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.
Anarchy in the UK
The UK: It’s a special sort of place, where motorcycles are accepted and people ride ’em year round. That’s right, the money they save on dentistry, they spend on bikes. Sounds like our kind of place.
Or is it? In a place with a lot of motorcycles, you end up with a lot of two-wheeled lunacy. Consider the following headlines from Great Britain.
Jail for car thief who rammed his way into home on motorbike
Here’s a doozy from the Guardian newspaper. Apparently, some crim was tired of the two-wheeled life and decided to work his way up to four wheels. Good riddance – that’s not the sort of motorcyclist we like around here.
But this chap went about his plan in a unique way. Eyeing a BMW auto he thought might suit him nicely, he used his motorcycle to break open the front door of the owner’s house, so he could steal the keys.
His cunning plan broke down later, though, when police discovered the stolen car, abandoned, with his helmet and jacket in the trunk. The bobbies did some DNA testing and figured out who’d pulled the caper. Now the miscreant is doing three years and four months for his crimes – a happy ending, if we ever heard of one.
Fife man faces crippling costs after motorbike he sold was involved in fatal accident
The Scots are best-known for their frugality (putting even the Yorkshire-bred Editor ‘Arris to shame!). In that case, it’s a mystery why Scotsman Paul Duffy never canceled his insurance the second after he sold his bike. Now, we’re betting he wishes he did, judging by a story in the Courier.
It turns out the fellow Duffy recently sold his bike to wasn’t supposed to be riding – he was under a driving ban, and for good reason. It turned out he didn’t have a whole lot of self-control, and managed to get himself killed riding when he wasn’t supposed to be. And since he wasn’t supposed to be riding, he’d never gotten around to getting insurance.
Guess who’s on the hook for the insurance costs? Paul Duffy, that’s who – his insurance company is telling him he will have to cover the costs of the crash, since he’d forgotten to cancel his policy, even though he no longer owned the bike. We’re guessing, though that they will fail in this quest, as any Scotsman worth his kilt knows how to save money.
Dad admits pushing son, 1, on motorbike
Finally, for evidence the world, or at least the UK, is crazy, check out this piece from the Cambridge News. A UK man is paying a £115 fine (approximately $200) after pushing his son around the yard on his motorcycle.
Eagle-eyed onlookers ratted Liam Williamson out to the authorities after seeing him push his tyke along the side of the road. The 1-year-old was sitting on top of the motorcycle with no helmet on, his dad pushing him along. Onlookers said he was in control of the bike, though, and that was enough to get him fined by a judge, who said ignorance of the law was no excuse. In any case, he had to pay up.
Skid lid
A week ago, we told you the province of Ontario had turned down a request from the Sikh community to allow them to ride without a helmet, due to their religion’s insistence they wear a turban. Some onlookers didn’t figure that was fair; they reckoned Sikhs should be forced to wear the same protective gear as everyone else.
What they don’t realize is that the turban itself can be a pretty hefty piece of protection, depending on who is wearing it. Put it this way: Avtar Singh Maun from India isn’t likely giving up anything in the way of protection when he hits the road in his turban.
You probably haven’t heard of this guy before, but he wears what is apparently the world’s heaviest turban – see photo for proof. As a result, he apparently has no choice but to ride a motorcycle, as he can’t fit his headwear into an automobile. But the plus side is, should he ever crash, that bulbous mass on his head should more than protect him. And, since it weighs 100 lbs, we’re sure he has neck muscles so well-developed that he will never suffer from whiplash.
Don’t make fun of him – though – along with the turban (over 2,000 feet long when unraveled), he also apparently carries 87 lbs worth of weapons.
Source: Huffington Post
Trouble with Goodwill
In the US, Goodwill Industries is known for operating a chain of thrift stores selling second-hand goods. But as for actually generating good will? Maybe most people view them favourably, but probably not motorcycle racer Robert J. Woodworth, Jr.
Woodworth’s problems started when he bought a second-hand Goodwill pickup van last year, for the purpose of hauling his gear and bikes to WERA, CCS and ASRA races. When he bought the van off a used lot, it still bore Goodwill’s logos, and he never got around to taking them off. Now, they’re suing him for millions, saying the logo removal was part of the deal.
According to Woodworth (a software developer by day), Goodwill has accused him of stealing donations in his truck that were originally intended for their company, and say he’s using the van to falsely imply they sponsor his racing.
You can read Woodworth’s story on his GoFundMe page here, where he’s trying to raise funds for his legal defense. He’s removed the logos from his truck, but says Goodwill still wants to sue him for a boatload of cash. We’re pretty sure he will win if this actually makes it to court, but if not, we suggest he pay his fine in bags of second-hand clothes.
Source: Roadracing World
Logo madness
Here’s some more logo madness (although it doesn’t involve a lawsuit).
When Indian Motorcycles was revived last year, some naysayers said it was simply about selling T-shirts; after all, they said, who needs a modern motorcycle in the lineup when you can make $100 billion dollars selling clothes that appeal to faux bad guys?
We may have slightly overstated the financial aspect, but that was the snide viewpoint last summer. Since then, Indian has come out with a very strong lineup. They’ve quickly introduced several models that have much stronger specs than their firmly established American V-Twin competition.
They’re also following another pattern: While we haven’t seen any Indian T-shirts that tell us the wearer was born to be wild (but only on weekends, as long as his wife doesn’t have anything else planned), their recent announcement of a deal with tentmaker FieldCandy shows they’re not averse to using their logo in a puzzling fashion to make money off branded merchandise.
FieldCandy makes customized tents with funky graphics. You can get a tent that looks like a watermelon, or like a pub … or you can get one branded with the Indian logo that will set you back $780. Hey, at least it’s not a clip-on ponytail, right? Still, this seems like a lot of money for a tent that could actually be better used on actually going on a trip – and how many Indian owners are planning on camping anyway? Anyway, it’s their money, not ours …
