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.
The dangers of cell phones
Bikers hate motorists who talk on their cell phones and drive. But what happens if a motorcyclist is guilty of the same transgressions? Well, he can get run over by a train.
That’s what happened to K Gajendran of India this week, who made headlines when the Chennai-Coimbatore Intercity Express smacked him in the middle of the afternoon.
It turns out Gajendran was riding and encountered a railway barricade across the street. A train was expected to come rolling through, but that didn’t deter Gajendran – he dragged his bike under the barrier, and kept on going while talking on his cellphone. Unsurprisingly, he was smacked by the oncoming train he didn’t hear. And while we hate to hear of a rider biting the dust, it seems that Gajendran was the type who just plain wasn’t cut out for the two-wheeled life.
Story source: IBN Live
A stiff problem
A California man is suing BMW, saying their motorcycle gave him an erection.
No, he’s not complaining about a motorcycle with sexy styling; he’s claiming a four-hour ride on his BMW, equipped with an aftermarket seat, left him with a condition called priapism – essentially, a long-lasting erection, that’s wreaked havoc on his sex life.
Since it’s in the US, someone has to pay, naturally, and in this case he’s taking on the motorcycle manufacturer (who didn’t even make the seat that supposedly caused the problem) along with Corbin-Pacific.
School’s out
There are a lot of things that can get you suspended from school – fighting, selling dope, and now, riding a motorcycle to school.
You heard that right. The Windsor High School and Sixth Form College in the UK has told 17-year-old Jack Deeley that they’ll expel him if he keeps riding his Aprilia RS125 to school. Apparently he’s in violation of some policy that bars students from driving themselves to classes.
Deeley says he doesn’t understand the problem, though, as plenty of his classmate apparently drive cars to school, and don’t get hassled by school officials. Sadly, he’s probably learning one of government’s longstanding principles, lifted straight from George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “Four wheels good, two wheels bad.”
Story source: Motorcycle News
Bicycles vs. cameramen
Bicycle racing is hard business, but you know what makes it even harder? Getting hit by a motorcycle, that’s what. But who would do such a thing?
It turns out that the motorcycle-borne cameramen are continuing their long and storied history of running into bicycle racers, though. The latest case is the Tour de Korea, where there’s been so much trouble with bike-borne photogs crashing into the cyclists, that the tour has actually banned them from riding alongside; from now on, only the official race photographer and video cameraman can follow the route.
That might sound a bit harsh, but there have been three motorcycle/bicycle crashes so far in this race; after the second, officials only let riders with experience in race coverage haul cameramen (apparently any local with a motorcycle was allowed to ride along at the start, so the first couple crashes are no surprise).
Still, a third crash came after a local rider apparently decked out his Harley-Davidson with fake police decals and hauled a photographer along, weaving in and out of the racers. Unsurprisingly, he soon came to grief in the handlebar-to-handlebar action; hopefully the cops will bust him for impersonation, and he’ll give up the fake police bike and be back to pedaling himself.
Story source: Road.cc
Ride long ! Ride Hard !
Sales of Corbin seats have risen almost 47% in the last week. Purchasers were predominantly women, buying for Father’s Day.
Re: Untrained motorcycle-born cameramen, eh? Hard to see how that could go wrong …That’s actually a pic of a triathlete, but given the nature of the focus shot I guess I’m just splitting hairs… 🙂