Three-wheelers Keep On Coming

December 11th, 2008

F3 AdrenalineAnother three-wheeled motorcycle has entered the fray. The F3 Adrenaline, produced by TriRod Motorcycles, is claimed to be “the world’s first production performance three wheel motorcycle.” And as with so many of these new bikes, it looks a heck of a lot different than anything we’ve ever seen.

Here’s what TriRod says (immodestly) about their creation:

Out of TriRod’s workshop has emerged possibly the most disruptive technology to hit the motorcycle world in decades. We’ve taken the most advanced technologies from Formula One racing, aerospace, and custom motorcycles and combined them into the hottest street rod motorcycle ever.

Our passion for motorcycles and the addiction to speed induced adrenaline rushes has led us to develop this radical motorcycle trike platform. This all new three wheel motorcycle is like nothing that has come before it. It is a machine built for performance, born and bred on a race track with a thrill factor that is through the roof. Trikes will never be the same.

TriRod: ride it like a motorcycle, corner it like a race car. The best of two very intriguing worlds.

This bike has a dry weight of 750 pounds, 120 cubic inch engine, six speeds, and chain primary drive. It has optional frame-mounted hard bags and uses both hand and foot controls. Gosh, just like a motorcycle!

I don’t know what you think of all these three-wheelers; I know some people say they’re not really motorcycles. What I do know, though, is that my aging buddies speak every now and then about the time when they’re going to have to quit riding. I’m not aging as fast as they are, it seems, but I know that even for me the clock does not stand still. Maybe in another 30 years or so I’m going to be glad to have choices like this so I can continue to feel the wind in my face and smell the smells that cagers miss.

Biker Quote for Today

Never try to race an old geezer, he may have one more gear than you.

Even More Tales of Flying Object Encounters

December 8th, 2008

What’s the strangest thing you ever hit, or almost hit, while riding your bike? I love this thread on the Adventure Riders forum, and I’m here today with another batch of tales. Read and cringe.

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my garage door – when my ex partner put it down on me as i rode through it…

was really happy that day

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A buzzard
A Cow
A dead brown christmas tree (in August)

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I was hauling a friend on the back to get his bike and hit a concrete block in the middle of the road at about 70 mph. Shoulda seen it and all that but things happen fast. This was back in the sixties and we were not wearing helmets. The bike did a sorta flip thing and when we hit the road I landed on top of him. Here we were sliding down route 92 out of tampa at probably 65 or so and he keep yelling “get off get off.” I swear I tried my best to roll off of him but we end up getting into the median first and doing some ground gymnastics before coming to a stop.Cars stopped and we both got up and picked up the bike. Straightened the forks a little, got back on the bike and went to the hospital. He didn’t want to go but, man, he really had to. When they got done with him he looked like a mummy but other than a ton of pavement rash was okay. Bad day but he still kids me about wanting to ride him out to keep from sliding on the road myself.

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I had a close encounter with a hawk. I was riding down I-70 towards the lake of the Ozarks from St. Louis on my brand new R1100 and a hawk took flight from the median.

Damn thing hit my windshield dead center, broke through it, hit me square in the center if my helmet and knocked me onto the highway doing 70 mph. I was AGATT and glad of it. First thing that hit was my head on the pavement and I rolled I don’t know how many times before ending flat on my back and sliding off the highway.

Good thing too, an 18 wheeler ran over the bike shortly after I cleared it.

I was only bruised and sore for a month, nothing broke, nothing cut.

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Birds, yeah, birds.
Two bird stories:
1) Had a bird hit me in the chest one time and I just about dumped the bike getting off the road gasping for air. Not good.
2) Following a friend, Richard, and his wife, Miriam, up rt192 here in Pa. They were on their sidecar rig. I saw a big bird up ahead coming in from the right and darned if it didn’t hit them. Man, feathers instantly all over the place. Richard weaved back and forth a little and then pulled off the right side of the road. He jumped off the rig and ran to the sidecar. I pulled over thinking maybe his wife Miriam was hurt, got off and ran up to the rig. To my surprise Richard was laughing pretty hard and so was she. Then Miriam held up a tube of lipstick with feathers all over it. She was just fixing to put on some lipstick when the bird hit and like I said feathers were all over the place. No damage except to the bird….kinda goofy.

