This is what I’ll be doing with my Wednesday evenings for the next three weeks

by Posted on

http://www.subcycles.com/BMMC.html

Some­how I man­aged not to inher­it my father’s mag­ic touch with all things mechan­i­cal, but heck, maybe that’s just because I nev­er tried.

Don’t wor­ry, I’m not going to try fix­ing an in-war­ran­ty bike myself. I just want to learn the fun­da­men­tals. Looks like fun, eh?

Published by splicer

32 Replies to “This is what I’ll be doing with my Wednesday evenings for the next three weeks”

  3. Yeah, what­ev­er Randy. If you
    Yeah, what­ev­er Randy. If you *had* read my posts you’d know I took the MSF course before buy­ing the bike. If I had­n’t, how would I know I want­ed a bike in the first place?

    I have been think­ing about tak­ing the ERC, but I hard­ly qual­i­fy as an expe­ri­enced rid­er, now do I? 2100 miles in 10 weeks falls short of the 3000 mile/6 month min­i­mum rec­om­men­da­tion made by the Bay Area Motor­cy­cle Train­ing web­site. So maybe I’ll take the ERC in a cou­ple of months.

    Also think­ing about tak­ing Reg Prid­more’s CLASS, but there too I think I should­n’t waste my time until I trade the bike in for a big­ger model.

    Next, what the fuck does “pre­tend­ing to be a bik­er” mean? Sor­ry, I have no desire to start a meth lab or tat­too a gang sign on my shoul­der. I’ll nev­er patch in. What­ev­er. I do go on group rides and solo rides. I don’t know what bag­gage you have attached to being a “bik­er” but I don’t think I want any part of it.

    It’s a good thing you’re not this much of an ass­hole in real life. Maybe you can start to work on bring­ing that part of your per­son­al­i­ty to the 90% of your day spent online.

  4. Quit being so para­noid
    Quit being so para­noid Steve. I gave you the like to the advanced course because you need a *lot* more expe­ri­ence before even con­sid­er­ing work­ing on a motor­cy­cle for a very impor­tant rea­son.- many dif­fer­ent prob­lems on a cycle can only be known from expe­ri­ence. And you can only get that expe­ri­ence riding. 

    “pre­tend­ing to be a bik­er” is in ref­er­ence to your rid­ing just around the bay area, as well as using words such as “cager”. San Fran­cis­co is by far the worst pos­si­ble city to get your miles & expe­ri­ence in. Get across the bay bridge and get some real rid­ing in. Ride down to Los Ange­les and back. Hell, ride to Hol­lis­ter or even Napa Val­ley. Ride to Plac­erville via the back­roads or Delta route.

  5. You did­n’t link to the
    You did­n’t link to the advanced course. You linked to the MSF.

    Speak­ing of fol­low­ing links, did you read the descrip­tion of the main­te­nance course at Sub­ter­ranean? It’s a very basic course. It cov­ers stuff that every rid­er should know, but that I don’t. Adjust­ing the slack out of my chain was just explained to me a week ago. I don’t think that’s real­ly a prob­lem that can only be known from experience.

    I’ll take your San Fran­cis­co com­ment with a grain of salt, know­ing that you think that San Fran­cis­co is the worst pos­si­ble city to breathe in. It’s cer­tain­ly *not* the worst city to ride in. I imag­ine Chica­go, with its expan­sive grid and no hills for hun­dreds of miles, prob­a­bly offers far less for sharp­en­ing one’s skills. It’s not much, but I get to ride through the Pre­sidio every day as I go to and from work. The rest of the com­mute is all straight lines and 90-degree turns from a stop, noth­ing that will teach me any­thing, but most cities don’t offer any­thing but the grid. And San Fran­cis­co has a hell of a lot of rid­ers com­pared to oth­er cities, so I have a lot of peo­ple around to help me out with my ques­tions and to go rid­ing with.

    That said, the oth­er advan­tage San Fran­cis­co has is that it’s close to the “real rid­ing” you described. I went to Con­cord to see a show a month ago, and rode noth­ing but bor­ing-ass free­way and sub­urbs, so just cross­ing the bridge does­n’t cut the mus­tard. But you’re right. Rid­ing the delta and all those levy roads was great rid­ing. The San­ta Cruz Moun­tains made a great day, and yes, rid­ing up through Win­ters to Cal­is­to­ga and then across Skag­g’s to Stew­art’s Point and down Route 1 with 11 oth­er rid­ers made for just about the best day of my life. Next Sun­day I’ll be going up to Clear­lake with the same group. Hope­ful­ly on Memo­r­i­al Day I’ll be rid­ing up to the Lost Coast and Avenue of the Giants for a three-day week­end, but we have to see about mon­ey and lodg­ing. That might not work out.

