2Wheeltips

There are many options and countless variables that make securing our bikes very difficult against a determined thief. With that in mind, this article will suggest some (in my opinion best) methods for securing your bike in public places. Other locations (like your own garage) will be saved for a separate article.

It would be very easy for an organized group of bike-thieves to load a heavy-ass motorcycle onto a tow-truck and drive off into the sunset leaving you stranded like a girl who refused to put out. What we can do to prevent that is to send them a message basically saying “move on, nothing to see here, pick an easier target”.

These methods should be used in combination and not considered enough all by them selves.

Here are few suggestions that might work for you.

Method #1



One easy and yet overlooked method of securing a motorcycle is to simply cover it up. Your bike will be insulated against heat, rain and other unfriendly elements, but perhaps more importantly; it will be hidden from the prying eyes. Bike thieves usually target specific bikes (Harleys are a common target since they can re-sell them in Europe for three times the selling-price due to incredible demand) but you bike - I am sure - could make their list as well. Not being able to see what bike is under the cover will – at the very least –slow them down. They would be required to lift the cover in order to see the bike which makes your bike less desirable then the one that’s not covered.

Method #2

While it may not stop a determined thief – but then again, nothing will – having your bike chained to something is definitely a good idea. Note that I said “chained to something”. Having a wheel-lock or a chain that’s not fastened to something can be quite useless in preventing theft when the bike can be picked up and loaded into a van.
Check out youtube link at the bottom of the article.

Method #3

Alarm.

Method #4

Low-jack

Method #5



Use some un-common sense. Always try to position your bike in such a way that it would be impossible for someone to pick-up the bike and toss it onto a truck. Some parking lots will have ample space between cars and a dividing wall, use it. At my job, there is plenty of room underneath the stairs leading out of the parking lot. There is enough room for a bike to get out and in but if someone tried to pick it up it would be a giant pain. Also, there is a lot of foot traffic in the area which means more eyes on your bike. Be friendly to people and they will keep an eye out for anyone lurking around your bike without you even asking them to do so.

That’s all folks. I have left out one very cool way of securing the bike – consider it a challenge - and I am counting on you to fill in the gap…add your ideas and suggestions to the comments and you get 100 points redeemable for absolutely nothing other then my love and devotion.

youtube link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D96QM-lzLM8

Salute

There's 923 members listed on this site. Nobody has anything to say, to ask, to report? No questions about maintenance, repairs, mods, gear? No suggestions or advice to give? No comments or reports on new "stuff" they got for their bikes or for themselves? No interesting rides, adventures?
I can't believe we're all that smart or all that dull.

We need more participation on here, IMHO. We need to be more active, we need to be able to hook up with each other, mentally/physically, to get to know each other in these forums, and maybe also go for group rides ? or other meetings with close-by members, maybe see and visit other members on our longer trips as we pass through.
We are a community, a family of sorts, with a common interest, and I think it would be nice to hear from a larger portion of the membership once in a while, even to just report in and say hello.

Am I the only one who feels this way?
Let's see what kind of feedback or response this gets.

I came across this wonderful site that lets you see if your helmet passed the DOT/Snell test. www.helmetcheck.com

Regardless of what people tell you (and there are some out there that say wearing a helmet is more dangerous because of the risk of whiplash), helmets will protect your head if you fall off your bike and hit your head on the ground.

Check out the site and let us know what you think.

By Dino Dogan

First time I rode a motorcycle I knew 3 things. Don’t eat the yellow snow, don’t piss against the wind and don’t up-chuck while wearing a full-faced helmet . Only one of these pertained to motorcycling.

My high school girlfriend got a brand new motorcycle for her birthday. I am pretty sure I’ve spent more time on that thing –the bike, not the girl- than she did. I believe it was an Italian-made step-up from a scooter that was good on the gas and soft on the ass.

I was unconscious-incompetent when it came to riding a motorcycle. In other words, I had no idea what I didn’t know and how much there was to know; but I managed to get around town and even survived to tell about it. Later, I rode on my friend’s 150cc Suzuki and 400cc Honda. Yup, schooldays were fun but then it came time to focus on career and leave this motorcycling nonsense behind. Yeah right.

In my twenties, I kept going back to the idea of actually getting my own bike for once; my procrastinating nature and the high entry cost kept derailing me but I didn’t give up. However, I had to wait a good 10 years before I would actually sit on my own bike...but I’m jumping ahead.

The “high entry cost” is something that many new riders don’t consider. You might put aside a few grand for the bike, but there are a slew of other

Tony, Carol and I have a ton of interviews scheduled for this weekend at the Javits expo.

