Not a Harley in San Francisco
There's a reason this scene is common in Rome.
We were just in San Francisco for a few days and it was interesting how these things work: We didn’t see one single Harley or big motorcycle in the city. We did, however, see plenty of small bikes and a ton of scooters.
It’s pretty much that way in Rome and Paris. We’ve been both places in recent years and far more than San Francisco, those cities are chock full of small bikes and scooters. San Francisco is nothing compared to them.
It makes perfect sense. Lane splitting is legal in all three places but you just can’t lane-split with a bike the size of a small car. While San Francisco has a lot of sport bikes and dual sports, the two European cities are awash in scooters. They’re cheap to operate, you can park them anywhere, you can slip between the cars to filter to the front–it’s perfect. If I lived in any of these cities the scooter would be my first choice for transportation. For the life of me, I can’t understand why–and how–anyone drives a car in Rome. That city is impossible.
But I never thought there would be no Harleys at all in San Francisco. I mean, of course there must be some–we just didn’t see any. Not even a Sportster. But as soon as we crossed the bay and got into Oakland there they were, plenty of them. And up in Marin County, north of the city across the Golden Gate, there were plenty of hogs. Just absolutely none in the city. You better believe there’s a reason for that.
Biker Quote for Today
Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
Tags: lane-splitting
December 1st, 2014 at 11:32 am
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