Biking gripe of the week

[squirrelciv]

Sticking this one on the forum, just to see if I'm a lonely, grumpy old git, or if anyone else agrees.

Right, here goes. My biking gripe this week (actually most summer weeks really) is power rangers riding about on sports bikes

As some my know, I've had a cracking weekend playing around on Dolly, but while I've been enjoying the roads, I came across way to many a$$holes on high powered sports bikes creating chaos and endangering people as well as the future for sensible bikers. Some of the things I saw this weekend were beyond belief
Don't get me wrong, I like to twist the grip from time to time, nothing nicer than the sound of Dolly pulling hard out of a corner, but this lot was way past that.
Why do these so called 'bikers' think they can race on major roads like this??? They have no regard for others and no regard for biking (as I know it at least). Eventually laws will be passed/technology introduced that will curb all our enjoyment of our bikes and these pricks will sell up their GSXZZRCBR's and but a jet ski leaving 'proper' bikers to deal with the mess. Don't they realise that, as a minority, we will end up bullied by the car lobby (who hold more votes) into extinction.

As you can tell, I'm way pasted pi$$ed off, am I alone?

Sorry for the rant, I feel a little better. I'm off for a werthers.

[chronyx]

am I alone?

Hell no. Lots of weekend warriors out round here too...

[z-weiser]

i nearly got taken out by a nutter on a fireblade on saturday - was going over the snake pass in the car (been mountainbiking so needed the roofrack!)

was bimbling back - when lo and behold - power ranger on my side of the road overtaking a line of cars!! i ended up on what little verge there was (about 6" from a bloody great drop) and me and my girlfriend both cacked ourselves!! - not great move!

not too bad but this was into a blind corner! (he was overtaking through the corner!!)

gets bikers a bad name and is f**king dangerous!!

even the two guys behind me on blackbirds were shaking their heads!

just a bit of common would be nice - why not go loon around on a track?

nah not just you mate - everyone likes a good moan about idiots!

[Fatjohn]

The bit about them ditching their bikes in a couple of years (make that summers) and leaving the rest of us with their political fall out is very and depressingly true: sports bikes are the fashion accessory of choice at the minute it seems. Still, I have to wonder if I'm missing something when I read about 85bhp bikes being 'suitable for a novice on his/her way up the biking ladder' (paraphrasing from a feature on the BMW 800S in motorcycle sport & leisure). Why the constant implication that anything under 120bhp is just a stop gap until you can get a proper bike?

I was in a dealers lthe other week and heard two guys going on about what bike they were after and what gear they were going to get to 'match the colours'. Can't help feeling that I've very little in common with these blokes. Of course, these are the people who can be milked for the most money (what do you mean you don't have this years model?!) so the industry will continue to favour them.

[Dee Duble Yuh]

Sticking this one on the forum, just to see if I'm a lonely, grumpy old git, or if anyone else agrees...

I'm with you mate. A few years ago, after being burned off by a power ranger who then stopped at the next cafe, I nearly pulled in too to thump him one. Only my mate's common sense (who also pointed out that said power ranger was with a big gang of mates!) kept me riding on by.

(Still think it would have been good to see his face as I'd explained before all his mates what a poor rider he was.)

[Pussyhorse]

It all depends on where you are in the wide spectrum of biking. As a rule, anyone riding faster than me is a danger to themselves and others. On the other hand anyone riding slower than me is a DASer numpty newbie that boils my piss.

I'm sure that I've had both labels applied to me by other bikers.

[Pete Rock]

That is one of my pet gripes regarding motorcycling, and here we do get a lot of those, only they don´t ever wear matching colours, they´re called colour discoordinated squids


Waking me up at Sunday mornings, blasting by in first and second whith their buggered cans, blipping the throttle to 5000rpms while stopped in the T-junction in front of my house, ffs if the bloody bike doesn´t have a rallentie then tune it , that and spending 5 minutes doing ignition cuttouts in every fuel station on the motorway before another 40 mile blast.

Those are the worst kind, motorway stormers that use no indicators (blinkers) and feel that the wind drag caused by rear view mirrors is too crippling to their 600cc inline fours, unfortunately they sometimes get splattered on some piece of armco and affect our insurance ratings, making it impossible for anyone to get a proper insurance that covers more than the minimum in 3rd party damage, that and cleaning up their mess mustn´t be a nice job.

I once had a run into one of such pricks, was driving my dad´s car on the fast lane of a motorway, low traffic, at about 80 or 90mph, passing a few bikes who were cruising on the slow lane, when all of a sudden a **** riding a 600 hornet with no blinkers, mirrors aken off (why would he need them) and a taped plate decides to enter my lane as I´m passing him, result: his peg puts a hole in my door, unfortunately he doesn´t go down. I stop to make sure he´s ok, only to find myself and my brother under "pressure" from his mates, who kept on arriving at the scene, while I try my best at calming things down my brother holds his clutch while he tries to run us over, eventually we let them go. Just remembering this makes me mad


I hate those guys, blasting in first and second inside towns and villages, doing 60mph between alleys, basicly annoying everyone. They´re a typical sight, blitzing past on motorways, on their weekly 20 mile run up to the watering hole, before returning home for lunch, with no insurance, taxes, or visible plates, they´re important people for those 15 minutes their ride takes them, and manage to detach from their sad lives, before parking the bike for another week, without ever realizing there´s more to bikes than being a ****. Funny enough I hardly ever run into similar looking characters on my rideouts, never after the motorway section anyway, those sad bikes, themselves, end up traded for some convertible Escort when they get married so that they can cruise down by the beach listening to disco music

[Whealie]

I used to say to people that on the motorway I was about half way up the motorbike league. I'd overtake about half of them and be overtaken, usually at very high speed, by about half. Now I have realised that it is more complicated than that. On wet, rainy, winter days, I tend to overtake most of the few who are out (often old guys on MZs or some similar winter hack). On sunny, clear, summer days I get overtaken by about three-quarters of them - even though I am driving faster in the dry than the wet - and they are all race bikes.

[londonbubble]

Firk me Pete you'll betaking my crown for writing long posts

i'll just say 'dittto' to the above


London Bubble

[Pete Rock]

Firk me Pete you'll betaking my crown for writing long posts

i'll just say 'dittto' to the above


London Bubble

If there´s a subject that winds me up it´s this one