Welcome to Friday Fudge. If it’s weird, funny, or strange motorcycle news, or it just plain won’t fit anywhere else on the site – you’ll find it here.
Stopped traffic, got arrested
Back in January, this dude decided to propose to his girlfriend on the California freeway, with the help of dozens of other bikers, who all blocked traffic while he popped the question.
Sounds fun, right? Maybe not – shutting down a freeway is sort of inconsiderate to everybody else who wants to travel through, and the California Highway Patrol decided they’d nip this sort of activity in the bud.
Instead of letting the incident slide, they’re hunting down the riders responsible, and charging them with suspicion of misdemeanor public nuisance and participation in an unlawful assembly. So far, they’ve nabbed at least four of those involved.
Great work, guys! While all the local outlaw bikers assemble in their clubhouses to unlawfully plan crimes, and make public nuisances of themselves with loud pipes and drug dealing, it’s great to know law enforcement is focusing on what really matters! After all, narcotics traficking pales in comparison to the societal scourge of traffic congestion.
Source: Glendora Patch
Patch me in
Speaking of outlaw bikers – it’s possible we’ve had them wrong all along. While society generally views them as a menace, particularly due to their reputation for looting, pillaging and drug dealing, they might actually be a swell bunch of fellows.
That’s what Uwe Weser claims, anyway. Weser is a Swiss resident who moved to Canada with his wife (she’s from here). When he tried to get into the country, immigration was not impressed to find out he belonged to the Vagos motorcycle club. Officials and police tried to get him heaved out of the country, thanks to all his one-percenter patches and photos of him partying with the Hells Angels.
Weser’s reply? He told the Immigration and Refugee Board tribunal that his one-percenter patches stood for honesty, openness and respect, and that the Vagos were just a bunch of fun-loving motorcycle enthusiasts. Then the tribunal said that since police couldn’t prove Weser was up to no good, they weren’t going to throw him out.
Who knows? If the courts really believe that line, maybe we’ll all be swearing oaths to “tell the whole truth” on a outlaw biker’s cut in court, instead of a Bible. And maybe the open outlaw clubs are going to start letting women and ethnic minorities and non-Harley riders join, so they can all respectfully sing Kum By Yah while they murder each other en masse and burn each others’ clubhouses!
Stud work
In most of Canada, we’ve turned the corner towards spring, and the hardcore are rolling their bikes out of the garages (not ‘Arris, though, he waits until it’s warm enough to ride in a Speedo. Not that he actually -shudder – does that, but he has a strange aversion towards riding when there’s snow on the ground).
In Alaska, there is lots of snow on the ground still, and the good folks at Enduro Alaska have put together a video showing how they stud tires for winter riding. Is it safe for the street? We doubt it. Is it safe for dirt riding? We doubt that too.
A fine time
Quick! Name some ways to get out of paying a traffic ticket!
Frankly, the only sure-fire way to avoid paying tickets is to stick to the speed limit, something many motorcyclists seem to have trouble doing. But a bunch of riders in the U.K. are likely going to get out of paying some fines, thanks to speed cameras.
That’s right, speed cameras. Those devilish inventions are the bane of any self-respecting motorist, but there are rules about their use in Merry Olde England. As in, rules about the shape and size of the camera. If it’s a variable speed camera (displaying the speed limit, which can be changed according to time of day, traffic department’s whim, etc.), there are also rules about the size of the text displayed. And it seems a bunch of cameras deployed on parts of the M42 highway were breaking those rules.
The result? At least 11,000 traffic tickets are now under review; many motorists may end up escaping The Man’s speed tax. And as far as we’re concerned, that’s awesome. The only better outcome would be if all the cameras were thrown in the trash bin.
Story source: The Guardian
Up, up, and away
Here’s a video of a hillclimb from the 1930s, when men were men and didn’t need wimpy things like rear suspension when they were offroad racing. It’s too bad there’s no sound, but if there was, we’re guessing it would mostly consist of complaints about fractured coccyx.
The hill climb was amazing. I especially liked the leather helmets, button up shirts and saddlebags. Pretty sure the one guy was wearing a toque. Couple of spills, parking lot full of old cars … fantastic stuff!
The speed cameras we were warned about while touring Germany,Austria and Italy had us doing the speed limit whenever we saw the warning signs. Paying for your tour, then arriving home only to find a stack of bills for racing past the machines would really have put a damper on all the fun.
I’m very glad that photo radar is gone in Ontario, especially their version of vans parked by the side of the road.