Whizbang's Spinning Wheels: May 2004

The First Bug or Motorcycle Jedi

The first bug hit my windshield a few weeks ago. Not much of a bug. More of a black spot with wings. A total anomaly. I remember thinking, "what the-?" The temperature had soared to a scorching 45°F. Minnesotans were starting to open their front doors and look outside after months of hibernation. By the end of March we just accept the gray, wet, sooty snow-covered world as status quo. The notion that it will all melt and be washed away by fresh clean spring rains is nothing but crazy talk spoken in whispers over pots of coffee brewed over the fires you light in the middle of your living room fueled by the last chopped-up pieces furniture you were forced to use since you ran out of firewood in February. We're always surprised, but the sun does return to the Snow Belt, and as soon as I could see enough asphalt to take a careful corner or two, there was a 90° V-Twin firing up in my garage. I'm pretty sure I was one of the first motorcyclists on the road in late February. When you put nearly 500 miles on your brand new 2004 V-Strom in a week and see only one guy on a Gold Wing in St. Paul, you know you're a member of an exclusive club.

To me, riding relatively cold and wet is just part of being a motorcyclist. "It's not worth it to own bikes in this state because you can only ride 5 or 6 months out of the year," you'll hear people say. I usually just agree politely with a head nod, then add a quick coughPANSIEScough. My YZF went to sleep in mid-November and just woke up March 23. That's 8.5 months of motorcycling, baby. The V-Strom came home late February and has been running ever since. If everything goes according to my evil plan, the V-Strom will NEVER taste fuel stabilizer. Add an electric jacket-liner and matching gloves and the only thing that will stop me from riding is ice on the roads. What can we say, some of us riders are just truly hardcore.

*knuckle crack*

Minnesota's bugs must be equally hardcore. Venturing out on two wings in early spring weather is treacherous at best...not unlike venturing out on two wheels. (Clever, no?) Right around the time that I was hitting the chilly highways on the DL1000, we started reading about fellow Beginnerbikers taking diggers (or "diggas" as my New England friends say). Our own Smitty commented in a well thought out post that everyone should take it easy and think more carefully about conditions before their newfound passion sends them flying down the road in chilly weather. Spring riding brings with it some of the most dangerous surface conditions of the year. There's sand and silt everywhere and patches of black ice which hide in shadows that the sun doesn't reach. The pavement is wet and water is flowing around, carrying all kinds of debris here and there so that a familiar corner which seemed clean in the morning might be full of wet leaves and twigs in the afternoon. You've got to be twice as vigilant in springtime because of what the snow and ice leave behind (for those of us that have to deal with snow and ice). All it takes is a minor, low-speed rear wheel slide to send your bike to the shop and you to the hospital.

A few weeks ago I was doing some business in Los Angeles and had a few days off to rent a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic. The brand new '04 bike had only 104 miles on her when I picked her up. Needless to say I broke her in putting 400 "quality time" miles on her by the end of a 4-day stretch. Some of the time was spent in the mountains northeast of Glendale on Angeles Crest Highway.

Here you'll find 55mph sweeping twisties through canyons and over ridges surrounded by steep drop-offs. The sharp smell of pine is in your nose the whole time. These are serious curves which one can take with serious glee. I did some Whizbangin' out there (like "smurf," "whizbang" is now also a verb, I've just decided) roughing up both engine guards. At first it was just a jolting SCRAPE, which startled me and my lovely passenger Amanda, and forced my survival reactions to kick in, slightly straightening up the bike which interfered with the bike's stability. Thank God Amanda is the adventurous type. Then we just got used to the joyful SCRRRAAAAPE sound (reason #543 why I'm no longer a cruiser guy). These were the kinds of roads that motorcyclists dream of. I was able to put some Keith Code and David Hough tactics into action, minding my line, staying in my lane, setting up my apexes, keeping my head turned, and focusing on throttle control to manage traction rather than worrying about suspension or frame stiffness. A sportbike would have been ridiculously more ideal, but the Harley handled the turns smoothly, if a little noisily (see SCRRRAAAAPE).

