6 Things Nobody Tells You About Owning a Motorcycle | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

6 Things Nobody Tells You About Owning a Motorcycle

A funny article for experienced riders, fairly misleading/misinforming for those looking to get into the sport. Written well and with good humor, but I suppose not meant to truly inform.

Am I a minority remembering that CRACKED is/was a wicked comic magazine? Lighten up people!
 
Am I a minority remembering that CRACKED is/was a wicked comic magazine? Lighten up people!

Yeah cracked was the "other" MAD. Cracked stopped publishing their mag and went online, while MAD missed the boat completely.
 
Great article, my personal favourite is " You can't trigger lights". A few nights ago I must have seen a light around 2am go green yellow and back to green about 5 times before I just had to beat it.


Actually you can trigger lights. The trick is to put the kick stand down on any part of the dark lines. You'll see a square just before the pedestrian walkway. Drop the kickstand on the outline. Then voila=D Tried, tested, true.
 
Actually you can trigger lights. The trick is to put the kick stand down on any part of the dark lines. You'll see a square just before the pedestrian walkway. Drop the kickstand on the outline. Then voila=D Tried, tested, true.

Depends on the sensitivity of the loop.
 
Bahahaha!! So true!

My way of explaining it is:
A true rider will wave to any other rider.
Pricks wave to no one.

Actually, you can be just plain brain dead and free of any emotion, feeling or conscience and yet still...not be a prick...just brain dead..
 
Depends on the sensitivity of the loop.

yep. City of Barrie, Springwater Township and County of simcoe don't seem to care if you complain, but if you find a set of lights that's managed by TRD and phone them explaining that it's a safety issue, they fix it. There's a set of lights on my way home from work that intersect with a major county road and they didn't change 2 days in a row. phoned TRD after getting referred to them by the county and they fixed it within a week or 2.
 
A funny article for experienced riders, fairly misleading/misinforming for those looking to get into the sport. Written well and with good humor, but I suppose not meant to truly inform.

No ****, Sherlock.

Thanks op for read!

Sent from a phone that's better than yours :)
 
Great article, my personal favourite is " You can't trigger lights". A few nights ago I must have seen a light around 2am go green yellow and back to green about 5 times before I just had to beat it.

As I understand the HTA, when you are satisfied that a traffic light is malfunctioning, you are entitled to act as if a STOP sign were present instead of the traffic light. In other words, signal if you are turning, then wait until it is safe to proceed in the direction you want to go, then go.

A cop may see you apparently violate the light and stop you. Simply state that you saw the light malfunction, and then treated it as a stop sign. It is no secret that many lights that should detect all vehicles do not detect motorcycles.

TIP: if the officer wants you to put your motorcycle back where the mechanism failed to detect it, do not co-operate in this experiment. You do not have to work to provide evidence for the cop to use against you, and of course if you do this, guess what? This time the detector will work, and here is your ticket, sucker!

I live near a light that detects my 650 but not my 125, so I wait until
I notice the malfunction, keep waiting until the way is clear, then proceed.
[Florida's laws and Ontario's laws are very similar in matters of traffic.]
 
Thought I would add my 2cents to the light thingy. A buddy told me to shut the bike off and turn it back on. Damn if I haven't tried and it actually seemed to work. But in all reality I usually just say screw all that waiting and just go when it's clear, as long as I'm alone (as in no cars at the intersection).

That spider crap really does scare me though. I really don't know what I would do if one dropped down on the INSIDE of my helmet. I like to think I would remain calm, but I can't say for sure. Freaking heeby jeebies right now just thinking about it :( :( :(
 
If you do manage to see an oncoming bike with enough time to get an appropriate wave up, you better make sure it isn't a scooter. Unwritten bike rules make it a crime punishable by exile or death to wave at a scooter. And damn if it isn't hard to tell when you two are approaching each other at a combined 100 mph. If you do catch yourself mid-wave to a Vespa, however, it is acceptable to slowly turn it into an upraised middle finger. It's like the handshake-psyche of the two-wheeled world, and the look of dejection on their face will redeem any momentary awkwardness.

LOL. my fave.
 
"Unwritten bike rules make it a crime punishable by exile or death to wave at a scooter"

LoL is this true?
 
"Unwritten bike rules make it a crime punishable by exile or death to wave at a scooter"

LoL is this true?

Of course not...it's bicycles we ostracize, and anyone who makes less than that differentiation is totally clueless and hopeless at deciphering society interaction priorities..