    At this point I would­n’t pre­sume to lay out any rides for my group. The rides that the oth­er rid­ers have picked out are giv­ing me a lot to go by.

  6. “I’ll take your San
    “I’ll take your San Fran­cis­co com­ment with a grain of salt, know­ing that you think that San Fran­cis­co is the worst pos­si­ble city to breathe in.”
    It’s cer­tain­ly *not* the worst city to ride in. I imag­ine Chica­go, with its expan­sive grid and no hills for hun­dreds of miles, prob­a­bly offers far less for sharp­en­ing one’s skills.”

    Steve,

    I have rode in every major city on the west coast. I have rode up & down Route 66, PCH, I40, I‑90, and places that would cause you to soil your pants. I ride an aver­age of 200 miles A DAY. I have been rid­ing motor­cy­cles since I was 7. I ride in rain, snow and sunshine.

    So you can take my word that SF is the worst city to ride around in. The only “skills” that SF will sharp­en, is the skill of being frus­trat­ed with con­ges­tion, pedes­tri­ans, ill-timed lights, no park­ing, and over­heat­ing engines.

  7. Gee, sor­ry Mis­ter Tough Guy.
    Gee, sor­ry Mis­ter Tough Guy. I should have real­ized that your Bad Atti­tude makes you an expert on all things, regard­less of any per­son­al prej­u­dices you might have. Please accept my hum­ble apolo­gies for not rec­og­niz­ing your great­ness. If I can lick your boots some­day, please let me know. Thank you for deign­ing to show me how much cool­er you are than me.

    Now shut the fuck up and go away.

  8. There is no prej­u­dices here,
    There is no prej­u­dices here, you inse­cure para­noid jack­ass. Just state­ment of fact. If you want a city that will give you oodles of rid­ing expe­ri­ence, try Port­land, Seat­tle, or any city in-between. Want a place a lit­tle clos­er? Try Neva­da City, or even Aburn. Keep in mind, I’m also paid to ride and wrie about such places.

    As per your “cool remark” as I am, get your­self a real motor­cy­cle, instead of the under­pow­ered scoot­er in dis­guise, and then we’ll talk.

  9. The prej­u­dice is an old one:
    The prej­u­dice is an old one: you hate San Fran­cis­co for not liv­ing up to the cool­ness that you thought that it had 30 years ago. You always have and you’ve always exag­ger­at­ed any defect the town might have.

    And hey, I respect your cred. But I already have peo­ple to talk to who have the kind of rid­ing expe­ri­ence you have but who don’t have such a shit­ty atti­tude. You’re the kind of ass­hole who would leave a bro­ken-down Lam­bret­ta rid­er on the side of the road because your bike is supe­ri­or. I have no time for that sort of crap.

    So, yeah, I’ll get anoth­er bike, but no, we won’t talk. I’m tak­ing Quak­er’s advice on this: nev­er trust an unhap­py philoso­pher. You’re bit­ter and angry – why the fuck would I want to take on your attitudes?

    And hey, I do have a real motor­cy­cle. It’s the largest engine allowed by law in many asian countries.

  10. “The prej­u­dice is an old
    “The prej­u­dice is an old one: you hate San Fran­cis­co for not liv­ing up to the cool­ness that you thought that it had 30 years ago. You always have and you’ve always exag­ger­at­ed any defect the town might have.”

    No, it has to do with the traf­fic, the con­ges­tion, the lack of park­ing, the park­ing tick­ets, and thefts. SF if a city of pedes­tri­ans, which is a good thing. But as far as it being a city for motor­cy­cles, it’s horrible. 

    “So, yeah, I’ll get anoth­er bike, but no, we won’t talk. I’m tak­ing Quak­er’s advice on this: nev­er trust an unhap­py philoso­pher. You’re bit­ter and angry – why the fuck would I want to take on your attitudes?”

    One word- projection

    “And hey, I do have a real motor­cy­cle. It’s the largest engine allowed by law in many asian countries.”

    But not in the Unit­ed States, where you are. Get some­thing with more than 1000CCs, and we’ll talk.

