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Yes, Summer has left us yet again. Summer is the favorite time of year for most bikers I know. It doesn’t matter where you live, Summer has different rewards for many. If you live up north, Summer is the time when your season of riding is in full bloom! Gone is the cold harsh Winter and the giant question mark of Spring. You never know what kind of weather you’ll get in the Spring. It could be a gorgeously warm one day and blistering cold the next. In the Summer you always know you’ll have great weather for a ride! If you live in the South, it’s a different animal than up north when it comes to riding. In the South, especially where I live in Florida, you can pretty much ride year-round! It can get a bit cold at times in the Winter but that’s why God created leather. Put on your jacket, gloves and chaps and you’ll be good to go! In the Summer it can get blistering hot but once you’re in the wind it’s considerably cooler. It sucks if you have to ride in the city where you are constantly stopping and starting. As you’re sitting at a light the heat from the blazing sun combines with the heat coming off your engine and it can get pretty uncomfortable. It used to be worse prior to the year 2000 here in Florida. Before that, you also had to wear a helmet and THAT really made you sweat! Thank God for ABATE and the abolishment of the mandatory helmet law. The coming of Autumn and Winter signals an end to many things in the biker world. Up north it’s obvious. Depending on how far north you live, it still means cold weather and many folks have to garage their bikes for the duration. In the South, especially Florida, The Autumn and Winter months have a different connotation. While it can still be warm enough to ride, we now have a pest that comes when the weather turns cooler. This pest is even worse than those pesky Love Bugs that are a pain in our ass twice a year for a couple weeks each. Love Bugs are a mess than can splatter your windshield to the point to where you can no longer see through it, or if you’re like me and hate to use a windshield and prefer to having the wind in your face, the Love Bugs can be a REAL inconvenience. You definitely don’t want to ride with your mouth open! YUCK! I once had a live Love Bug get into the right lens of my goggles and was walking around in there. I had to wait till I stopped to get that bastard out of there! No, this pest makes Love Bugs a welcome guest. This pest is what we call a Snowbird. These things can actually kill you and are the murderers of many bikers every year! Snowbirds are old retired people that live up north in the Summer but come down south to escape the ravages of Winter. They clog our roads and often drive 40mph in a 55mph zone. They often haven’t a clue as to where they are going and will change lanes or turn for seemingly no reason and little, if any, notice. You can be riding behind one of these menaces and have them stop dead in their tracks to look at a yard sale going on! They really don’t care. In fact, they expect the people living in Florida year-round to not only tolerate their behavior, but to actually thank them for coming down every year and boosting our economy. Yes, they actually do help our economy and thanks to the tourism dollar we don’t have a state income tax in Florida. But sometimes my wife and I will be relaxing after getting off work, where we often interact with these rude and sometimes downright MEAN people, and have to listen to the almost constant scream of ambulance sirens running all around tending to our “Winter Visitors”. We’ve come to call these sirens the “Wail of the Snowbird”. The law certainly doesn’t help us. If a cage driver kills one of us, they most likely will get a ticket averaging $180. ABATE is currently trying to change this so there will be stiffer penalties for car drivers who kill bikers. Maybe this will make them think twice about cutting us off so they can turn right into the flea market from the left lane.  Be sure to join your local ABATE chapter and help make it safer for us all. So, let’s brace ourselves for what the cold weather brings. For those of you up north, you can start saving money and plan on what you may want to do to your bike. Then you can bring it down to show off at Daytona in March! Or, if you live in the South, ride safe while dodging these treacherous villains that are out to kill us. This is just my two cents worth, give me yours! Till next time, let’s be safe out there. Johnny

Well, Spring is here, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming and it just plain feels good. But like everything else, there’s good and bad about Spring, especially if you ride a motorcycle. Down here where I live in Florida, Spring is a GREAT time of year! Not for the same reasons as up North; we can ride year around down here! It’s not like it’s been too cold to ride for the last three months. But riding in Florida is ten times more dangerous in the winter than it is any other time of year. During the autumn months we get those marvelous little killers known as Snowbirds. No, these are not pretty little feathery animals that fly south to avoid the wind, snow and chill. These are old retired people that come down for the same reasons. They drive large RV’s, SUV’s and cars that look more like tanks. It seems the larger, the better for them. You look through the windshield