PART FIVE
STAYING SAFE
Thousands of people die from falling in their tubs every year, but no one tells you not to take a bath.
—SONNY BARGER
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When I’m riding my motorcycle, I’m glad to be alive—and when I stop riding my motorcycle, I’m glad to be alive.
—NEIL PEART
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There are only two kinds of bikers: those who have been down and those who are going down.
—ANONYMOUS
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Cars are metal containers invented to trick you into feeling safe in a big, scary world.
—A RIDER IN LAS VEGAS
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Yes, but I’ve grown attached to my skin.
—A MOTORCYCLIST’S RESPONSE TO THE QUERY, “AREN’T YOU HOT UNDER ALL THAT GEAR?”
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Motorcycles trade safety for sensation, enclosure for exhilaration.
—KAREN LARSEN
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Riding a motorcycle is like walking behind a horse. Don’t do it unless you know that horse.
—DON BORKENHAGEN, SIXTY-FIVE, WHO TRADED HIS MOTORCYCLE FOR A HONDA GOLD WING TRIKE
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My mother, like most moms, was deathly afraid of me getting on any motorcycle.
—ALTON BROWN
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There’s something eerie about a motorcycle lying on its side. It’s unnatural.
—THE OWNER OF A 1970 SEELEY, WHEN THE BIKE TIPPED OVER
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All too often . . . cars collide with motorcycles. One of the most frequently cited reasons is “failure to see” and these events are so common that motorcyclists in England have taken to calling them SMIDSYS, for “Sorry, Mate, I Didn’t See You”
—TOM VANDERBILT, FROM TRAFFIC: WHY WE DRIVE THE WAY WE DO (AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT US)
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Having fallen and survived, the rider faces an important decision: “Do I continue to ride?”
—MARK C. TYLOR AND JOSÉ MARQUEZ
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Once you go sideways, you never come back.
—POPULAR MOTORCYCLE LICENSE PLATE HOLDER
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There are drunk riders. There are old riders. There are NO old, drunk riders.
—BUMPER STICKER
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I was going faster than I ever went in my whole life, then I fell off.
—MICHAEL J. POLLARD AS LITTLE FAUSS IN LITTLE FAUSS AND BIG HALSY
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[The Harley] dragbike with nitrous oxide injection . . . goes into a full tank slapper and just a few yards before the timing lights, spits me off. So I went through the lights at 139 mph, with an elapsed time of 10.52 seconds. But I was not on the bike.
—JOHN ULRICH, EDITOR, ROADRACING WORLD
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[The] “loud pipes saves lives” approach [argues] that an ear-shattering exhaust system will surely alert drivers of [motorcycles’] presence. . . . [A] problem is that for the people who have to listen to the loud pipes, the issue of saving motorcyclists’ lives might not exactly be a pressing agenda.
—TOM VANDERBILT, FROM TRAFFIC: WHY WE DRIVE THE WAY WE DO (AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT US)
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Be as safe as you can while still having fun.
—NEAL PEART
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I just never really applied for it. It was just one of those things that I never really did.
—GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, AFTER HE WAS INVOLVED IN A 2006 MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT AND POLICE DISCOVERED THAT HE DID NOT HAVE A MOTORCYCLE LICENSE
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I think art should be dangerous and uncomfortable and surprising and all those things motorcycle riding is.
—JEREMY IRONS
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Come on, guys, we’re exhausted. I think we should take the bikes back to the hotel, put them in a shed with the doors closed, and then play Scrabble in the room with the shades down.
—JOHN TRAVOLTA AS WOODY STEVENS IN WILD HOGS
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If he was struck by lightning when he was riding his motorcycle, it was his time.
—THE WIDOW OF A MOTORCYCLIST STRUCK BY LIGHTNING WHILE RIDING HIS MOTORCYCLE
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There is no such thing as bad [riding] weather, only the wrong clothes.
—ANONYMOUS
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But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin and no room for mistakes. It has to be done right . . . and that’s when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that the fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are the wind and the dull roar floating back from the mufflers.
—HUNTER S. THOMPSON
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The burble of my exhaust unwound like a long cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it, and I heard only the cry of the wind battering my head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek while the air’s coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. . . . The next mile of road was rough. I braced my feet into the rests, thrust with my arms, and clenched my knees on the tank till its rubber grips goggled under my thighs. . . . The bad ground was passed and on the new road our flight became birdlike.
