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Major Softie wrote:I find it to be an arrogant and ignorant piece of crap.

The article is deliberately over the top, and in my view if you take it that way, it is not so offensive. Well OK it is offensive, but funny. I am taking it in the spirit in which it was intended.

Major Softie wrote:

Rev Light wrote: I do however have little time for people who take one look at me and my bike and make some comment along the lines of, why do you do that? Why do you put yourself at risk? Some of them even think I am irresponsible and have said so to my face - as if I was commiting some sort of crime or making me somehow less worthy than them?

The trouble is, in all likleyhood, it is these very people that will cause the accident that might well kill or maim me.
Rev.Light

The trouble is, the behavior you just described is exactly the same mentality as this author has expressed from the other side. The trouble is, like the drivers you just spoke of, he see's everyone in one kind of vehicle as less important than himself.

He's an asshole. An asshole on a motorcycle is not less of an asshole, just a more vulnerable one.

I'm an asshole too I guess. When I get on my MC I turn into one, I can't help it. When driving the cage, I don't mind being stuck behind a bunch of other drivers, as long as they are not too pokey. But on the MC, especially while commuting, virtually every cager I get behind annoys the crap out of me. They go so damn slow! Then when she is already going only 20, soccer mom in the accursed soccer mom minivan slams on the brakes at every little curve.

Cagers ruin the straights, they ruin the curves, they ruin the ride. I HATE being stuck behind cagers when I'm on a motorcycle. I guess I'm a dick for feeling this way but I see plenty of other motorcyclists who don't put up with it. They pass those damn slow cagers, however it takes. I do too, as long as it is reasonably safe to do so.

Sometimes I think I should give up motorcycling; it is only getting more and more crowded on the roads. But then I get up early on a Sunday morning and hit the mountains before the traffic builds, and it's one big grin the whole time. I remember why I LOVE motorcycling. And commuting is still more fun on the MC than in a cage, even when stuck behind legions of them.

Sometimes I have to remind myself of why I ride.

Steve in Golden wrote: I'm an asshole too I guess. When I get on my MC I turn into one, I can't help it.

Well, then I guess you can't blame the cagers if they become one when they get behind the wheel.

Major Softie wrote:

Steve in Golden wrote: I'm an asshole too I guess. When I get on my MC I turn into one, I can't help it.

Well, then I guess you can't blame the cagers if they become one when they get behind the wheel.

47% of the people will not respect motorcycles and are living off the government.

Just sayin'

Major Softie wrote:

Steve in Golden wrote: I'm an asshole too I guess. When I get on my MC I turn into one, I can't help it.

Well, then I guess you can't blame the cagers if they become one when they get behind the wheel.

I guess not. But the cagers are assholes all the time. I am only an asshole when I'm on my MC.

Steve in Golden wrote: I guess not. But the cagers are assholes all the time. I am only an asshole when I'm on my MC.

Well, we only have your opinion to go on on that second point...

Major Softie wrote:

Steve in Golden wrote: I'm an asshole too I guess. When I get on my MC I turn into one, I can't help it.

Well, then I guess you can't blame the cagers if they become one when they get behind the wheel.

I went on a bicycle ride after work and was thinking about this. I didn't really mean cagers are assholes all the time. Most people are decent people, cagers or not.

But I think there's a lot of truth to Softie's statement: people's attitude's often do change when they get behind the wheel of a car. Or on a motorcycle. Being in cars, like many other facets of modern life, isolates people from each other and emboldens them to be rude to each other in ways most would never do if standing in line at the post office or something. People who are jerks in traffic might well be the nicest people you could ever talk to if you were face to face.

So c'mon guys admit it: I can't be the only one who feels a tad annoyed when out for a spirited ride on a high performance 2 wheel machine, and you're just itching to hammer it through a few curves as it was meant to be ridden. But a whole fleet of soccer mom minivans is in the way. And / or Buick's or RV's or scooters or slow Harleys, etc etc.

Steve in Golden wrote: So c'mon guys admit it: I can't be the only one who feels a tad annoyed when out for a spirited ride on a high performance 2 wheel machine, and you're just itching to hammer it through a few curves as it was meant to be ridden. But a whole fleet of soccer mom minivans is in the way. And / or Buick's or RV's or scooters or slow Harleys, etc etc.

I hate the Fuzz more.

Of course I often find that mildly irritating, and occasionally extremely irritating, but I don't find slow vehicles going slow on a fun road all that big a deal. What gets me furious is people crawling along through the curves, and then speeding through the passing lane because they are suddenly comfortable with the multi-lane appearance: a situation that occurs constantly on our mountain roads. People who want to go slower than I want is something I completely understand. If they use turnouts, or at least maintain their slow pace and move to the right on the passing lanes, then they are being considerate and are simply driving slower than me, and I give them an appreciative honk and a wave . . . sadly they are a rarity.

A few weeks ago, I was traveling on Hwy 20 over to Hwy 101. My wife and I were traveling up to Crescent City, carrying the bike in the back of the truck, and then I was continuing on to Seattle to visit my sister. So, I'm driving a pickup loaded up with an Oilhead on extremely fun roads: double-yellow-line-way-too-tight-to-pass roads. As I'm "zooming" along (for a truck carrying a bike), three sport bikes run up on my ass catching me at a rate appropriate for bikes having big fun on a great road. I look over at my wife and literally said "crap, some bikes just caught me and I don't see anywhere to pull over, and I know these guys can see my bike in the back of the truck and they have to be saying "come on, we know you know."" Luckily, after a couple turns there was a place wide enough for me to pull over and let them by.

I, of course, put the bike in the back of the truck instead of riding it and letting her drive the truck alone so that I could be in the truck with my wife and thus avoid major marital strife.

I was very jealous of them.

Major Softie wrote:

I, of course, put the bike in the back of the truck instead of riding it and letting her drive the truck alone so that I could be in the truck with my wife and thus avoid major marital strife.

I was very jealous of them.

I wooda sat on the bike in the back, and waved occasionally through the rear window.
Win, win.

ME 109 wrote: I wooda sat on the bike in the back, and waved occasionally through the rear window.
Win, win.

See, I see that differently: don't get to ride the bike, still in trouble with the wife - lose, lose.