  12. Ahh you seem to be one of
    Ahh you seem to be one of THOSE. IF it aint a liter bike then it aint a real bike. The size of you penis being mea­sured by the CC’s of your bike even though an R6 can go well over any speed lim­it any­where same with a ZX7. Any liter bike today is far too much pow­er for any­one to have. I rarely say this about oth­er rid­ers but i look for­ward to read­ing of your demise in the papers. This line of think­ing that you aint a bik­er unless you ride some­thing that is far too large for any human to con­trol safe­ly. A true bik­er rides because he appre­ci­ates the ride not because he is the fastest (read-dumb­est) bik­er on the road. Ive been rid­ing for over 10 years and i grew up with a father and a grand­fa­ther that both rode. You, are a fuck­ing moron. 

    Learn­ing how to tool a bike in no way is depen­dent on rid­ing expe­ri­ence. I worked on my first bike quite a bit. Its best to not do any­thing like over­haul­ing an engine but basics are ABSOLUTELY with­in the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ty not to men­tion he stat­ed his father is one that knows how to turn a wrench and im sure he would assist him when­ev­er he asked. Liter bikes are for peo­ple that WANT TO BE REAL BIKERS. Real bik­ers know that a small­er bike will hit the twisties much bet­ter and with much more con­trol than any mon­ster that the morons that saw on Bik­er Boyz. Keep talk­ing cool and think­ing you are the shit, be over­con­fi­dent so you can be elim­i­nat­ed from the bik­ers because you reflect bad­ly on us all.

  13. It’s extreme­ly clear that
    It’s extreme­ly clear that you’ve nev­er rid­den in Boston. But you know, despite the urban bat­tle­ground that is the greater Boston met­ro­pol­i­tan area, despite the ice and snow and sand that threat­en to throw us head-first into the asphault for near­ly half a year, despite the cagers who don’t yield to each oth­er much less to us, there’s a fuck­ton of bik­ers out here. We’re on every­thing from Gold­wings to chop­pers with ape-hang­ers to Ducatis to UJMs to BSAs to Ves­pas to my lit­tle Sav­age, and for the most part we wave at each oth­er when we pass by. So maybe, just maybe, it isn’t the area you ride in, or the dis­place­ment of the bike you’re on, or the name brand on your jack­et. Maybe being a bik­er is about lov­ing to ride and lov­ing motor­cy­cles, and being able to rec­og­nize that pas­sion in others.

  14. “Ahh you seem to be one of
    “Ahh you seem to be one of THOSE. IF it aint a liter bike then it aint a real bike. The size of you penis being mea­sured by the CC’s of your bike even though an R6 can go well over any speed lim­it any­where same with a ZX7.”

    I don’t ride a Harley, but I do ride American.

    “Ive been rid­ing for over 10 years and i grew up with a father and a grand­fa­ther that both rode. You, are a fuck­ing moron.”

    I’ve been rid­ing for 27 years, as did my father & grand­fa­ther (who rode in WW II). The guys I ride with, well, you have heard of them in leg­end and are 100% respon­si­ble for you being on two wheels today. 

    “Learn­ing how to tool a bike in no way is depen­dent on rid­ing experience.”

    Real­ly?

    *what will improve a curv­ing ratio by 30 degrees?
    *In what cit­u­a­tion on pave­ment will counter-steer­ing be bad, and why?
    *At what point will you get a false mist­im­ing, and why?
    *In what sit­u­a­tion would you sit on the gas tank, and why?

    “I worked on my first bike quite a bit. Its best to not do any­thing like over­haul­ing an engine but basics are ABSOLUTELY with­in the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ty not to men­tion he stat­ed his father is one that knows how to turn a wrench and im sure he would assist him when­ev­er he asked.”

    Con­sid­er­ing his father lives on the east coast, I don’t see that happening.

    “Liter bikes are for peo­ple that WANT TO BE REAL BIKERS. Real bik­ers know that a small­er bike will hit the twisties”

    I’ve seen peo­ple in full-dressed cruis­ers who take curves at speeds above and beyond what would be con­sid­ered safe (i.e. 20MPH post­ed, tak­en at 60MPH). So the idea that only small bike can do such things is real­ly a myth.

  15. That’s true, I haven’t rode
    That’s true, I haven’t rode in Boston, yet. That will come next year for Laco­nia when we ride from San Diego. So who knows. Per­haps Boston will over­take SF.