I was feeling like the 1.6-year, nearly 30,000 mile intermediate Beginnerbiker that I am, no longer focusing on the physical actions of controlling the bike, but rather dealing almost exclusively with road conditions and what's coming up next. The operation of the bike was instinctual, from shifting and braking, to throttle control and body position. I was truly using the Force. All the while I was thinking about all the newbie Padawan Beginnerbikers on our favorite site. "This is what they're all going to find if they keep studying and practicing. This is waiting for them on the other side." I listened to my MSF instructor's advice and have built good instincts by practicing the actions which should become habit. I've also done a lot of reading and home study to compliment what I learn through experience. That said, I believe wholeheartedly that strict adherence to these teachings has made my motorcycling experience that much better, because I know how to do what I need to do SAFELY. My corners and leans are confident and deep because of this persistence. I'm not saying I'm some super rider - I still make mistakes with the best of 'em, but I know what those mistakes are and how to correct them.

What kills me is that I've run into so few riders who truly share my discipline. It seems far too often that I run into riders who sound safe and normal at first - they may have even taken an MSF class or some other kind of rider training course - but eventually you get to the truth of their ideology...

"...yeah that YZF of yours is a great bike. Anyway, I'm probably going to get a GSX-R1000 or an R1," they'll say.

"Oh, why's that?"

"It's just a lot easier to get the front wheel off the ground. Plus I they're between like 150-170bhp or something so you can pretty much outrun anything on the road." They say this kind of thing completely deadpan, like this is exactly why someone should buy a 1000cc sportbike.

What is this Dark Side obsession with extreme speed and wheel-ies ([wee'leez] v. intr., as in performing stunts in which the front wheel or wheels of a vehicle, such as a bicycle or motorcycle, are raised so that the vehicle is balanced momentarily on its rear wheel or wheels)? I swear there's a speed demon wheelie monster lurking under the skin of just about every motorcyclist I meet! I'm not even talking about squids who stunt in public, or even the MotoGP guys who show off after winning the race, I'm talking about what looks like your average motorcyclist. I've heard the phrase "you can NEVER have too much power" many times out of various motorcyclist strangers. They make it sound like going fast and doing wheelies is the goal. You see it in sportbike magazines, too. There's editors doing track tests on brand new bikes and talking about how easily they wheelie. There was a guy from Two Wheels Only magazine who wrecked the brand new Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade because he pulled a wild wheelie during his test. May I just ask...

WHAT IS THE DEAL?

Does motorcycling inject testosterone directly into their brain? Do they think speeding and stunting shows how great of a rider they are? Are they just fun, cheap thrills? Are there any truly safe riders out there? Or are these boastful riders lying about being crazy riders to try to impress whoever they're talking to, much like teenage boys lie about their sexual prowess to their friends? I find myself feeling sheepish when I say, "yeah, I try to keep both wheels on the ground at all times. I've learned how to stabilize the bike despite its plentiful low-end torque so I can start fast off the traffic light line WITHOUT pulling a wheelie." The only guys who ever say, "cool," are guys that actually race (maybe they've already got excess testosterone so they don't HAVE to brag about stunts). Maybe I'm just a motorcycling geek. WHO CARES??!! Call me wimpy or square or boring or whatever, but my goal as a motorcyclist is not to outrun or outwheelie you or anyone else, it's to ride to the best of my ability and have a really, really great time doing it which doesn't necessarily mean going 100mph over the speed limit or doing tricks on public roads. I dare any rider with my degree of experience who's hell bent on pulling wheelies and doing ludicrous speeds to dive into 30mph twisties with me. We'll see who can RIDE.

I guess that was some motorcycling bravado right there. *sigh*

We all got hit by the motorcycling bug. For whatever reason it hit us right between the eyes. It can send our good judgment out the window...or send us out to the motorcycle dealership before we've taken the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic Rider Course...or out in the rain before we're really ready for it because we "just have to ride today." It's the bug that we'll probably never wash from our windshields no matter how much Honda polish we use. I would like to propose that as a newbie Padawan Beginnerbiker you might try to keep your training in mind first and foremost. Naturally everyone is entitled to pursue their own path, but the path of the Motorcycle Jedi Master, admittedly more difficult and requiring more discipline than the path of the wheelie-poppin' speedfreak, will bring you more joy for a longer amount of time. Guaranteed.

The one, true Motorcycle Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi
(aka Ewan MacGregor), promoting the MotoGP
documentary FASTER, which he narrated)

That's it for this month. If you live in Minneapolis you would have seen me at Ewan's movie premiere at the Riverview Theatre on April 2. I'm sure we'll be chatting about that in the near future! Until then, look around. The roads are filled with bikers. BE ONE OF THEM.

RIDE SAFE!!