Add to the risks of riding motorcycles

About 50 riding here, so outgrowing had best hurry because I'm running short of time if its gonna happen at all.

Riding in traffic at or below the speed limit is extremely dangerous. If you can do that without thinking about what is coming along behind you, you have got bigger balls than I have, or you are brain dead. I rode on public roads until I was 29, then went racing because I could see my life was becoming limited. I was having too many near-misses. I rode a bike on the roads when I first came to Benalla. Even though it is a quiet country town, I still always felt as though I had a big bullseye painted on my back, though I always rode faster than the cars.
About that UXB, I spent a fair bit of my life as Head Of Laboratories in Explosives Factory Maribyrnong. Compared with riding bikes on public roads, working with explosives is much safer.

If you took one of your road bikes and raced it, you might be surprised about how many things fall off it and how much you had to change, before you got a decent ride.

One thing I would say about motorcycle racing is, you always need to keep an eye on your controlling body. Some people are only involved in motor sport to make money. In Australia when there is a fatality, the coroner gets involved. But first investigators are the 'competent authority' which is theoretically the government Workcover Authority. Our controlling body successfully disputed their jurisdiction in court.

Al we all know you are afraid to ride on the road and you in your own mind think racing around and around on a track is a lot safer and thats your opinion, myself have done a few track days out at Lakeside in my younger days and had a lot of fun as well mishaps, but all in all after some time it gets a bit boaring for me, I ride my bikes everywhere, if I got to go over the other side of my city or visiting friends the bike in my mode of transport and get me there a lot quicker, there is as much danger driving in a car on the roads and people get killed from no fault of their own in a car as much as on a bike.
But most of my riding is done out of the suburbs or city and nothing better getting out in the country on some nice winding roads in the ranges and we have a lot of them here and even better when you are riding with mates you have grown up with all still riding as hard as we have since we all started riding together, its very rare we have any mishaps when we are all together as we all know each others riding style and skills, most accidents we come across are solo mistakes, taking bends to fast or not knowing the roads, pushing to hard and tyres giving out and I have come across a few bike accidents and none had other things involved, like I say mostly a mistake on the rider behalf.
When we are all together some of us push out bikes and our skills to the limits but some just cruise along at their own pase, we always wait for the slower ones to catch up at the next turn off or intersection and we haven't lost anyone yet, but when we are on the main roads or highways we all sit together sitting on the speed limits, to many cops and speed cameras to worry about and most of the popular riding places are now being controled by the law but there are still places we ride that are a bit further out for the usual Sunday rider and our Sunday ride involve 500 kms or more, most Sunday riders only do about 200kms and stay close to their areas, it only takes me 15 minute to get out of suburbia and into the country so am lucky there and I can ride all day without geting on the busy highways.
But most major accidents are caused from undue attention whether on a bike or car or truck, life is no fun if we don't take risks, you can be the safest person on the plant and still get caught up, its all part of life, no use wrapping yourself up in bubble wrap, enjoy what time we all have is my way of thinking and motorcycles are my life and if I got money to put in my tank I be out on the bike.

Ashley

Ashley, In Victoria if you lose your bike licence, you also lose your car licence. To me the two activities are completely different. If I ride on public roads, I always ride faster than the traffic - that way your life is in your own hands. When I was a kid, we used to practice at Calder Raceway when the police were also training there riding Gold Flash BSAs. We always took great delight in blitzing them - to a man they were hopeless riders. They used to complain bitterly, but the joke was - they were the reason that most of us were racing.
A motorcycle is probably safer on public roads in places where there are no speed limits - especially when you know the roads. But cars are probably more unsafe in many places where the speed limits are enforced. As far as risk is concerned, I would rather ride a bike on a German autobahn than in London traffic. I lived in Melbourne when I rode a street bike. By the time I was 27, I think I'd lost about 15 of my friends to stupid road accidents. I would not hesitate to speed on an Australian highway with a motorcycle, I would not do it with a car. In both circumstances, you would probably get booked by the police. On the way to Benalla from Melbourne, there are two corners just before Euroa. In a car you can get around them comfortably at the speed limit of 110 KPH. On a bike I would turn that into MPH, and I would not be too worried.

