Speed

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you may be swept off to."
Bilbo Baggins

Speed!

posted 07/09/05
The following editorial is not a reflection of the opinions of the editors and owners of this website. Don't read it if you are easily offended by juvenile arguments in defense of anti social behavior.

There are many different kinds of street motorcycles and as many different riding styles that accompany each type of riding. On cruisers you sit low and are on the bike to be seen. These are the choppers and customs that show up on nice days but are rarely seen when clouds are present much less when rain is actually falling. Riders wear clothing more suited to costume than protection and they rarely put in long miles on a trip.

Low seats and high bars mark this line of cruisers.

The Harley is the standard cruiser but the other makes all have their own versions now too. More cruiser type motorcycles are sold in America than any other style. Long distance and touring riders live for the mileage of the open road and their bikes are laden with luggage carriers and navigation gear. A 300-mile day is so short as to be deemed a failure of some sort. 500 miles is a warm up and a thousand miles a proper day. Some extreme riders try for 1500-mile days! Gear that keeps the rider warm and dry is favored over style and looks.

The cockpit of an Uber-tourer! GPS, GPS back-up, cell phone, CB radio, inter-bike radio, map case, alarms, clocks, auxiliary fuel tank on the back. This bike went 10,000+ miles in 11 days.

I've done only a little of the first type of riding and much of the long distance variety but what I really like are sport bikes. Sport bikes are derived from racers. They look fast standing still and they live for the challenging twisty mountain road that swoops down valleys, around corners, and over hills. The scenery in those hills can be nice but during the ride, the focus (if you want to stay alive!) is the road immediately ahead of you. The faster you go, the narrower this focus becomes. The eyes scan the road for debris and evaluate traction. The brain is busy processing risk to balance the thrill of speed with the chance of pain.

"Lord Vader, your bike is ready."

And speed is thrilling! Let's not be coy here. It's fun to go fast, to accelerate fast, and to corner fast! If it weren't, merry-go-rounds would be all that an amusement park would need to draw folks in. Of course, not everyone feels this way about speed. Those cruiser riders I mentioned are happy to ride at or below the speed limit. The long distance riders know that the concentration of riding fast will tire them so they ride at a brisk pace, not a rapid one. Even at a modern amusement park, not everyone rides the roller coaster. But many others and I do.

Sport bikes and sports cars are designed to appeal to this thrill seeking need for speed. A corvette is not about fuel economy. A Jaguar X series makes a poor car pool choice. And do you really want to haul fertilizer in your Porsche? Some folks have different values and they buy mini vans, Honda Insights and Toyota Echoes. Others find stimulation not in vehicles at all but by music, wine, or gardening. Humans have a wide range of interests but still, for many of us, speed works! This creates a conflict between how the individual wants to drive and how society wants us to drive. I have some experience with. And saying that is like saying that a fish has some experience with water!

I've always loved to go fast. As a kid, I raced horses. In high school, I ran the sprints. As soon as I got my first 2 wheeler, a humble Vespa motor scooter, I discovered that wind resistance was the limiting factor in its top speed and that laying belly down on the seat with my legs straight out behind me increased my top speed. Increased it to 72 mph in a 55 mph zone according to a friendly deputy who pulled me over a few blocks later. This started a couple of long standing traditions: First, I always explore how fast a vehicle in my possession will go. It's fun! It's exciting! Second, a friendly state sponsored timer will eventually provide me with electronic verification of my speed and a bill for his or her services.

Sometimes this will happen in a car but more commonly on a motorcycle. My cars tend to be utilitarian. The level of performance in a car that is "fun" is priced way beyond my means. A motorcycle though is the poor mans rocket. $10,000 spent on a sport bike will buy a level of performance that will humiliate a car costing $120,000! Not only does this fit my budget, it also makes the poor farm boy in me smile when I see that city slickers grill rapidly receding in my rear view mirror.

