and was definitely a beginner’s mistake. I ran over some wet leaves at about 5 mph and fell right over onto my side. D’oh!

The second happened a few years later, and was an intermediate mistake – took an unfamiliar turn just a little too fast – but I slid for a while, came to a stop, and got up without injury or any damage to the bike besides a few little scrapes.

The last happened after about six years of riding and was caused by a drunk driver who ran a stop sign and clipped me, totaling my bike, but fortunately resulting in only a few minor scrapes and bruises for me and my passenger. The incident might very well have been worse if I hadn’t seen the collision coming and taken evasive maneuvers, a benefit of more experience.

For the next 19 years, I continued to ride 2,000-3,000 miles a year without incident.

One thing I think helped me was that I never had to use the bike to get to work. All my riding was recreational. So although I got a fair amount of experience riding in rain and other bad weather, I was never tempted to make a bad decision because I had to get to work and it was raining or snowing.

So my recommendation is go for it, be careful in the first few years, don’t put yourself in situations where you’d have to ride even if your better judgment said your shouldn’t, and enjoy yourself.

And **always **wear a full-face, Snell-rated helmet and other appropriate safety gear!

(I only stopped riding and sold my last bike a few years ago because I had become involved in another form of motor sports and was rarely using the bike.)

[Otara]

@Unintentionally_Blank

This aspect bothers me a little. I’m 6’6, 270 lbs and was looking at a Honda 1300 VTX, not a particularly hot cruiser, it is, however, 750 lbs all by itself. I rode the pants off a Honda 110 trailbike as a teen, and have had a couple of REALLY fast cars for more than a decade. I put about a thousand miles a year on a mountainbike.

But this thing won’t be a trail 110, a mountainbike, or a Vette…and it’s a bit more than everybody normally recommends as a first bike…everybody that isn’t selling motorcycles, that is.

If you feel comfortable with the weight it should be OK, particularly if you have trailbike experience. Power output is often the bigger problem, and/or wanting to go fast. If your interest is more in cruising, then you’re probably in a safer place from the getgo, but I havent ridden that particular bike so someone else may want to comment further on how good a choice it is for starting out on the road.

But do courses etc etc.

Otara

[Unintentionally_Blank]

@Onomatopoeia

I’m probably not the type of rider you’re looking for in this thread.

You’re exactly the driver I’m looking for in this thread…because soon, I’ll BE you.

[QUOTE=RaceHarley]
Once you have it in your blood, it’s hard to let go.
[/QUOTE]

That’s what this thread is rapidly telling me. My kid’s Godfather’s been riding for years and has been instrumental in convincing me not to do it in the past. Or rather, not doing it while the kids where 3 years old, and not riding with the wife as “he didn’t want to end up raising the kids.”

His anecdotes were that he’d known a good 40 different riders and was the only one that hadn’t laid a bike down or been injured. (quite possible, knowing him) There was another guy at a previous Job who was pretty hardcore, but walked with a permanent limp as a result of a accident that did some serious pelvis damage. Still biking. (Yeah, I’m breaking my own rule on Anecdotes. )

[QUOTE=Otara]
If you feel comfortable with the weight it should be OK, particularly if you have trailbike experience. Power output is often the bigger problem, and/or wanting to go fast. If your interest is more in cruising, then you’re probably in a safer place from the getgo, but I havent ridden that particular bike so someone else may want to comment further on how good a choice it is for starting out on the road.

But do courses etc etc.
[/QUOTE]

That’s a relief, because all I’d been hearing in the vacuum was “Don’t buy too much bike, too soon” and “You’ll be fiiiine!” (from the guy I’d be writing a check to).

The bike’s capabile of turning 13’s in the quartermile…at sealevel. The Vette I’ve been campaigning runs 13.9’s at Denver’s altitude. Since the bike doesn’t have any power adders, I’d expect it to be a little slower than the Vette at 6600 feet.

