article in the Indie

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/motoring/news_and_features/story.jsp?story=519665

Headline: Too old to be wild?

Lead paragraph:
There's a crisis on the roads and it's of the mid-life variety. Nicholas
Pyke reports on an issue that has even put Hell's Angels on the side of
the sober and sedate.

There's another article at http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=519677
but you need to be a subscriber to read it.

 

wessie wrote

I hate it when I agree with MAG.

A bit fucking pointless publishing the url then?

 

steve auvache wrote in

I was hoping someone here was a subscriber and would put it up on a website

 

<quote>
Pete Walker, from the Beverley branch of the MAG, and a regular on the
roads around Helmsley, knows exactly who to blame. "These people have
bought a cycle for nothing more than to get their rocks off. It's
nothing to do with the biking lifestyle.
<end quote>


"Biking lifestyle"?

What the **** are MAG on?

Cunts.

 

This was in the Sunday Indy last week.

I get cross every time I think about it.

 

"It seems that a majority of sports-bike riders use leather suits,
EU-approved body armour etc. The eager adoption of this race-track equipment
betrays an attitude that the road is simply an extension of the race track."

Unbelieveable... but this is from the lot who think helmets are a bit silly
aren't they...

What would they have us use instead? An old cooking pot and garden gloves?

 

'Leather clad social gatherings'... clubs, patch or otherwise... That's
what many MAG types seem to be, IME.

To me that's not biking, that's something that sits alongside biking.

A hiding to nothing.

 

What a fucking wanker.

 

Just what I try to avoid, tbh. Can't think of anything worse. It's a
fucking tedious pose.

Why can't they see that?

 

Wraparound shades.

 

I've actually written to them about it (because Im sad that way) - wonder if
I'll get a reply . Feel free to take the piss :

In this article
(http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/motoring/news_and_features/story.jsp?sto
ry=519665) the following paragraph is quoted :
"It seems that a majority of sports-bike riders use leather suits,
EU-approved body armour etc. The eager adoption of this race-track equipment
betrays an attitude that the road is simply an extension of the race track.

"Too much reliance is placed on 'protective clothing' which works well on a
race-track, where riders can slide without encountering obstacles, unlike
the public road. "

I would be fascinated to understand the logic behind this paragraph. The
assumption implied above that anyone who wants the best equipment is looking
to extend the race track is as ludicrous as it is insulting. I wear CE
approved motorcycle leathers because I want decent protection in the event
that I fall off my motorcycle - it has _absolutely_ nothing to do with
extending the race track. I equally don't "rely" on this gear for anything -
I rely on my wits to attempt to avoid harm - the safety equipment is there
to try and help lesson the events of that reliance proving unfounded.

What are MAG suggesting we wear instead? An old cooking pot and a set of
gardening gloves?

Secondly, this paragraph is also somewhat astonishing :

"Pete Walker, from the Beverley branch of the MAG, and a regular on the
roads around Helmsley, knows exactly who to blame. "These people have bought
a cycle for nothing more than to get their rocks off. It's nothing to do
with the biking lifestyle."

Biking lifestyle? Sounds like you as an organisation are stuck in 1975 -
unfortunately I was born in 1979 and therefore find little I can relate to -
perhaps something you should consider.

 

I'll agree with you that some of it's a pose, but a fair amount of it's
not. Some of what I want to say belongs in a whole different discussion
[1]; the short version is that everywhere you'll find decent people in
amongst fools and idiots.

For the record I've nothing against the whole "biker lifestyle". I very
much like people like Lucretia and AJ for example, and they're the biker
lifestyle personified. I'd never be a part of it, but also I'd hate to
see it go.

No, this isn't about lifestyle, this is about a few people in MAG that
claim to speak for the majority. MAG still have all the inherent
problems of a pack mentality, backed by ill thought out arguments at
best.

One of those facts of life really; everybody sees what they want to see,
or what they're conditioned to see...


[1] A discussion along the lines of: When you put people in large groups
they always find their way down to the lowest common denominator. Often
that means you simply have cunts acting like cunts, lifestyle isn't an
issue anymore. Chavs, Football hooligans, Bikers, Sales and Marketing
departments - same rule applies.

 

But surely this is the point of an organisation like MAG? By joining
you allow the few people at the top to speak for all of you.

If you don't like what those people at the top say, then you vote them
out or you leave.

 

You like that phrase, don't you.

 

Yes, but it just gives the lemmings a stupid sounding voice which sadly
all bikers get tarred with.

What I'd like to see is a MAG action group.. they could call it MAGAG.

 

wessie says...

Lets be honest, it's in The Independent, no-one of any importance or
influence is going to have read it anyway.

 

I read it.

 

Champ says...

What more can I say?

 

I don't agree with that, for starters.

But this is ok.

I couldn't give a **** if that lifestyle "goes". Why would I? Why
would you?

I don't agree with that, either. It's not a million miles off the
mark /in theory/ but there are a million and one exceptions which
prove it not to be a rule.

 

Good, it'd be boring if we all agreed.

Because I find it's more fun living in a world full of people I don't
completely understand, with a different slant on the world to that which
I posess. It makes things more interesting, and just sometimes sparks
off situations that are completely unexpected.

Rule was a bad choice of words.. I'm way too binary sometimes.

If I were to substitute 'always' for 'frequently' and 'same rule
applies' for 'surely it's more than simple chance' I guess you'd have
little argument. Next time I'll remember that..

There are always exceptions to every rule.