Found this on the navy web site
08-17-2003, 05:35 AM
#1
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Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Fort Rucker, AL
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Found this on the navy web site
Summer 2003 Ashore
How Cool Is Public Stunt-Riding?
By AD1(AW/NAC) Dennis L. Piert, Jr. and AT1(AW/NAC) Timothy S. McKinley, VQ-2 Sea Duty Det.
As Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) rider coaches and road racers, we were asked to dig into the subculture of motorcycle stunt-riding for an in-depth look at the mentality behind this growing phenomenon. What follows is our opinion, based on several interviews, research and personal observations, spanning more than 45 years of experience in the motorcycle community.
Remember when you were 7 to 10 years old and just had gotten a new BMX bike for Christmas? You and your buddies couldn't wait to build a ramp of old wood and toss it on the ground. Then you would set up a garbage can three feet away and pedal your sparkling new bikes toward it—getting airborne as you went.
Success sometimes was followed by doom when you or a buddy caught the rim of the can, causing the bike's gooseneck to inflict great pain in that oh-so-sensitive area. By the end of the day, you had pushed your bike and yourself to each other's limits but usually came away with nothing more serious than a few scrapes and bruises.
Now, fast forward 10 years, and you're on a 140-horsepower motorcycle that goes from 0 to 60 mph in three seconds—one on which any trained monkey can get the wheel to lift off the ground. Scraped elbows and knees no longer are your biggest concern. Instead, you have to worry about losing control of that 450-pound motorcycle at 35 mph and perhaps injuring or killing someone.
The point we wish to make, ladies and gents, is that each of you should grow up someday and take responsible actions to protect others around you. Those actions include making choices about where and when you're going to test the limits of your machine and yourself.
Unfortunately, not all riders ever reach the limits of their machines; some only find their lack of talent when plastic meets pavement. If that happens to you, we hope you'll heed the advice we give in the MSF Basic Rider course (mandatory for all Sailors and Marines) and dress for the fall, not for the ride.
We asked several riders why they do stunt or "extreme" motorcycling, and their answers remarkably were similar and painfully shallow. Here are some of our favorites:
"So chicks will dig me." This one kills us. Both of us met our wives while riding a motorcycle and—if we must say so ourselves—while earning some major cool points. None of it, however, involved doing triple-digit speeds, passing cars while riding a wheelie, or sitting on the gas tank.
"Takin' it to the limit." On a modern sport bike, there is no way the average or even the above-average motorcyclist can "take it to the limit." In most cases, the limiting factor in performance is the rider, not the machine. Dump the clutch hard enough and time it right, and you can wheelie a Gold Wing.
"To be on the edge." The good ol' adrenaline rush, huh? Give us a break—unless the edge you're talking about is the edge of stupidity, the edge of the police taking your license, or the edge of losing your insurance because you've made three claims on totaled bikes in one year. Speaking of edges, it definitely isn't the edge of the tire, because every "extreme" rider we've run across has a good inch of rubber on the outside of his tires that never has seen pavement. Ironically, most of the plastic on his bike has.
We're not saying that a wheelie isn't a beautiful thing. In the right environment, such as a remote location, it's absolutely cool. But even people who get paid disgusting amounts of money to ride motorcycles sometimes botch a wheelie, and, when they do, there's no air bag or seat belt to keep all their parts in the right places. When a wheelie goes bad—and it will—you're going to hit the ground hard.
Some guys are crazy enough to try 'em on public roads, in traffic—where crashing is the least of your worries. Now, you have to sweat an automobile running over you, and, if that happens, the most expensive safety equipment you can buy won't help you.
One acronym you hear a lot in the Navy today is ORM, or operational risk management. The cool thing about ORM is that most rational, responsible and mature people in the world use this process all the time and just don't know it. We often say to ourselves, "It's raining, and the streets are slick, or the tires on my bike are a little worn, so I'll go a little slower and give myself more room to slow down." Perhaps you say, "I can't see over that hill ahead, and there's a double yellow line running down the middle of the road, so I'll wait until after the hill to pass that dork reading a book."
Any conscious decision you make, whether you draw up a matrix to help you reach that decision, is a form of risk management. Let's face it: The risks to yourself and others just aren't worth the consequences when trying to pull off motorcycle stunts on public roads. Remember, a 500-pound motorcycle traveling at the speed required to lift its front tire is going to slide a long ways if it goes down, and neither the rider, nor anyone in the motorcycle's path, is going to enjoy what happens.
One of the big draws to sport bikes is that, for a relatively small amount of money—less than $10,000—you can buy a vehicle that goes nearly 200 mph and does a quarter-mile in 10 seconds. No current production car can match those numbers; the one that comes closest is the Lamborghini Murcielago. It has a top speed of 205 mph and can do the quarter-mile in 12 seconds. Oh, I almost forgot—it costs $273,000, if you're "lucky" enough to find one, which likely puts it beyond the reach of 98 percent of this magazine's readership.
