I want to sound off on something. I took my fiancee riding with me earlier today. She is a new rider, with only about four months of experience and on her first bike. We linked up with a group of sportbike riders I go with on some weekend rides.
I have had a lot of fun with these guys and gals. Though I perfer to ride alone, once in a while it is fun to be part of a group. Yes, some of these guys like to pull wheelies and the like. But they have been careful about where and they have always given themselves plenty of room. They certainly don't ride so fast or hard that we couldn't have kept up safely. Most of the time they limit their stunting to places where we all stop, park, and watch the handful of guys who do play around.
Not today. We show up at the park where people gather and almost none of the guys I know are there. There are also a bunch of people I don't know. No big deal, I think, I don't know anyone very well and the guys I kinda know will be along. (They did show up later, but the group ride began then)
Well, it turns out that instead of a couple of guys who pull highway wheelies, today we had at least 10 stunters of the 35 or so riders. They pulled them up in the middle of the pack of riders, in the on-coming traffic lanes, and around blind curves. Yikes! My fiancee was obviously uncomfortable... Heck I was a little unsettled.
Eventually we get on the interestate. I figure we are headed back towards town to find another back road and perhaps park to let the stunters have at it. Nope. The sudden slowing and accelerating for the guys doing wheelies only gets more frequent. On several occasions the cars around us had to brake suddenly or change lanes.
This is a busy interstate on a Sunday afternoon. The cars were trying to do somewhere in the low seventies. The bikes leading the pack were slowing to around 30 and accelerating to more than 80 to accomidate the guys pulling wheelies. Wheelies that were in the slow lane, fast lane and often both lanes.
I had enough and signalled for my fiancee to exit with me. Now, I want to be very clear about something. I am pro-stunting. It looks like fun and is certainly impressive. But those guys today made terrible impressions on most if not all of the cage drivers who saw us. These are drivers and voters who will more than likely always associate sportbikes with the behavior they saw on the Interestate today. In short, they might one day welcome laws that limit motorcycles and riding.
This group of riders, at least those I usually ride with, know a bunch of places where there is little traffic, smooth roads, great visability, and places to park. This is where they have stunted in past weekends. (Aside from the occassional wheelie on the back roads.) And this is where they should have been doing so today. But for whatever reason the people riding today chose to endanger all of us and the car drivers around us on the freaking interstate! Arrg!
I have had a lot of fun with these guys and gals. Though I perfer to ride alone, once in a while it is fun to be part of a group. Yes, some of these guys like to pull wheelies and the like. But they have been careful about where and they have always given themselves plenty of room. They certainly don't ride so fast or hard that we couldn't have kept up safely. Most of the time they limit their stunting to places where we all stop, park, and watch the handful of guys who do play around.
Not today. We show up at the park where people gather and almost none of the guys I know are there. There are also a bunch of people I don't know. No big deal, I think, I don't know anyone very well and the guys I kinda know will be along. (They did show up later, but the group ride began then)
Well, it turns out that instead of a couple of guys who pull highway wheelies, today we had at least 10 stunters of the 35 or so riders. They pulled them up in the middle of the pack of riders, in the on-coming traffic lanes, and around blind curves. Yikes! My fiancee was obviously uncomfortable... Heck I was a little unsettled.
Eventually we get on the interestate. I figure we are headed back towards town to find another back road and perhaps park to let the stunters have at it. Nope. The sudden slowing and accelerating for the guys doing wheelies only gets more frequent. On several occasions the cars around us had to brake suddenly or change lanes.
This is a busy interstate on a Sunday afternoon. The cars were trying to do somewhere in the low seventies. The bikes leading the pack were slowing to around 30 and accelerating to more than 80 to accomidate the guys pulling wheelies. Wheelies that were in the slow lane, fast lane and often both lanes.
I had enough and signalled for my fiancee to exit with me. Now, I want to be very clear about something. I am pro-stunting. It looks like fun and is certainly impressive. But those guys today made terrible impressions on most if not all of the cage drivers who saw us. These are drivers and voters who will more than likely always associate sportbikes with the behavior they saw on the Interestate today. In short, they might one day welcome laws that limit motorcycles and riding.
This group of riders, at least those I usually ride with, know a bunch of places where there is little traffic, smooth roads, great visability, and places to park. This is where they have stunted in past weekends. (Aside from the occassional wheelie on the back roads.) And this is where they should have been doing so today. But for whatever reason the people riding today chose to endanger all of us and the car drivers around us on the freaking interstate! Arrg!