What is a biker?

What is a biker? (Taken from Motorsickle.com)
How would you class yourself in the world of bikes?
This has to be one of the most asked questions, after "How fast does it go mate?"
Defining exactly what a 'biker' is, is probably an impossible task, everyone has a different opinion and to try and lump them together to make a stab at what a biker really is could be very difficult, so guess what I'm going to do today…

Bikers or motorcyclists have quite a few diverse groups that you could belong to, everything from Rocker to Scooterist (different from Mods I'm told) to commuter, I know there are a lot more but I'm not going to list them, these are just examples to give us a feel for how we perceive ourselves. The way each of us sees each other is crucial to this debate, humans are notorious for fitting themselves into categories, different groups that either bind together or are constantly at war, human conflict has been going on since we discovered that bashing someone's brains in with a rock was fun and we have not really stopped since. We all like to belong to group of some kind, even the self proclaimed 'lone wolves' amongst us still like to be classified as bikers which therefore put them into a 'group', there is a kind of camaraderie and comfort to be found in belonging to like‑minded group, you can observe this in other groups as well. Anti‑vivisectionists, football supporters and Freemasons for example all work together for a common cause which they believe in, we are not any different, most of us ride bikes because we enjoy it, even the most hardened commuter will get some pleasure out of riding a bike and when push comes to shove people from the same group stick together and help each other.

Belonging to a group defines our boundaries which show where stand, we wear the uniform of our tribe to show where our loyalties lie, to show other tribes or groups that we are one of a particular band of brothers.
Bikers are one type of tribe that has within it various groups, just like football supporters are the main group that can be broken down into sub groups of the teams they support, bikers can also be categorised further into various sub‑groups. The word 'biker' can mean different things to different people, ask any typical man in the street what a 'biker' is and you will probably get an answer that is not far off from describing the average persons vision of a 'Hells Angel', ask a motorcyclist the same question and be prepared for a completely different answer depending on what he may ride. One will tell you that a biker is someone who rides everyday whatever the weather; another that it is someone who belongs to a club, maybe another view is that a biker should only ride British bikes. The viewpoints are many and varied, leading me to suspect that this question will never be answered to the satisfaction of all.

So I'm going to tell you what I think a biker is, a biker is someone with passion for two wheels, it does not matter to me if he rides a scooter or a Ducati, he may have owned the same RD250 since 1977, keep it polished and running and only take it out on Sundays, or he may like riding everyday whatever the weather, maybe not cleaning it but making sure it works and runs using anything that happens to do the job. It's the passion for the ride that in my humble opinion makes someone a biker, not what they ride, there are lots of riders out there who don't have the passion, they bimble along in their own little world treating their two wheels like an object and not a bike. The passion means they experience the thrill of the ride, whether it's a fast ride through the twisties or the thrill of taking a 30 year old bike on the road after restoring it for years, or maybe just the feeling that comes with going on a run with your mates, it's that adrenaline rush that keeps the passion alive and kicking within us.

Even after riding for over 35 years I still get that rush every time I get on a bike, it makes me feel alive and ready to take on the world, that first spin of the engine in the morning lets me know that I'm ready to rock and FTW!! It's my escape valve from work and the troubles that try to get me down, it lets me feel alive.

Do I class myself as a biker? Yes, because I feel I have a passion for bikes that has never left me ever since I first sat on one as a fifteen year old dreamer, motorbikes allowed me to be someone else, someone different from the small bullied youth that dreaded going out in the early 70's, that passion has never left me and I hope it never will.

At a funeral in January I met Rick, I have not seen Rick for 15 years, he is my ex‑wife's uncle, he had been a biker for years, not in the same sense as most of us, but still a man with passion for his bike, two years ago he T‑boned a car that did a U‑turn and has not ridden since, talking to him was quite sad as I could tell the passion had gone from his life, he asked me if I was still riding with a wistful look in his eye, I could also see that his wife was nervous about us talking about bikes. Such a shame that he has given up but once that spark has gone it's not the kind that can be rekindled, Rick is in his mid 60's and has had a good run though, I don't intend to give up until I am unable to get on a bike! Even then you might have trouble with me.

