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.
Reach for the sky
So, you’re looking for a new way to impress the ladies? How about a motorcycle? Well, since lots of other guys already have motorcycles, you’ll need to come out with a way to stand out from the crowd, like this guy did. Talk about a set of ape hangers …
Thais gone wild
A while back, we had a lot of stories in Friday Fudge about trouble in Thailand. For some reason, there just seemed to be a lot of motorcycle-borne hooliganism in the country. Now, a couple of new reports seem to indicate it’s started again.
First off, it appears there’s trouble down at the cab station, with reports of a scuffle between a couple motorcycle taxi drivers – Or is that motorcycle taxi riders? So confusing … In any case, whatever you call them, a couple of them had some bad blood come up this week. Was it over a stolen fare? Over a woman? It’s hard to say, but that bad blood resulted in real blood, when one of them took an axe to the other. Naturally, police were displeased with his impersonation of a Bond villain and have hauled him to the hoosegow. Reports say the argument actually started as friendly joking, so if you’re ever in Thailand, be wary if a local asks you if you want to hear a Knock-Knock joke.
But that’s not the only motorcycle oddity we’ve come across this week in Thailand. Police are also baffled by the discovery of what appears to be a fully functional motorcycle in a pond in the town of Phuket. Well, at least it was functional before it ended up in the pond.
Police theorize it was left by a bike bandit, but that would seem to be an odd modus operandi – most people buying used bikes prefer them to not be waterlogged and rusty. Maybe it’s a grunge thing …
Groove thang
Earlier this week, we reviewed the Cardo Scala Rider G9 communications system, that lets you listen to music while you ride. That means things like stoplights can become much more fun …
Stolen property
Say you’ve stolen a motorcycle and you want to get rid of it. What’s the best way?
Chances are, a careful crook will find a fence who’ll buy the bike whole, or else break it down into parts and sell it off bit by bit. That’s a pretty foolproof way of staying out of jail.
A bike bandit from Nashville didn’t do the brainwork ahead of time, though, and decided he’d sell a bike he pinched online. After all, why go to all the trouble of establishing a criminal network, if you don’t have to? There’s no honour among thieves anymore, and picking reliable co-workers can be so difficult.
Things seemed like they were going smoothly with the sale at first; an interested party showed up. The alleged crook, (named Lawrence Orlando – he probably needed the cash because he was trying to buy himself a last name) sat back and waited for the test rider’s return, along with a fat stack of hundreds.
Except, the test rider never returned.
See, the original owner of the machine had been tipped off about the bike’s sale by a friend who’d seen it on Facebook. He resisted the urge to pack his American standard-issue handgun and dole out some Death Wish-style vengeance, though; instead he called the cops. Then, not trusting them to actually do their job right, he decided to meet the crook himself. He took off on the bike at the meet, then met up with the fuzz and let them handle the rest of the situation.
Thankfully, we can all rest easy knowing that instead of paying restitution, the perpetrator will be stuck in a cell for the next few years if convicted, learning better ways to sell stolen goods. With any luck, after months of intensive criminal training, he’ll be back on the streets with more bad-guy smarts than ever.
Source: News Channel 5
Born losers
There’s a reason people have pockets in their pants – it’s so they don’t lose stuff. But a couple of American motorcyclists seem to have issues with this idea.
Take this story of a New Jersey man, for example. This fisherman got off the boat, cashed his paycheque and then took $12,000 to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend. Except, instead of taking a certified cheque, money order, or anything like that, he took all the money in cash. In a backpack. With a broken zipper. It’s hard to see anything going wrong with this idea, right?
Actually, it’s not hard at all; when he reached his destination, the massive wad of cash was gone, having fallen out of his backpack. Thankfully, a few individuals seem to have found most of the dough, and are willing to return it.
We bet he’s going to go buy a motorcycle accessory to make sure this never happens again. No, we’re not talking about anything crazy, like locking luggage that your stuff doesn’t fall out of – he’s probably going to invest in one of those wallet chains that are so popular with the Tim Hortons cruiser crowd.
So, this guy may be out a few grand, but he’s got it better than another motorcyclist from Indiana, who lost his cellphone while out for a ride (it can happen to anyone, says Ed. ‘Arris).
How did he lose his phone while riding? That doesn’t really matter; what does matter is that he stopped his motorcycle in the center lane of traffic in an effort to retrieve the phone. Apparently, he missed all those PSAs on Saturday morning cartoons about not playing in traffic.
Results were predictable; the guy’s in hospital now after being smacked by a car while scrambling along the road, trying to retrieve his phone. He hadn’t donned a helmet for his ride, so we’re guessing that hasn’t helped matters. We’re not sure what sort of phone it was that he lost, but we think motorcyclists should all pitch in and buy him a smart phone, since it appears he doesn’t have any sense of his own.