at them and all you see is fingers on the steering wheel and gray hair. They can hardly see over the dash! Florida is literally over run by these menaces in the Winter. They can’t drive for shit and they scare the Hell out of everyone, especially bikers. They have an attitude too! They’ll walk in a store and demand to be treated above and beyond the common courtesy awarded to other customers. They have an air of superiority about them. They know Florida’s economy depends on the tourism dollar. There’s no state income tax in Florida because tourists pay it for us. AND THEY KNOW IT! They rub in your face every chance they get. They’ll even tell you how they support Florida’s economy and they expect you to thank them profusely for coming down here and spending their money. However, they not only bring big business to stores, restaurants, RV parks, etc. They also bring big business to doctors, pharmacies and hospitals! Not just because they’re old and in poor health, but also because they drive like idiots and there’s a massive increase in traffic accidents when they are down here. My wife and I refer to ambulance sirens as “the Wail of the Snowbird.” They run over everything in their path. Bikers are always in imminent danger. You read about downed motorcyclists constantly this time of year. That’s why Spring is such a wonderful time of year for bikers in Florida. After Easter, most of these nuisances are headed back north. As I write this, it is four days after Easter and the roads are much clearer and there’s much less traffic, except in the northbound lanes of the interstates. So Snowbirds headed north are what’s great about Spring. It’s also what’s bad about Spring, not to Floridians, but to the rest of the nation. Up north our brothers and sisters are polishing up their bikes, changing their oil, checking tire pressure, and getting ready to hit the highways after months of ice, snow and blood chilling temperatures . However I am here to warn you: those damn Snowbirds are headed your way! Look out! Here they come! May God have mercy on you. This has been my Two Cents Worth. Let me know what you think. Till next time, let’s be safe out there! Johnny

The following opinion was also touched upon by our Safety Goddess Catnip Cougar, and can be viewed in the archives of our Safety Corner right here on Krazy Biker Katz. This is my take on it. One thing that gets my goat is seeing “bikers” riding along, wearing a pair of shorts, a tank top, flip-flops or sneakers. I put the word ‘bikers’ in quotes because these people, in my opinion, aren’t really bikers. They’re often seen riding Japanese crotch-rockets or scooters but sometimes I see people dressed this way riding a $25,000 custom Harley. Most REAL bikers I know wouldn’t be caught dead or alive riding in shorts and sandals. When I see someone in shorts riding a bike, I say to myself, “That’s no biker.” I believe many of these shorts-wearing wannabes are newbies, people new to the motorcycle world. There are many newbies these days. When the gas prices went soaring a few years ago, lots of people decided to buy a motorcycle and this trend is continuing today. These greenhorns think they know how to ride because they passed an MSF course. If you are riding behind one of these newbies you can tell how little experience they have. I love seeing them go into a curve and watch them lean the bike but keep themselves upright. What a hoot! Or when they come to a light and have to “duck-walk” the bike a few steps before they come to a full stop or take a few steps when they take off after the light turns green. These same people drag their feet when they are going very slow. It’s funny but at the same time, it’s downright scary. PICK YOUR DAMN FEET UP! Down here in Florida you see people dressed this way a lot. Men and women. I’ll often wear shorts and sneakers, it’s very comfortable. But NEVER when I’m riding. The topper to all this is that in spite of them not wearing appropriate riding apparel, they’ll often have a helmet on their heads resembling the head-gear the Apollo astronauts wore walking on the moon. This cracks me up! They are almost naked but because they have this all-encompassing helmet on, they think they’ll be relatively safe in a crash. I picture these people laying down their bikes at a high speed and sliding for a hundred yards. At the end of this slide, you’ll see a full helmet rolling down the street containing a perfectly preserved head. The body will be imbedded in the asphalt and will require a toothbrush to recover. In Florida, there is no mandatory helmet law (yet). I, personally, don’t wear a helmet. I think that wearing a helmet often gives one a false sense of security. They may take chances that they wouldn’t take if they weren’t wearing a skid-lid. I ride very carefully, partly do to that fact that if something happens, I know I could get very hurt. I hold no grudges against people wearing helmets. It’s probably a good idea in the long run but I don’t like it for myself. It’s a personal preference. But one thing you’ll never see is me riding without gloves, jeans and boots! I attempted twice to move my bike just a few feet while wearing shorts. I didn’t want to go and change into jeans just to inch the bike away from some cage runners. On both occasions I burned my leg on the pipes! Damn that hurts. Many years ago I was in a very serious accident that came close