On not staying upright And in other bad news About the only ray of hope here is that, despite some pretty cunning organisation on the part of the thieves (they broke in through a ceiling, of all places, and they put a replacement padlock on the security gate to fool the patrol), they left behind all their break-in paraphernalia (crowbars, saws, gloves, masks etc) on their way out. And the AFP takes commercial break-ins seriously enough to do full crime scene forensics. And they caught someone already with some of the stolen gear. All of this adds up to likely arrests, which is good, but not necessarily the safe return of the bike, which is less good. Fingers are crossed for Hal.
I really have only one piece of advice, get one of those fancy motorbikes with four wheels (car), or otherwise, one of those fluoro pink and orange reflectomatic safety suits, with inbuilt idiot other driver sensors.
Yesterday I wanted to change lanes. I looked in the rear vision mirror - nothing, then the side mirror - nothing, then turned on the indicator, then..just to be sure..I craned my head round all the way left and only just saw the motorcyclist who thought driving in the right hand side of his lane right next to the back door of my car was a good idea. He was almost in my blind spot. If not for the fluoro orange helmet he was wearing I may not have seen him at all. So yes - lots of fluoro is probably a good idea.
I'm glad you're okay.
I'm really glad you came out of that relatively okay, Dave. Ouch.
Two wheels baaaad.
By winstoninabox, at
9:50 AM
Two wheels... gooood!
By , at
10:34 AM
Yes, dammit, I want to *cause* a bit of bloody havoc for once, instead of just being swept up in its inexorable wake...
Friday, May 27, 2005
See, the thing about motorbikes is that, when they’re moving, they’re really quite phenomenally stable, presumably owing to one of those physical laws with ‘angular’ in the name (or possibly not). But as they approach a non-moving state, such as screeching to a halt to avoid colliding with a larger, whiter, hatch-backed object, they are increasingly less stable. In such a state, they become exponentially more likely to fall over, taking their hapless rider with them.
All of which is a roundabout explanation for me yet again involving myself in a single-vehicle motorcycle accident on Wednesday afternoon. Actually, you know, I’m not going to assume any more of the blame than I have to: there was another car involved, operated by a dingbat who was clearly oblivious to my presence when he or she pulled straight in front of me. That this situation did not escalate from Incident to Accident Involving Two or More Vehicles is only I panic-stopped in time to avoid hitting Vehicle Two, which blithely continued off on its merry way, narrowly missing the car in front of it as it changed back into the lane it recently departed.
Meanwhile, I picked myself up off the road with unseemly haste, just in case the cars behind me had failed to noticed the loud banging or skidding excitement ahead of them. Bad enough to fall off the bike without the added indignity of getting run over. Made it to the side of the road, and some construction workers from across the road came and helped push the bike out of the way (ironically running over my sore toe at the same time)
Anyway, I’m fine (apart from some bruises), the bike is okay (apart from some deep scratches and a missing gear lever) and no, I didn’t get the license plate. I can’t even be 100% sure the car was white. Whatever. Any crash you walk away from etc.
Went to TJ’s, the motorbike repair shop we frequent, to see about replacing the gear lever, and it turned out that Hal (the owner) was having a worse day than me. Thieves had broken into his shop overnight and ripped off various items (helmets, jackets etc) as well as an uninsured Ducati ST2 worth twenty grand. It’s just possible that, if the police don’t recover the bike in one piece, it will cost him his business (or rather, make it unsustainable for him to carry on on basically no profit for the next 9-12 months). Which sucks. 
7 Comments:
Maybe a fluro pink biker outfit would be the go? Stylish, visible, *and* you can wear it to Eurovision...
My dad finally gave up his motorbike (which he liked to ride to work for all kinds of good reasons) after a few too many near misses. :/
Four wheels gooood.
Two wheels baaaad.
Four wheels gooood.
Four wheels... also gooood but drivers sadly in need of awareness education.
And whilst I'm totally in agreement on the fluoro pink outfit front (mostly for the ESC crossover possibilities), I fear the resultant shock and hilarity this spectacle would induce could be a serious hazard to other drivers. On the plus side you'd get to play the part of blithely unaware road user, continuing on your merry way in blissful ignorance of the havoc in your wake. It would make a nice change.
Not that that comment has anything to do with motorcycles per se.
