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.
Paris problem
Don’t you just hate air pollution? They sure hate it in Paris, anyway. The city has already enacted a ban on wood burning (no cozy fireplaces for the Francaise!), and next up in their crosshairs: Motorcycles!
The ancient city’s brain trust is talking about enacting a ban on motorcycles made before the year 2000. So you want to ride your vintage Voxan down to the local baguette dealer for some breakfast? Not so fast, mon ami! Your ride needs to be updated!
The city’s proposed plan will possibly extend zero-interest loans to riders to help them buy new bikes, or (to add insult to injury), help them out with low-cost public transit, but if the proposal goes through, there’ll be no more classic bikes in the French capital.
Of course, there’s a chance the whole thing may not go through. Parisians are a riotous lot, and if a few hundred motorcyclists get themselves upset, they may flip a few cars and burn a few public urinals and the whole thing might go away.
Source: Bikes in the Fast Lane
Conehead
How do you stop a bunch of motorcycle-borne baddies from pulling off a heist? Grab a traffic cone, that’s how. At least, that was an Irish cop’s method.
Detective Paul Johnson used his unorthodox weapon a few months back when he spotted a store robbery going down while he was walking to the train station.
Two helmeted crooks were inside, threatening staff. Johnson didn’t go with the tried-and-true method of hauling out a handgun and asking the crims if they felt lucky, punk (probably because he didn’t have a gun).
Instead, he kicked over their motorcycle to prevent their escape, then armed himself with a traffic cone while he made the arrest. Apparently, the thugs weren’t too confident in the protective abilities of their helmets during a brawl.
The story’s coming out now because the criminals recently appeared in court for their sentencing. Sadly, we don’t know the fate of the motorcycle, but we hope it was passed on to more responsible owners.
Ride of shame
Disgusted at the French? It could be worse – you could be flashed by a Brit!
A British man is being deported from Cambodia after being caught whilst riding around naked on his scooter. The shocking behaviour wasn’t limited to just one chap – three friends were in on it together. One was from Italy, one from Finland, so we can’t just blame the Limeys and their legendary commitment to self-expression (HA! HA!) for this one. All three riders are being deported.
A Cambodian cop said “‘I can’t let foreigners act like this, even if they didn’t know the traditions of our country,” adding that the numbskull nudists appeared to be trying to cross into Vietnam sans clothes, displaying a shocking lack of knowledge about border crossing protocols. Unless they wanted to simply skip the strip search for hidden drugs?
Although the initial reports on the incident didn’t indicate the naked scooter riders’ plans, there were rumours the whole things was just a shakedown run for the 2015 Mad Bastard Scooter Rally. We’ll let you know if they appear on the signup list for this spring.
Source: Daily Mail
Flying pork
That moment, when your supermoto-riding friend gets some sweet air, and you decide to try it out on your cruiser. For the record, this is the exact sort of thing my friends and I used to do on my old Heritage Special XS650 back in the day – minus the supermoto inspiration. Our lack of sense just came naturally.
I would not want the middle position on that bike…ouch.
I suppose the pre colonial native dress of topless women is no longer traditional.