In my eyes bikes are my life, over the years they have got me into trouble and out of it, they have lost me partners and helped me find new loves and best of all I have met some great mates, mates who I would trust with my life, about how many other 'pastimes' could you say that. I class myself as a biker as I would anyone who has the passion for two wheelers, the rush is the best feeling in the world and I hope all of you who understand what I'm talking enjoy it too, and will do so for many more years.

Jake

More rambling from Pyro (From Motorsickle .com)

A series of unfortunate events could be the title of my life at the moment, from not getting paid to not riding the bike for a while, those are just a few of things that have built up for me in the last couple of months. This has led me to take a look at why things just seem to go from bad to worse and how we sometimes do and don't pick up on the clues around us. It can't all be luck, good or bad, so I thought I would take a bit of time to just ramble though the woods of my mind, waffle on a bit and ponder this issue.

Let's take one day some time ago when things went from mildly annoying to life threateningly dangerous, it started with a mysterious misfire on my then ride, which I had bought for a ridiculously cheap price from a friend of mine called Wobbly Bob, it went like a scalded cat but handled like a stoned badger on an ice rink, it was a Kawasaki Z1000ST with stage 2 Moriwaki conversion, it had been bored out to 1175cc with an almost straight through exhaust and Z9 bars. The misfire drove me mad for a few hours then just disappeared, on taking it out for a test run it immediately managed to get a puncture in the rear wheel. 30 minutes later the puncture is fixed and I start off again only to coast to a stop as the engine died completely. Puffing, panting and generally unhappy I pushed the bike back to our workshop in Leatherhead and shouted at it for a bit. Brian then leaned over and pointed out that the vacuum pipe for the petrol tap was hanging down under the tank… after shouting at myself for a bit I tried once more and was rewarded with a run down to Boxhill that, aside from the iffy handling, was good fun.

On returning home as I pulled back into the garage I dropped the damn thing by not making sure the side stand was completely down, no damage except to my pride and the fact that half a dozen mates were standing there pissing themselves laughing. Being a Wednesday it was decided to have a run later to the Mucky Duck (The Black Swan) for a pint, so I headed off home to get dinner and around 8pm I thought it was time to head off for the pub. So I head out for the M25 at Junction 9 and quickly blasted along up to around 125mph just to check the engine was not misfiring anymore, coming to the slight uphill section, a line of lorries was completely filling the inside lane off into the distance, so I had dropped my speed down to around 70mph to enjoy the ride as the traffic was getting a bit heavier. I glanced in my mirror and noticed a black Lexus? (Maybe) with a bloke on his mobile (flash for them days and about the size of a brick) very close, he was about a cars length behind me and I was just going to pull away from him to open the gap when the engine misfired, a slight feeling of panic wafted over me, if the engine died he would run into the back of me before he had a chance to react. So I cracked open the throttle in the hope I could clear the fault, the bike took off and as the revcounter hurtled across the dial I moved into the outside lane and shut the throttle down a bit, nothing… it didn't move, the bike was still accelerating, I glanced at the speedo which was approaching the 135mph mark and tried to pull in the clutch, that didn't move either!

The bike was still running as if the throttle was fully open, I squeezed the brakes to try and reduce speed to get near the hard shoulder, as the speed dropped to nearer the 100mph mark flames suddenly appeared between my legs… I let go of the brakes… I had a full tank, about 4 gallons of fuel on board!! Because of the lorries in the nearside lane I had no chance of getting on to the grass verge at this speed and there was now vapour coming from the fuel cap and my arse shouted, "Get off now!" so I jumped…