  16. “Learn­ing how to tool a bike
    “Learn­ing how to tool a bike in no way is depen­dent on rid­ing experience.”

    Real­ly?

    Yes. I could pro­vide many exam­ples, but I’ll set­tle for 1 word:

    Rossi.

    Accord­ing to you, your 30 years rid­ing expe­ri­ence (longer than he’s been alive) should make you a bet­ter rid­er. So I ask — Do *you* have 6 world cham­pi­onships to your name?

    Expe­ri­ence is need­ed, but it’s not every­thing. Nei­ther is the size of the bike. If you think oth­er­wise, try telling that to the 17 year olds who take great plea­sure in humil­i­at­ing all-com­ers at the local track, rid­ing noth­ing more than April­ia RS250s (Even 125s in some cas­es). Tell that to the friend of mine who post­ed a 102mph lap of the isle of man on a GSXR400. (And rid­ing ability/experience be damned, there’s not a cruis­er built that could do that)

    And why knock town rid­ing? If you’re as expe­ri­enced as you say, you’d be ful­ly aware that it gives a hard but extreme­ly effec­tive les­son in spa­cial aware­ness, knowl­edge of the bikes reac­tions in emer­gency cir­cum­stances and defen­sive driving.

    In short, you’ve been rid­ing for 27 years. Con­grat­u­la­tions. It still does­n’t make any of your points more valid. Nor throw­ing in a bunch of pseu­do tech­ni­cal ques­tions, which could more than like­ly be looked up in a text­book and *still* not make any dif­fer­ence to the rid­ing of the per­son that knows the answers.

    (Oh and by the way, no mat­ter who you ride with, I can guar­an­tee they’re in no way rel­e­vant to the rea­son I ride a bike, unless they’re the peo­ple that taught my Grand­fa­ther to ride in the ear­ly 1900s)

  17. “I don’t ride a Harley, but
    “I don’t ride a Harley, but I do ride American.”

    I fail to see what this has to do with the debate, there are many fine motor­bike man­u­fac­tur­ers from many coun­tries around the world, and they make a lot of fine bikes. I sup­pose your big­otry extends to those of us who ride the most appro­pri­ate bike to our sit­u­a­tion rather than the fastest most flashy one too…

  18. “Accord­ing to you, your 30
    “Accord­ing to you, your 30 years rid­ing expe­ri­ence (longer than he’s been alive) should make you a bet­ter rider.”

    I’ll clar­i­fy- get­ting out and rid­ing daily/constantly is what gives you the experience.

    “And why knock town riding?” 

    I nev­er did. I said that SF is a ter­ri­ble town to ride in. SF is a con­cen­trat­ed, pedes­tri­an-ori­ent­ed town. I nev­er knocked city rid­ing. As a mat­ter of fact, I offered alternatives.

    “Nor throw­ing in a bunch of pseu­do tech­ni­cal ques­tions, which could more than like­ly be looked up in a text­book and *still* not make any dif­fer­ence to the rid­ing of the per­son that knows the answers.”

    Believe me, they are not pseu­do-tech­ni­cal ques­tions. They are things that you dis­cov­er in many cas­es, not from a class­room or book, but just riding.

  19. “I fail to see what this has
    “I fail to see what this has to do with the debate,”

    Ask the per­son, who assumed to know what I ride that I was reply­ing to.

  20. “Ahh you seem to be one of
    “Ahh you seem to be one of THOSE. IF it aint a liter bike then it aint a real bike.”

    Does­nt men­tion what bike you ride, just a (very) gen­er­al state­ment of capac­i­ty range (1000cc+, lots of bikes in that catagory).

    “The size of you penis being mea­sured by the CC’s of your bike even though an R6 can go well over any speed lim­it any­where same with a ZX7.”

    Again, no men­tion of what bike you ride, he does men­tion two bikes, but he does­nt say you ride them, mere­ly that they are quite fast enough for any hon­est law abid­ing citizen.

    I havent quot­ed the rest of his post because it makes no ref­er­ence to the make, mod­el, ori­gin, or type of bike that you ride. He did say that you do not con­sid­er any­thing with less than 1000ccs to be worth­less, which you infact implied your­self “Get some­thing with more than 1000CCs, and we’ll talk.”.