(if u happen to be a bicyclist who actually has some respect for other road users in your immediate vicinity...regardless of the angle to your sorry ***, then I apologize in advance for your rare ***.. )
 
Lololol at the scooter thing. I went for my first street ride ever a few days ago and as I was going around a small bend in a neighborhood I saw some guy on a scooter and thought of this thread. Yeah I didn't wave at him. Felt like an *******. He gave me a kind of embarassed but accepting "yeah I know" look/wave. Truth is I just didn't want to take my hands off the bars in a turn.
 
Spider thing's kinda funny.

I remember very well when I was riding down the dvp, very slowly in traffic and I had my visor up to get some fresh air in. A bug of some sort flew in and managed to get between my helmet and my ear. I could feel the wings near my ear canal.

After calmly getting to the shoulder, it must have been the funniest thing for motorists to see me frantically getting my helmet off :)
 
Here are two more things nobody ever tells you about owning a motorcycle.

For one, riding clears away headaches. Literally. Of course everyone knows you can escape your boss, your bills, your chores, your daily mundane responsibilities on a bike but no one ever told me that riding has actual healing power. If I have a splitting headache I get on my bike and it literally goes away, at least until I stop again. So I don't stop. Any time I'm out on an extended ride it could very well be to relieve an immediate health concern. If I call in sick to work then go for an extended ride, people might think I'm being tricky when in fact I'm just healing up for the next day. It goes without saying of course that a track days would accelerate the healing. Especially if I crash and can't make it to work the next day. The logic here is irrefutable.

The other thing to know is that getting ready to go for a ride is quite a planning ordeal. You can't just hop on, start up and go. To start, you have to make contingency plans for all that will go wrong. We don't carry a spare tire, we aren't sheltered from sudden storms, and of course our exposure to the risks of the road is very much greater. But then there's usually not room for a first aid kit, tool set, or a roadside emergency kit as in cars. In some cases it can be hard even carrying around a cell phone without losing it. It's as if the best we can do to prepare for the worst is to list our blood type on our helmets and sign our donor card! Luckily, we only die once so these preparations only need to be done once.

But it's the routine ride prep that really chews away our time.

For each ride we have to anticipate the weather within a very narrow margin of error, sometimes covering several time zones over a period of a full day. So clothing has to be thought through with a little more deliberation, even for the simplest rides. If it's a warm, clear day, we are lucky. We can get our jacket, gloves, and helmet and hit the roads. Ooops, forgot the earplugs. Gloves off, helmet off, earplugs in, helmet on, gloves on... hrrrm, now where did I put the key? Drat!

Then if it's cold, add more layers, more wasted time. If it's wet, more layers. A finger splint or recent road rash, mutiply the time by 3. If it's day or night, dark or clear visor? Do I need to worry about condensation? When it comes time to stop for a pee, a snack, a toll booth, or a phone call, we've essentially painted ourselves into a corner. Running errands on a motorcycle? Forget about it, that's like preparing an elaborate 4 course meal for a table of 12, but cooking it one bite size at a time. Craziness! Why didn't anyone warn me?

So I've learned there's only one way to actually enjoy a ride; go and don't stop. Never stop. Now you know too.
 
Last edited:
▼ ◄ ▲ ► ▼ ◄ ▲ ► ▼ ◄ ▲ ► ▼ ◄ ▲ ► ▼ ◄ ▲ ▼ ◄ ▲ ► ▼ ◄ ▲ ► ▼ ◄▼◄ ▲ ► ▼ ◄ ▲ ► ▼ ooooppps, sorry, I just dropped my bag of Doritos...
 
It seems like every time another bike passes you and waves, you are in the middle of a shift. This leaves you fumbling to expedite the shift and get an arm out there, which will either lead you to stall, or else weave around the street like a drunken toddler experimenting with mom's high heels. Either way, by the time you've managed to get your hand up in return, they're long gone, and completely despising you and your rudeness. Oh yeah, and you're probably also sliding your bike through the median. But it's the dislike that really smarts.
59270.jpg
Getty
Notice that she's looking at literally everything but the road.
2) If you do manage to see an oncoming bike with enough time to get an appropriate wave up, you better make sure it isn't a scooter. Unwritten bike rules make it a crime punishable by exile or death to wave at a scooter. And damn if it isn't hard to tell when you two are approaching each other at a combined 100 mph. If you do catch yourself mid-wave to a Vespa, however, it is acceptable to slowly turn it into an upraised middle finger. It's like the handshake-psyche of the two-wheeled world, and the look of dejection on their face will redeem any momentary awkwardnes

lol
 

Back
Top Bottom