The idea was to jump straight up on the pegs and let the bike go its merry way, bend me knees and roll with the impact, I should have realised this was not my day, as I tried this the bars twisted in my hands and sort of Irish‑whipped me over the bars in front of the bike, which promptly crashed on top of me, I looked at this flaming lump of metal that was crushing my ankle into the tarmac and put my hands down on the road to try and drag myself from under the bike, this worked but I was still moving at well over the speed limit as my right glove was torn off and I watched a line of my skin and blood appear on the tarmac, the bike carried on down the motorway and as I came to a stop I realised I was still in the fast lane! I half dragged half rolled myself under the barrier of the central reservation as cars came pass with brakes squealing. As I lay under the barrier there was an almighty "wooommppphhh" not an explosion as I had expected, like someone slapping their hands over your ears as the bike blew up, it covered both sides of the M25 in burning petrol.

Laying there, I could not feel my right leg from the knee down, my left arm would not move and as I raised my right hand to lift my visor I took one look and put it down again, I could see it had no fingertips, part of the palm was missing and I could see tendons and bones in the wrist joint. I thought I would just keep still and wait for an ambulance. Strangely at this time I felt no pain, just numbness all over. I heard someone shout, "Quick, get his helmet off!", I shouted back "If you touch me I'll fucking kill you!" and someone else then knelt down and asked if I was alright! Silly bastard! Things got a bit hazy after that, and the next thing I can clearly remember is being put onto a backboard, then as I was put in the ambulance the pain hit, I never want to feel like that again.

Final score, shattered collar bone, ground off right kneecap, ripped and torn right hand/wrist, just under a pound of flesh gone from right buttock, and an unbelievable number bits of flesh removed from various bits that hit the deck; both ankles, elbows, and shoulders. You name it, I scrubbed it; and I truly believe the Aria Giga I was wearing saved my life. The only things salvageable off the bike were the front brake callipers and, weirdly, the tail light bulbs. I found out a few months later that one of the cameras on the M25 had videoed the last few seconds of the accident, I declined the offer of a copy.

The point of this tale is to try and decide at what point I should have written the day off as a bad one, do you think that maybe the bike had been warning me all day with its little foibles. I don't believe in fate or any other of that predestined shite, if life is predestined then there is no point to it. Yet somewhere in the back of my mind I do feel that something was warning me not to use the bike that day, do I heed those warnings these days? Nope, because I only recognise them as warnings in hindsight and that's where this all becomes annoying, you have all had the feeling when riding that you know something is wrong, sometimes it's a slight tremor through the bars that indicates the bike isn't that well, sometimes it's a feeling that you should slow down or turn off of the road you are on, mostly I think we take those feelings seriously and do consciously or unconsciously change the route, slow down or stop the bike and take a look at what could be wrong.

To illustrate this I was once chasing a mate on our Bonnies through Battersea one night, when Dave just pulled over and stopped, I pulled in behind him and as I did a car came straight through the lights we would have been stopped at and smashed into the shop on the corner, he would have taken us out had we not stopped 50 yards short of the lights, Dave could not explain why he stopped and was completely puzzled. I have no explanation either and probably never will. We hear about this kind of thing all the time, but it is nearly always in hindsight we realise what has happened, realise is the wrong word we associate the event with the warning after the fact, although how many times do we have the feeling and nothing happens, as bikers our senses are much more attuned to the world around us, we have to be if we want to survive out there, millions of tiny little bits of information are processed through our brains every millisecond and even more when we are riding at speed, this subconscious information is also processed as move through the day, stuff that we never realise we had even picked up on consciously, it must be enormous amount, we could never bring that information to the forefront of our minds as our conscious minds would collapse under the pressure of it all. It's like breathing, totally automatic and hidden in the background.

So do we really sometimes have visions or thoughts that are warnings of future events? Do our brains process unconscious information then past it on as a felling of unease? Or is it all just co‑incidence? I don't know but I wish it worked with the lottery numbers…

Jake

Virtual bikers?

