2010 New York Motorcycle Show

I don’t own a motorcycle and I even failed my motorcycle license test (story below), but I really do appreciate them. Short of cars such as the Lotus Exige, Caterham, or Ariel Atom, motorcycles are the most direct connection between a man (or a chick) and a machine. There is no safety devices, no electronic nannies, no OBD2, no emissions systems, and nothing that does not serve a purpose. That is exactly what makes motorcycles so great. Combine that with the idea of freedom that these machines offer and it is no wonder why they are loved so much.

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I am just going to come out and say that I don’t really know much about motorcycles. Yes, I do know how they work as they are for the most part quite simple, and I know how to operate one, but I really have ridden only once, and only for several hundred feet. I don’t know what makes same-class bikes similar or different from one another, I don’t know what makes each better, but I don know what I like!

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BMW’s F650/F800 GS models would definitely be the bike for me. Granted, the seat is quite high off the ground, but I’m also 6’2″ tall. These bikes are not fast (my friend’s F650GS Dakar tops out under 90mph), and that is a good thing as I have no plans to go very fast. At 50mpg they are quite economical too. These bikes have been all over the world and, let’s be honest here, offer me the same kind of image of freedom as one that comes with owning a Land Rover Defender. While I probably won’t be riding one across the Gobi desert, it is nice to know that I could.

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Story time.

June 2007. My wife is seven months pregnant. We are in the middle of moving into a condo that is still being renovated – contractor’s original schedule of “yea, I think I can do in six weeks tops” has turned into six months. My boss at work is going through a divorce and is taking all his frustrations out on me. All I wanted to do was run away! I imagined myself on one of those GSs or perhaps a V-Rod ridding off into the sunset – no phone, no computer, hell nothing that would not fit into a small saddlebag.

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I decided that I needed a motorcycle license, because if I don’t get one now, I will never get one. Step one was to go to the DMV and pass the written portion of the license exam which would grant me a permit. I would take the permit to one of those weekend-long motorcycle schools, where upon completion (pending that I don’t kill myself there) I would have my motorcycle license. Sweet!

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I pulled up the DMV study booklet online and spend a day at work studying it while pissing off my boss some more, a beautiful thing. I skipped over all the irrelevant non-motorcycle stuff, because I want to learn how to ride safely and I want to know all the motorcycles-specific rules.

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I went to the DMV office to take the test. It was a computer-based test and I had to answer 16 out of 20 questions. It is here that I did a complete “W T F ! ?” You see, the DMV in all their brilliance, was asking me questions such as “how many friends can I have in my car when I have my permit, when I’m sixteen and driving at night?” Are you effing kidding me? I’m not sixteen and I have my damn driver’s license! “How many drinks can you have, while sixteen, driving with no friends, in the day time?” I swear there were about twelve of these questions! Who gives a shit!? This is not what I am testing for!  To make a long story short, I failed the damn test only because of its retarded questions. I treated this as a sign to perhaps hold off on getting a motorcycle license for now.

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Unfortunately, I could not make it to the show but my friend Mike did and he took all these pictures. Enjoy.