    Frankly sir, your an ass­hole. I ride an XL125, and Im no less a bik­er than you are for it. Id like to see you tell the guy who rides the same mod­el bike as me who rode to por­tugual from Ire­land on it that he isnt a real bik­er. He went to a meet­ing of guys who ride the 1000cc ver­sion of the bike and recieved major cred for doing it, as far as Im con­cerned those guys are real bik­ers, who accept bik­ers for how and why they ride and not what they ride. You are mere­ly a self impor­tant bigot.

  21. “Does­nt men­tion what bike
    “Does­nt men­tion what bike you ride, just a (very) gen­er­al state­ment of capac­i­ty range (1000cc+, lots of bikes in that catagory).”

    Yeah, and your point is.…?

    “He did say that you do not con­sid­er any­thing with less than 1000ccs to be worth­less, which you infact implied your­self “Get some­thing with more than 1000CCs, and we’ll talk.”.”

    No, he said that, not me. How­ev­er, for clar­i­fi­ca­tion, I do con­sid­er the par­tic­u­lar mod­el of 250cc that Steve rides to be a scoot­er in dis­quise. Espe­cial­ly in light of many of his posts.

    “Frankly sir, your an ass­hole. I ride an XL125, and Im no less a bik­er than you are for it.”

    Yeah, I’m an ass­hole. I’m also in the Unit­ed States. I would in no way con­sid­er con­sid­er to dis­cuss rid­ing in Europe Vs. the U.S.A, in that they are lit­ter­al­ly worlds apart.

    “Id like to see you tell the guy who rides the same mod­el bike as me who rode to por­tugual from Ire­land on it that he isnt a real biker”

    I’d have great rep­sect for him, con­sid­er­ing that, look­ing at the last map avail­able, Por­tugual & Ire­land are seper­at­ed by a body of water. But hey, in a few months I’ll be rid­ing from San Diego to Skag­way. He’s wel­come to join us.

    “s Im con­cerned those guys are real bikers,who accept bik­ers for how and why they ride and not what they ride.”

    Even when it’s week­end-rid­ing, mid­dle-class twits who view it as a hob­by like your­self? Please, go back to dis­cussing “cool armour” and LARPS.

  22. So wait, who are you
    So wait, who are you claim­ing wrote, “But not in the Unit­ed States, where you are. Get some­thing with more than 1000CCs, and we’ll talk.”???? Because from where I sit, you wrote that. Are you claim­ing that there’s more than one anony­mous poster in this thread? Who are you try­ing to fool?

    And “week­end-rid­ing, mid­dle-class” cer­tain­ly sums me up. You make it pret­ty clear that rid­ing to work, unless rid­ing *is* work, does­n’t count for any­thing. Nei­ther does get­ting gro­ceries or just going to the ocean to see the waves roll in. Vis­it­ing a friend on the oth­er side of one of the bridges does­n’t count and nei­ther does going on a busi­ness appoint­ment or a job inter­view. The only thing that appar­ent­ly meets with your approval is rid­ing only for the love of it, with­out any des­ti­na­tion in mind to soil the puri­ty of rid­ing nor with any enjoy­ment that might make it fall pathet­i­cal­ly into the realm of “hob­by.”

    So why would I, or any­one, aspire to your ide­al of bikerhood?

    There’s a moment in The Wild One where the sher­if­f’s daugh­ter asks John­ny what they do when they ride, where they go and she specif­i­cal­ly asks, “do you go for pic­nics?” It’s poignant because she’s so naive and only some week­end-rid­ing mid­dle-class twit would think of going for a pic­nic on some­thing as wild and bad as a motor­cy­cle. But you know, a pic­nic sounds good to me. If being a bik­er means no pic­nics because I’m too busy being tough and glar­ing at the badass world that Just Does­n’t Under­stand Me, I have no time for it. I have places to go and I’m going to go to those places instead of wor­ry­ing about whether I’m cool enough to hang with Randy.

    And shit, call it a scoot­er if you like. I know a woman who took her 150cc Bajaj to Las Vegas and back solo. I might have got­ten a scoot­er except that I believe in the sta­bil­i­ty of larg­er rotat­ing mass­es. Too many years of rid­ing a bicy­cle, I trust the gyro­scop­ic effect of larg­er wheels. And I’m sure that bicy­cles are even more pathet­ic in your eyes, so why not just call it a bicy­cle? I’m sure that will help you to feel important.

  23. “Yeah, and your point
    “Yeah, and your point is.…?”
    “Ask the per­son, who assumed to know what I ride that I was reply­ing to.”

    My point is that he nev­er claimed to know what you ride.