In the last few weeks, I have been hearing more and more complaints about 'virtual' bikers (and others types on different forums), these guys appear on various forums and do not appear to exist in real life.
Most seem intent on stirring some form of trouble or spreading rumours, I have already had a couple of 'virtual' run ins with two of their ilk, to the extent where I have sent a private message, including my address, asking for theirs in return with no response at all. Both seem to have disappeared from those forums, although I suspect one has reappeared in a different guise (I am watching you) what was the point of coming on all keyboard warrior? Did they not think they might be caught out?
They could talk the talk .... and thats it, these keyboard warriors are starting to really annoy me, they feel safe behind their keyboards, in their little fantasy world they feel secure, they feel they can insult and deride anyone they like, to what purpose though? I really do not understand what they are trying to do, is it that their own little lives are so boring this is how they get their kicks?
Well if they want a little bit of adrenaline they have to remember a couple of things, some of the bikers on the internet are experts in computer technology, most keyboard warriors are not, tracking people down via IP addresses is not easy, but combined with a bit of intelligence and the fact that most keyboard warriors let a few 'facts' slip it can be remarkably easy, if you know how, to track people down.

So Bad Dog Triker or Dave ******* of Ruislip and Phychorider (SIC) or Clarence (I kid you not) ********** of Dudley, be very careful, some one is watching you.

Jake

The Dance of Death

You have your Ipod blaring tinny music into your ears, you are wearing those trendy sunglasses with the big bits at the sides so you can only see forwards. You are concentrating on listening to the latest pap about living in the ghetto, churned out by musicians who take a limo to the studio.
This is when you enter the ‘Dance of Death’ with your world firmly closeted around you, you step off of the pavement straight in to the path of my 600lb motorcycle.
The (luckily for you) very loud Fiaam horn breaks through your bubble to inform you that the rapidly approaching object WILL KILL YOU!

Thus begins the ‘Dance of Death’, forward onto the left foot, then back onto the right, repeat this action faster and faster so you end up looking a bit like someone from Riverdance, but with no style. As indecision cuts in, fear starts to push harder and harder, which way will the bike go? Which way should I go?

Paralysed, you just freeze as the front end of the bike dives hard, the rear wheel starts to leave the ground and at the last second I flip the bike around the back of you and skid to a halt.
What is your reaction? You start shouting abuse, swearing and flipping me the middle finger, it then dawns slowly that the bloke you are giving all this abuse to is walking towards you, wearing an armoured jacket, denim cutoff, black crash helmet and wearing armoured gloves, people on the pavement start taking bets on your survival rate. Your heart rate goes through the roof, the fight or flight adrenaline takes over and your survival instinct cuts in, you run away, and in those stupid trousers that hang lower than your knees, you run like a girl.

I raise the front half of my helmet and laughingly bow to the audience on the pavement, one man starts applauding, within seconds 15 people are clapping and laughing, one even cheered, what a great start to my day.

Stay safe out there

Jake

Taken from 'articles' at Motorsickle.com

More rambling from Pyro

or "How visible am I whilst riding?"

This morning I nearly ran into a car in the fog, I was doing 35 in a 50 with dipped beam on when I glimpsed something in front of me, it was a grey or silver car doing 20 miles an hour in the outside lane of a dual carriageway with no lights on!! When I sounded my not very discreet horn he looked at me as if I was mad, at the traffic lights I shouted across to him "Lights!" he didn't respond, so I got off the bike and walked across to him. As I approached him he wound down his window and said "What's your problem mate?" I asked if he realised why I had sounded my horn, he looked blank, I told him it was because he was driving in fairly thick fog with no lights on, he still looked blank and then replied, "Well I saw you ok." What was that supposed to mean? at this point a very polite man asked me if I could move my bike as the lights had changed, I just walked back to my bike and rode off.