I was thinking though some possible interview questions for these motorcycle professionals (some of which are professional speed racers) and I think I came up with at least one good one. Here it is.

Which one is more dangerous…speed racing or street riding?

My guess is that most people will say that street riding is infinitely more dangerous then speed racing.

What do you think?

What other generic but good questions would be good for the show?  

As a fellow rider, if I asked you what you would consider your first line of defense against hazards, how would you answer? In my mind, without a doubt, it’s our vision. Seeing things gives us the opportunity to react, slow down, swerve or even speed up. In other words, take the necessary “avoidance” measures appropriate. So, if we don’t see something that poses a potential risk we are especially vulnerable as we loose that ability to react.

Surprises while riding are really, really bad as I’m sure you are all well aware. I would like to devote the next several articles to this very important topic. I thought I’d write them in a particular order with the first article providing examples of the kind of stuff you need to pay attention to, next the type of drivers you need be avoiding and lastly what expert riders/authors recommend to improve your ability to see all this stuff and focus on what’s important and ignore the “small stuff”.

One of my favorite authors and story tellers, Tom Bodet, wrote a few books on his living in Homer, Alaska (As far as You can Go Without a Passport and The End of the Road) You might remember Tom as he did the "Motel 6" commercials ‘We’ll leave a light on for’ya.”.  Anyway, he tells a story where he classifies people into two categories; people that notice stuff and people that don’t. Pretty simple concept right? Well, I definitely fall into the classification of people who notice stuff and let me tell you about some of the stuff I notice when driving and riding the highways and byways here in the Heartland.

I notice stuff on the sides of the road. You might notice that stuff too but did you think it probably didn’t start out on the side of the road. It’s not likely that Sanford & Son is making stops along our expressways neatly depositing things they couldn’t sell at the junkyard. No, that stuff falls off cars, trucks, and trailers and lands in the road and, then, eventually makes its way to the berm or median. Here is a list of stuff I’ve seen in the last few months on the sides of the roads I travel:

• dresser drawers with contents
• luggage with contents
• coolers
• mattress and box spring
• bicycle (women’s blue 10 speed)
• fire hydrant (believe it!! can you imagine hitting a fire hydrant going 70mph?)
• endless number of truck tire casings (I hit a small piece of one of these several weeks ago and it knocked the riveted right rear mud guard off my Camry)
• fire wood
• lawn mower
• lawn chairs
• mufflers, and the list goes on and on

We were coming back from a July 4th trip to Cincinnati and there was one of those small inexpensive trailers with the metal screen bed and it had a piece of plywood for each of the 2 sides. We were two cars behind it when one of the plywood sides blew off and landed in the fast lane just to our left and slid for awhile before sliding off into the median. It didn’t slide flat on the ground; it was angled about 45 degrees, so if you hit it on a bike it would have flipped towards you totally obscuring your vision and probably causing you to crash.

The point I hope I’m making is that riding in the vicinity of vehicles carrying stuff is ill advised

• Over packed and unsafely packed dinky trailers
• RV’s with junk tied on the back with bungee cords (I’ll talk more about bungee cords later!!)
• Anything with a mattress on top stay away from, it’s a severe hazard.

A friend of my wife was killed this year in Cedar Rapids while riding a motorcycle and a mattress blew off the top of a car.  It hit him, causing him to crash, and he was run over by another car.

Here’s my bullet point list of vehicles not to be around:

• RVs with stuff insecurely tied on the top or back
• Open-top trailers flled with junk that is not properly tied down or covered.
• Construction vehicles of any type, including those on flat bed trailers where rocks and dirt clogs get jarred loose by bumps, and fall off, and especially
• dump trucks hauling gravel (the ones with the big sign "Don't Follow Me Into the Worksite"...yeah...I won't follow you at all, thanks very much!)
• Junker cars that are poorly maintained, where parts might fall off.
• 4-wheel drive trucks and Jeeps with off-roading tires that are really good at throwing rocks (I've lost 2 windshields on my car following these types of vehicles, and I try very hard not to follow them...if I have no choice, I leave a football field of distance between them and me)
• Anything that is carrying a heavy object held down by bungee cords.  Bungee cords are designed to hold light objects in place.  They are not designed to hold heavy items like tool boxes, kayaks, ladders, etc.  Heavy objects require nylon straps, preferably ratcheting straps, chains or other robust methods to secure the load.

