October 28, 2008
Top Gear's top dog on motorcycles
Jeremy Clarkson, the acerbic British journalist who stars on Top Gear, the best TV show ever made about cars, reviews a Vespa and offers his thoughts on two-wheeled vehicles.
Hilarity ensues.
Right, first things first. The motorbike is not like a car. It will not stand up when left to its own devices. So, when you are not riding it, it must be leant against a wall or a fence. I’m told some bikes come with footstools which can be lowered to keep them upright. But then you have to lift the bike onto this footstool, and that’s like trying to lift up an American.
Next: the controls. Unlike with a car, there seems to be no standardisation in the world of motorcycling. Some have gearlevers on the steering wheel. Some have them on the floor, which means you have to shift with your feet — how stupid is that? — and some are automatic.
Then we get to the brakes. Because bikes are designed by bikers — and bikers, as we all know, are extremely dim — they haven’t worked out how the front and back brake can be applied at the same time. So, to stop the front wheel, you pull a lever on the steering wheel, and to stop the one at the back, you press on a lever with one of your feet.
A word of warning, though. If you use only the front brake, you will fly over the steering wheel and be killed. If you try to use the back one, you will use the wrong foot and change into third gear instead of stopping. So you’ll hit the obstacle you were trying to avoid, and you’ll be killed.
Then there is the steering. The steering wheel comes in the shape of what can only be described as handlebars, but if you turn them — even slightly — while riding along, you will fall off and be killed. What you have to do is lean into the corner, fix your gaze on the course you wish to follow, and then you will fall off and be killed.
As far as the minor controls are concerned, well . . . you get a horn and lights and indicators, all of which are operated by various switches and buttons on the steering wheel, but if you look down to see which one does what, a truck will hit you and you will be killed. Oh, and for some extraordinary reason, the indicators do not self-cancel, which means you will drive with one of them on permanently, which will lead following traffic to think you are turning right. It will then undertake just as you turn left, and you will be killed.
What I’m trying to say here is that, yes, bikes and cars are both forms of transport, but they have nothing in common. Imagining that you can ride a bike because you can drive a car is like imagining you can swallow-dive off a 90ft cliff because you can play table tennis.
However, many people are making the switch because they imagine that having a small motorcycle will be cheap. It isn’t. Sure, the 125cc Vespa I tried can be bought for £3,499, but then you will need a helmet (£300), a jacket (£500), some Freddie Mercury trousers (£100), shoes (£130), a pair of Kevlar gloves (£90), a coffin (£1,000), a headstone (£750), a cremation (£380) and flowers in the church (£200).
In other words, your small 125cc motorcycle, which has no boot, no electric windows, no stereo and no bloody heater even, will end up costing more than a Volkswagen Golf. That said, a bike is much cheaper to run than a car. In fact, it takes only half a litre of fuel to get from your house to the scene of your first fatal accident. Which means that the lifetime cost of running your new bike is just 50p.
[...]
I also liked the idea of a Vespa because most bikes are Japanese. This means they are extremely reliable so you cannot avoid a fatal crash by simply breaking down. This is entirely possible on a Vespa because it is made in Italy.
What’s more, because the heavy engine is on the right, the bike likes turning right much more than it likes turning left. This means that in all left-handed bends, you will be killed.
This is all consistent with my experience, surviving an encounter with a car's bumper while on a French two-wheeled motor-thingie back in the '70s.
I remember looking down at the car as I flew over it, watched with some interest at the road loomed large in my view as I lost altitude, listening to the crack of my helmet slamming into the road, accompanied by the CRACK of my knee slamming into the road, too, a followup to the CRUNCH when it was crushed between the bumper and the bike.
Surgery, a year of physical therapy, and the doctor's caution that it was 50-50 odds that I'd ever walk without a cane again, I was (almost) as good as new.
And started riding a shipmate's Honda CB450 while I was stationed up in Washington.
Hey, I was a young sailor living on a submarine, and taking risks was part of the job description -- or so I thought.
But I eventually came to some of the same conclusions as Clarkson, especially how everything related to motorcycles ends in, "and then you die."
One of the guys from my boat was hit and killed while riding his motorcycle, leaving behind a wife and infant son.
Yeah, they're a blast to ride.
And then you die.
Funny review, but all too true.
Posted by Mike Lief at October 28, 2008 06:55 AM
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Comments
A quote from a great story of guy I met on the road last summer,
"If I was so fixated with being maimed or getting hurt on the bike, the only thing I would do with my life is sit in a La-Z-Boy and watch TV all day. I'd probably never leave my house, I mean geez, I might stumble on the doorstep, stub my big toe, break a nail, a leg, fall on my head, on and on. I told her this and her facial expression changed a little. It was as if an epiphanous light from heaven shown down upon her from heaven above. She had a whole new perspective on life in a single moment...."
He rode 6000 miles in 8 days ! An amazing story, Nuts, but livin' life for sure.
The full story is here: http://www.pashnit.com/8days/8days1.htm
Posted by: Jeff at November 1, 2008 11:21 AM