I pondered the reality of that moment when I got to work, that driver had no idea how invisible he was, which got me thinking about how visible I was when riding. I pass one of the other workers nearly every night in his car and went to ask him how he saw me on the road, his answer made me think a lot, he said when I come up from behind he can see me very well due to the way the headlight shines out of the fairing and from the back the twin bulbs show up well, but he said from the side he can't see me at all in the dark if there are other lights around. I ride a matt black FJ 1200 and tend to wear dark clothes, denim cut‑off and black helmet, I had never even thought about how invisible I looked from the side, I have a 55/100 headlamp bulb and twin bulbs at the rear (that are soon to be changed for a set of high intensity LEDs) this got me looking at some of the other riders on the way home, since the weather has turned a bit chilly, a lot of riders have disappeared, although there is a hard core still out there. Tonight I tucked in behind a very obviously advanced rider (sticker gave it away) now I usually catch this bloke on the way to Hampton bridge in the morning, a very good rider if a bit (IMHO) over cautious, so I thought I would tuck behind and watch how traffic reacts to him and how they appear to see him on the road.

The rider didn't stick strictly to the limits but 'made progress' not nearly as much as I would though, but then I have also done the advanced and was a courier in London for 15 years (insert big wink here).

He was wearing a high visibility jacket and rode a big Beemer with dipped beam on. After following him for about 10 minutes I was bored silly, he sounded his horn only to get cars to move over a bit, I do that by roaring up and locking the rear wheel, he waited for gaps I could get a mini through and eventually I got bored and sodded off, I rarely exceed the speed limit by more than 10 mph in traffic yet that's enough to get me home in around 25 mins. I once rode home obeying every law to the letter, it took me 45 mins and I got hooted at, shouted at and swore at by a myriad of cars drivers not to mention some odd looks from the riders I usually overtake.

Undoubtedly he would be seen as a much safer rider than me…. but is he? The last time I crashed was because of a driver who didn't bother to look out of his driver's window while I was alongside him when he did an illegal right turn, the one before was at ten mph when the front tyre let go on a flattened coke tin that was hidden in a puddle (broke my bloody leg!!) and one more when a car stopped in front of me then suddenly reversed straight into me…. that's it in the last ten years or more, none of which could have been predicted, all the ones I did predict I avoided.

I ride between 15k and 25k a year in all weathers and conditions, I know a bloke down the road who only rides to work (about 10 miles there and back) and crashes about once a month, never serious but still worrying.

But back to the point, how visible was I and is it all about what you wear? When I ride I imagine a circle around me of about 50ft in diameter, this circle changes depending on how I am riding, in town it's a perfect circle of which I am (hopefully) aware of everything around me, on the motorway this circle would deform into a cone that is projected out more in front, the faster I go the further the cone extends, inside this cone, which takes in anything that could possibly be a danger or obstruction, I create a map of everything that is there, every few seconds the data is updated in my brain. Now most of you will do this without even realising that you are doing it, when you ride (or drive) most of you will go into automatic mode and do this without thinking, I make a conscious choice to think about this on the bike. This is what I feel keeps me safe. Thinking about how I ride made me list the things I do on automatic things that I thought I thought about, one is watching drivers faces in their mirrors, if they don't look at me I assume they haven't seen me, I ride in the places that I can see them in their mirrors because it means I'm not in their blind spots, at junctions I place myself so I can avoid anyone who can't stop from behind me, when stopping to turn right from a side street I stop slightly before the white lines in case someone cuts the corner (isn't that right Jay?) Lots of little things that I really should think about, I do on automatic, which means that my mind is not fully on my riding, tomorrow I shall ride to work with all my senses on full blast and see what happens.

So does it matter what we wear? Do we need bright clothing and lights on? I agree with having your lights on during the day because there are a lot of myopic twats out there, but I'm not convinced about the bright clothing, some time ago I stopped wearing my filthy denim cut‑off to work for about 5 working days, during those 5 days everyone and his brother pulled out on me or cut me up. The following week I put the cut‑off on again, no‑one and I mean no‑one did it, I know the cut‑off does not make me more visible, but it sure makes the drivers think something.

I wish I could bottle it I'd make a fortune.

So I have reached no real conclusion regarding this, I need to do a bit more research, trouble is that to research it properly might endanger my life, another catch 22 for the biker…

Jake