This.
And most times the ladies carry the weapons.
There are at least two kinds of riders, those that join and ride in clubs / groups, and those that don’t. I almost never have, since I use my bike to commute to / from work or to travel and tour alone. I’ve never belonged to a club, and I have only gone on a few group rides. The group rides I’ve gone on did not have a tight formation, except for some Patriot Guard rides I’ve done. I couldn’t tell you about different clubs out there, and I hardly see them.
If there was a support vehicle with that group, I never saw it. I doubt one was there, although it’s possible I suppose.
I’m glad everything worked out but…
80mph and you still felt the need to pass?
I was cruising at around 85-90. So, yes.
There is nothing wrong with anticipating trouble and making choosing a plan in advance. If the riders had tried to force the OP off the road he would have been entirely in the right to refuse to allow it. If this meant that a motorcyclist ended up off his bike as a result of trying to force a car of fhte road, that wouldn’t have bene the OP’s fault.
You clearly don’t ride. When a bike and a car meet the result is generally a car and an injured/dead motorcyclist, especially when the rider is one of the self-declared 1%ers who are much too hardcore to take basic precautions like wearing full face helmets.
I’d also be willing to bet that you don’t shoot. The only weapon a driver need fear in the hands of a rider is a firearm, but accurately shooting from the back of a bike is not as trivial as it is made to look in Sons of Anarchy or any of the equally unrealistic programms glorifying “outlaw motorcyclists,” especially given that most people’s shooting hand is also the one used to control the throttle.
So yes, in the grave extreme that the gang members had tried to force the OP off the road they might not have been scared, but they wouldn’t have had much in the way of effective response.
I’m feeling less sympathetic. You and the bikers deserve each other.
Not every part of the country is populated solely by blue hairs and the Amish. If traffic routinely moves at those speeds and the roads are of relatively recent design (i.e., not an old wagon trail that was paved over) there’s really not much of a safety issue.
Dude, you couldn’t be more wrong with regards to safety issues.
I can’t speak for the Amish, but as a bona fide Baby Boomer looking forward to retirement in a few years, you youngsters need to slow down. How are you going to generate my Social Security if you are laid up with blunt force trauma?
I’m not familiar with the I-5, but interstate highways are generally overdesigned. Speed differentials are what kill, not speed itself, so as long as everyone is on the same page there is little issue.
Issues such as terrain, stupid road design, and/or drivers inexplicably moving at 20 mph under the limit in the left lane can all combine to create an unsafe circumstance, but travelling at 85-90 is not necessarily cheating death.
Seems to me this whole thread is about speed differential. It’s hard to have much sympathy for someone going 90 miles an hour who blames any problems on people who are going slower.
I disagree. The OP is about a group of motorcyclists who got upset when someone didn’t respect their perceived right to ride in a formation despite their inability to maintain a formation in the first place and reacted in a criminally reckless manner. The only significant speed differential in the story seems to be a result of a rider choosing to slow down in order to impede faster traffic.
But I’m not interested in having a slap fight over this. If you disagree so be it. All I ask is that you avoid emulating the behavior of the riders you apparently believe guiltless in all this and move to the slow lane when reckless youths are speeding behind you.
That’s true, because physics works differently in those areas.
Look up Grapevine, CA on the map, and then look at I-5 from there and to the north. Almost arrow-straight, exits are maybe 15 miles apart, and traffic goes fast here. Even the trucks will cruise at 80-85. Look up Wendover, UT, and look at I-80 to the east. Many miles of arrow-straight interstate, until you reach the rolling foothills approaching Salt Lake City.
People who live somewhere else where the highway’s curves, many exits and traffic will only safely support a max of 55-60, or even lower like I-70 through Glenwood Canyon / Glenwood Springs CO, people who don’t get out much, won’t understand. Physics? Momentum is still mass X velocity, but there’s no centripetal acceleration when there’s no radius of curvature. If you don’t get off of your couch much, don’t lecture me on what’s safe. Go back to your couch.
There was very little speed differential here. It’s mainly the crazy idiots when I was describing the “I-5 dance” upthread that are the most unsafe, and even with them there isn’t a high speed differential.
Correct. Here in the northeast, few roads feel safe at much more than 70-75, and that’s the infrequent long straight sections in good repair. If those are the only kind of roads you’ve ever driven, normal traffic speeds in the West can sound insane.
On the incredibly long, straight, flat, 8-lane highways with moderate traffic and with surfaces that aren’t pounded by snow, salt and plows, cruising at 80 is normal and no less safe than lesser speeds. Drive for any length of time up I-5 or on I-80 from Reno eastward, and trying to do 60-65 will kill you… with white line fever or having a Peterbilt drive right over you.
I had cause to drive a 40-mile loop on I-5 a few years back, typically in the early evening, and it was completely ordinary to find myself in a wolf pack of cars nudging 100. We had places to go, they were far apart, and it was like driving on a runway or the Bonneville salt flats.
BTW… and please… it’s 5, or 80, or “I-5” and “I-80,” not - not not - “the I-5” or *shudder *“the 5.” Those are SoCalisms that make my teeth hurt.
If you check pictures in the photo gallery ---- 
---- any evil heathen who thinks all the OOD are slow can kiss my white ass.
Ezra – my ass. Smells a little but he can pull a plow all day.
Which brings me around to why I mentioned funeral processions early in this. CA may be different now but at one time groups of bikes, like funerals, had a legal right not to be busted. Do so and get caught and there were pretty considerable fines. There was a limit to pack size (30 if memory serves me right unless escorted by the police for something like a charity run or funeral) but the basic protection was there. PA, where I am currently, has similar rules now although the protection for funerals is much greater. They get the right to ignore traffic signals and more.
In other words, their right could be more than just perceived. Which puts the OP more into the class of the dude who runs a red light in front of you and makes their reaction more understandable.
The California Motorcycle Handbookrecommends groups no larger than 4 or 5:
You weren’t there to see that the gap in their group was quite large.
Also, this aint about the “Straightness” or “Safeness” of the road itself.
This is about the driver and his or her proximity to other drivers.
At speeds 90 or higher, you would have to maintain nine or more car lengths between you and the drivers ahead of you. Which NOBODY f’n does. Even if you do, you’re still gonna have some jack ass behind you nipping at your heals.
It’s bad enough when people do this at 60 or 70. 90 or more is just insane.