You have started me thinking about when I lived in Melbourne in my early twenties. I saw one of my friends dying beside the road, he was too injured to be moved to hospital. A can had backed out in front of him. His foot caught behind it's rear bumper and it pulled him head-first onto the road. I did not look to see what his injuries were - I was too shaken.
Another went through the side of a car which pulled out onto a major highway in front of him. Both he and the driver were killed. Another hit the bluestone pylon which supported the railway line over Clarendon Street Melbourne. I know there were many more that I was not close friends with, but I cannot remember who they were - probably a good thing ?.
When you race, you know the risks are minimised. If you crash, it is usually your own fault, not a mistake by a moron. On public roads, anything can happen.

On two occasions, I encountered car drivers with homicidal tendencies. Coping with being run off the road is more difficult than anything I ever encountered during road racing. In motorcycle racing the riders all look after each other. It is very rare to discover a dangerous dickhead.
Riding on public roads might have changed since I was a kid. The young guys these days don't seem to be so bloody stupid when driving their cars. Looking back, all the drivers these days are better - might be the cars we have now ?

Al most of my mates I have lost were young and silly and always trying to prove themselves, speed and pushing their bikes they only just got and seeing how fast it can go this was when we were young and under 20 years old, haven't lost any from bike accidents over that age as we got older and more experienced and the ones I have lost now has been from the big C or heart problems to drinking themselves to death, none from motorcycles, so really it boils down to common sense, be aware what is happening around you and have your eye out everywhere and this is the same when driving anything whether cars, bikes or trucks and even boats.
Anyway am more interested in the bazzar or freak accidents that has happened to riders who survived to tell the tale.

Ashley

Ashley, a few months ago my wife was in her car stationary at a set of traffic lights. Another car driven by a lovely young lady ran into the back of her fast enough to do $2000 worth of damage. If you had ben sitting behind my wife's car on your bike, what do you think would have happened to you ? The girl was texting on her phone and if you drive around Melbourne you will see dozens of people texting while driving. I love motorcycles and I also love being out in the open with the wind in my hair. But I don't want to be dead before my due date, because some bloody idiot is progressing their sex life on a mobile phone while driving.
A few years ago, my mate was riding his Harley home from work. As he pulled-up at a set of traffic lights, for some unknown reason he changed lane. He heard a dog barking and a utility truck with a dog in the back, crashed into the back of the car beside him at high speed. It is stupid stuff.
When I road race my bike, the risks are minimised to a tolerable level. If I crash, I have usually done it to myself. With a road bike, it is not you - it is the other guy. Most of them are bloody hopeless - they take too much for granted.

The other day we buried a cop in Victoria. He was off-duty and riding a motorcycle along the Princes Highway in Gippsland,in a charity event. A car coming the other way hit him head-on and killed him instantly. It was driven by a guy who was high on ice. The driver copped the manslaughter charge and has been convicted and jailed, but that does not fix anything.

That charge should have gone for more than manslaughter.

Like I have always said its the risk we all take and not going out on the road to enjoy what we like doing is really silly, its a dangerous world out there and you can lose your life from anything so I never give it any thought I just enjoy what I do best and that's on two wheels, when riding around a race track you can only do that every so often, myself like to get out anytime and not be restricted in what I do and traveling on two wheels is a lot more fun than being stuck in a box, as I say you can easily get wiped out in a car or just walking on the foot path, if you worry about it all the time then it will happen to you.
My mate Kevin always said his job will kill him one day and it did, a day before he was going on holidays, another mate always said he will die young and he did hit a lamp post on a bike he didn't know and on a road he traveled on everyday just down the road from my place, so if you keep thinking about it will happen, I don't think about it at all.

