Posts
Sport Bikes
Published July 11, 2007 | 
What is it about people who ride sport bikes? Why all the showboating? Am I supposed to be impressed? As I was riding to work this morning on the 395, doing about 60–the speed limit is 55–a guy on a sport bike just zips past me doing God only knows how fast, in a no-passing section of a curve, no less. Whe he got passed me, he held out his hand in a little wave.
Now, I know biking is supposed to be this big happy family, and we’re all supposed to wave at each other, and have friendly conversations at stoplights, and whatnot. But, honestly, when I saw his little wave, all I could think was, “Die. Just die.”
And this isn’t an isolated incident. I see stuff like this all the time. If the sport bike guys aren’t popping wheelies, they’re zipping in and out of traffic, or some other similarly stupid stuff.
The thing is, no matter how good you are on a bike–or how good you think you are–you can’t just roll the dice like that continuously and expect to walk away from it every time. How do any of them ever live to 40?
And, come to think of it, why should they?
Ah the squids, well fortunately or unfortunately they’ll generally sort themselves out one way or another.
A coworkers wife watched one of these guys kill himself once. He tried passing her on the shoulder of the highway while moving at some insane speed, only to ride straight into a parked car. He hit so hard bits of his bike were embedded in her car.
I’m not going to defend the guys who ride 150mph on their sport bikes. But I will say that sport bikes are far more fast, and VERY DECEPTIVE.
You can whip up to 100mph on a sport bike, and not even realize it. On a Harley, you can hear the engine working harder and harder to get you lug your way up to speed. On a sport bike, it’s effortless. And you don’t hear it as loudly on a Harley.