Motodisiac

Found this great article describing group riding etiquette, signals and rules.

I’ve ridden in small groups before and it is very important that everyone in a group knows these guidelines. We have been on a ride a couple of weeks ago where Motodisiac was a “lead bike” as he had a GPS system, a couple of riders from our group decided to pick up a faster pace and we ended up loosing them pretty soon. The end result - we took the scenic route back home. The speeding couple - uneventful freeway ride home.

Take your time go over these guidelines. Even if you don’t ride you might find them useful as they’ll give a regular automobile driver an idea of how a group of riders will maneuver on the road.

And here is my personal favorite:

TICKED OFF:
Extend your left arm straight out with your elbow bent 90 degrees. Carefully extend your middle finger to clearly demonstrate your dissatisfaction with the other guy. NOTE: It is not recommended you do this when you are alone.

Happy Monday everyone.

With gas prices hitting record $106 a barrel there are a lot of discussions regarding gasoline prices. Usually I hear two complaints. One comes from American public, crying that the gas is about to hit $4 per gallon. Opposing opinion comes from members of the European community, letting clueless Americans know that they’ve been paying double that for years.

While both parties have a point, they fail to notice the following. While it costs double to fill up the car on the European continent, average car is much more fuel efficient compared to their American rivals. They drive 1.0 liter econoboxes and 2.0 liter SUV’s. Only in Europe you will see BMW 520 and Mercedes E200. Americans, known to desire everything oversized, will drive 5.8 liter SUV to pick up a cup of Starbucks, in process burning more gas than some Europeans burn in a day of driving. I wouldn’t be surprised if the overall gas spending per mile driven is higher is USA despite lower gas prices. I don’t even take into account the fact that Americans drive more. This is great news for the Land Of The Free since there is room for savings and not such good news for Europeans, who already use fuel efficient vehicles.

So, dear Yankees, please upgrade (or downgrade?) your gas guzzlers with something more down to earth and soaring gas prices will not have you cringe.

Boyd Coddington, the hot-rod innovator whose creations won the coveted Grand National Roadster Show’s America’s Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) trophy a record six times, died Wednesday morning of undisclosed causes. He was 63.

Coddington was raised in rural Idaho but moved to Southern California as soon as he could to pursue his dream of building hot rods. He quickly earned a reputation for subtle, stylistic innovations on what had been an almost overdone theme–the ‘32 Ford roadster. That branched out to ’33s, ’34s and then all manner of surprising twists on iconic themes. Names such as Boydster, Smoothster, Alumacoupe and Chezoom redefined what a rod could be.

His wheels were equally well known, particularly those shaved from billet aluminum. He soon earned the nickname “Billet Boyd” for his techniques machining aluminum.

At first I have heard rumors that he fell at his So Cal home this morning and was hospitalised, however later reports confirmed that he died. His cars were one of few “hot rods” that I liked. RIP Boyd.

Southern California is considered paradise by many. Sunny and warm most of the year, beautiful ocean, mountain range nearby, movie stars you meet, malls, Starbucks on every corner, countless possibilities for recreation, retreat for organic lovers. For motorcyclist in presents many opportunities to enjoy windy canyons, cruise on the PCH and ride trails offroad. Pick your poison, So Cal has it all. What’s there not to love?

However sometimes I really wish I lived somewhere in Montana. Did I mention I hate traffic? Let me explain. As a motorcyclist, traffic is not something I’m afraid of knowing that I can dodge it and be at my destination on time. It’s a pleasure to split lanes knowing that poor people in cages are stuck in this four wheel mess. Still, when the road is clear it gives me entirely different feelings to twist that throttle wide open, this is what the motorcycling is all about. In daily life motorbike becomes a smart choice for commuting, saving time and money.

Unfortunately it’s hard to depend on motorcycle only. I still need to go shopping, drive to school to pick up a kid, dine out and run the daily chores. Every time I dive a car I become that poor soul stuck in my cage. Have you ever tried to go to the ocean with your family on a lovely Sunday morning only to get stuck in a gridlock halfway there? It just plain blows.

