Welcome to Friday Fudge – a weekly round up of the more ‘unusual’ motorcycle related stories that are just too silly to post on their own, but raise a much bigger chortle when you slap them all together and take the piss.
A cool idea?
Riding a motorcycle can be hot business – try wrestling a 650 thumper dual-sport around in a swamp for an afternoon, or go ride in stop-and-go traffic ATGATT and you’ll find that out for yourself. So, one Allen Spurlin filed a patent last January to fight this sweaty problem. At first that sounds like a half-decent plan, until you see his design: basically, it’s a device that squirts water in your face while riding. Brilliant. What are you supposed to do when someone pulls in front of you, but you couldn’t see them because you were too busy wiping off your visor? And doesn’t Spurlin know that half the reasons bikers ride is because they want the wind in their face, not water? Who rides with their visor up during a rainstorm? Nobody, that’s who.
If you really think this is a good idea, we suggest you save the money and simply buy yourself a water pistol to give yourself regular soakings as you ride.
Source: Bikes in the Fast Lane
Coming clean
We’ve come across some goofy bike-related crime here in Friday Fudge, but here’s a new one we’ve never seen before. A Florida man was arrested recently after his quest for a motocycle allegedly led him to robbery. Christopher Michael Zipter didn’t try the usual convenience store or bank stick-ups, though – the 26-year-old was arrested after he allegedly stole a refrigerator, microwave, stove and dishwasher and advertised them on Craigslist, eventually trading them for a Suzuki DR200. Stealing a fridge might sound like a cool way to kickstart a two-wheeled lifestyle without raising police attention – who’d ever expect a link between appliance theft and motorcycling? But with this arrest, we expect the culprit will have to clean up his act. If he gets sent to jail and assigned kitchen duties, we bet he’ll wish he’d kept the appliances instead of the motorcycle, too.
Source: Patch
It’s all in the name?
The Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang can breathe easier these days – they aren’t going to have to change their name.
Perhaps emboldened by past Friday Fudge tales of biker gangs gone soft, U.S. federal prosecutors thought they’d found a new way to hassle the California-based Mongols motorcycle gang. Since the old ‘bust-down-the-clubhouse-door’ approach hasn’t stamped the gang out, they tried to take their logo and name away. It turns out club president Ruben “Doc” Cavazos claims the logo is his personal property, and the feds figured they could strip it from him due to his criminal activity. They’d already banned the club from selling shirts with the logo, since 2008, but prosecutors hoped a judge would give the government actual ownership of the name and logo.
The plot to persecute the Mongols didn’t work, though, and no surprise – it sounds like something dreamed up by the same bureaucrats who brought us gun control and CFL lightbulbs. A federal judge decided last week that the U.S. government couldn’t take property away from Mongols who hadn’t been convicted of crimes, so they got to keep their name, logo, and cuts. He probably also realized what a crazy plan it was in the first place – we’re pretty sure a gang involved with anything like the infamous Laughlin River Run Riot isn’t too worried about who owns the copyright to their mascot. Thugs are gonna be thuggish whether they’re wearing the colours or not – and if the Mongols lost the legal rights to their logo, do you really think that would stop them anyway? Riiiiiiiiight.
Source: Associated Press, LA Times
Harleys gone wild
Village People biker dude Glenn Hughes, a.k.a. ‘Leatherman,’ passed away in 2001 – sadly, ten years before Collection X went on display at Milwaukee’s Harley-Davidson museum. Collection X, a display of ‘Weird, Wild Wonders of the Harley-Davidson Museum’ features such oddities as a Harley liquid-cooled motocross prototype from the ‘70s, a Harley-powered trike similar to Britain’s Morgan three-wheelers – and, more up Hughes’ alley, these two leather exhibits, a three-quarters sized bike handcrafted from leather, and this creepy facemask that’s claimed to be an aviation item from the 1920s. Really? ‘Cuz it looks like it was inspired by Pulp Fiction’s The Gimp … leaving you to wonder exactly why it’s in the exhibit.
Source: Fox News
Age-old technology?
The next time a helmet manufacturer like Bell or Arai brings out a new model claiming technological advances, tell them you’re not buying it. After all, according Ohio University’s Eric Snively, the technology for helmet design goes all the way back to the dinosaur age. According to Snively, Stegoceras validum, a dinosaur around the size of a goat, used its noggin to bash its way through the competition during mating season. His exact words were “The Stegoceras skull is almost like an enhanced motorcycle helmet. It has a stiff outer shell and a compliant layer beneath, and then another really stiff layer over the brain.” In other words, a high-performance skid lid. Could it be that we’ve been had by helmet companies all these years? Maybe you should contact your local customer service center and ask for a rebate, since you just discovered your helmet’s design is older than dirt.
Source: The Guardian