All that power for so little money makes it easier for people without the proper skills to get on these motorcycles and ride well past their abilities. Unfortunately, the argument that "it hurts no one but me" really doesn't hold true, especially when you ride a wheelie between cars on public roads or do stunts in a residential neighborhood.
The bottom line here should be obvious (but, to some, it isn't): If you must do "extreme" stunting (Can someone please tell the guy who started throwing around this term to stop?), find a remote location, or, better yet, do it on a closed course. Besides the advantages of less moving and fewer stationary targets to rip limbs from your body in crashes, you most likely won't injure any innocent bystanders or damage someone else's personal property.
If you add drinking to the mix, the results can be tragic. Alcohol impairs judgment and motor skills—two important factors in motorcycling. Use a little sound judgment and think of someone other than yourself before you try this ridiculous crap on public roads. Better yet, don't do it at all...because it really isn't cool, anyway.
http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/med...03/howcool.htm
How Cool Is Public Stunt-Riding?
By AD1(AW/NAC) Dennis L. Piert, Jr. and AT1(AW/NAC) Timothy S. McKinley, VQ-2 Sea Duty Det.
As Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) rider coaches and road racers, we were asked to dig into the subculture of motorcycle stunt-riding for an in-depth look at the mentality behind this growing phenomenon. What follows is our opinion, based on several interviews, research and personal observations, spanning more than 45 years of experience in the motorcycle community.
Remember when you were 7 to 10 years old and just had gotten a new BMX bike for Christmas? You and your buddies couldn't wait to build a ramp of old wood and toss it on the ground. Then you would set up a garbage can three feet away and pedal your sparkling new bikes toward it—getting airborne as you went.
Success sometimes was followed by doom when you or a buddy caught the rim of the can, causing the bike's gooseneck to inflict great pain in that oh-so-sensitive area. By the end of the day, you had pushed your bike and yourself to each other's limits but usually came away with nothing more serious than a few scrapes and bruises.
Now, fast forward 10 years, and you're on a 140-horsepower motorcycle that goes from 0 to 60 mph in three seconds—one on which any trained monkey can get the wheel to lift off the ground. Scraped elbows and knees no longer are your biggest concern. Instead, you have to worry about losing control of that 450-pound motorcycle at 35 mph and perhaps injuring or killing someone.
The point we wish to make, ladies and gents, is that each of you should grow up someday and take responsible actions to protect others around you. Those actions include making choices about where and when you're going to test the limits of your machine and yourself.
Unfortunately, not all riders ever reach the limits of their machines; some only find their lack of talent when plastic meets pavement. If that happens to you, we hope you'll heed the advice we give in the MSF Basic Rider course (mandatory for all Sailors and Marines) and dress for the fall, not for the ride.
We asked several riders why they do stunt or "extreme" motorcycling, and their answers remarkably were similar and painfully shallow. Here are some of our favorites:
"So chicks will dig me." This one kills us. Both of us met our wives while riding a motorcycle and—if we must say so ourselves—while earning some major cool points. None of it, however, involved doing triple-digit speeds, passing cars while riding a wheelie, or sitting on the gas tank.
"Takin' it to the limit." On a modern sport bike, there is no way the average or even the above-average motorcyclist can "take it to the limit." In most cases, the limiting factor in performance is the rider, not the machine. Dump the clutch hard enough and time it right, and you can wheelie a Gold Wing.
"To be on the edge." The good ol' adrenaline rush, huh? Give us a break—unless the edge you're talking about is the edge of stupidity, the edge of the police taking your license, or the edge of losing your insurance because you've made three claims on totaled bikes in one year. Speaking of edges, it definitely isn't the edge of the tire, because every "extreme" rider we've run across has a good inch of rubber on the outside of his tires that never has seen pavement. Ironically, most of the plastic on his bike has.
We're not saying that a wheelie isn't a beautiful thing. In the right environment, such as a remote location, it's absolutely cool. But even people who get paid disgusting amounts of money to ride motorcycles sometimes botch a wheelie, and, when they do, there's no air bag or seat belt to keep all their parts in the right places. When a wheelie goes bad—and it will—you're going to hit the ground hard.
Some guys are crazy enough to try 'em on public roads, in traffic—where crashing is the least of your worries. Now, you have to sweat an automobile running over you, and, if that happens, the most expensive safety equipment you can buy won't help you.
One acronym you hear a lot in the Navy today is ORM, or operational risk management. The cool thing about ORM is that most rational, responsible and mature people in the world use this process all the time and just don't know it. We often say to ourselves, "It's raining, and the streets are slick, or the tires on my bike are a little worn, so I'll go a little slower and give myself more room to slow down." Perhaps you say, "I can't see over that hill ahead, and there's a double yellow line running down the middle of the road, so I'll wait until after the hill to pass that dork reading a book."
