5 ms·

as someone who just got back from a nice motorcycle group ride: lol

• ProllyInfamous 4mo ago
  Stay safe, young grasshopper. You can be the best rider in the world and still have a bad day/week/month/year/life.
  • PenguinCoder 4mo ago
    Can never predict your future. Enjoy what you will, when you can. I was in a motorcycle accident in 2021, TBI, hospitalized for 3mo, induced coma, and rehab for 9 months after. I am back on the horse. It is just a zen and still relaxing time, albeit more anxiety while riding, than before. Thankful I can still ride, and I do.
    • ProllyInfamous 4mo ago
      Safest travels. Glad to hear you humped back on 'er.
    • qmr 4mo ago
      You were in a crash sir. I'm glad you're better. Tenacity.
  • coldtea 4mo ago
    And you can be the best car driver and still sway off or have some idiot crash into you head-on or miss a red light...
    • qmr 4mo ago
      At a minimum you're belted in surrounded by a cage. More likely you're belted in your cage and surrounded by airbags. Apples to orangutans.
      • ProllyInfamous 4mo ago
        >surrounded by a cage THIS is the major difference, protecting even the best motorcyclist's abilities. Some US highways are posted at 85mph [137km/h] – unprotected flesh doesn't stand a chance!
        • klibertp 4mo ago
          > Some US highways I'm sorry, but from a European perspective, this is the problem, not bikes. If your roads and driving culture encourage driving a tank for safety, that's a bit less than ideal. I commuted to work for 5 years on a moped. I never used a highway, almost never exceeded 50km/h, and had 2 accidents during that time; both resulted in just a few scratches and bruises. In another post, you said: "maybe speed was a factor" - actually, it's the only factor. If you never go too fast and never use roads where others may go too fast, you're safe - at least from life-altering tragedies. If, on the other hand, it's generally impossible to get where you want to without using highways, or the sheer distance forces you to step on it - then yeah, don't buy a motorbike. Just note that it's not the bike's fault!
          • mothballed 4mo ago
            I lack the commenting impulse control to say this in a politically correct way so my apologies for the outrage that will follow, but to put it crudely there is someone in my extended family who became a retard after falling off their bicycle at roughly walking speed and with a helmet on. It's rare but you can easily die just from walking and slipping on a banana peel. While you're right about slower generally being safer, you should still treat it like a life-altering tragedy could happen at any time and like you're going 200 kph.
            • cindyllm 4mo ago
              [dead]
            • klibertp 4mo ago
              I'm sorry for your relative, and of course you should always do things like driving (diving, cycling, sailing, climbing - or even cooking and cleaning) as if a tiny mistake could cost you everything: that's because it's actually true. These activities will never be risk-free; the best you can do is bring the risk down to a level comparable to that of alternatives (with "just don't do it" included in the set) and hope no unfortunate incidents occur to you. It's still worth noting the relative probability: death or life-changing injury is basically what happens in every single accident when you're going 200km/h on a highway surrounded by (what could as well be) steel walls moving at the same speed; in my use case, when not exceeding 40-50 km/h and using roads where other users basically stand still most of the time, you need a pretty specific conditions and a lot of bad luck to even have an accident, much less die or become permanently disabled as a result of one. Still, not a zero probability, but the difference between 100% and 0.01% is kind of noticeable.
• antonvs 4mo ago
  That's a bit like saying "I don't wear a seatbelt when driving a car, but I've never had a problem."
  • coldtea 4mo ago
    The previous is a bit like saying "My pal got hurt in a car crash, never get a car".
    • andoando 4mo ago
      And then when almost every person says that, it turns out to be good advice. But we have statistics on this!
• qmr 4mo ago
  I don't see the appeal of group rides myself. Always seems to be some stupid shit happening. Half of the group rides I see are to "honor" or "remember " a rider who died doing something stupid as well.