Over the last year or so, I’ve spent a bit of time watching other motorcycle riders, it’s interesting how you can pick out ‘paying attention’ vs. ‘distracted’ vs. ‘lookitme-I’m-cool, I’ll casually wave at the hole in traffic I’m going to punch through with my toy’ vs. ‘squid’

[Machine_Elf]

@Absolute

Before I bought a bike about two years ago, I researched the safety statistics pretty carefully. I seem to recall concluding that you were 18 times more likely to die on a motorcycle than in a car traveling the same distance.

As you’ve noticed, there are some patterns. The fatality stats are heavily skewed toward:

-the young (18-25 years old)
-the drunk (approximately half of fatalities)
-the unlicensed/unendorsed
-those without professional training

If you’re older, sober, and get some training, your odds of death-by-motorcycle are much closer to that of the average car driver.

[The_Surb]

@Unintentionally_Blank

This aspect bothers me a little. I’m 6’6, 270 lbs and was looking at a Honda 1300 VTX, not a particularly hot cruiser, it is, however, 750 lbs all by itself.

I think a VTX should be ok for someone your size. It has a nice center of gravity and is easy to maneuver. I like to ride my VTX when going into the mountains because of its agility.

It is 1300 cc’s but it’s not going to take off like a crotch rocket. It’s definitely not a wheelie bike. But it’s not underpowered either.

It is a pretty good cruiser bike. The only complaint I have is that the stock seat could be better.

I rode my BIL’s Road King, the VTX was less powerful, but considerably quieter, and less than half the price.

I bought mine in March this year and put 3,000 miles on it without leaving the state.

[Essured]

Been riding for a while. I accept the additional risk and do what I can to reduce it.

That means always riding in full gear. Always riding defensively in traffic. Always riding as if I’m invisible to others. Always riding well within my limits (I usually ride at about 6/10s recreationally, so I always have extra in reserve should the unexpected occur). I also get additional skills training and practice it regularly.
I ride a sportsbike, so I often do track days too. When you get to regularly race around a proper track with medical on-site, no oncoming traffic, no road furniture, etc, there’s no incentive or need to push your riding limits on the road. The itch for speed gets satisfied in a responsible place where as many risks as possible are mitigated.

Yes, I’d be statistically safer if I didn’t ride. But I’d also miss a real joy in my life. Throwing my leg over my bike and heading out for a ride is pure therapy and stress release. It’s relaxing and exciting at the same time. I could life without it, I just don’t want to.

After seeing some of the accidents my friends have been involved in, I do not encourage anyone to ride though. If you want to badly enough, you will, with or without encouragement.

[dalej42]

I based my response on riding street bikes, not off road riding. No accidents here. I’ll wear a helmet in 120 degree Phoenix, however.

[LSLGuy]

I’ve had major injuries from dirt-bike racing as a teen. And minor injuries from wrecking a bike on the freeway at speed. And the typical number of close calls for ~30K miles of urban / suburban / mountain on-road experience.

I don’t ride now, but that’s just a matter of having sold my bike before a move years ago & never replacing it. Accident risk isn’t one of the reasons I don’t have one now. Mostly I hate the idea of paying for a toy I can only use half of the year due to weather. That just feels so wrong to this SoCal native.

[GusNSpot]

Started owning full size bikes in 1964.
Fell down a couple of times.
Bad wreck in 1996.
Right shoulder is hamburger and Stainless Steel including the blob on the upper end. Disabling, life changing, on my second prosthesis and my body will never be the same.
I rode my repaired bike to my physical therapy sessions both times after the surgery. 11 days in hospital first time, 9 days the second. ( Same injury, just replacement hardware. )

Was totally not my fault, the police even wrote it up that way. 0% my fault. All on the other driver. No way I could have escaped the wreck in/on any vehicle. No bike safety gear would have prevented the injury except full dirt bike shoulder armor, maybe.

I’m now 67 and still have 2 hard tail choppers, a 1977 KZ1000 and a 1977 XT500 Yamaha enduro I have been riding in the mountains of Arkansas for the last 1.5 years. I broke my foot on the kicker when I first got it and did not know how to start it.

