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.
Close shave
This guy got his money worth from his brake pads.
Freeway free-for-all
So unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of the Great New York Biker Rampage. Stories vary, depending which participant you ask, but the gist of it is that a bunch of motorcycle stunters were out hooning around for an end-of-year ride when for some reason an SUV incurred their wrath. Unwisely, one of the pack decided to brake-check the cage, and was run over.
Pandemonium ensued. The bikers attacked the SUV and its occupants; the SUV fled, but the riders caught up. When all was said and done, the SUV driver ended up getting a beating in front of his family. You can watch some of the madness here. It’s so crazy that even former Hells Angels bigwig George Christie disapproves!
That’s bad enough, but this week, the case has taken new twists. Supposedly, as many as six undercover police officers were in the gang of hooligan riders; while we haven’t seen any evidence they took part in the vicious beating, by all indications, they did nothing to stop it. They didn’t want to blow their cover, they said – although we’ve got to ask, were they police masquerading as thugs, or vice versa? If a lawman won’t “serve and protect” in an incident like this, what good are they?
Still, there’s one bright spot in all this brouhaha, and that is that good old-fashioned American business sense has triumphed. The Texas Armoring Company has taken advantage of the hubbub to tout their services. The company turns everyday cars into armoured vehicles, and they’re offering the SUV driver a free upgrade to his vehicle … under one condition. They’ve put together a video showing their product’s resistance to damage (including beating with a helmet, same as in the NY attack), and if the video gets a million hits on YouTube, they’ll give the SUV the upgrade. They have thousands of views already; as the saying goes, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.
Fear and Loathing on Fox News
Armoured car companies aren’t the only folks jumping on the biker rampage scare bandwagon. Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly has apparently decided unruly motorcyclists are the ultimate bogeyman, now that Bin Laden is dead. As he said recently …
“It’s like this: Your teenager comes to you, saying she wants to attend a dance. You have some misgivings, but you say okay because she’s so passionate about the issue. Then you learn a vicious motorcycle gang may well show up at the dance, so you change your mind based upon best available evidence. And you protect your daughter from possible danger. Obamacare is like that.”
Of course, we all know it’s unfair to compare outlaw bikers to politicians; after all, even crime couldn’t pay if the government got involved.
Scorching performance
There’s no question that some fellows buy motorcycles to impress the ladies. But is that attention always a good thing? Not for 35-year-old Sakorn Bunsusai of Pattaya, Thailand, it wasn’t.
Apparently, Bunsusai’s girlfriend was getting a little unhappy with all the phone calls her lover was getting from other women, and even less happy that he was jumping on his motorcycle to go off and meet them. So, she had a sensible solution – she took his keys, so he couldn’t leave her.
But her boyfriend wasn’t taking this lying down. Not wanting any confusion about who was boss in the relationship, he took out his lighter … and set fire to his own motorcycle. Maybe he was trying to rekindle their love? Was he trying to warm her heart? We’ll never know.
Source: Pattaya Mail
Hard times at the hardware store
Let’s face it, a lifetime of selling 2x4s and paint cans isn’t the most glamorous fate. So maybe that’s why a worker at Bunnings Wearhouse in Australia decided to liven things up a bit … by riding his motorcycle through the middle of the store.
When managers grilled him about the incident, he claimed he’d only pushed the bike through the store. Sadly for him, security cameras showed him riding at speed through the store, before going out in the parking lot for some hot laps around the building.
Despite his explanation that he’d only wanted to cheer people up, and that he’d had a brain explosion and didn’t know what had gotten into him, the pallet jack jockey got the sack. He reportedly fought to keep his job, but our advice now is not to get too down on the whole incident; he might be able to parlay this sort of behaviour into YouTube infamy, if he can find a camera crew to tag along … If nothing else, he should be able to make a long overdue music video for this Weird Al hit.
Source: Stuff.Co.NZ
I like how the armoured car people say the outcome would have been different if the SUV driver was holding a handgun, but couldn’t because of NYC’s draconian gun laws.
Yeah, because if gun laws were relaxed, the motorcycle riders wouldn’t have been packing heat as well :/
“even crime couldn’t pay if the government got involved” With the exception of the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage of course.