OT: LOL!

Is he by any chance a pheasant plucker's son? Let's hope he doesn't hit a woodchuck too! (hmm perhaps a bit obscure)

My brother reckons he hit a pheasant on a trials bike (brother on the bike, not the pheasant), it got carried up to be wedged in between the forks and the wheel and got rather rudely shredded by the tyre treads.

Then again he also reckons a tree in my garden is worth 20 grand, I've yet to see the 10 quid notes falling off it in autumn..

On or around Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:33:19 +0100, "Muddymike" enlightened us thusly:

your land rover will crush someone quite impressively at 50 mph, if the said someone is daft or unlucky enough to be in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. So will mine, for that matter. I like to think that if the person is avoidable, I'll avoid them - but you've no guarantee of that.

I've seen (relatively few, admittedly) bits of road where it's especially dangerous to go at 100+ speeds. I also so FAR more dangerous and crap driving from all types of motorist in urban environments.

Consider also that the consequences of hitting something person-sized (even child sized) on a bike at high speed are quite likely to be painful (or even fatal) for the rider, too - which means that unless they're completely barking or suicidal, they take some care to make sure that when they're riding fast it's reasonably safe. You might not be able to rely on altruism, but self-interest is normally quite a powerful force.

H'mm dead or alive?

Have saw will travel :-)

Lee D

Sadly he was right, but about 5 years too late, the tree would have been worth about 20 grand as it's a decorative tree that takes ages to grow, but once it's got to the age mine is, it's too old to move and would almost certainly die. Given I'd need a whopping great big tree harvester and the services of an arboretum to find out if it would live, the cost was too high.

Of course if you've got a spare 5 grand or so and fancy splashing it out on a 10% chance of a fourfold profit..

It's a shame that people can't get their heads around the idea that banning something only hits those people who don't cause the problems in the first place... It also swells the ranks of those who no longer care about the regulations, after all when you've stuck to them and you still get buggered, why bother any more?

Nige Hi,

I guess bikes are a hate icon since the '50's or '60's (just look at all those "bad boy on a bike" movies with the evil sounds of the Rock & Roll........)

As for the recent hate against 4x4 we can not totally blame the public. Unfortunately there are a LOT (with capital letter to signify their vast amount) stupid people buying and driving 4x4s in a way that harms both living entities (animals and humans) but also the environment. But then again it is only logical for something as usefull and as fun as

4x4s to attract the swarms of stupidity.

Take care Pantelis

Hey!, whaddya mean, 'evil' sounds; and there weren't any 'bad boy movies' in the fifties (well, only one) when I started riding. In the sixties there was nowt wrong with Mods and Rockers, better than beating shit out of some poor old ladies or whatever. Good clean fun it was.

I suppose I must be stupid as well then as I just love Landrover products and I have for a long time. Rock and Roll? I play it all the time.

Are you getting PC Pantelis? Just joking. :-)

Martin

Landrover, Norton, Rock'n'Roll.... the habits of my upbringing. And a Hayabusa just to prove I'm not a dinosaur. :-)

Martin Hi,

of course I meant to write evil in quotas ( "evil" ) since I do like this type of music. Actually the Blues is my favourite kind of music along with classical and the Greek rembetika (which is an extremely similar type of music to the Blues)

But good old Rock & Roll really rocks !!!!

------------------

As for being stupid because we drive offroaders I guess this is what all people with a dislike for offroaders think about us who drive them. It is up to us (as offroaders and not only as LR drivers) to prove them wrong. The sad thing though is that most people who have started driving offroaders in the recent years are doing more harm than good with their bully approach to nature, the bully approach to other users of the roads etc. We all know what that problem is after all and we have discussed it on the newsgroup.

----------------

Just approaching my meunopause....... (LOL)

Take care Pantelis

Did Dinosaurs exist in Japan ????? (LOL)

Take care Pantelis

Of course, the bloody things keep destroying Tokyo, I've seen it on TV.

