Friday Fudge

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.

Hating on helmets

Helmet laws: The AMA has been campaigning against them for years, but their efforts pale in comparison to the current fracas ongoing in Chad.

The African country’s government recently decided to bring in laws making helmets compulsory for motorcycle riders; sounds sensible, right? Not to thousands of the country’s citizens, who are protesting in student-led mobs.

The reason they’re protesting the helmet laws? The protestors say helmets are too expensive and too hot. And so far, three people have died in the anti-helmet riots. Please, nobody show them Easy Rider, or things will get even worse – the last thing we need is for the anti-helmet crowd to start riding choppers, and protesting when the government makes laws requiring front brakes and suspension.

Source: Pulse

How-to: Tire changing

Ichiban Moto: What more can we say about this mechanical genius? Whoever this mysterious cafe racer builder is, he’s got more talent than we can dream of. After all, even Kevin Cameron has never converted a four-stroke motor to a two-stroke!

Anyway, this week IM is showing us how to change a tire. Take note of the specialty tools involved.

Colourful crime

In today’s world of hoax news and satire websites, you have to carefully examine suspicious headlines. So, when we saw the headline “Bright orange motorcycle with neon green flames reported stolen,” we were naturally suspicious. After all, who on earth would steal an orange motorcycle with green flames, when there are so many normal, nice-looking bikes to pilfer?

Upon reading the article in the Orangeville Banner, though, the story seems to be the real deal, which leads us to a possibility of two different conclusions: Either 1), The owner pinched his own bike because he was too embarrassed to be seen riding it, and needed the insurance money, or 2), Liberace has risen from the grave and has taken up a new career as a zombified bike thief.

Source: Banner

Mad Max mortality

We’ve told you how crazy Mad Max fans are in previous Friday Fudge articles. Just how crazy are they? So crazy, that they actually have festivals where they chase down trucks (rented for this purpose, we guess) and stage mock attacks, just like in the film series.

If this sounds like a bonkers way to spend your time off, we’d agree. Jumping off a perfectly good dune buggy or motorcycle to have a fist fight on back of a tanker truck just doesn’t sound terribly safe, and one Mad Max fan proved that theory a few days ago when he was killed while piloting his motorcycle in a mock attack. Supposedly, the guy was a US citizen who shipped himself and his bike all the way to Australia to take part in this stunt, and police are investigating. We’d suggest they look for a suspect going under the alias “Lord Hummungus.”

By the way, if you’re not convinced these people are loons, check out their work here.