The Ladies Weren't Impressed
Jul 01 '00
A Note: As, mysteriously enough, there isn't a category on Motorcycle Safety, I decided to post this here, as most of the incidents described took place on the highways.
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I have been riding scooters since 1975 when, much to my parents chagrin, I came home with a 1972 250 Suzuki. It came in three boxes and took me a week to assemble. Before this point, I had owned the usual amount of minibikes powered by lawnmower engines (Rups). I had also built up a 10 speed Schwinn. I hammered a piece of a broomstick to the output shafts of a Briggs and Stratton engine, and mounted the engine to a 2 x 4. I removed the pedal assembly and replaced it with the 2 x 4 engine mount. I let the broomhandle rub up against the rear tire of the bicycle. It had no real brakes, and one hand had to be used to keep the broomhandle rubbing up against the tire. This "vehicle" was clocked at 45 MPH by the Nassau County police department, who proceeded to run it over (twice), and then made me carry it home. The little Suzuki was my first real bike. It was small enough to let me learn the rules of the road, and it was cheap. Cheap to insure, and cheap to fuel.
This bike taught me Lesson #1.
LESSON #1
Dress Correctly. Coming home one hot summer day from Jones Beach, dressed only in cutoffs, a t-shirt and tennis shoes, I was forced into a slide at the traffic circle at the end of the Wantagh Parkway. Traffic was heavy and I was only doing about 20 MPH. Talk about road rash! I spent 4 hours in the ER having the sand and gravel picked and scrubbed out of my left arm and leg. Had I been wearing a set of jeans and a leather jacket, I could have picked up the bike and rode home.
LESSON #2
Stupid people tricks. The next bike I got was a 2-stroke 3 cylinder 700 or 750 (the details escape me) Kawasaki. Compared to the old 250, this bike was fast; real fast. At this time I was no stranger to speed, having built a 10 second '66 Chevy Nova, so when I rode in the street, I used my head. Somewhere along the line I learned that if I nailed it from a stop, I could pop a wheelie. I could use the clutch and the rear brake to ride it on one wheel as long as I wanted. One afternoon in the High School parking lot, trying to impress the ladies, I pulled a nice long wheel stand. Paying too much attention to controlling the wheel stand, I ran straight into the back of my English teachers car (while he was in it, backing out of a parking spot). I totalled the bike, and cracked three ribs. I also bruised a certain part of my anatomy, which swelled up, and made me walk like John Wayne for a couple of weeks. The ladies were not impressed, and neither was my English teacher. I failed English that semester.
Next bike, next lesson.
LESSON #3
Pay Attention! My next bike was a beaut. It was a 1949 61 cubic inch Harley Davidson panhead, with a rigid frame that was raked and had an 8 inch over wideglide front end. It had a set of shotgun pipes that would break glass and get me pulled over at least once a week. I got the bike in the fall and rode it around for a few weeks before storing it for the winter. The first day I had it out the following spring, I had a vacuum leak at the carburetor. Reaching down with my right hand, I started wiggling the carburetor to make the engine stop popping. When I looked up, someone was making a left hand turn right in front of me. I locked up the rear brake, and hit the car square in the rear quarterpanel. I trashed the front end of the bike, tweaked the frame and ended up spread eagled across the rear deck of the car. Now, technically this was the driver of the cars fault, and she got a ticket for failure to yield the right of way. I do, however, blame myself; I should have seen this coming. Instead of looking at my carburetor, I should have been paying attention to the road and what was going on around me. This one really shook me up; I wasn't hurt, but I've lost more friends to this sort of accident than all other kinds of accidents combined.
LESSON #4
Vehicle Maintenance. We're up to bike #7, which is the bike I still have today. It's a 1976 FLH Harley Davidson, which I got from the New York City police auction for a scream. The only thing I had really found wrong with it was that the #2 sparkplug hole was stripped in the head. I quick fixed it with a spark plug tracer, instead of pulling the head to fix it right, because I was just dying to ride it. It was a damp summer afternoon when me and some friends decided to cruise around Long Island. On the Sagtikos Parkway, #2 sparkplug decided to cut loose. #2 sparkplug blew out of its hole and, staying hooked to the ignition wire, swung in an arc, and landed smack between my legs. It felt like somebody hit me with a sledgehammer. A big somebody with a big sledgehammer. I hit the curb, high sided the bike and slid about 75 feet across the grass. It took me about five minutes to figure out what had happened, and about ten minutes to be able to stand up and do something about it. I'm still the brunt of jokes from the people I was riding with that afternoon. Again, the ladies weren't impressed.
Remember, on a motorcycle, even the smallest and most minor seeming problems can turn into major disasters at 75 MPH.
I still own that '76 FLH, although now it's stripped down to a fatboy. I'm getting it ready for a road trip in a few weeks. I'll see you all in the Black Hills.
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