Yes, motorcycles can be weapons in class warfare! Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin in The Wild One weren't dentists and accountants. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider weren't drop out professionals on a journey of mid-life angst. For most of the last century, motorcycles have always been associated with dirty hands and blue collars. Now that bikes have gained some degree of respectability, they have also gotten more expensive and many of the custom bikes and Harleys can only be purchased by lawyers and others of some means. A top of the line Harley can cost $25,000 and a custom by a well-known shop can top $50,000. The sport bike though remains the weapon of choice for blue-collar performance. $11,000 buys a new Kawasaki or Suzuki and with it the ability to go over 180mph! No modifications needed. Fill the tank, break it in, and pull the trigger. It will do the quarter mile in around 10 seconds and zero to 100 in about 6 seconds. Therein lies the dilemma!

The rules of the road are designed conservatively for a slow car with average brakes. Vehicles that are slower than posted speeds are welcome but not ones that are faster. As I tried to explain to a policeman one day, 45 mph on San Juan Valley Road in a model T would be dangerous. The model T wouldn't have the brakes of a modern car and its suspension would be challenged by the uneven surface at those speeds. On the other hand, 65 on my sport bike was perfectly comfortable and safe because the performance envelope for the bike was far above the average car. We have slower speeds for trucks and trailers on the highway because they are less capable. Doesn't it make sense to have higher speeds for more capable vehicles? He said "No" and wrote the ticket anyway.

And here in San Juan County we seem to be going backwards by lowering speed limits even more! As cars and bikes get better and better we post lower and lower limits. In a study done back in the late 90's by the federal government, posted speed limits were changed in a controlled area to see what effect this change would have on the drivers using the roads being studied. The speeds were posted slower, then higher. Finally signs were removed completely. The result? Almost no change in average speed! It seems that every road has a speed that feels "safe" for most drivers and that's how fast they drove. Posting lower speeds only made lawbreakers of them. Even with no limit signs, the accident rate remained the same. It seems that people are smart enough to figure out the safe speed without engineers calculating sight lines, gradients, etc.

So why do we have posted speed limits? The state and County all deny that it's just for revenue enhancement. What do you think? "SAFETY!" Yes I can hear the shouts from all of you incensed that I would even bring up what seems like a very self serving topic but consider this. In Germany, you can drive your BMW 525 as fast as you want on 4000 miles of the Autobahn. This is not a road that's any safer than I-5 in its design either. In fact, I-5 north of Marysville makes this German road look old and worn in comparison. So why is 140mph safe in Germany but not I-5? Germans aren't dying by the thousands in multiple fiery crashes. In fact, the accident rate on the autobahn is 1/2 what it is on American freeways! Consider the speed limit that Montana used to post at its borders. "Daytime speed: reasonable and prudent. Night time speed 65mph" The federal government browbeat the state into changing this enlightened rule a few years ago but I still have fond memories of cruising through the state with my Fearless Wife on our BMW touring bike. Sometimes we'd cruise at 110. Sometimes we'd cruise at 50. In all cases, the road, traffic, and weather dictated what was "reasonable and prudent". Those conditions and the friendly advice from the back seat of course but she is, after all, my Fearless Wife so we did speed right along most of the time.

So let me ask one last question: when was the last time that a serious or fatal accident happened in San Juan County that was a result of speed, just speed? You know the answer. In every case, alcohol was involved. So if we are truly concerned about safety, let's invest money in more breathalyzers and fewer radar trailers. If we really want to make the streets safe, let's impound the cars of convicted DUI's and if they re-offend then let's 'impound' the drivers in safe jail! Have the deputies sit outside the local watering holes, not around blind corners. There are real dangers that need to be addressed and laws to enforce: driving under the influence, aggressive drivers, reckless drivers, improperly secured loads. Let's do these things and not try to achieve a false sense of doing something by lowering speed limits and making outlaws of more innocent motorists. Of course, if speed enforcement is really about revenue enhancement then it all makes perfect sense and we should carry on as usual.

Susanville California to Alturas is exactly 100 miles on a long, straight, lonely stretch of prairie road. I'll bet it could be done in 55 minutes if the traffic was light.:)

- The Old Squid

The Old Squid's email address is: oldsquid@sanjuanislander.com

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