I feel obliged to write this article, how do I do this without stepping on toes? I see the logic that was brought up in last months article, I really do. I just don’t agree with it. So without further ado here it goes.
Let’s just lay it out on the table shall we? I hate the notion that everyone but the individual should take responsibility for him or her. McDonald’s was sued for serving coffee to a woman who then dumped it on herself and got burned. You heard this right? She was awarded some giant sum of cash as a result of her burns. Since then I am positive she still buys, holds and drinks cups of hot, hot coffee. Must have been McDonalds fault for serving her hot coffee.
So now it’s a salesman’s job to look after what is right for everyone who buys a motorcycle? Really? Uh, last time I looked salesmen have one job, sell you something you may or may not need. They work for commission which gets bigger the more they sell you, buyer beware. I mean is it really some stranger’s job to be your guardian? What qualifies them to be this grand judge and jury of another’s skill set or bike choice? I was a salesman for a bike shop once, 16 years ago. Guess what it was Golden Gate Cycles. (Queue up evil slow laughter from me.) Listen, if a guy walks into a dealership all fired up and ready to buy a giant sport bike I have one job, sell it to him fast so I can get on to selling the next shmoe another one. The person buying the bike should be smart enough to figure out they are buying a vehicle that can propel them through space and time in a way that is unmatched on the streets in a matter of mere seconds. As fast or faster then any high-end sports car for a fraction of the cost! I would have to imagine that is why they want the damn thing! Now I as a salesman am supposed to tell them they can’t have it, to send them on their unhappy way? Wonder if they’ll go somewhere else that will let them buy that ‘bad’ bike? Oh well, who needs to pay the rent with that commission? I mean at least I am still socially responsible for whoever that guy was.
Now let’s get into it further. I have never been hurt going fast, it’s the stopping part that sucked for me. Stopping, yup the worst part about crashing and it can’t be avoided. We all know the saying, feel free to say it along with me, “There are two kinds of bikes in this world, those that have gone down and those that are going down.” If you’re a biker and you don’t know this, get familiar with it. It doesn’t matter what you ride or how well you ride, eventually you and every rider you know will crash, some will die. Did I just bum you out man? Did I just harsh on your mellow? Get over it; biking alone can kill you, not what you are riding or how long you have ridden.
All the injuries I have sustained from crashing are in some way or form still with me. Arthritis, nerve damage, disfigured bones, scars and what not. I got all of them at slow speeds on various displacements and configurations. The worst happened at 5 mph, I have a limp for life to prove it. Even earned me a disabled motorcycle license plate. Additionally I was on a 650cc, single cylinder, dual-sport. Fell on to my side with armor on and everything. I scarred the head of my Femur, one day I will get the great fortune of an artificial hip. Amazing how a small bike and slow speed had no bearing on the severity of this injury.
Now if I can detour away from this and move on to well, my philosophy about the right bike for the job. The analogy of “…allowing an ignorant novice to pilot away a machine capable of going nearly 200mph…is akin to selling a child a handgun and pretending to ignore the probability of impending bloodshed.” Is just not correct on so many levels. Firstly if they’re truly and utterly horrible riders it won’t matter what they ride off on, something bad will befall them. Furthermore, I can fall off a bike at 100 mph regardless of displacement and guarantee you I will seriously hurt myself. I know that the SV650 can go at least this fast just like a CBR1000RR. However one is being dubbed the beginner’s bike and one is dubbed too advanced for beginners. Which leads me to the true fault of this logic, maybe I would agree more with you if you said, “it’s like selling someone a .357 instead of a .22, one has a much greater bang but both will hurt or kill you if you aren’t careful.
Onward! To defend my position on sport bikes not being a bad bike for a rookie, let’s get that rookie on the freeway riding one of two bikes. One bike in a Honda Rebel 250 (“beginner’s” bike) and the other is a CBR1000RR (“advanced” riders bike). Now let’s make traffic conditions suck say it’s Friday night on the freeway at 2:15am. The bars have just closed and lots of drunks are out driving like gangsters’, macks, NASCAR racers or whatever the hell else they pretend to be. Which bike is better when one of these drivers aggressively changes lanes right in front of you? The bike with the cheap suspension, brakes, response time and horrid riding position or a bike created to do everything as fast as humanly possible, if not faster? The CBR1000RR turns, brakes, accelerate and respond faster then the Rebel 250 for sure. I’d give the newbie the big bike. Did you choose the same? Good give yourself a gold star.
Now, I had ridden mini bikes as a kid growing up and the only street riding time I had was when I was bolting to the off road area down the way from my house. Time passed and eventually at the age of nineteen I bought a street bike. My friend said, “Go big, you’ll eventually want it so buy it now and save yourself the trouble.” Sounded sane at the time, so I bought myself the coolest thing I could find, a 1986 Ninja 1000. I didn’t know how many gears it had when I drove it away from the previous owners house. As I cruised home in second gear at 80 mph on the freeway I marveled at just how fast I was going yet felt I had hardly begun to open it up. I didn’t have an accident for years on that bike. In fact it saved my ass once. While riding on the 405 down south I found myself merging onto another freeway behind a Corvette, the other merging freeway had a Trans-Am in the lane that was merging with us. Both cars collided into one another immediately in front of me. They then swerved away from one another just for a moment and instead of slamming into the back end of them I gassed it and bolted between them right before they came crashing into one another again. It was surreal, I gunned it instead of broke which was dumb luck and a chance response but I am positive that maneuver and that big bike are what made the difference. Here’s the deal, I was nineteen, an inexperienced rider, on a big bike way to “advanced” for my skill set yet it was that bike that saved my life. I am real glad it wasn’t a Rebel 250, that couldn’t have out accelerated or out broke those cars regardless of anyone’s skill level. Again I ask, why should a beginner get the crap bikes instead of the cream of the crop?
Here’s my final gripe and then I’ll get off my soapbox. Last months article also mentioned a tiered license system, which I again must respectfully say, NAY! Have you been to the DMV, EVER? I am pretty sure that all those blue hairs you see trying to get a glimpse of the road through their steering wheels shouldn’t have passed their driving test but there they are wondering about the highways and roads. Wonder why? The DMV instructors are horrible at what they do. They make exceptions for issuing licenses instead of kicking people off the roads. Have you seen a happy DMV instructor that loves his job? Now tell me why we need more of those people “teaching” me more riding skills. Tiered licenses allow displacement limitations to riders for years and years. I will go as far as to say limiting what someone can ride is telling someone not to ride at all. If I cant choose what I ride why would I start? Is the DMV going to tell new riders, “Since you’re new to riding, you can only ride the slowest most lack luster rides out there? Come back in a few years for a possible upgrade.” If you want to encourage more riders on the street then don’t put up obstacles. Classes and courses exist to improve rider’s abilities. If a rider feels they need to improve their riding skills there is no shortage of courses from beginner to racing classes.
If people are going to be bad riders there is nothing you, me or anyone else can do to help them. Stop looking to blame others or demand stricter regulations it only promotes this, lack of accountability mentality. When someone speeds and gets caught or crashes we shouldn’t say, “What do we do differently to fix this?” the individual should.