Panic Smells...

On that note, I recall a beautiful day in 1994 driving cross-town where an
errant driver from my left ran a stop sign and hit me. It was her fault
that she ran the stop sign and created the hazardous environment, but it was
my fault that she hit me. Reasoning: Although I was driving a reasonable
speed (OK a little fast), I saw her haulin' ass, reacted by braking (didn't
lock up) downshifted (twice maybe), but there was still a collision.
Retrospectively, I should have been paying more attention. I could have saw
her with perfect vision vice peripheral vision. Remember: (I hear my MSF
instructor) TURN YOUR HEAD.

 

Uh, if you lock the rear tire and *keep it locked* you lowside, not
highside. Ouch, but no escape velocity.

Life is dangerous, and 100% fatal. Remember that, and just keep swimming,
just keep swimming...

Riding is like marriage. Ya gotta keep your eye on the goal,
while accepting the possibilities. Do you go into it sweating
about that 50% that ends in divorce? I hope not. You just smile and
keep swimming.

And I hope you don't go riding while constantly focussing on the worst
case, random meteor hit, invisible drunk driver, or whatever. It's a
lousy way to live.

But you do try to figure out how to improve, of course. Experience is
a strong teacher.

Go out and ride, have fun, and strive for safety while doing it, that's all.

- Dave Svoboda, Sandy Eggo

 

Oh yeah... we all know nothing is as easily modulated as a cracked
casting entangling itself up in your rear wheel! He was a complete
moron for somehow managing a highside! Entirely his fault he's dead.

Boy to tell you the truth I'm really enjoying these threads. I've
always noticed a certain set of psychoses amongst riders and this is
really bringing them all out of the woodwork. Here's how weaker minds
dance around the fact that motorcycles are in fact a far more
dangerous form of transportation than cars no matter how you ride
them...


Skill Snob Nazi:
You guys are focused around refusing to admit that horrible stuff
happens and is beyond your control. Everything is just a skill set
drill away from mastery. Practice makes perfect!

Blame Junkie:
Close cousin of the Skill Snob Nazi, no matter what happens or how it
went down, it's ALWAYS the rider's fault. You should'a seen that car
coming! The UFO wouldn't have caught you in its tractor beam if you
could countersteer worth a damn! Cop smashed into a biker whilst
pursuing a DUI? Your fault again! Why were you there.

MastABATEr:
Why spend all that money on a fancy helmet that's only going to break
your neck? Your wife's Leggs container contains a perfectly servicable
half shell! With a little bit of elastic band secured from a party
favor hat it makes an excellent sunburn protector for those balmy
days.

Croozer Pilot:
He rides slow. He rides cool. He's not like them sqwiddies so he
doesn't need all that safety gear crap. If you go slow enough you are
totally immune from all injury. That's why most of the time their bike
is leaned against its stand in front of a bar. Extra bonus points for
trailering your bike from bar to bar. 100% safer than actually riding
the damn thing!

Geer Weenie:
The geer weenie thinks his magical power ranger suit and helmet will
save him from everything. BALLS TO THE WALL BAYBEE! I have my <insert
appropriate brand label here> with <insert mm> of drum dyed full grain
leather and CE approved armor! Accident fault and insurance payouts
are totally determined by the amount of gear that was present at time
of collision.

 

I've

Well Jr. Pudknocker if we are bringing mental disorders out of the
woodwork... then I've noticed a certain pattern of traits and behaviors
which signify infatuation and obsession with one's self to the exclusion
of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one's
gratification, dominance and ambition.


Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

*snort* now THIS made me laugh... I've only lurked here for a short
time, but already I've seen a bunch of those stereotypes in action.

Are there really people who aren't aware -- or worse, deny -- that
motorcycling is inherently more dangerous than automobiling? Not an
instant death warrant, nor is driving perfectly safe, but come on...
All the skill in the world can't save you when a car pulls out RIGHT
IN FRONT of you. Sorry, human reaction time HAS limits. Rubber has
limits of adhesion, brakes have maximal coefficients of friction...
Simply put, as you said, shit happens. To quote Fight Club, "on a
long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

Personally, I know motorcycles are dangerous. I do what I can within
reason to reduce the risks -- even though you can never eliminate them
-- and I realize that some of that excitement and adrenaline rush is
caused by the very fact that I might get splattered at any moment.
Roller coasters are fun because they're slightly terrifying -- not in
spite of it.