to ending my life. I spent two weeks in the ICU of a Shock Trauma unit in Baltimore, Maryland, where I was riding at the time. I was wearing a helmet and everyone tries to tell me that the helmet saved my life. I don’t know if that’s the case though. I still have that helmet and it has one small scratch. That’s all. I don’t think a helmet will save your life. It could, but you shouldn’t depend on it. Many people die in motorcycle crashes every year with the majority of them wearing helmets. A recent statistic here in Florida showed that 53% of all motorcycle fatalities were people who were wearing helmets. Only 47% were not wearing lids. What’s that tell you? It tells me that I’m probably right when I say helmets are more for making people THINK they’re safer, when in fact they’re not. So keep in mind that dressing properly on a motorcycle may or may not save your life, but it can sure help you keep your skin intact! Just my two cents worth. Till next time, let’s be safe out there. Johnny

One of things I love about motorcycling is the camaraderie among my fellow bikers. It really makes me feel good when I’m cruising along and see a rider coming in the opposite direction with his hand out waving to me. Of course I wave back and more often than not I’m the one who is initiating the wave. One of the things I don’t like is when I see a motorcyclist coming in the opposite direction, I lay out my gloved hand in a brotherly wave and get, nothing! No response. Nada. Zilch. This annoys the hell out of me. I understand it when the other biker is just taking off from a stop light and is amidst shifting gears. They can’t very much wave to me at that point and that’s fine. I understand. But I’m not going to ignore them by not waving even though I know they can’t wave back. The way I see it, we are all brothers and sisters of the road. You never see car drivers wave to each other. For one thing there’s too damn many of them. They’d be waving constantly. But even if they’re driving on a lonesome road with no other cars to be seen for miles, then a car approaches from the opposite direction, they hardly even look at the other driver. We bikers are not like that, as a rule. I remember when I first started riding in the mid-70’s. There were a lot less bikes on the road then. The reason I figure for this is the lack of reliable electric start systems on motorcycles. Most bikes didn’t even have electric starters and the ones that did still had a kick starter on the bike because the electric starter often didn’t work very well, especially in cold weather. The first three bikes I owned didn’t have electric starters. You had to prime or choke the carburetor, then kick that bastard to life. Often times this wasn’t an easy thing to do, and it could be dangerous! Sometimes a compression stroke would kick you back and damn near throw you off the bike. Sometimes your foot would come off the kick pedal and the damn thing would come back up with a vengeance and catch you in the back of knee. Ouch! This kept many people off of motorcycles. Back then you didn’t see nearly as many lady bikers or old guys like you do now. The reason of course is that many ladies and older guys couldn’t handle kicking a 74ci v-twin over. As a result, most riders were younger men like myself. When we saw each other on the road, it was even more of a bonding felt between us. We didn’t wave to each other then like we do now. Back then we saluted each other! Some of you old skool guys know exactly what I’m talking about. We’d see the other biker, raise our left hands in the air and display a clenched fist power salute to each other. Awesome! Those day are gone. Over the entailing years that clenched fist became an open handed wave. That hand went lower and lower until we have what we have nowadays; dropping our left hands down to the side in a very noncommittal wave that’s barely a wave at all. But even that wave is a good feeling to many, myself included. It churns my butter however when I see some guy approaching me on a brand new bagger and when I wave to him, he just looks at me like I’m from another planet. I can imagine him thinking, “Who’s that guy? Do I know him? He must know me or thinks he does or he wouldn’t be waving”. These are almost always new riders who think they’re bikers but haven’t a clue about the biker culture. They are often, as I cited in a different Two Cents Worth, wearing a tank top, shorts, and sandals. But there is often that helmet on their heads that makes them safe, despite their lack of protective clothing. I don’t like to pick on people about their choice of motorcycles, but I have noticed that people riding on Honda Goldwings will almost NEVER wave to me on my Harley. Are these people so conceited or upset because of the stigma of riding a rice burner that they can’t relax and wave to a fellow rider? Apparently they are. I remember being in Lakeland, Florida with my wife one day when we went to Lakeland Fun Bike Center and met with Dan Dorsch, former owner of a chain of KFC franchises, CEO of Checkers, Inc. and a board member with Papa John’s Pizza. He still owned some restaurants like Mojo’s Winghouse and Nicky D’s. He was also the owner of Lakeland Fun Bike Center which consistently was one of the top retailers of Honda motorcycles in the state. At one point Dan asked us, “What can I do to satisfy the Goldwing Club? I tried everything; free food, free oil