    “No, he said that, not me. How­ev­er, for clar­i­fi­ca­tion, I do con­sid­er the par­tic­u­lar mod­el of 250cc that Steve rides to be a scoot­er in dis­quise. Espe­cial­ly in light of many of his posts.”

    He dri­ves a Rebel right? Lets see, engine in front of rid­er, man­u­al trans­mis­sion, sounds like a bike to me. This is a scoot­er in disguise.

    “Yeah, I’m an ass­hole. I’m also in the Unit­ed States. I would in no way con­sid­er con­sid­er to dis­cuss rid­ing in Europe Vs. the U.S.A, in that they are lit­ter­al­ly worlds apart.”

    I dont believe we are dis­cussing the dif­fer­ence between the US and Europe, we’re dis­cussing your idi­ot­ic atti­tude. Nowhere have I com­pared rid­ing in the US to rid­ing in Europe, you are mere­ly try­ing to avoid the top­ic of conversation.

    “I’d have great rep­sect for him, con­sid­er­ing that, look­ing at the last map avail­able, Por­tugual & Ire­land are seper­at­ed by a body of water. But hey, in a few months I’ll be rid­ing from San Diego to Skag­way. He’s wel­come to join us.”
    I would imag­ine he took a fer­ry from Ire­land to Wales, and a ride on Train from Dover to Le Harve, exact­ly the same as any oth­er bik­er (includ­ing the 1000cc bik­ers who attend­ed the same meet) would. Tell me, how would you cross the great lakes?

    “Even when it’s week­end-rid­ing, mid­dle-class twits who view it as a hob­by like yourself?”

    You sound like exact­ly the kind of mid­dle class cor­po­rate drone who dons a leather jack­et and a bad atti­tude at the week­end in order to escape from his mean­ing­less life. I clock up on aver­age 20 miles a day, I ride to and from work, I ride to the store, I ride into town when Im going out, I ride to the cin­e­ma, I ride out to the moun­tains when I need to relax, I even ride cross coun­try when I want to vis­it my folks. I dont have a car, truck, SUV, or any oth­er form of trans­port, just my faith­ful motorbike.

    FYI, My father was a fish­er­man, I just fin­ished up a job as a secu­ri­ty guard to make mon­ey for uni­ver­si­ty. My grand­par­ents and thi­er par­ents before them were farm­ers, Im not mid­dle class, far from it.

  24. “There’s a moment in The
    “There’s a moment in The Wild One where the sher­if­f’s daugh­ter asks John­ny what they do when they ride, where they go and she specif­i­cal­ly asks, “do you go for pic­nics?” It’s poignant because she’s so naive and only some week­end-rid­ing mid­dle-class twit would think of going for a pic­nic on some­thing as wild and bad as a motorcycle.”

    Fun­ny you should men­tion ‘The Wild One’. I know many of the guys who were the inspi­ra­tion behind that unin­ten­tion­al com­e­dy. Be sure to look for the book which I helped research when it hits the book­stores this July. I think you’ll real­ly dig it.

    “I have places to go and I’m going to go to those places instead of wor­ry­ing about whether I’m cool enough to hang with Randy.”

    Hey. knock your­self out. Enjoy those rides to Daly City. Rev­el in your rides through Gold­en Gate Park, or down to Cala Foods. Or per­haps, some­day, I’ll run into you at some­place like The Rock Shop or Nep­tune’s Net. And if I do, I’ll buy the first round of Odouls.

    “And shit, call it a scoot­er if you like. I know a woman who took her 150cc Bajaj to Las Vegas and back solo.”

    Yes, and I knew the man who first rode a motor­cy­cle accross the Baja, when such a feat was con­sid­ered suicidal.

    “And I’m sure that bicy­cles are even more pathet­ic in your eyes,”

    I love bikes. Good excer­sise, and for a place like the bay area, they’re the per­fect mode of two-wheeled transportation.

  25. “that unin­ten­tion­al
    “that unin­ten­tion­al comedy”

    What do you mean? That was an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT and TRUE warn­ing about the dan­ger­ous influ­ence of CRAZY JAZZ MUSIC and motor­cy­cles. Be care­ful, because it could hap­pen in your town.

  27. “My point is that he nev­er
    “My point is that he nev­er claimed to know what you ride.”

    That is true. but he did assume to know what I ride.

    “He dri­ves a Rebel right? Lets see, engine in front of rid­er, man­u­al trans­mis­sion, sounds like a bike to me. This is a scoot­er in disguise.”

