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by JAX
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: motorcycles are awesome. Who doesn’t love a two-wheeled death machine full of highly flammable liquid that you straddle while traveling at speeds that could turn you into an Oxyclean commercial with the slightest mistake? The danger of riding is part of the allure (and blown wildly out of proportion), but because of the inherent risk involved with riding, it is important to approach the hobby with a degree of caution. Though riding can be every bit as glorious as you think it is, it is not forgiving in the slightest. There is an old saying that all riders will wreck at some point. It’s just a matter of when. This is mostly true, but you can greatly reduce your risk of accidents (and time spent getting to know doctors) by considering these five simple tips: 5. Don’t buy too much bike, and don’t buy it new. The allure of a shiny new liter bike or chrome slathered cruiser is undeniable, but considering the difficulties associated with learning to ride (assuming you’ve never ridden before) and the likelihood that the bike could at some point end up on the ground, it seems foolish to drop major coin on your first bike. A used bike, particularly a not terribly expensive one, is a great way to get into the hobby without the worry of tarnishing your pride and joy. You should also swallow your pride and buy a slow bike — like, a really slow bike. Nearly every modernish motorcycle has adequate power for driving in traffic and is fast enough to get out of its own way. You do not need a Kawasaki Ninja H2 as your first bike. You also don’t need a Yamaha R6. Think slower. There is a wide range of available beginner bikes showing up on the used market with decent power and approachable handling characteristics. Work your way up to the big leagues and you’ll enjoy the hobby a lot more and have far fewer skin grafts in the future. 4. Practice the basics in a parking lot. For a long time. I didn’t learn to ride until I was 30, which to many of you is roughly the same age as Gandalf. Because of that, I had no physical basis for what operating a motorcycle would feel like — and feel is important. No one can describe how it feels to sit on a bike, especially since there are so many different makes and models. No one can accurately capture in words the precise way you let out a clutch, the feel of the friction zone, and how to smoothly shift with your toe. No one can explain to you how it feels to push the bars instead of pull them and how you should lean with the bike as you corner, not against it. These are all aspects of riding that you must feel, you must do, in order to get them right. No one wants to be the guy riding in circles in the big, empty parking lot, but I’d wager that no one wants to be the guy the paramedics soak up with a sponge even less. 3. Invest in protective gear and WEAR IT. Everyone wants to look cool. That’s the bottom line. And riding gear is probably the most discussed and — strangely — the most controversial aspect of riding you’ll ever find on social media or message boards. There are people who feel very strongly that you can wear whatever you damn well please when you are riding a motorcycle, and there are those who feel that it’s irresponsible and reckless to wear anything less than jeans, a jacket, and a good helmet. I would even wager that the “no gear” crowd would outnumber the safety crowd — if two-thirds of them hadn’t been killed in motorcycle accidents. Look, let’s be honest here, not wearing protective gear while riding a motorcycle is like not wearing a seatbelt in a car: sure, you’ll probably be fine — until you’re not. Then you’ll be getting a first hand lesson on how to eat, breathe, and poop through tubes while your family debates what the term “clinically alive” means. Just remember that there are people out there who care about you and would like to see you again — preferably with all of your fluids inside your body. 2. Always assume the worst Most people call this defensive driving or riding, but it’s more than that. My father once told me when I was learning to drive a car that you should always assume that everyone around you will suddenly decide to do the dumbest thing possible. He was right. That advice has saved me from more accidents than I can count, and it paid off even more when I started riding motorcycles. You never know when that Ford F-350 Super Duty Triple Cab with smoke stack exhausts will decide that he needs your lane and is willing to commit unintentional vehicular homicide to get it. You never know when Mildred the octogenarian will mix up the gas and brake (again) and pull out of the retirement home straight into oncoming traffic. And, most worryingly, you never know when Maddie Madison will drift out of her lane while Snapchatting duckface selfies to her friends. This is beyond defensive driving; it’s wholesale paranoia on the road, and it just might save your life. 1. Remember that you suck at riding. Don’t ever forget it. As much as you’d like to believe that you’ll be naturally amazing at riding, the truth is that you suck. Bad. For many, many (many) years. Then you’re slightly less sucky for another decade. Then you’re decent. And if you’re still not dead, you might be good. The point is that many riders feel as though they’ve mastered riding long before they have — or long before they’ve even begun to understand it. That’s when the stupidity starts: trying to pop wheelies, trying to do stoppies, or trying to take curves with a knee down. These stunts are the stuff of YouTube fame, so many new riders are overly eager to learn how to do these tricks that honestly require a lot of time, patience, and bravery to master. They forget that there is another, much easier path to YouTube fame: attempting one of the aforementioned techniques and smashing yourself into Campbell’s Vegetable Soup all over the pavement. I promise you’ll get more views that way, but you won’t be around to enjoy them. If you’re hellbent on being a stunt rider, it’s best to buy a cheap dirt bike and practice in a field where the speeds are slower, the ground is softer, and you’re body is less likely to encounter objects capable of shattering you. If you think I’m being overly dramatic about the various ways in which your human form can be unapologetically reconfigured without your consent, you’re wrong. I’m not. Owning a motorcycle is like owning a gun: the second you don’t respect it, it kills you. But motorcycles can also be fun. No machine can transport you into a state of euphoria quite like a motorcycle. No other method of transportation requires such constant commitment and involvement and feels so engaging, so rewarding. Motorcycles really are freedom machines. They are the mechanical manifestation of the old saying that the journey is the destination. Welcome to this awesome hobby, and I hope your enjoyment of it is long and incident free. Ride safe, and keep the shiny side up.