Any conscious decision you make, whether you draw up a matrix to help you reach that decision, is a form of risk management. Let's face it: The risks to yourself and others just aren't worth the consequences when trying to pull off motorcycle stunts on public roads. Remember, a 500-pound motorcycle traveling at the speed required to lift its front tire is going to slide a long ways if it goes down, and neither the rider, nor anyone in the motorcycle's path, is going to enjoy what happens.
One of the big draws to sport bikes is that, for a relatively small amount of money—less than $10,000—you can buy a vehicle that goes nearly 200 mph and does a quarter-mile in 10 seconds. No current production car can match those numbers; the one that comes closest is the Lamborghini Murcielago. It has a top speed of 205 mph and can do the quarter-mile in 12 seconds. Oh, I almost forgot—it costs $273,000, if you're "lucky" enough to find one, which likely puts it beyond the reach of 98 percent of this magazine's readership.
All that power for so little money makes it easier for people without the proper skills to get on these motorcycles and ride well past their abilities. Unfortunately, the argument that "it hurts no one but me" really doesn't hold true, especially when you ride a wheelie between cars on public roads or do stunts in a residential neighborhood.
The bottom line here should be obvious (but, to some, it isn't): If you must do "extreme" stunting (Can someone please tell the guy who started throwing around this term to stop?), find a remote location, or, better yet, do it on a closed course. Besides the advantages of less moving and fewer stationary targets to rip limbs from your body in crashes, you most likely won't injure any innocent bystanders or damage someone else's personal property.
If you add drinking to the mix, the results can be tragic. Alcohol impairs judgment and motor skills—two important factors in motorcycling. Use a little sound judgment and think of someone other than yourself before you try this ridiculous crap on public roads. Better yet, don't do it at all...because it really isn't cool, anyway.
http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/med...03/howcool.htm
08-17-2003, 10:55 AM
#3
Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Age: 45
Posts: 219
Same tune I have heard from other "experts" in the motorcycle industry. Comments like any monkey can dump the clutch and do a wheelie is ignorant and is obviously not someone who is involved in the stunt world. Why people seem to think there opinion matters especial when it comes from these so called "experts" who aren't even involved in the stunt world.
they continue to recycle the same tune.
I find it interesting to point out the fact that in all these 45 years of experience and experts forget to point out that any MONKEY who buys a $10,000 sportbike speeds on the highway at over 100mph because he or she wants to feel cool and pretend they are a road racer.
I forgot, most likely these experts probably go to track days, and since they are involved in that type of sportbike riding, it couldn't possibly condone street monkeys to drag their knees on public roads.
Hypocrites. Messages conveyed by some of the most bias so called experts you can encounter.
they continue to recycle the same tune.
I find it interesting to point out the fact that in all these 45 years of experience and experts forget to point out that any MONKEY who buys a $10,000 sportbike speeds on the highway at over 100mph because he or she wants to feel cool and pretend they are a road racer.
I forgot, most likely these experts probably go to track days, and since they are involved in that type of sportbike riding, it couldn't possibly condone street monkeys to drag their knees on public roads.
Hypocrites. Messages conveyed by some of the most bias so called experts you can encounter.
08-17-2003, 11:57 AM
#5
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: honolulu, HI
Age: 43
Posts: 496
people dont understand.... even when they interview "extreme" riders they will never understand why somebody would want to ride a different way then they do...
its never been about girls for me and i bet its not for you guys too...
oh well,,, i guess i agree with not stunting on the street, but its not like there are closed courses that we can just go to...
its never been about girls for me and i bet its not for you guys too...
oh well,,, i guess i agree with not stunting on the street, but its not like there are closed courses that we can just go to...
08-22-2003, 12:49 PM
#8
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: antwerp/belgium
Age: 41
Posts: 1
that 
It's just like hondaman says. You can't do it on the road and if you do it at an abbandonned airstrip or backroad, they still will be there chasing us away. But then it's for our own good and safety!
Well **** THAT!!!!! I can deceide for myself what's dangereous and what risk i'm willing to take, and if I don't endanger other people, no man, cop nor king is keeping me down.
FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT (to wheelie)
08-22-2003, 01:06 PM
#10
Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: tucson az
Age: 44
Posts: 324
LANCE
Hey fella's i wouldnt pay much mind to lance, he justy told me the other day , motorcycle are for *****'s , and he doesnt even own one. He really wants to buy bruce's 929 but doesnt have enough cash.....He's just all about talking **** lately .....Oh yah and his better statement teh other day was , any monkey can race in a straight line....its the corner's that really count....Which he cant do either of. Sorry just blowing off steam!