    I’ll grant you that. But undeli­ably, what he does ride, is a Sport­ster wannabee. On the sur­face, not a lot wrong with that. I often recomend it to begin­ners. But, again, we come back to my point- get more expe­ri­ence before tool­ing. steve has far less than 5,000 miles total rid­ing expe­ri­ence. Pos­si­bly 2,000. A good exam­ple, would be teach­ing a per­son how to assem­ble, and dis­as­em­ble a gun. They can know all the mechan­ics, but it does­n’t help much when try­ing to hit the tar­get unless they’ve fired the gun a few times.

    “I dont believe we are dis­cussing the dif­fer­ence between the US and Europe, we’re dis­cussing your idi­ot­ic attitude.”

    See below.

    “Tell me, how would you cross the great lakes?”

    I would­n’t I would go around- like I did before.

    “You sound like exact­ly the kind of mid­dle class cor­po­rate drone who dons a leather jack­et and a bad atti­tude at the week­end in order to escape from his mean­ing­less life. I clock up on aver­age 20 miles a day, I ride to and from work, I ride to the store, I ride into town when Im going out, I ride to the cin­e­ma, I ride out to the moun­tains when I need to relax, I even ride cross coun­try when I want to vis­it my folks. I dont have a car, truck, SUV, or any oth­er form of trans­port, just my faith­ful motorbike.”

    I’ll just say the following-

    1. I was born and raised in Butte MT.
    2. On aver­age, I put 200 miles in per day.
    3. All I’ve had are cycles.

    “FYI, My father was a fish­er­man, I just fin­ished up a job as a secu­ri­ty guard to make mon­ey for uni­ver­si­ty. My grand­par­ents and thi­er par­ents before them were farm­ers, Im not mid­dle class, far from it.”

    1. Trust me, you’re mid­dle-class. No mat­ter how much you hate to admit it.
    2. You’re still a LARPer.

  28. I’ll grant you that. But

    I’ll grant you that. But undeli­ably, what he does ride, is a Sport­ster wannabee. On the sur­face, not a lot wrong with that. I often recomend it to begin­ners. But, again, we come back to my point- get more expe­ri­ence before tool­ing. steve has far less than 5,000 miles total rid­ing expe­ri­ence. Pos­si­bly 2,000. A good exam­ple, would be teach­ing a per­son how to assem­ble, and dis­as­em­ble a gun. They can know all the mechan­ics, but it does­n’t help much when try­ing to hit the tar­get unless they’ve fired the gun a few times.

    Here I have to dis­agree, and it does­n’t have any­thing to do with motor­cy­cles per se. Own­ing a machine—any machine—carries with it a usu­al­ly-neglect­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty to know some­thing about it and how it works, and how to main­tain it. The class does­n’t pre­tend to teach me to take an engine apart and put it back togeth­er. It’s show­ing me what the parts are and what they do, and it promis­es noth­ing more than to know what I’m pay­ing for when I bring it to the shop.

    Fur­ther­more, I don’t think that you’re say­ing that some­one should ride 5,000 miles before learn­ing to clean and lube one’s chain. (I prob­a­bly won’t make it to 5,000 miles with­out replac­ing the bike with a shaft-dri­ven mod­el, but that’s anoth­er sto­ry.) A gen­er­a­tion ago, it was unthink­able to own a car with­out know­ing how to change the oil. It’s hard to believe that you, mis­ter purist, think there’s any­thing wrong with learn­ing about how a machine works.

    For the record, it’s a Vira­go, not a Rebel. Wannabe Sport­ster? I guess. I picked it for a vari­ety of rea­sons, all of which I still believe valid. First, I deter­mined not to be one of those guys who buys a motor­cy­cle and then does­n’t ride it and sells it five years lat­er with a thou­sand miles on it. eBay and Craigslist are lousy with those, and it’s dis­gust­ing. So I took the MSF course not to learn how to ride, but to learn if I would enjoy rid­ing. I was ful­ly pre­pared to take the course and nev­er get on a bike again if it did­n’t appeal to me.

    Then I looked for bikes that I thought appro­pri­ate. 250cc seemed like a good size for some­one who had nev­er rid­den on the street before. How many sto­ries have we all heard about the squid killing him­self with a half-mile on the odome­ter? I rode a 250 in the MSF course, and it seemed capable.