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A motorboat.
Night on I95 in VA. Came over a rise and there it was. Across both lanes.
How do you say SWERVE?
Missed it(!) somehow.
A couple hundred yards ahead is a car with an empty boat trailer in tow parked on the shoulder and two guys standing there apparently trying to figure out what to do next.

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A few nights ago I was riding around midtown in Manhattan. Bitterly cold, below freezing, Friday night, me with under 300 miles on my bike…perfect night for ride! Anyway, I made a left onto a side street from 5th avenue…I had the green light but noticed that there were about 3 cars in front of me, most of them honking, some yelling in unrecognizable accents…so I stood up to see what the hell was going on. Turns out some yahoo in an escalade thought it might be a good idea to stop in the middle of the street, with a green light, and just go ahead and start pissing. So he uh, zips up, and gets back in his blinged out land monster just before the light turned red. A few cars managed to get through, but I missed the light, and as I was waiting for the next one I look down and low and behold I am standing in some beefed out Jersey boy’s pee.

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I hit everything from bugs to dump trucks. I’m glad I was young when I T-boned an LTD and ran into the rear of a dumptruck.

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I was on a KLX 650 w/ my brother on a tiger in Dinosaur Nat’l Park, Yampa River bench road. an eagle hears us coming and lifts off but isn’t gaining enough elevation so it drops the HUGE rabbit that it was feasting on from about 15 feet into the air right (almost) into my windshield. A dead HUGE rabbit falling from the sky! My little bro laughed and laughed. I could see the look in the Golden Eagle’s eye!

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OK. Enough fun for now. You’ll find the other flying object posts here:
Motorcycles and Flying Objects
More Flying Object Tales
Latest Tales of Flying Object Encounters

Biker Quote for Today

Who cares? I’m riding…….

Winter Is Not a Time to Just Park Your Bike

December 4th, 2008

Franktown, Palmer Lake, Sedalia loopOh man, winter is really here. It’s colder tonight than it has been since last winter. And we had a real snowfall last week.

I admit, I’m not one of the real hard core. I haven’t been on either of my bikes in almost three weeks. This weekend, however, I will be on one or both of my bikes without question as long as there isn’t ice and snow on the streets. ‘Tis the season to be opportunistic–you never know when a blizzard will strike and keep you off the bike for weeks. You have to grab the moment when you’ve got it; tomorrow can easily be too late.

And where do I ride when the weather gets bad? Well, first off, I stay down here on the flatlands. It’s a whole other climate up in the mountains. We might have 50 degrees and sunshine down here but you head up to Georgetown or Estes Park and all of a sudden it’s 25 degrees and there are patches of snow and ice in the portions of the road that are in shadow. And if there’s no snow and ice you can bet the road is covered with sand from the last snowfall. That makes for better traction in a car but it makes your motorcycle ride much more of an adventure than you would prefer.

So with the mountains ruled out, where to? Well, there’s one really nice loop that I’ve taken many times and it comes complete with your choice of biker bars to stop at for some socializing and refreshment. Going counterclockwise, I head south on US 85 to Sedalia, turn west on CO 67, go a mile and then turn south on CO 105. This is a very nice ride that takes you down to Palmer Lake, and you then reach I-25 at Monument.

Continue east on CO 105 until you get to CO 83 and head north. This takes you past Castlewood Canyon State Park, a nice stop, to Franktown, to Parker, and the back to Denver. The whole ride, if you end up back where you started, is about 90 miles.

Places to stop include the Stagecoach in Franktown, in Sedalia you’ll want to hit the Sedalia Grill, and in Palmer Lake, O’Malley’s Pub is the place to go. Black leather is definitely the fashion in these places, and the food is good, too.

If you up on the north side of town and don’t want to head all that way south, my favorite place is Jerry D’s in Dacono. Again, black leather is the fashion. You’ll feel right at home.

It has been said that winter is nature’s way of telling you to polish your bike. That may be, but it’s no reason not to get in some good riding when the weather permits.

Biker Quote for Today

Young riders pick a destination and go. Old riders pick a direction and go.

Get Your Motor Running

December 1st, 2008

SteppenwolfI had this song in my head and I’ve never known or been able to understand all of the words in the lyrics. So I had this sudden thought that there are probably quite a few people just like me out there, and that it could be a real service to print the lyrics.