A few years ago I was at a big family reunion when we got word that my baby sister and her husband had hit a deer in Iowa and it was bad for him and my sis was hurt some. Three of the siblings went to Iowa and the rest of us including my 80 year old Mother stayed at the reunion. Relatives were working my Mom to get her to put down motorcycles. They forgot that She and Dad had rode from before they got married in 1937. Their last bike was in about 1957.

I was there on my chopper Spot and so she had me take her for a ride. That shut the busy bodies up just fine. Bawahahaa BIL was in a coma for 5 days but came out of it and they both are just fine. Baby sis is still a little hinky but they rode right away just to do it.

Ride or not ride, no stats mean anything because it is a choice and no one should try to influence you either way. One of my choppers I was thinking of selling and the wife said NO !!! I do not have to worry about what she thinks or wants. My son is grown & gone so he has no influence nor any desire to. He had his bikes and his kids have a dirt bike now.

YMMV

[Unintentionally_Blank]

Dang. I can’t quite vote in my own poll yet. But now I own a motorcycle. I am not yet dead.

Looked at two dozen bikes and this was the only one that spoke to me…then he fired it up and that was all she wrote. http://www.millertwinracing.com/vtx1300.mov

Got the gear, classes are the 5th and 6th, it’ll be delivered the 7th. And it’ll snow from then til May.

[misterW]

I am 35 now. I’ve been riding since I was a freshman in college, when it was my only vehicle. Haven’t ridden much the last few years, only because the bike is in need of repairs and I haven’t had time to get to work on it.

Never had a serious accident. My first year on my 400 cc Honda with a kick start I wiped out on a gravelly dirt road at low speed. Picked up the bike and rode home, very embarrassed. Tried to spin a bike around on wet grass by giving it a lot of gas and fell down… I don’t think that counts. Dropped it on mud in the driveway another time. Those were as bad as it got.

I agree that the first couple of years is the most dangerous time. Start off with a bike that you are not likely to go crazy on. My first bike would barely do 70, which was probably for the best. After a year or so, I moved up to a Yamaha Radian 600 – not a sport bike, but it could move right along. Never dropped it, but I remember there was one corner at night at high speed, that I was a few inches away from not making. There was also the time driving home at night (about 50-55 mph) that a raccoon ran in front of me and there was no time to do anything other than ride right over it. I was sure I would crash, but somehow I didn’t, despite the huge bump. I also remember a time when a deer jumped into the road, right in front of me, so close I could hear her hooves slipping and scraping against the pavement as she scrambled away.

I try to never drive with a car next to me and to assume that each car at an intersection will turn in front of me. Not always possible, but it puts me in the correct mindset.

[may_be_ignorant]

My dad did the poll in my place. He’s been riding for years, and has some messed up scars. He’s crashed quite a few times, many of them when he was “young and stupid.” He has a scar on his shouler from where he removed alot of the skin from his elbow-shoulder-shoulder blade. The skin there just looks paper thin now. He’s been seriously injured a few times, and he stopped when my sister and I were around five, just to be safe. Now that we’re teenagers, though, he has started up again, and he says he’ll do it until it or something else kills him. He says its dangerous, but assuming that everyone around you is going to do something stupid helps.

[aruvqan]

Only rode for a couple of years, slid once wearing full leathers and helmet, got a couple bruises and lots of messed up chrome and paint on the bike. Didn’t change my opinion of bikes, though scooters drive me insane… the way that you can be trying to cross a totally empty street in Paris at like 2 am, there is dead silence and nobody awake for blocks and the instant your toe touches the street a scooter appears and tries to run you down :eek: [I slid because someone cut me off in traffic and I had the choice of slide under a parked truck or die in traffic.]

I stopped because the bike belonged to my ex husband and when I moved out I never bought one of my own.

[ethelbert]

I haven’t ridden since 1976. I did not stop because of a serious injury, but an accumulation of small ones. Some of the scariest incidents were not injuries, but close calls. I still vividly recall riding on an expressway near Chicago and a gust of wind moved me over two lanes of traffic. I figured if I was going to hit a car, I wanted to be in a car.