But I guess people need their delusions *shrug*

 

'Fight Club' revealed much intellectual depth and insight.
You are truly profound.

 

Larry wouldnt agree with that imho... and i have reservations as well. I
see it all the time. A guy paying attention and alert will very often see
things you wouldnt think possible to notice and react in time to prevent a
problem. You can probably recall some days where you were extra sharp and
did something like that.

Dullness and slowness causes a lot of accidents. Like you see portrayed
in the movies... a family is in serious danger and the mommy is trying to
talk the kids into hussling thier ass out of there... you know that if you
had been in that situation that you would have grabbed the little buggers
and sling shotted them 400' south instantly.... dullness. its a human
condition that leads to accidents.

Its preventable.

But I understand your point...hit by a meteor for instance... a little hard
to spot in some cases such as you are sleeping...otherwise alert people will
duck... morons will go ... duhhhh... ahh got hit bya big rock from
sparce...space I mean.

but what of Dems example, yer cush drive explodes in a turn at 70 per....the
rear locks up, that can be messy. Myself though in the good old days when
I was up to it, and maybe lately Im getting it back to some extent, I
always rode with the notion of what I would do if anything like that
happened at any instant. If you do that and have practiced on dirt a lot
you can handle a lot of things many would think were not possible.... and in
other cases you can mitigate the damage such as when Larry x climbed the
side of the Hino truck... it would have been an accident if the driver hadnt
turned but the damage to Larry would have been eliminated....very similar to
putting a bike down when impact is clearly not avoidable such as loosing it
on wet leaves etc in a turn.... no control. You will hit the wall.

One still has choices that can often eliminate personal damage.


Phil Scott

 

Those are all valid points... I think however that Larry X is saying that a
person can go good, so prescient on a bike that indeed shit can virtually
cease to happen... with that as a goal, and staying ultra alert in life such
can be the case imho....with some very rare exceptions. the various asian
martial arts demonstrate some real high level potential on what is possible
with those notions. If you assume before hand that you can or will have
an accident as L says... the brain will program for it and the person will
also not develop the edge to avoid the problem.

Having said that...for me... part of that approach is how to handle any
contingency across the entire spectrum including for instance your example
where a car darts out from a blind corner and impact is 'unavoidable'... I
choose to jam the wheels and engine cases into the thing first...while I
keep my head and helmut out of it...and that has saved me from serious
damage more than once... these were in my earlier days... far from an
accomplished rider. More accomplished and both scenes would have been
avoidable... and that imho is what Larry X is pointing to.

His USAF training would have been along those lines... survival in nasty
situations demands that one only target to survive not use any energy or
attention to mitigate the damages of a crash since those are entirely fatal
most of the time.... the USAF though still provides its pilots with ejection
seats.

on a bike the equivalent is to relocate the body to sustain the least
damage...and thats flat. There is a time and place for everything.

Phil Scott

 

"No matter where you go, there you are."

- Buckaroo Banzai


-- Michael

 

Nah, it's a quality domestic FAL variant.

http://www.dsarms.com/item-detail.cfm?ID=SA58C&storeid=1&image=sa58carbine.gif

You're probably thinking of the Johnson.

http://www.butterfields.com/areas/arms/7518a/detail/7518a-4167.htm

-- Michael

 

If that wasn't sarcastic -- thank you.

If it was--

You'd prefer Camus? "It's no use reminding yourself daily that you
are mortal. It will be brought home to you soon enough."

Or perhaps Callimachus? "How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each
of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not,
though he senses it."

Something more contemporary, like Frank Herbert of Dune fame? "To
suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to
learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror."

Any numbnutz with a copy of Bartlett's Quotations or a browser pointed
to Google can look up learned and pithy-sounding quotes, and it proves
precisely nothing about their intellect or education -- although
quoting Callimachus in a thread about motocycling WOULD say a lot
about how pretentious the poster was

Personally, I liked the Fight Club quote.

 

I thought you said you were one of bu$h's followers,
Larry. Welcome to the sane side... ;-)


-


http://www.911forthetruth.com/united_states_district_court.htm
http://www.septembereleventh.org/
http://globalresearch.ca/
http://www.wsws.org/

Dick Cheney: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam
Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." August 26, 2002.