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by JAX
If you’re in the market for a new car, the options are almost limitless. There are many great cars out there to choose from, but kind of like Chipotle or Blake Lively’s face, some cars tend to be criminally overrated. Here’s a list of the top FIVE most overrated new cars to protect you from making a huge mistake, like the time you pushed on the bathroom door marked pull or bought Rhianna’s last album. 5. The BMW M3/M4 Let’s be clear: the E30 M3? Legend. The E46 M3? Legend. The current M3 and M4? Not so much. It doesn’t help of course that the rest of the sports sedan and coupe market has advanced quite a bit in the past thirty years, making the M3 feel far less special, but BMW certainly isn’t helping matters by producing a turbocharged, overpriced and underdelivering power beast that has to fake its own exhaust note by playing it through the cabin speakers. That’s the automotive equivalent of attaching a playing card to your bicycle tire in order to make it sound like a dirt bike when everyone knows that your parents don’t love you enough to actually buy you a dirt bike. Or the rest of the playing cards. 4. Volkswagen GTI Yes, the GTI is a fantastic car, one that popularized the notion of cheap speed, arguably more than any other model in history. But the landscape has since changed, and the GTI’s original formula has been copied and even improved upon. Honda was making far more interesting engines in the 90s. Mazda helped make hatches cool again in the 2000s. And there are a number of other small cars that drive almost as well, are almost as fast, and are equally practical. Combine that with Volkswagen’s famously awful reliability and maintenance costs, and you're left wondering what makes the GTI so special — aside from the plaid seats. The GTI is Madonna. People pay a fortune to see a former legend try to recapture the magic that made her that way, but at the end of the night, you spent all that money just to watch a starving AARP member prance about in clothes they wouldn’t sell your twelve year old at Justice. 3. Toyota Camry The best-selling car in America makes the list because it has little left going for it these days other than superb reliability. The Camry was never stylish, but it had the sort of dignified reliability you look for in a Tom Hanks film — at the end of the day it would get you from point A to point B and you wouldn’t have felt like you wasted your money. Today’s Camry is less Tom Hanks and more Tom Brokaw, which means you can absolutely trust it, but it’s about as exciting as the diapers worn by the people who drive it. The Camry might be the only car on the market capable of depreciating the value of its owner when it leaves the dealer’s lot. 2. Jeep Wrangler The Wrangler is an icon, a vehicle that is wholly dedicated to doing one thing better than almost any other form of transportation — when it’s properly equipped. When it’s not properly equipped, it’s nothing more than a terrible-riding, easily vandalized, and embarrassingly slow dream car for a high school girl who got good grades for a semester but is still going to end up in cosmetology school. Properly equipping a Wrangler for off-road duty requires quite a bit of cash and does nothing to address the Wrangler’s inherent shortcomings. But preparing one for a lifetime of waiting for its owner in the Hooter’s parking lot? Well that costs practically nothing... 1. Ford Mustang All Mustangs driving into crowds jokes aside, and I do love a good Mustang running into a crowd meme, the Mustang in base and GT forms is a very decent car trading on a name, nostalgia, and the addictive nature of cheap power and vehicular homicide. It’s the type of car for people who aren’t sure which end of the popsicle they’re supposed to hold or who think that fine dining means going to Longhorns and ordering an app before the meal. The Mustang revels in retro, but it’s really just coolness by association — association with a person, a time period, or a lifestyle — which masks the fact that all of that perceived goodness is attached to a car that is itself only average. When all is said and done, the Mustang is little more than a stylish car that secretaries and teachers buy to reward themselves for half a career of hard work, a looker whose best days may be behind her, but she will not go quietly into the night. Honorable Mentions: Nissan GT-R Listening to fanboys gush over the GT-R as about as fun as listening to a dentist’s drill slowly boring its way into your tooth enamel, but the truth is that Godzilla is the better part of a decade old, has changed very little in the time, and is no longer slaying cars that cost twice its price. Or even its exact price. Knowing model designations such as R32 or R34 no longer grants access into an exclusive club of Playstation-based knowledge. The GT-R has become less Godzilla and more marine Iguana. Time for an update, Nissan. Mazda Miata Does the Miata drive as well as everyone says? Yes. So why is it overrated? Because that’s all it does. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but we live in a society where it is sometimes useful for a car to do more than one thing, carry items larger than nail clippers, and have a roof. Also, when driving a Miata, pretty much every other vehicle on the road, including ten-year-old girls on bicycles, becomes a potentially fatal car accident. |
AuthorJAX is an automotive enthusiast from Atlanta, Georgia. He loves Corvettes. He hates Mustangs. Archives
January 2019
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