I just hate Harley people.

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

I had to go to Milwaukee today.  Lucky me, it was the hundredth homecoming hogfest or some such B.S.  50,000 motorcycles, and four mufflers.  By the time I crossed from Illinois into Wisconson, I was already deaf.
It amazes me that these guys will ride 6 wide in three lanes and totally obstruct traffic flow.  I started wishing for a James Bond car with machine guns in the grill.  Then there's the fact that these people just can't ride!  If you can't cut a smooth arc around a freeway corner at 60 mph, get another hobby!
Motorclothes.  I don't get it.  100,000 people wearing the same costume, and no two look alike.  As my wife pointed out, these are the people who would scorn someone dressed in Boss or Versacci, but they spend the same bread to look like nonconformists.  How nonconformist is it when 100,000 people all show up on the same make of motorcycle, all wearing vests, doo-rags and jeans?
Needless to say, I observed two bad wrecks in the few hours I was in town.  It's amazing how much damage a 1000 lb pig, er... hog will do when it broadsides a car at 60 mph.  I saw God knows how many cases of public drunkenness and D.U.I. while I was there, and it seemed that the boys were keeping the ambulance drivers pretty busy.
These are just my observations as someone who spent half a day running errands in Miluakee during this event.  I can't imagine how much worse it would be to actually participate in such an event.  From Toys for Tots in Chicago to Fall Bike Week in Daytona to this Hogcomingfest thing today, all I see each time the faithful gather is drunknness, a lack of basic skills, inconsideration for the rest of the world, nonconformist conformity, and several fatalities.  These are the same people who call us "Suicicycle Jockies."
We have many Harley people here in my town, and I know lots of them.  Whenever I run into one of them, I always have to hear about the latest riders to be seriously injured or killed.  The story always starts out the same.  "JJ and Linda-Sue went down last week."  There follows a short, respectful silence while everyone looks at their feet.  The story continues.  "They were on their way home from the bar..."  Of course it does absolutely no good to point out to them that I've "Gone Down"  at least a dozen times at speeds up to 120 mph and survived them all quite nicely.  It also does no good to mention that portly motorcycles, piss-poor brakes, lazy steering geometry, non-existant cornering clearance, tons of exposed flesh, a helmetless head and a few pitchers of beer make for a deadly combination.  Yes, I really must be a suicidal jackass to race one o dem murdersickle crotch-rockets.
Or am I being too hard on them? ;)

[Dawn]

No...  you're not being to hard on them.  I have had people look down at me because a middle class, middle aged, white woman should be acting my age and riding a cruiser.  NOT a crotch rocket.   ::)

Gimme a break.

I don't care what bike you ride, Harley or sport bike.  But if you don't care enough about yourself to wear the proper protective gear and learn to ride to the best of your ability.....  Well, you just lost a lot of respect from me.

Dawn   :-/

BTW - Milwaukee....  Today....  What are you nuts?

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

I'm planning on getting a HD next spring. Then again, I still will ride in full ballistic gear, full face helmet and racing gloves. I should stand out liek a sore thumb. Hell the HD guys I met up in Madison were some of the nicest peopel I've seen on bikes in a long time. Granted you have the brain dead fools on HD that bar hop on a motorcycle, then again they are mostly the same group that does the same thing on snowmobiles also.

[Xian_13]

Ohh I could go off on so many differant tangents about this...

While the rally in Miw-town is about a "bike" its the "poeple" that affect us all.
I say this because I can't get insurance on the "style" of bike I preffer to ride. Yet this artical points out where the problems really lay!

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jul03/154864.asp

High-lights for those who don't wish to read the whole artical...

"Todd A. Miller hit a utility pole" "He was riding his motorcycle at a high speed without a helmet, and his blood alcohol was twice the level considered evidence of intoxication"

"In 1997, the average victim of a motorcycle crash was 35.6 years old. By 2002, that figure had jumped to 42.5. In 1997, about one in four of those killed in motorcycle crashes was age 45 and over; last year, more than half of the victims were in that age group. A similar trend has been noticed nationally"
Its not the kids out there on the sports bikes... K3 you are in this demographic BTW

"Drinking and riding remains a problem. Piper says drunken driving causes almost half of the motorcycle accidents in the United States. In Wisconsin, though, the Journal Sentinel's analysis showed that of the dead drivers and passengers tested, 43% had alcohol in their blood in 2002, down from 63% in 1997. "

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

a middle class, middle aged, white woman

I think you're high class!  But don't tell Paul I said so... he's probably still mad about that other thing. ;D

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

K3 you are in this demographic BTW [/b]

True, but I don't fit the bill.  Most of these yahoos are beginners who got swept up in the whole Harley thing.  I've been riding my whole life.  Also, as a street rider I graduated myself up the displacement scale over the span of a decade.  I've done the same thing in racing.  Perhaps most important is that I realized that it was time to get off the street when my riding skill and level of agression reached dangerous levels.  This is the point of my original rant.  These losers have the nerve to look down on us!
 Now that being a bad-boy biker has become the dream of every middle aged boomer with disposable income, for sure the age factors in accident rates are going to go up.

[Photo_Chick]

It's not just Harleys.  It's any type of motorcycles.  It's any time you have a bunch of people gather for a bike fest of any kind.  They get drunk, they have to show off, they get stupid, they die....no second chances...

[Baltobuell]

 They are just a bunch of normal people who are looking to have a little fun and a feeling of belonging. The sad part is that it displays how many folks really don't know how to have fun without alcohol.
  1 in 4 over 45 means 3 out of 4 were under. That's pretty sad too. Can you imagine 100,000 non racer youngsters with sportbikes meeting somewhere? As annoying as the Harley dudes can be, people are just people.

[EX#996]

Very true Doug...

Dawn

[KBOlsen]

This Harley rider spent the 100th at Blackhawk with NESBA.  I left the 'bagger at home, in the garage.

[OmniGLH]

I'll have to agree with some of the sentiments here. My dad has been a Harley fan his whole life.  Most of his friends have Harleys, and he himself has a '96 Softail.  He keeps it in my garage, so every now and again, when my wrists and ankles don't feel up to riding the Gixxer to work, I'll ride the HD.  Not too difficult to find myself riding with a couple guys as I head in to the office - and let me tell you, for as many bad sportbike riders I've seen, there are at LEAST as many REALLY BAD cruiser riders.  Being 40+ does NOT automatically make a person a better or safer rider.

I cannot begin to tell you how often my dad complains about most of his riding buddies.... a day of riding mostly seems to consist of going from bar to bar.  Even a day-long trip out west, it HAS to wind up, or stop off at, some bar.  Since my dad doesn't drink, he's really been let-down with the riding scene ever since he picked up his bike brand new in '96.  His bike has all of 9,000 miles on it - and at least 2,000 of them are mine.

I'm proud to say he picked up his first sportbike a few weeks ago - a '97 Blackbird.  Had some mechanical things that required our attention before he could ride it... he took it on it's first ride 2 days ago.  Since then he has not stopped raving about how great the brakes are, how smoothly it rode, how effortless the handling is.  "Wow all I do is turn my head and BAM I'm already through the corner!  This is GREAT!"  All I need to do now is find him a sport-touring oriented group - who will actually spend weekends RIDING instead of drinking - and he's all set  :)  I'm not holding my breath to see him out on the track anytime soon ;)

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

Check out HSTA.  I believe that's Honda sport touring association.  I did some rides with them out of Madison that were awesome.  I rode a Kawasaki then, but they didn't seem to care.  Imagine that!