Ashley

Like he Tim McGraw song says..."We all ride and never worry 'bout the fall. I guess that's just the cowboy in us all"

One of the rules I impose upon myself is 'never knock somebody else's go'. I rode motorcycles on public roads until I was 29, then went road racing. These days I look back and wonder how I survived. I think what I used to do was appalling in the extreme. I was run off the road by car drivers on two occasions. There was an intersection near my home, which I used to fly. These days, if I drive down that street, I stop at the intersection and look left and right before carefully proceeding. If I'd ever seen a car there when I was riding my bike, I would have died instantly. If you ride on public roads, it doesn't matter how careful you might be, it is a game of chance. I just don't like the odds. If I still had a road bike, I would still do it, but I would never be happy.
One of the things I've really noticed during my life is - you go along never recognising what you are taking for granted until you have a crash. When I race, I know I am never going to crash again, especially immediately after the motor has just started. - Is that reality ?
My father got upset when a newly arrived Italian immigrant told him 'when you ride a motorcycle, something grabs you'. - He got upset, but it is probably the truth.

Last year Ken (Full Auto) came to see me in Benalla. He had ridden from Melbourne, up the Hume Highway with the trucks - in the rain on his way to northern New South Wales. He sat in my kitchen while I made him a coffee and left a puddle of water under his chair. He told me the road was extremely rough. I takes a certain kind of masochist to subject themselves to that. I don't think he even had the plastic rain suit over his riding gear. I loved his bike and I can see why he loves riding it.

If I had to I ride in all sorts of weather, rain from light to down pours, cold, hot it don't matter you change your riding to suite the conditions, when I traveled up to Bundy I got about 30 minute away from home when the rain came pulled over under a bridge my leather jacket was soaked so I put my wet weather gear on under my leather jacket and my rain pants over my damp jeans the next 3 hours it was pissing down the rest of the way till I got about 10kms from where I was going and no more rain for the whole week I was there.
If its been raining for some time and stuck indoors for some time, if its only light rain I will take the bike out for a run just to get out, I have had some fun ride in light rain and been caught out a few times when out with the mates on our rides, sometime not enough to even put the wet weather gear on, I water proof my leather jacket and it stays dry if its not two heavy rain, jeans will dry out quickly when it stops raining when riding, I just hate it when the boots get water in them, nothing worst than wet socks lol.

Ashley

Wet drawers suck also.

If I was concerned about risk I'd not ride a motorcycle.

Death around every corner these days, good arguments on both ends of the spectrum here.

Id rather not live a life in fear of the "what if"-
Suppose some folks are just smarter than others...

If you have a blast at the track and that's enough for you, then that's great.

If you love riding roads, that's great too.

We're all stupid for doing it in the first place.

Death around every corner these days, good arguments on both ends of the spectrum here.

Id rather not live a life in fear of the "what if"-
Suppose some folks are just smarter than others...

If you have a blast at the track and that's enough for you, then that's great.

If you love riding roads, that's great too.

We're all stupid for doing it in the first place.[/QUOTE]

Where not stupid its the ones who have never experienced motorcycles who are stupid, well in my way of thinking anyway lol, I got bored yesterday as to much wind blowing and watched ON ANY Sunday what a classic.
Everyone has their own opinions on how or what they ride or where they ride and I have no problems with that, I just love my bikes and get out anytime I want, better now no longer working, but a lot of my mates are getting slack in their old age, don't want to get up early, its over cast or its to hot or you ride to far, we use to go bush for a few days together bikes, camping and of course drinking, but the mates don't want to do that these days, but it don't stop me from going and hopefully I keep doing it till its time to go, but it gives me more things to stir up my mates about, I keep telling them to wear their skirts, but of course most of them ride Harley's now, they keep bragging how good they are but they only go for short rides and stop to often.
So now I just do my own thing and if they want to join me all good, they all forget where they started on and I am the only one still with my orginal British bike and have always stuck with British motorcycles, but my mates still put sh.t on me about them but I never say anything about their Harley's, well maybe, but I just run circles around them, it soons shuts them up

A few years ago there was a new paper story about a motorcycle ride riding outback Australia on a dirt road he seen a King Brown snake on the road sunning itself so he rode over it and as he did the snake leaped up and bit him on the back of his arm, KBs are very deadly, he was able to tie his shirt around his arm and by the time he got to the nearest hospital the poison was having a effect on him, lucky he got there in time for anti venom but still spent a week in hospital, he was pretty sick from that bite, if he had not tied his shirt around to slow the poison down he would not have made it, the doctors said.

Ashley