I’m sure this jogs many of your memories on junk you’ve passed or stuff you’ve seen fall off vehicles. That’s my objective here, to jog your memories so you think about what you are following and or riding next to and. if it fits any of the above criteria, the “light bulb” should go on and you need to find another lane position, pass it quickly or fall way back. Ride safe, and remember Tom will keep that light on for’ya at your favorite Motel 6.

I am writing this because I want to stress the importance of always wearing your gear. Had I not been wearing it, my injuries would be far worse. Here is what happened. I was very lucky.

I was on a ride about a week and 1/2 ago on Rt. 84 in Highland County VA with a few other people on the way back to Marlinton WV. We had done so many twisties that day and I was a little tired so my husband agreed to lead us back.  Two people were behind him, then me and then the sweep. We came upon a sharp curve. I know I downshifted before the curve and slowed down but my friend said he thought I may have come in a little too fast. I may have just misjudged. I just can't remember and they said I may never remember. I remember thinking that I had to lean a bit more to make the turn and I did that while twisting the throttle.  What happened with other riders is that they lean so far that the rear wheel lifts off the ground and there is no way to recover.  I remember thinking that I was going to fall, my butt hit the ground hard on the left side of the bike and the next thing I knew, I was in a gully with the bike leaning on it's right side and my right leg was trapped. A friend lifted the bike off me.

I knew I was in pain but adrenaline must have kicked in since I could walk. My right hand was hurting, my butt was hurting and my legs. When the adrenaline wore off, all of a sudden I was in tremendous pain and couldn't straighten up. I started to feel nauseous and dizzy. They laid me over my husbands bike and thankfully the ambulance came as I started to pass out. They said I was in shock and my blood pressure was extremely low and stayed that way for a long time. There was no cell service so two riders had initially went to find help. Once the state trooper and the sheriff arrived, they radioed for an ambulance. The hospital was 4 mountains away and they took me to Waynesboro.

I have a possible hairline fracture on my hand (x-ray didn't show it but my doctor at home is sending me to an orthopedist since it still is quite painful), a hematoma on my left gluteus maximus, and terrible bruising on my legs and elsewhere. The hospital had never seen a bruise that bad on someone's butt so I was the talk of the hospital. After showing the 4th person, I was no longer embarrassed. Luckily, my head didn't hit the ground.  Somehow I held it up and I also held on to the bike so I wasn't thrown off until the last moment.  That helped as well.  My jacket saved my arms from road rash and possible other injuries to my back.  My gloves saved my hads and I only had a few scraps were the gloves shredded on my finger.  My over the ankle boots saved me as well. 

I am thankful to have such wonderful friends both on the ride with me and at home. My friend drove down from NJ on Monday (he left at 5 AM), picked me up at the hotel at 12 noon, took me to get my bike an hour and a half away and then drove me home. I got home at 10:30 PM that night. It was a long an painful ride. My husband spent most of the day before renting a car and then going to Marlington to pick up our stuff and taking care of me since I was pretty much helpless.  He had to ride home and he was shaken up by the whole thing.

I also have to mention how great the State Trooper and the Sheriff were. They couldn't have been nicer and more helpful.   So many times you hear horrible things about the police but these two couldn't have been nicer.  There is a law in VA that they must issue you a reckless driving ticket for all single motorcycle accidents.  You then have to appear in person and normally they will down grade it.  The trooper said I seemed like a nice person and he didn't have the heart to give me a ticket and he would just hear it from his sargent.  I was shocked that he didn't give me the ticket.  So always remember to be nice to the men in blue. 

Also always  make sure to wear your gear no matter how warm it is.   It may just save you.

Any tips for  safety drive on high speed, especially on a suzuki hayabusa.

As your riding skills improve you will notice that a motorcycle can stop very very quickly. Making quick stops is a skill every rider should have but it does pose a unique problem at intersections.

Since a motorcycle can stop quicker than a car or truck, making a quick stop for yellow lights when traffic is close behind you can cause a serious accident. Since a car or truck can not stop as fast, you run the risk of getting rammed from behind.

In instances where traffic is close behind, it may be best to accelerate through the light as it turns red to avoid an accident.

Hi all -
I have had my Yamaha V-Star 650 Custom for about a month now (passed the MSF course 2 months ago), and have started riding it on come of the busy suburban streets in my neighborhood. I took a ride yesterday for 19 miles round-trip into a more urban area for a business meeting/lunch and did pretty well! I only stalled out twice (once from dead stop, once from not downshifting enough at a slow-down) and that was pretty good for me! The friction zone in the yamaha is miniscule, so it's been a learning curve. :)

I want to ride it every day!