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.
Born to ride
Many a budding motorcyclist has had their two-wheeled dreams nipped in the bud by an overprotective parent, who wanted to keep teenaged Johnny or Susie off the streets. However, this wasn’t the case in Germany recently, where police found a girl practicing riding on public roads without licence or insurance. Why didn’t she have a licence or insurance? Probably because she was three years old.
Apparently, police say, the girl’s father had let her go tooling around on a minibike that would hit 70 kph, without thinking through the possible consequences. He’ll likely have time to think about them in the future, as police slapped him with a bunch of charges. Also, he’s probably not going to be able to live out his dream job of being a motorcycle instructor.
Source: The Local
Modded madness
As you’ve seen before on Friday Fudge, the Honda Ruckus is a surprisingly popular customization choice. Watch the video below to see one madman’s approach; skip to the 2:44 mark to see what the scoot looks like (this machine seems be a Chinese copy of the famous Honda step-through).
The thought of riding this thing is frankly terrifying – but we’d still like a go, as long as there was an ambulance waiting and a trauma team on standby at the local hospital. There is no way on earth that Chinese frame was designed to handle an R6 motor’s output.
Wrong direction
Who is Harry Styles? It sounds like the name of a character from a Monty Python or Steve Martin sketch, but apparently, this guy is actually part of boy band One Direction. If you’re not a 12-year-old girl, you probably don’t know his music, nor do you want to.
Anyway, it seems Styles has decided his curly, flowing locks were not enough to keep him in the ranks of the hip and famous, so he bought a motorcycle to maintain his cool guy image (see also: every other celebrity, ever). Things went wrong from the start when, somewhat amusingly, he purchased a Harley-Davidson Sportster – reviled in the cruiser community as a girl’s bike. At least it matched his hair and skinny jeans.
Even more amusingly (and predictably), things went worse recently when Styles went for a cruise around LA, and had a bike breakdown. Looking at the machine, it’s not hard to see why; it looks like something an underfed college student would cobble together. It bears a strange resemblance to the bikes I rode when I was about 20, 21 years old.
But when those junkpiles broke down, I was usually able to bodge a repair and get home, or I’d shove the bike into the woods and retrieve it later with a friend’s pickup. Alas, it seems Mr. Styles’ mechanical skills are limited to tasks like sharpening pencils and tying his shoes; it’s probably hard to break away from the groupies long enough to learn to spin a set of wrenches. So, he did the sensible thing: He called AAA for a rescue.
However, the whole point of this two-wheeled jaunt was supposedly to escape from the paparazzi, and now Styles was stuck out in the open. To avoid the embarrassment of identification, Styles apparently skulked around wearing his helmet, hoping nobody would notice and spread his breakdown story. But somehow, somebody recognized him and the word got out. Maybe it was the hair flowing out from his helmet?
Source: Mirror
Yard work
Do you ever find yourself in need of some power equipment to clean up your yard? Apparently, this is a good way to find a use for an old pit bike. It may seem like a small machine, but apparently that motor is a real stump puller, or in this case, stump grinder.
Drags, Bangkok-style
Here in Canada, you need some basic equipment at the drag strip; the track safety guys want your bike set up a certain way, and they want you to wear protective gear. Apparently, that’s now how they do things in Asia.