Ian you are absolutely right.

I forgot about Godzilla !!!!!

Take care Pantelis

Wot's an 'Ayabusa? just kidding, I'm still using my Norton!

Martin

Never heard of that, I'll look some up and give it a whirl.

I can't be arsed with them, just ignore 'em, it's what I do. :-)

Martin

On or around Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:43:30 +0100, Austin Shackles enlightened us thusly:

f*ck. NOT especially dangerous.

Or a tractor or a Land Rover.

7am is the time that many farmers are out checking their stock. Couple of true stories:

Farmer turning right into his open field gate 50+ yds around a bend. Couple of bikes come round the corner and clip the front of his Land Rover. One biker ends up with a well mangled leg with shattered tib & fib the other much more serious internal injuries, had to be air lifted out, turns out to have a ruptured spleen. Both survived, the latter was lucky. At that time there was still a paramedic and on call Doctor up here, there isn't now. It'd take an emergency ambulance the best part of an hour to drive in, the second probably wouldn't have survived. No one with enough medical knowledge to diagnose the seriousness of his injuries and call in the Air Ambulance until a paramedic arrives. So bear in mind how far distance and more importantly time wise you can be from medical aid...

Another example. A chap in his 40's, with wife and kids, loves his wife, kids, bikes and riding. Hum, I suspect just like you Nige?

Nice straight clear dry road with good visibilty, gentle bend at the end. For some reason he ended up on the wide grass verge, you could see the narrow track (so the bike was still upright) through the grass, across a side road and straight into a drystone wall. He didn't survive the impact.

Then there are the times I've seen a biker come round a corner to find some poo or wet mud on the road, that gives them a nasty twitch and I've only seen eyes that scared before in the faces of RAF ground crew in a makeshift bomb shelter during an air raid just before Gulf War I.

Bear in mind that even if your wheels are just the right side of the line at speed you head is anything but and just right for having a high speed impact with the windscreen post of a vehicle coming the otherway.

TBH honest I don't care two hoots about any biker that kills themselves and damages a bit of property but if one injures anyone else I have a very strong urge to tie 'em up fix their eyes open and take a base ball bat and gas axe to their beloved bike then the base ball bat to them.

No LOL! in these tales.

Mike

On or around Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:11:56 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

hard to say what happened there. It could, depending on the chap, have been "ohfucki'mtoofastforthiscorner"[1] syndrome, generally evinced by those who've been off a bike for a while and then buy a new fast one; bike gets up to silly mph in seconds on the straight, corner approaching at alarming rate of knots, start to lean the bike and then have second thoughts and grab the brakes, bike sits up and goes straight on.

Not saying it was, I didn't know the chap. But it's all too common and sadly, in most cases, the only thing lacking is the nerve to lay the bike over hard enough to take the corner - most of the modern bikes and modern tyres will handle much more stick than you expect, in extremis. Also, it's a myth that you can't brake and steer at the same time.

As for the other two - well, if they hammer round a blind corner so fast they can't stop when there's an obstacle in the road, they deserve all they get, just as any of us would. Even on my SOBoxer, mostly, my speed is dictated by the road and not the bike. I assume the farmer was more or less unharmed?

[1] aka born-again-biker

Believe me mate, if these were intentional, then they need to re-evaluate their speed and distance judgement skills! I reckon it's mostly sunday drivers, the bike report I flicked through recently showed that accidents involving other cars and where the bikers weren't at fault were fairly static throughout the week (which was explained as mostly commuter accidents), but sole-vehicle biker accidents and those where the biker was to blame increased on a Sunday (explained as recreational drivers), don't recall how big the increase was though.

Mind you the worst I had was a few years back and it was a sensible, old touring bike with a relatively old (in his late 40s, early 50s) driver in non-flashy leathers with a pillion passenger, slowly overtaking someone on a bend when I came the other way in the landy. That was nasty, he was either a muppet or perhaps his bike wasn't happy or his pillion passenger was fatter than he thought!