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 winner is …
Where would you think the rudest drivers are in the US? Uh, New York, right? Everyone knows about the city’s infamous motorists and their crusty attitude.
But according to a study by Insure.com, that ain’t the case. The insurance website polled 2,000 drivers across the US and found the most-hated drivers were from … Idaho?
Turns out, while drivers from urban centres were generally disliked, what really got under other motorists’ skin was slowpokes. And, Idaho is apparently terrible for this.
So, what can we extrapolate from that data? We’re guessing if we were to run a similar survey in Canada, PEI would top the list for rudest drivers. The correlation is dead on – not only are both Idaho and PEI roadways filled with slow-moving farm machinery that’s impossible to pass, the drivers from both areas seem “just fine taking their time, driving 5 to 10 miles an hour under the limit.” Although, to be fair, if you’re driving under the speed limit on PEI, you’re still likely to reach your destination pretty quickly, as you can drive end-to-end in less time than it takes to get from your Toronto office to cottage country on a July weekend.
End of fun?
Who are Bixby Moto? We’re not quite sure, from their website (we think they’re a minibike importer), but from their YouTube channel, they seem to be based on the west coast of the USA and enjoy all sorts of minibike/scooter-powered fun. Fun like this (quite possibly the best snow day ever). Or like this (quite possibly the best $100 investment we’ve ever seen). Or this – maybe the best stab we’ve ever seen at the US custom bike scene!
But someone wants to stop all the fun. We’re not sure who it is, but it looks as if the nefarious Agent Smith of the Matrix series has escaped to our world and is in possession of a Honda Grom.
Stripping down
An Albertan motorcyclist in California had an odd crash earlier this week.
The debacle started with a wild turkey. Perhaps in despair over his fate in the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, the bird wandered into the roadway (obviously not thinking straight, as the Canadian holiday comes even earlier, making him a victim of choice for an Albertan rider).
Swerving to avoid the turkey, the rider ended up in the weeds. That’s where things got really weird. A motorist going by found the crashed bike, but no rider, and called the police. Rescuers searched the woods around the crash site, and started to find clues: A trashed helmet, a wallet, and then discarded clothes. Yes, you read that right.
They finally located the rider lying at the bottom of a cliff, naked. He’d jumped off, and authorities aren’t sure why. They took him to hospital for his wounds, and are trying to figure out exactly what happened. Good luck.
Source: EMS1
Days gone by
And now, for another type of motorcycle marketing. These days, when you see a motorcycle commercial from a major manufacturer, it’s all about antisocial activity, or about hanging out with your hipster buddies. But it wasn’t always like that. Once upon a time, anyone could show up in a motorcycle commercial, even the local reverend – who just happens to look like Malcolm Smith.
It’s only rock ‘n’ roll
Bon Scott: The original frontman for legendary Aussi hard rockers AC/DC blazed a path to the top of the charts with his sneering vocals before his death in 1980. But, didja know that motorcycles were a large part of that success?
At least, that’s what his ex-wife is claiming. Irene Thornton was married to Scott for two years and said he didn’t always have that vocal sound that made him so famous. The reason he got that raspy tone, she says in a new book, was a motorcycle crash. His injuries left him with the trademark sound that made him band famous.
Fact: This isn’t the only motorcycle crash we’ve heard of that made the victim money, litigation notwithstanding. Bob Dylan also emerged from his 1966 motorcycle crash with a new vocal tone that, according to many, was due to his injuries. Still, we wouldn’t recommend you start driving into oncoming traffic in an attempt to gain a recording contract.
