The GUNNY'S SACK

The riding season is winding down for many of us. Of course, if you happen to live in places like Oregon, we mostly ride year round. We just have to ride in between the raindrops. But if your riding season is closing, now is the time to make those all-important tire changes and the other maintenance chores we put off till the last minute. Always, pay close attention to tire wear. I saw tires at some runs this year that sent shudders down my spine. One guy I saw said "Aw, I can get thru till winter," and I could just about see the air in the tire he was riding on. SCARY STUFF! It’s your butt on that tire and maybe someone you care about riding behind ya. Maybe you don’t care about what happens to you but what about the folks that care about you? Just something to think about. Let’s get to the meat and ‘taters of this month’s Sack.

NEWSBITS ‘N’ PIECES: VIOLA, Wis. -- S & S Cycle cut 60 workers just after the company celebrated its 50th anniversary in June. Company President Brett Smith announced the cutbacks. The whole thing is blamed on the economy as it is right now. These are the folks that make high performance engines and other goodies for your big twin scooters.

EXPENSIVE GAS AND DANGEROUS ROADS: The high cost of filling the tank may have far greater consequences than an empty wallet. With fewer miles driven, fatalities have fallen from auto crashes, but the opposite is true of motorcycles. Scooter crash fatalities have risen a whopping 120%. Some say it’s the changes of HELMET LAWS in many states. Truth is, rising gas prices have caused more folks to go to two wheeled rigs, little scooters and such, along with big motorcycles that newbies have no idea how to navigate. Worse yet, they don’t take rider courses and find themselves in trouble with traffic that doesn’t see them. Educating the rider has always been the way to go. Education of the cagers isn’t a bad idea either, but as the rider, YOU can at least control your own training. The grim fact is that when a motorcycle crashes, the rider is about 400% more likely to die than in a car accident. The fatality rate for helmeted motorcyclists has risen more rapidly than it has for un-helmeted riders in the past three years. Maybe that’s an argument to dump the helmet laws in this country. There is a lot more to be said and has been said on that subject, but space is limited here.

SACRAMENTO RIGHTS: This year’s West Coast NCOM Regional Conference will be at the downtown LaQuinta Hotel, on October 25th. It’s a free one-day bikers rights conference, from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists. I’ll be there and I’ll look for ya. The big national convention will be in May 2009, in RENO. It’s always the three days before Mother’s Day. Details in future Sacks.

STURGIS, SD: The party in Sturgis this year felt the pinch of fuel costs and several of the businesses there took it in the shorts. Hotel reservations in particular were actually down. There were fewer street vendors and the population did not swell up as it has in most years past. One report said there were a lot fewer gas-guzzling RV’s there, too. Harley’s 105th anniversary rally might have drawn some away from Sturgis, but the economy was blamed mostly for the slump this year. Business owners said for a bigger Sturgis Rally next year, gas prices would have to go down and police enforcement let up, too. Apparently, there was some police harassment last year and that might have affected attendance this year as well.

UNITED KINGDOM: NOT VERY SPORTING: The British BOBBY (their word for local police) is getting real sneaky. They are using unmarked sport bikes with hidden lights and cameras in the bikes, and horse trailers pulled by SUVs are generating speeding tickets for unwary bikers. Riders passing SUVs pulling horse trailers result in demand notices in the mail for fines up to $160.00 in US Dollars. Visordown News published reader photos of the "CopBlade," a Honda Fireblade equipped with a front-mounted speed camera and hidden police lights. The 170hp motorcycle can cover a quarter-mile from a stop in just 10.8 seconds on the way to a top speed of 174 MPH. Observers noted that these unmarked police bikes wait at the side of the road for groups of high-performance motorcycles to pass. The officer then joins up from the back of the pack, waiting for any of the bikes ahead to exceed the speed limit by just a few miles per hour to begin printing citations. This is really a money maker for the police generating nearly $20,000,000 in 2006. Look out folks, the same stunt can be used here in this country.

HARLEY-DAVIDSON RECALL: Harley has recalled almost fifty-thousand 2008 bikes, the FLHP, FLHPE, FLHR, FLHRC, FLHRSE4, FLHT, FLHTC, FLHTCU, FLHTCUSE3, FLHTP, FLHX, and FLTR models. These bikes may lose fuel pressure due to cracking of the fuel filter shell. This could lead to stalls and failure starting. And of course, if you stall in traffic you can end up going down real hard. Harley dealers will replace the fuel filter shell for free.

NEW ORLEANS: YET ANOTHER BAG OF WIND? A Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) administrator claims to have invented the first motorcycle safety airbag system, and has won the Louisiana Business and Technology Center Phase Zero award for his invention. William Belisle, Ph.D, received a patent for the invention in 2000. Dr. Belisle says that his invention for some reason is best suited for law enforcement agencies, security entities, emergency first responders and the U.S. Department of Defense. Honda’s Goldwing bike has an airbag system available as an option, so I’m not sure how this fellow claims he has something new or different from Honda’s. I still have HUGE reservations about airbags on a bike. You really want one of those to pop off on you when a rock hits the wrong spot on your bike? It happens in cars.

GUNNY AGAIN: I realize this is not an advertising piece of work but folks, ya gotta remember the people who protect us when we are in a pickle. The accident rate has steadily risen in the last few years and especially during the fuel crunch we find ourselves in now. More and more folks are going to the two wheeled methods of transportation, and most of these "newbies" have no concept of what happens in heavy traffic. Many are first-timers on these kinds of transportation. When you see these folks, stop and talk to them about rider courses and motorcycle endorsements. You might save a life. Let them know there are attorneys who ride too, and who are there to protect them if they find themselves in trouble. Take advantage of these folks yourselves. Our AIM (Aid to Injured Motorcyclists) attorneys will help us when the chips are down. We are not trained and don’t know all the little tricks that are needed to shake the dollar bill out of that corporate insurance pocket. If we don’t do it right we can SO easily get sold short. Call AIM for your nearest AIM attorney and bring him into the loop BEFORE you talk to any insurer. It will save you grief and losses you can do without. My boss Sam Hochberg here in Oregon is our AIM guy, but for any state, call AIM at 1-800-531-2424 and they will get you fixed up. Remember that AIM is also the sole financial support of NCOM, the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, and they’re all online now at www.aimncom.com or www.on-a-bike.com. Sam’s got biker info at www.YourInjuryLawyers.com/motorcycle-lawyer.php, which is part of his firm’s website.

Keep the round side on the bottom.

Gunny, Oregon AIM Chief of Staff