Spanking the monkey. 3/24/2006
James’ blogroll at whybike turned up these gems from Pegmonkey. The first 2 of a multi part series in how to ride a motorcycle. Pegmonkey dispenses some very sage advice in the 2 parts I’ve read. The very first paragraph cracked me up laughing.
I’ve encountered many people over the years, notably in the mid 90’s, who wanted to get into biking. Many of them were middle-aged men, fairly high up the corporate ladder, who had some extra cash to spend, with the kids in varsity or left home, and a wife who preferred to not have a grumpy old man around the house.
So many of them started looking for something to occupy their time. Maybe trying to capture the vestiges of a lost youth. Or finally being able to afford something that had eluded them when they were younger and trying to carve a niche for themselves in the Darwinian process we call career building.
Most usually, for men like these, whom we call born-again bikers, they would look for something fairly low to the ground. Which in effect meant a cruiser. And since these guys had money, that cruiser of choice would almost invariably be a Harley-Davidson. don’t get me wrong. Somewhere in my stable sits a 1994 FLSTF. I don’t indulge in Harley bashing, because I admire them for creating a brand, instantly identifiable and recognisable, and people buy it. So what if it don’t go to fast, or doesn’t like to go round corners much. H-D managed to bring motorcycles to a group of consumers who wouldn’t have considered motorcycles before. But I digress.
So more than a few of them came over to the bike shop where I used to hang out, and from where we were sitting in the cafe, we could see deals being done by the sales guy in the shop. And then they would be brought out, and shown their shiny new bike, and left to their own devices. And almost invariably, after a couple of months, these very expensive machines would become garage queens, seeing the light of day on rare occassions, when the wife wanted to get the spare china out from the boxes in the back of the garage.
Some of these guys caught the biking bug, hard, and surpassed even some of us who had been riding for decades. More than a few turned out to be exceptional riders. But a large majority were fair weather riders. So, perhaps, if they had read the articles by Pegmonkey, we might have a few more of them on the road.