Not that anyone who is interested can’t look them up on umpteen websites, but until now I never had. So if you have wondered but never bothered to look, and you’re here now, I just saved you the trouble.

Here they are, the words to “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf.

Words and music by Mars Bonfire
© MCA Music (BMI)

BORN TO BE WILD

Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Lookin’ for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin’ go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin’ with the wind
And the feelin’ that I’m under
Yeah Darlin’ go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature’s child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die

Born to be wild
Born to be wild

By the way, if I’m violating any copyright restrictions by printing this I’ll gladly take this down. But considering the number of other sites out there with these lyrics posted I can’t believe it’s a terribly serious offense.

Biker Quote for Today

I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder

Sons of Anarchy, Now That I’ve Watched a Couple

November 27th, 2008

OK, non-TV-watching guy that I am, I watched the first two episodes of Sons of Anarchy, this motorcycle gang series on FX. Not that that makes me some all-knowing and wise person in regard to the show, but I wanted to give my impressions. If you’ve seen the show I’d love to hear what you have to say about it, too.

Sons of AnarchyFirst off, it’s pretty violent. Especially the first episode; the second episode not so much. Still not something my wife would want to see.

Secondly, it’s pretty cynical. Paid off cops and other officials are just par for the course.

Third–and this is interesting–it’s all about family. Since I don’t normally watch television I haven’t seen all the Sopranos shows but I suspect it’s like that in a way. They’re all family, and family is what matters. It’s just that in this case, it’s a family of thugs and murder, extortion, and gun-running are family values. It kind of shows up the misnomer of the religious right and how they say they stand for family values. What they really mean is that they are in favor of enforcing their own family values, never mind if you have different values in your family.

That comparison to the Sopranos strikes me as especially relevant here. This is a show about a biker gang, but at least in the first two episodes, the only thing that makes them a biker gang is that they ride motorcycles. Otherwise they might as well be the Sopranos. Yes, it’s a little early but so far motorcycles really haven’t played any sort of role in the show. They could have filmed the same show with all the characters getting around in Honda Accords. It has nothing to do with bikes.

Anyway, the story line is starting to develop and from a detached point of view it’s interesting to see how they’re setting up the characters so you’ll hate them or love them or connect with them in one way or another–whatever it takes to get you to tune in next week. I’m not on the verge of getting caught up in this show but I will watch a few more episodes just to get a good feel for the thing. And if there’s anything worth discussing I’ll come back to this topic. Time will tell.

Biker Quote for Today

Live to Ride, Hope to Live.

Hamlet on a Hog–What’s the Take on Sons of Anarchy?

November 24th, 2008

I’m probably way behind you on this. The simple fact is that my wife and I don’t watch television. Really. We don’t. I know it’s hard to believe. But for that reason, until today I had never heard of this new motorcycle gang show on this season, Sons of Anarchy. And the word is that the series is based loosely on “Hamlet” (you know, that king of the Danes thing by Shakespeare).

Sons of AnarchySo is it any good? Is it worth watching? Is it worth doing something I’m not accustomed to doing, i.e., turning on the TV? I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. And the really amusing thing in this internet age is that I’ll do so without turning on my television. If you go to the official site, the one in that link above, you can watch any episodes you want on your computer. I really like that because otherwise I would have to catch whatever episode was on and come in in the middle of the story. On the web I can start with the pilot episode and catch up at my own speed.

I’m really curious whether this thing is going to be–or already is–seen as creating another negative stereotype against bikers. Of course, this being American television, you can’t have protagonists who are unadulterated bad guys. So the Sons of Anarchy do bad stuff, like selling smuggled guns to gangs in East LA, but in their own home of Charming, CA, these good bad guys keep the bad bad guys from selling meth on their turf. How do I know all this if I haven’t seen the show? I read it on Wikipedia.

Now, certainly I’ll have something further to say on this once I watch a few of the shows, but if you’re way ahead of me and have been watching it since it premiered, maybe you could give me a feel for it from your perspective. I suspect this is already a much talked about subject among bikers, although my buddies haven’t mentioned it. Could I possibly be ahead of them?

What a concept: me watching television. What’s the world coming to?

Biker Quote for Today

Faster, Faster, Faster, Till the thrill of speed overcomes fear of Death.