—T. E. LAWRENCE
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If you ride fast and crash, you are a bad rider. If you go slow and crash, you are a bad rider. If you are a bad rider, you should not ride motorcycles.
—HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don’t. Some can’t.
—ANONYMOUS
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Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly.
—ANONYMOUS
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Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don’t have the balls to live in the real world.
—MARY SHAFER, NASA
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Thin leather looks good in the bar, but it won’t save your butt from road rash if you go down.
—T-SHIRT
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If you really want to know what’s going on, watch what’s happening at least five cars ahead.
—BUMPER STICKER
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It’s not the jump that’s the scary part, it’s the landing.
NEIL PEART, GHOST RIDER
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I wanted to fly through the air. . . . One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi. You’re in the air for four seconds, you’re part of the machine, and then if you make a mistake midair, you say to yourself, “Oh, boy. I’m gonna crash,” and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
—EVEL KNIEVEL
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I want to die in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not like my grandmother, who was in the sidecar.
—ANONYMOUS
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I’d rather be riding my motorcycle thinking about God than sitting in church thinking about my motorcycle.
—ANONYMOUS
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Does this bike make my butt look fast?
—POPULAR MOTORCYCLE T-SHIRT
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Black care seldom sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.
—THEODORE ROOSEVELT
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When a driver makes a sudden left turn in front of a motorcyclist and doesn’t make it in time, we shouldn’t expect to hear, I saw you but I was in a hurry and I figured you’d get out of my way.
—DAVID L. HOUGH, FROM PROFICIENT MOTORCYCLING
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The most important reason for just swallowing your pride and getting out of the way is that cars and trucks are much bigger than bikes.
—DAVID L. HOUGH
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Your only “reverse gear” [on a motorcycle] is pushing, so you don’t want to be pointed downhill against a fence with boulders on both sides.
—NEIL PEART
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Like most motorcyclists, my initial rider training (if I dare call it that) came in the form of a salesman pushing a bike off the showroom floor into the parking lot and pointing out the control features to me. . . . I went back to the dealership, wrote a check, and within a few minutes was out on my own, dicing my way through city traffic at rush hour. I’m very lucky to be alive today.
—DAVID L. HOUGH
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At some time during your career as a dirt rider, you will involuntarily part company with your bike. Many times, probably.
—BOB SANFORD
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Helmets take the spirit of freedom away.
—A HARLEY RIDER
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The AMA believes that adults should have the right to voluntarily decide when to wear a helmet. . . . Many motorcyclists view the helmet as an accessory of personal apparel, and its use or non-use is connected with a chosen lifestyle and their right as adults to make their own decisions.
—STATEMENT BY THE AMERICAN MOTORCYCLIST ASSOCIATION REGARDING HELMET USE
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I am personally sick and tired of hearing arguments about the constitutionality of helmet laws. . . . I would not ride without a helmet nor would I recommend anyone else doing so. Not even from your campsite to the Port-a-Potty.
—BOB SANFORD
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Got a $5 head? Get a $5 helmet.
—BUMPER STICKER
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Enough people weren’t wearing [helmets], so we had to come up with the helmet law. . . . The idea behind [it] is to preserve a brain who’s judgment is so poor, that it doesn’t even try to prevent the cracking of the head it’s in!
—JERRY SEINFELD
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Getting your bike stuck in the mud is bad enough. Getting your body stuck in the mud is the worst—especially when it’s your girlfriend who has to dig you out.
—BRUCE BROWN
I have been riding BMW bikes for twenty years, but there are some basic techniques I have only learned now.
—JEREMY IRONS, AFTER COMPLETING A RIDER TRAINING COURSE IN 2013
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I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race.
—BOB DYLAN
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I have a motorcycle prayer that I say before every ride.
—LAURENCE FISHBURNE
Loud pipes save lives!
—POPULAR LICENSE PLATE HOLDER
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The [American Motorcyclist] Association believes that few other factors contribute more to misunderstanding and prejudice against the motorcycling community than excessively noisy motorcycles. A minority, riding loud motorcycles, may leave the impression that all motorcycles are loud. In fact, a significant percentage of the public does not realize that motorcycles are built to federally mandated noise control standards.
—AMERICAN MOTORCYCLIST ASSOCIATION POSITION ON EXCESSIVE MOTORCYCLE NOISE
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Motorcycle riders are safer [than drivers of cars]; they don’t text on their phones while riding.
—PAUL CROWE
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If you ride like there’s no tomorrow, there won’t be.
—ANONYMOUS
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