Julius Long Remembered

Hello riders and friends,

The Saturday between Christmas and New Years Day has traditionally been
the day of the Julius Long ride, so today might be a good time for a
reminder to everyone to ride safely (and smart) at all times.

Better people than I will be able to come up with a web site or a more
complete explanation of what happened, but the distilled version is that
Julius was riding his motorcycle in San Francisco and got into some kind
of a tiff with a guy driving a pickup truck (note the difference in
Gross Vehicle Weight) and ended up dead at the side of the road in Daly
City.

Thousands of words have been exchanged on this incident, for there are
many opinions, and none of us were there (except Julius' friend who was
riding with him) but the bottom line is that just as it takes two to
tango, it takes two to keep an argument going. Either one of the parties
could have turned off or slowed down, but neither did. The result was
the loss of one life, and another man's life ruined after being
convicted of some derivation of vehicular homicide.

While riding, remember that your bike weighs (xxx pounds) and a car or
truck or other behemoth weighs (xxx pounds times 10 or more), so put
your ego in your back pocket and don't let the other guy goad you into
doing something dumb. "Let it go," so that you can get home safely to
your "significant other" / family / dog / cat / goldfish / other bikes.

Please ride safely and watch out for idiots. They very likely will
_not_ be looking out for you.

Best wishes of the season to everyone.


Dave S.

1996 FLHR-I Road King

BS#146, DOF#181, NEWT#4, KOTOR#1, SENS, CVNS G&W