    I bought new because I know I have no mechan­i­cal apti­tude. I’m bet­ter off let­ting a ser­vice depart­ment take care of the machine. Fur­ther, I want­ed to know what run­ning right sound and feels like and I knew I would­n’t have a clean slate with some­one else’s machine. Third, hey, financ­ing. Yay Amer­i­ca and cred­it. Maybe that’s not a good rea­son, but there we go.

    I also have the roman­tic poseur image in my head that says “cruis­er” rather than sport­bike. The deal­er’s sales­drone tried his damn­d­est to get me on a Nin­ja 250, and while I might put in some time on one this week­end, I still know that black and chrome makes my heart pound, while fair­ings and hid­den machin­ery just make me sad. OK, the naked bikes have some appeal, and per­haps I’ll get con­vert­ed to the crouched-for­ward posi­tion, but till then, no, I’m in the cruis­er camp.

    Next is the sound. OK, it’s a tiny bike, but it sounds bet­ter than any oth­er (new and unmodified)bike under 400cc. Not as throaty as I’d like but what do I expect for a 250? It does­n’t sound like an elec­tric razor. A van­i­ty point, but yeah, i like the sound.

    I bought this bike know­ing that I was going to learn a lot about what I want­ed in a bike, but it’s exact­ly the bike I want­ed. Yeah, I’m think­ing of trad­ing it in a lot ear­li­er than I expect­ed, but I love this bike and, well, fuck you for diss­ing it. It’s agile, sim­ple, reli­able, picks up nice­ly from a stop, does­n’t get weird at its high end (I’ve buried the nee­dle of the speedo with­out any dis­turb­ing vibra­tion as I’ve heard a lot of peo­ple com­plain), it’s com­fort­able on longer rides (I know, 300 miles in a day is noth­ing to you, but for me that’s a pret­ty full day of rid­ing) and it looks good (no account­ing for taste, right?). What else could I ask for in a starter bike?

    Well, so yeah, I prob­a­bly am going to move to a liter bike. Does­n’t take a damn thing away from my Vira­go. This is a sweet lit­tle ride and I would­n’t choose dif­fer­ent if I had the choice to make again.

  30. “That is true. but he did
    “That is true. but he did assume to know what I ride.”

    No, he did­nt, that point has been proved, you are flog­ging dead horse because you know you have lost the argue­ment and shout­ing point­less­ly makes you feel good.

    “But, again, we come back to my point- get more expe­ri­ence before tool­ing. steve has far less than 5,000 miles total rid­ing experience.”

    You are wrong, this course is not a com­pre­hen­sive mechan­ics course, its a basic mechan­i­cal apti­tude course. It cov­ers things every­one who rides should know about thi­er machine and how it works, if you claim to know so much about rid­ing you should acknowl­edge the impor­tance of know­ing such things.

    “A good exam­ple, would be teach­ing a per­son how to assem­ble, and dis­as­em­ble a gun. They can know all the mechan­ics, but it does­n’t help much when try­ing to hit the tar­get unless they’ve fired the gun a few times.”

    Hes not try­ing to make his bike bet­ter, hes try­ing to learn how to keep it run­ning prop­er­ly and not be raped by unscrupu­lous mechanics.

    “I would­n’t I would go around- like I did before.”

    Imag­ine for a minute that you cant go around.

    “I’ll just say … had are cycles.”

    I hope you can now appre­ci­ate the stu­pid­i­ty of your pre­vi­ous remarks then.

    “Trust me, you’re mid­dle-class. No mat­ter how much you hate to admit it.”

    Lets see a sen­si­ble break­down of exact­ly what it is that makes me mid­dle class?

    “You’re still a LARPer.”

    I do not pre­tend to ride a motor­bike, I sit on it, move the con­trols and it physicly bears me off in what­ev­er direc­tion I point it, this is not pretend.

    Unlike you, I also dont pre­tend to be a badass bik­er, I have long hair, some facial hair, and I ride a bike sure, but it ends there. I dont need to pre­tend to be an angel to jus­ti­fy myself so I dont. It is you who are the LARPer.

  31. Sounds good I’ll prob­a­bly be
    Sounds good I’ll prob­a­bly be hawk­ing books, or at John­ny’s bar (for obvi­ous reasons).

    See you July 4th.

  32. ok, I’ll grant you that.
    ok, I’ll grant you that. I’ve grown up with motor­cy­cles around me. so I either mis­un­der­stood what the class teach­es and take for grant­ed that peo­ple would know the stuff they teach. So my bad.

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