Clean Your Machine/Taking My Own Advice/ Metallic Ornaments

Take it from me......they are no where near as bad as people seem to think they are.........IF........they are driven CORRECTLY! You have to drive them as if you are driving a motorcycle and sidecar. If there is only the driver in the vehicle and you take a sharp left hand corner (in the UK) too fast then yes the inside wheel CAN come up. Just like it can with a motorcycle outfit with an empty sidecar. Right handers however can be taken very quickly with no fear of ever lifting the wheel. If you have a passenger in the left seat then the wheel will not come up on the corners as the added weight on that side keeps it anchored to the road.

Only once did I see a Reliant roll on to its side and that was a friend of mine and was due to inexperience on his part and a combination of adverse weather conditions, a bad corner that cambered the wrong way and an excess of falling down juice ;-) He hit a patch of black ice on a 90 degree curve in a tiny village and slid into the curb which caused the Reliant to ever so gently roll onto its left side and onto the soft grass of the village green. Several of us were following on MC's and saw it all happen. We slithered to a stop and ran over to the car (he was still inside), rolled it back onto its wheels and he drove away as if nothing had happened! We checked it over the next day and expected to see cracks and major damage but he never even marked the fibreglass! I will add that this was in the dim and distant past (1976) when I was a reckless teenager (grin) and things like this were taken in our stride, just like throwing a MC up the road through over exuberance!

Larry

(whose Mother always claimed I was a rebel without a cause!)

Re: Clean Machine/ My Own Advice/ Metallic Ornaments/ HELP!!

LOL.......look up there ^^^^ I added the OT to this reply.

have to wear a safety belt; you're on a motorcycle, wind whipping through your brain, you got nuthin" wrapped around you.

Ahh but.......you do have protection. I know in the US in some states you can still ride without a 'bone dome' but in most places in the world a helmet is now compulsory. Why do bikers wear leather? Because it gives excellent protection against flying stones, bugs and the road when you come off (and every MC rider is going to come off at some point in their life). When I lived in England I taught motorcycling for 14 years and was a qualified MC driving test examiner and the MOST important fact I would drill into every student was to treat every other road user as a complete and utter IDIOT! Defensive driving is the single most important factor when riding a MC in this day and age. There is an old chestnut that says "there are old motorcyclists and bold motorcyclists but there are NO old, bold motorcyclists" and it is very true.

I've heard the "hit gravel, kick the bike away from you" theory, though I'm not sure how much kicking reaction time a biker has at, say, 50-60 mph.

I was reading an online article a couple of days ago that covered this topic. An 'experienced' rider has fine tuned reactions and can react much faster than the 'average' car driver. The article stated that studies had shown that 'experienced' motorcyclists were on a par with jet fighter pilots in terms of reaction times and spotting situations before they became dangerous. Motorcyclists also have a number of advantages over car drivers. MC's are far more maneuoverable and can get out of the way of problems better, they have a far greater field of view and therefore the rider has a better situational awareness, the rider is probably paying more attention to driving as his/her life is at risk every second they are moving and they are not a) yakking on the phone, b) drinking coffee, c) putting on make-up, d) smoking, e) eating a burger or f) trying to breast feed the baby while yakking on the phone AND taking notes on the steering wheel at the same time (and YES that happened recently and was reported in the press!!!)

Larry

[concerning Rialto Robins]

No need to be so smug: they certainly wouldn't pass here now. But then neither would lots of other things including, I understand, aspirin (gastric bleeding) and paracetamol/acetaminophen (fatal overdose too close to therapeutic dose).

Another three-wheeled car was the Bond Bug. You can see them here:

Please note that the ORANGEcolour was the only one offered at first. Perhaps it was a safety feature:you could hardly miss it. To keep this post on-topic, the young lady in the third picture down on this page something warmer to wear. I think that for her safety and pride itshould be orange, to blend in with the orange of the Bug so that peoplewon't recognise her. Sally H

I do strap myself to the bike, being old-fashioned.

Toe straps work no matter what shoes I have on; the new-fangled "clipless" pedals work only with special shoes bought to match them. I much prefer to wear walking shoes for short trips, particularly when I'm in a city and walk the bike as much as I ride it.

And I have to be careful not to wear out my long-distance shoes by walking in them, since they can no longer be replaced -- not even at Rivendell.

Joy Beeson