Leaving Bike At Home ...

I'm seriously considering leaving the bike at home. I love the feeling of
freedom from being on the BMW, of shooting past the traffic, of almost
'flying', the power of a litre-class engine, of sheer acceleration when I
twist the throttle ...

But I'm becoming increasingly impatient with the utter, _utter_ fucking
mongols that I encounter in cars. Whether it's sitting in the outside at
50 km/h, talking on their mobiles, changing lanes with hardly a glance to
see if they can do so safely, or reading the paper that they've propped on
the wheel ... it's getting to me.

Strangely enough, I can excuse malice a lot easier than stupidity. If
someone makes a deliberate attempt to have me off, then he's going to pay
very dearly, but once I've had his mirror, or his door is caved in by a
size 12 armoured boot, I'll move on. That being said, however, I honestly
can find no reason why we just don't fucking exterminate idiots. Wouldn't
mankind be better for it ? Can't we move forward, instead of having the
moronic flotsam that constitutes 80% of our population, holding us back?

This evening, for the 250,000th time, I find myself behind some **** on the
'Seine Expressway', sitting at 30 km/h on the 'outside' lane, holding
everyone back. I flash my lights a few times, sort of 'bouge ton cul,
connard !'. He doesn't move. I think, '**** this ...', overtake on the
inside, and pull in front of him. I then slow down to a crawl, motioning
to him with my right hand, 'get off the left-hand lane, twat !', all the
time keeping the clutch slipping in a gear one lower than I really needed,
lest he decide to ram me.

Eventually, he gets the message, helped no doubt by the incessant sounding
of horns behind him, and he pulls over. I accelerate away, thinking,
'Would anyone miss a fucking slack-jawed spastic like that ?'

I'm not 'boasting' about the above. I'm not plod, I'm not a particularly
good rider. I'm not fast. Yet I make it a point when I get on the bike,
not to interfere with others' use of the road any more than my presence
necessarily implies. Since I passed my test, not one single car driver has
_ever_ had to sound his horn at me, following a manoeuvre that I've
executed. Nor has anyone had to take evasive action because of my actions.
Maybe my riding reflects my real-life personality. I hold doors open for
people. I say, 'bonjour, monsieur/madame', when I meet someone. I say,
's'il vous plaît', and 'merci' when I want something.

Yet when I ride, not only single day goes by where I don't have to swerve
to avoid someone whose telephone conversation is more important than my
life. Indeed, lane discipline is such a joke here, that I often wonder if
a km passes without having to effect the above.

The other thing is that try as I might, I can't be 'bad' to them. The
other day, as I turned left from the Expressway onto the esplanade des
Invalides, a taxi driver turned across my path without indicators. I've
got _just_ enough experience now, that I 'sensed' he was about to **** up,
and so I was covering my brake in anticipation. I got alongside him,
tapped his window, and said as sarcastically as I could, 'I think there's a
small problem ... your indicators don't seem to be working.' He looked
innocently down at the stalk on his steering column, replied, 'What ??',
and promptly switched on his left-hand indicator. I couldn't bring myself
to maintain my 'aggression' towards him. I nodded, muttered, 'bonsoir,
m'sieur', and rode off.

But they'll continue. I'm only one man, and I can't change the world. Nor
can I destroy all the idiots in the world. There are too many. How long
before I lose the rag, get off the bike and use my helmet to cave in a
windscreen ? I don't really fancy the idea of a French gaol. So I might
just go back to public transport, keeping the bike for the weekends.

And the meek shall not inherit the earth.

 

genuine_froggie wrote

See, what you have got to do is: chill dude. Stay cool, see it all
coming, be not there, feel superior get on with enjoying the ride.
Traffic is no place to have an excess of adrenaline kicking round your
system.

 

I do see it coming. Maybe eight times out of ten now, I'm able to avoid
the dangers, before they appear. That doesn't mean that I enjoy having to
avoid them.

 

steve auvache emerged from their own little world to say

He's obviously run out. Can't you post him a spliff?

 

In that respect, bro, I have an almost inehaustablen supply..

Cheers !

 

You could do all this on a Honda Love[1].

[1] I think it would suit you


--

Mark
ZX12R-B1 (Blue)
CG125 (hers)
Blata Ninja 3.4
BOTSWCAW#3

 

Erm ... what, pray tell, is a Honda Love ?

 

You can get a little amusement from it, with the right approach: "Good
morning mongs. And what shall we be up to this morning?" Make it a game of
predicting the fuckups, being effortlessly out of the way when they lurch
about. Be the absolutely cool, disengaged, superbly skillful motorcyclist,
slipping unnoticed through the turbulent herd, visible only to connoisseurs
of sardonic wit. I once watched a friend of Sarah's, who had three kids of
her own and looked after several more, walk across a floor densely strewn
with toys, without stepping on a single one, and without a single downward
glance. That's the sort of skills you should work towards. The mongs are
there to practise on.

 

genuine_froggie says...

Hanging's too good for them eh?

 

I think you missed a comma out there... Oh, & get a room.

 

Think of a variation along the lines of a Honda Melody.

 

YM "variation on a theme of"

 

I've only had the one, that riled me this much lately on the bike... some
old **** who determined that as the speed limit was 70, he was going to do
damn well just that in the fast lane, even though he had plenty of time to
nip back into lane one before he would happen upon the next person doing
69.8mph, at which point he would take a good two miles to creep past them as
well.

Anyway... I ended up overtaking him whilst he was still in the fast lane -
stupid I know, but I'd like to think the wild waving of a boot in his
general direction, together with a nice fuel richened backfire let him know
I wasn't that impressed.

More usually, I just wait to see if they'll shift over, and if not, nip up
the inside, nice and safely - nice loud can too, which probably helps, (and
truth be told, will probably ultimately assist in my licences downfall).

Better to lose that, than a leg or worse, I suppose.

In other words, it's precisely this kind of freedom which makes me love
riding the bike more and more, given I spend so much of my time behind the
wheel of the cage... and to be fair, people, at least round here, are very
aware of the CBR looming upon them, and tend to shift over far more readily
for this, than they do the cage, even though I generally tend to waft along
on / in both, at the same rate of knots.

Maybe you should spend less time concentrating on exactly what it is they're
doing in their car, and more on gauging if you can just piss past them, up
their inside or otherwise.

Works for me, anyway.

 

I mean... 'a shite old moped of Honda origin'.

I blame TOG myself, and his infernal grammatical tests...

 

And... doh, it was actually the 'Suzuki Love'... the CL50.

I worked at what was in the past, one of the biggest mail order places in
the UK for Suzy bits, hence that's my excuse for knowing so much about his
horrid testament to 80s Japanese mopeds.

 

Snip

How long have you been riding Motorcycles ?

 

Coming up for five years.

 

Fractionally longer than he's been falling off them.

(Like everyone)

 

You fuckin--

Ah.

 

Can I be bothered, though ?