08-22-2003, 01:47 PM
#11
I Enjoy Posting At StuntLife!
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: USA
Posts: 4,621
Originally posted by BiZ
Same tune I have heard from other "experts" in the motorcycle industry. Comments like any monkey can dump the clutch and do a wheelie is ignorant and is obviously not someone who is involved in the stunt world. Why people seem to think there opinion matters especial when it comes from these so called "experts" who aren't even involved in the stunt world.
they continue to recycle the same tune.
I find it interesting to point out the fact that in all these 45 years of experience and experts forget to point out that any MONKEY who buys a $10,000 sportbike speeds on the highway at over 100mph because he or she wants to feel cool and pretend they are a road racer.
I forgot, most likely these experts probably go to track days, and since they are involved in that type of sportbike riding, it couldn't possibly condone street monkeys to drag their knees on public roads.
Hypocrites. Messages conveyed by some of the most bias so called experts you can encounter.
Same tune I have heard from other "experts" in the motorcycle industry. Comments like any monkey can dump the clutch and do a wheelie is ignorant and is obviously not someone who is involved in the stunt world. Why people seem to think there opinion matters especial when it comes from these so called "experts" who aren't even involved in the stunt world.
they continue to recycle the same tune.
I find it interesting to point out the fact that in all these 45 years of experience and experts forget to point out that any MONKEY who buys a $10,000 sportbike speeds on the highway at over 100mph because he or she wants to feel cool and pretend they are a road racer.
I forgot, most likely these experts probably go to track days, and since they are involved in that type of sportbike riding, it couldn't possibly condone street monkeys to drag their knees on public roads.
Hypocrites. Messages conveyed by some of the most bias so called experts you can encounter.
08-22-2003, 02:00 PM
#12
Regular StuntLifer
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: edgefield, sc
Age: 47
Posts: 251
Originally posted by BiZ
Same tune I have heard from other "experts" in the motorcycle industry. Comments like any monkey can dump the clutch and do a wheelie is ignorant and is obviously not someone who is involved in the stunt world. Why people seem to think there opinion matters especial when it comes from these so called "experts" who aren't even involved in the stunt world.
they continue to recycle the same tune.
I find it interesting to point out the fact that in all these 45 years of experience and experts forget to point out that any MONKEY who buys a $10,000 sportbike speeds on the highway at over 100mph because he or she wants to feel cool and pretend they are a road racer.
I forgot, most likely these experts probably go to track days, and since they are involved in that type of sportbike riding, it couldn't possibly condone street monkeys to drag their knees on public roads.
Hypocrites. Messages conveyed by some of the most bias so called experts you can encounter.
Same tune I have heard from other "experts" in the motorcycle industry. Comments like any monkey can dump the clutch and do a wheelie is ignorant and is obviously not someone who is involved in the stunt world. Why people seem to think there opinion matters especial when it comes from these so called "experts" who aren't even involved in the stunt world.
they continue to recycle the same tune.
I find it interesting to point out the fact that in all these 45 years of experience and experts forget to point out that any MONKEY who buys a $10,000 sportbike speeds on the highway at over 100mph because he or she wants to feel cool and pretend they are a road racer.
I forgot, most likely these experts probably go to track days, and since they are involved in that type of sportbike riding, it couldn't possibly condone street monkeys to drag their knees on public roads.
Hypocrites. Messages conveyed by some of the most bias so called experts you can encounter.
Comments like any monkey can dump the clutch and do a wheelie is ignorant and is obviously not someone who is involved in the stunt world.
James.
08-22-2003, 02:04 PM
#13
Regular StuntLifer
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: edgefield, sc
Age: 47
Posts: 251
Originally posted by GRSiK26
I agree!!! We all know that ROADRACER wannabes are jealous of stuntriders!!... they think they are so much better then stunters and I cant stand it!! Cause its ok to drag their knee ANYWHERE THEY WANT but not for stunters... I agree that it is better NOT to stunt on public roads FOR SURE
I agree!!! We all know that ROADRACER wannabes are jealous of stuntriders!!... they think they are so much better then stunters and I cant stand it!! Cause its ok to drag their knee ANYWHERE THEY WANT but not for stunters... I agree that it is better NOT to stunt on public roads FOR SURE
james.
08-22-2003, 02:44 PM
#14
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Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: im lost
Age: 43
Posts: 942
i actually had a road racer come up to me about 3 weeks ago and tell me that he was jealous. that he can do 180 mph into a turn but he thinks i have more control of my bike than he does.
It was sort of shocking because I am used to hearing things like what was written in the article, but he tells me that most road racers are just jealous because the pro stunt guys can out ride them. Just thought it was interesting.
It was sort of shocking because I am used to hearing things like what was written in the article, but he tells me that most road racers are just jealous because the pro stunt guys can out ride them. Just thought it was interesting.
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