changes. They still just bitch and moan about everything.” My wife and I just looked each other and laughed. My wife had told me about when she was President of a Goldwing Club in Central New York. She resigned for that very reason; they were NEVER satisfied and always complained. She told Dan that there was nothing he could do. It was just in their nature to be like that. It was a sad day when Susan and I were in Dryden, New York and we heard that Dan Dorsch, his wife, his personal assistant that we also met that day, and another person died in a crash in Virginia in a private plane that Dan was piloting himself. Dan was a great man and an inspiration to everyone who ever met him. He will be missed. But I stray from my point: Goldwingers don’t like to wave to other bikers. Perhaps if it is another Goldwing rider they might acknowledge each other, I don’t know. I’ve even had crotch-rocket riders wave but hardly ever a Goldwing. C’mon guys and gals, lighten up. We’re all on that road together. We’re all brothers and sisters of the road regardless of what we ride. So please people, if you’re riding along, wave to your fellow bikers and wave back when they acknowledge you. It’s what makes us special. Whether you agree or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s just my two cents worth. Till next time, let’s be safe out there, Johnny

How many times have you heard this? Do you think it’s as ridiculous as I do? I recently heard a woman talking to a guy at a biker event. This woman was probably in her 60’s and was acting like she knew about the biker culture as she was drinking beer, wearing jeans and looking at the beautiful bikes. The guy she was with seemed to be a casual friend of her's, a few years younger. He, too, was no biker. The lady was talking about how she pulled out in front of a motorcycle and it almost hit her. Her excuse, of course, was “I didn’t see the motorcycle”. She told the guy she let the biker get in front of her so she could follow him and apologize. She said she pulled up next to him at a stop light and told him how sorry she was. “I didn’t see you.” But the biker just flipped her off. Duh…! If I were that biker I would’ve given her a few choice words to add to the flip off!  If you’re like me, you notice every motorcycle within sight. Behind me, in front of me, coming the opposite way, sitting at the stop light waiting to pull out, parked by the side of the road with a For Sale sign on it, etc. Here in Florida, motorcycles are everywhere all year round. Why do we see every bike on the road and even some that are not while many cage drivers are blind to us? It’s because we LOOK for motorcycles. The average driver of a car doesn’t look for bikes because they can’t relate to bikes. They don’t ride them, don’t know anyone who rides them, and generally the thought of motorcycles just doesn’t enter their mind. Bikes don’t really exist to these people as anything more than a noisy nuisance that drowns out Rush Limbaugh on the radio when they ride by. Motorcycles are not seen by these people also because motorcycles don’t seem to be any threat to their safety. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred times: There will be a car waiting to pull out onto the highway. A semi truck is coming and is about 200 feet away. They’ll wait until that truck passes before pulling out. That truck would pulverize them if it hit their Lexus. Right behind the semi is a motorcycle. The biker is 50 feet from them and they pull out!!! Why? Because if they are rear-ended, in many states it’s not their fault. The operator of the other vehicle is responsible in a case like this.  The motorcycle might bang up their Acura but they won’t be killed from the impact. They don’t care about the biker, it’s not their problem. Those motorbikes can stop as easy as a bicycle, right? If car drivers think they won’t be hurt if a bike hits them, apparently what they don’t realize is the biker who owns that bike will definitely hurt them if they are in any shape to do so. That lady is lucky as hell that the biker she pulled out in front of just flipped her off. She deserved a lot more than that. Then maybe next time she will LOOK for motorcycles. Many DMV’s across the country are trying to think of ways to make motorcycles more noticeable to other drivers on the road. It was proposed here in Florida to make bikers wear orange day-glo vests with reflective strips any time they ride their bikes. This is also ridiculous. For one thing, I can’t imagine a 1%’er wearing his colors sewn to an orange day-glo vest with reflective strips. Next thing you know, we’ll have to wear a helmet with a flashing yellow light on top. For another, the authorities are going about it the wrong way. Instead of helping ignorant car drivers see us better, they should be teaching these people how important it is to LOOK for motorcycles at all times! One way to do this is to enforce tougher penalties for people who are at fault when becoming involved in accidents with motorcycles. Kill a biker, go to jail! It should be mandatory. Ignorance of motorcyclists rights on the highway should be no excuse. And maybe then not seeing a motorcycle will become a rare event when people understand the consequences of their actions. Maybe then we will never again hear: “I didn’t see the motorcycle”. Just my two cents worth. Till next time, let’s be safe out there. Johnny Martin