Today I really lost my nerve. Normally my motorcycle commute to work takes me a little over one hour each way. Today I drove my car and sure enough it took me more than 2 hours to get to my destination. No, there wasn’t anything extraordinary happening. A couple of small accidents on the way, just your daily freeway routine. As I sat there moving 3mph, I was really angry at myself for not riding a bike. I’m not looking forward to driving home tonight.

How can this traffic problem be solved? A lot of “bright” minds are working on it and Caltrans is spending millions of dollars on construction trying to make a dent in this issue. If anything all the construction creates even more traffic and by the time they are done more cars will be on the road so their efforts will be in vain.

There are few simple ways to prevent traffic, they are free and WILL improve the situation. Maybe the goverment should spend tax dollars promoting these ways.

• Keep your distance while driving, every day I see multiple rearend accidents
• Don’t keep your distance while waiting at the light, few more cars will go through if you pull up to the car in front of you
• Don’t block intersection, you will create HUGE traffic when the light goes red and you are still there.
• In case of an accident move out of the way immediately, don’t sit in the left lane of the freeway waiting for a miracle (this applies to police and emergency vehicles as well, usually they create more traffic than necessary)
• Ride motorcycle or a scooter
• Think about other motorists, and respect them

These are simple rules but few people follow them. As of today, my hate of traffic overcomes all the love I have for So California. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Riding back from the office, the 405 is heavily congested, splitting lanes between the two left most lanes, going 25-30 mph, suddenly “oh, shit” moment came. I have had a couple of close calls in my short riding history. The most recent one was when I came under attack of a clueless Prius. But this one tops them. As Motodisiac said before “it wasn’t such a close call because you saw it coming.” This one is my first REAL “oh, shit” moment. And I did not see it coming.

I left the office a little after 6pm geared up in my new riding pants - Rev’it Ultimate (gear review is coming up soon). I received them just today and could not wait to try them out. The freeway was unusually congested, with more than usual merging activity. I did not want to push it and was going not faster than 30mph in a standstill traffic. I was just picking up my speed after squeezing through a somewhat tight opening when THAT happened. I noticed an old pickup truck in the lane on my left. And as I was passing it the right door opened and a guy came out. Years of competitive sports came to my rescue. I quickly reacted and weaved right just enough to dodge the opening door. A couple of seconds later I slowed down and screamed the F word. I felt it was a good stress release at the moment. Obviously noone heard it.

I was lucky that the door did not get opened all the way. What puzzles me is why in the world would you want to get out of your car on a jam packed freeway. What was the guy thinking will remain unknown. In any event thank God everything is fine and noone got hurt. By the way it is questionable who’d get hurt worse - me all geared up and wearing a helmet (I religiously follow the AGATT principle - All Gear All The Time) or the passenger of that truck who would have been hit by approx 500lbs of weight at 30mph speed.

Lesson learned - be extra careful. Ignorance and stupidity has no limits.

There you have it. America approaches the gas prices that Europe has been having for quite some time now. For a long while Americans were enjoying the 6 liter engine muscle cars, gas guzzling SUVs and trucks without being too concerned about how much they spend on gas. You go to Europe and you rarely see a full size sedan, let alone a large pickup truck or an SUV. It is mostly a small size cars that are widely ridiculed here in the US. Well, ridiculed no more. With the gas prices going up to $4 per gallon I am sure the public opinion will change. May be we’ll start seeing some BMWs with 1.8 and 1.6 engines, Audi A3s and A4s with 1.4L engine, more TDI engines etc? Who knows …

I was in Rome last year. And I was surprised to see the number of motorcycles and scooters on the streets of the eternal city. They were everywhere. You can see for yourself. What you see below is a typical picture there.

So may be the time finally came for people to make a change in their lives. May be motorcycles and scooters are the way to go? I sure hope so. I see them more and more on the streets of Los Angeles, 3 of my coworkers have already signed up for the riders course, a couple of more already bought scooters and motorbikes. All that makes me feel I made the right choice.

P.S. And here is the Reuters news article as a point of reference to my gas price rant.