Ari Fleischer: "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
January 9, 2003.

Colin Powell: "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep
his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
February 5, 2003.

Donald Rumsfeld: "We know where they are," about these weapons.
"They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad." March 30, 2003.

George W. Bush: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam
Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical
weapons." February 8, 2003.

George W. Bush: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments
leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal
some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." March 17, 2003.


"I think this is the worst government the US has ever
had in its more than 200 years of history. It has
engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not
only in foreign policy and economics but also in social
and environmental policy.....This is not normal government
policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil
disobedience. I think it's time to protest - as much as
possible....What we have here is a form of looting."
- George A. Akerlof, 2001 Nobel prize laureate economist

"One of the things we don't want to do is destroy the
infrastructure in Iraq because in a few days we're going
to own that country," - Tom Brokaw

Cost of probing Bill Clinton's sex life: $65 million.
Cost of probing the Columbia shuttle disaster: $50 million.
Funds assigned to independent Sept. 11 panel: $3 million.

http://www.commondreams.org/
http://www.truthout.org/
http://counterpunch.org/
http://responsiblewealth.org/


"After all, it is the leaders of the country who determine
the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the
people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the
peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country
to danger. It works the same in any country."
-- Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag, Nazi Party, and
Luftwaffe Commander in Chief

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."
-- Theodore Roosevelt (1918)

"You know, when bu$h said that he's against nation building,
I didn't realize that he meant only the United States"
-- Al Franken

Don't let bu$h do to the United States what his very close
friend and top campaign contributor, Ken Lay, did to Enron...


"Personally, I don't think all the Iraqis on earth are
worth even a single American life." - A usenet rabid
right wing extremist terrorist.

 

yes...that was it. Mine was the original 1941 military one not
sporterized.

Phil Scott

 

Jeez, you say that like it's a bad thing.

 

Those are all valid points... I think however that Larry X is saying that a

Oh, no doubts -- the human potential is still in many ways untapped.
But I think the counterpoint being made is that it's not unlimited.
Eventually, something WILL take you out, and it's usually (by
definition) not what you were expecting.

The great Shao Lin fighting Buddhist priests of China, several
centuries ago, developed their awareness and reflexes to levels
probably never since seen in human civilization, but you'll also note
that they're also all _dead_.

It's like that report people keep floating around -- it's better to
(slightly) underestimate your skills than to overestimate them. Once
you start feeling like you're immortal, the thing that's gonna take
you out of this world is most likely RIGHT around the next corner...

 

It may be a good thing for you but it's bad thing for us who care about
you...

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

I've never met Bush so there's nothing to follow... he's just pixels on
my screen... what I did say was that I've voted for Bush on a promise
he's good for the country... now he's earned my vote with his action...

Thanks Hank for the welcome but believing one side of the political
spectrum is more sane than another is crazy...

Larry L
94 RC45 #2
Have a wheelie NICE day...
Lean & Mean it in every corner of your life...
If it wasn't for us the fast lane would rust...
V4'S are music to the seat of my pants...
1952 De Havilland Chipmunk...
Yank and bank your brains loose...
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/-xlax-/
http://home.comcast.net/~netters2/
http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=netters2

 

The original flopped, that's why.

-B

 

details, details. ;-D

 

That doesn't make any sense. Just about everything bu$h has
done so far has been wrong or even devastating for our country.
Starting with his gross incompetence, negligence, and possible
complicity that paved the way for the attacks of 9-11, and moving
on to the death or injury of thousands of our troops, the tragic
waste of hundreds of *billions* of tax payer dollars, the loss of
our global respect and credibility, and the creation of tens of
thousand of new enemies - all over blatant and proven self serving
lies. And don't forget the devastating consequences of bu$h economic
and energy policies.....

Not so crazy when you research the facts and really learn
what the bu$h side is all about. If nothing else, you should be
repulsed by the way these guys are raping and prostituting
our Mother Earth. It's hard to imagine a worse government for
the health and well being of our country, the planet, and it's
people.
These websites help to counter the endless barrage of lies and
propaganda spewed by the corporate owned and censored mainstream
media. You're missing the details, Larry.


http://www.commondreams.org/
http://www.truthout.org/
http://counterpunch.org/
http://responsiblewealth.org/