South West Bikers | Motorcycle Forum

Dad's Porsche...

jer r1 wrote: ↑Mar 22nd, '22, 12:24 What was the question again, and where's the loo.

Hahaha.
It's too had to get a license and the insurance is a nightmare.
Plus cars are warm, dry, comfortable and safe.....
Non-brainer. Lol

It's a combination of negative factors I reckon - when I was 16 (in 1978!) virtually every lad I knew at school got a 'ped... in those days there were heaps of Fizzies (purple ones were best of course), AP50s, SS50s, plus the odd more exotic models like Garellis, Puchs and so on. For those of us who were hooked, at 17 we could move up to a 250 (I would have loved an RD250 but couldn't afford one so bought an M-reg GT250). WIth no CBT and comparatively little training, teenagers were wiping themselves out with monotonous regularity on 250s (on roads far less crowded than they are today), and the arrival of the X7 and the LC250; 250s capable of a genuine 100mph, signalled the politicians having to do something about the attrition of the nation's youth and the learner limit was reduced to 125cc.
Successively more difficult steps to get a full bike licence have succeeded in putting many would-be riders off the idea, so now it's only a few committed youngsters who'll persevere with it. Some smug politician will sit back and say "Look how I've managed to reduce motorcycle fatalities amongst the young.. aren't I clever?" This has been achieved by the disingenuous method of simply making it so difficult to get a full licence that most potential candidates are put off the idea, rather than educating all road users and making the roads safer, and punishing appropriately those who kill riders by their arrogance, stupidity, or inattention.
When my generation reached 16, a moped signified freedom and adventure. We had bugger all else to do really. Nowadays teenagers are addicted to phones, social media, games, and so on. That is their social life, they don't need to fork out heaps on a bike, gear, training, and even more on insurance to get their kicks, they can watch porn or anything else on their phone, or troll the girl from school who posted a photo of herself on instagram, or do something else similarly mindless.... but ultimately dull and unstimulating.
They really don't know what they're missing.

The advantage of older riders and less new younger riders is that as time goes on, there will be less better riders than me.

Probably...

Kata wrote: ↑Dec 31st, '22, 22:08 The advantage of older riders and less new younger riders is that as time goes on, there will be less better riders than me.

Probably...

I've been working on that scenario for years .

trouble is, you get the riders who CAN afford to do the training, buy the bike, (sometimes) buy the protective gear and then go out on the road. Of course as they'vebeen driving for 10 years by now, they automtically know everything about riding, buy something with the performance equivalent of a Ferrari and then wonder why they end up under a car or through a hedge.

Ego is the biggest enemy of the rider, always has, always will be. Keep that in check and it won't matter what you ride, you will last longer.

When the comb over isn’t working and you have more bikes than rides in 12 months I’d say so.

Sorry, who is this...