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Just curious, any bike riders in the group?

Beautiful late Summer weather here in Oregon, and before the state went broke, most of the good touring roads in the foothills of the Cascades were paved. Miles and miles of scenery, smooth roads, the wind, and hardly any cagers. Love it!!!

oooh, a nasty spill ages ago cured me of the bug for quite awhile (I promptly sold the bike, honda rebel, a week later).

lately, I've been drifting back (helped by the fact that a friend recently open up a bike shop). It's been lovely riding in upstate new york --it state fair time, up in Syracuse which is home of the Dinosaur Barbecue (a biker haven of some note). Giving some thought to next year's New York Bike week. Bike Week

- N

I always wanted a bike, but never did anything about it. I have other hobbies that take up my time, but someday.....

Anyway, this got me thinking of a heartbraking story. Last Spring, I was driving a few miles from my house down a main road (about 40 mph). It had recently showered and the roads were a little wet. I noticed a beautiful new red Harley with LOTS of chrome stopping at a side street. He made a right in front of me and while he was still in the turn punched the throttle........and the bike went out from under him. He was fine (wasn't going fast) but the whole side the bike scraped. It had to thousands in damage.

Ugh... I hate seeing anything beautiful destroyed and this bike was beautiful!

No pun intended, I'm sure.......

Yup. Bike rider. Dirt and street.

Current dirt ride is a KX250. SWMBO rides a Honda 4Trax quad.

No street bike in the stable just now, sold a Ninja 1000 about 6 months ago and am looking for a Honda 900 or 929RR wreck to rebuild and replace it with. Bike before that was a GSXR 750. My neighbor and riding buddy just picked up a '95 CBR1000 wreck that I might consider after he puts it back together.

I like canyons.

I might like a cruiser too, but garage space (and bank account space) is limited.

What are "cagers?"

Steve,

"Cagers" = people in cars.

I used to ride dirt bikes years ago. Great idea for a lot of fun, and a great way to learn how to control a bike.

Rich noted in an above post how a Harley guy dumped his bike. Total inexperience, I'll bet he never cracks the throttle on wet pavement with the wheel turned again! Hard way to learn a lesson, glad he wasn't hurt.

Heard statistics the other day, that the largest category of fatal accidents on motorcycles (donor mobiles...) are the 40+ adult males, who made lots of cash and now want to ride. So, they head to their Harley dealer, and buy a bike that they should not even be allowed to sit on, let alone ride.

I saw a guy the other day in a gas station, big shiny Harley soft-tail with undoubtedly weekend miles on it. He was wearing shorts and sandals for gosh sakes!! I was tempted to ask him if he'd ever been hit in the hand or shin with a rock while on the freeway, but figured it's none of my business.

Anyway, I did have a point in responding to your post. Dirt riding teaches everything about riding, especially what to do when things go wrong. It was this kind of experience that allowed me to lay my bike down on the freeway to avoid a wreck that occured in front of me. If not for that kind of off-road experience, I'm sure I would have decided to somehow ride out a skid instead of laying the bike down. A high-side would have killed me for sure, whereas a banged-up bike with asphalt burns is no big deal.

Went out this morning and noticed dew on the car. Ran inside and told my wife, asked her What's This All About!!

September. . . The rains are only a few weeks off. . .

OK, that makes more sense, then. Here I was thinking you were talking about basketball players which made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Oh, and my only attempts at riding were cut short by my inability to use hand brakes! :rolleyes:

Hmmm, I'm thinking about the "40+ males" comment. Not sure if it's inexperience, may just be the act of turning 40.

Within the same week, two guys at work had serious spills from their bikes. One guy was riding home from work and (somehow) the bike got away from him, and he ended up in the hospital for a few days, and off work for a few weeks. Not pleasant. The other guy (a "serious" amateur racer) took a spill during a race and broke his collarbone. Also not pleasant.

Don't know about you 40+ men! When we women hit 40, we do much more sensible things like color our hair blonde (or red, if we already were blondes) and decide we're really NOT too old to wear tube tops and get body piercings. Or we "pull a Martha" and decide that every stick of furniture in the house needs immediate replacement!

Nina

Which means time to get out the snow tires on our side of the cascades.

So what are your favorite touring roads, rvaga?

As a "cager", it's the logging trucks that make the drive scary. They can really pick up speed going down some of those winding roads.

I'm heading to Portland next weekend so wave as you zip past my red minivan.

Guess what? The guy was riding in a quite fashionable neighborhood and was WAaaayyy over 40. I would have guessed this was his first bike and first time on a slick road. Just a hunch though

Kawasaki ZX9R (street) and Kawasaki KDX200 (street/off-road).

Unfortunately, I live in the UK where the summers are a joke, the fuel is taxed at 400% (I know!) and the Police are far too keen. My street bike's been off the road for a little while as I need to replace the chain/sprockets. I used to ride the KDX to work all the time but we've moved offices and it's a bit far to ride now - the KDX has no ignition and hence no steering lock, plus it's 2 stroke. If I broke down on it, I'd be pretty much stuck!

As for that bloke who broke his collar bone - happened to me also plus a cracked sternum - very painful and couldn't play the piano for ages! MY bike went over on diesel most likely spilled by a bus or lorry