<> Motorcycles OK

I commute to work five days a week, 30 miles each way. Today on highway 85 south, heading home I roughly counted all of the slow moving cars I passed while I was in the commuter lane. I figured I passed about 3000 cars just on the 12 miles of highway 85. As I wizzed by all those practically parked cars I wondered if any light bulbs had gone off in their heads. "Hey, If I commuted on a motorcycle I wouldn't be stuck in this traffic!"
I find it funny that people will go out of their way to learn how to scuba dive, and then only take part in that sport maybe twice a year if they are lucky. In about the same time it takes to get SCUBA certified, one can take a MSF course instead and partake in motorcycling almost every day.

I'm becoming an advocate of riding to work. I just love the www.ridetowork.org propaganda cards you can download and print.



Ride to Work - Transportation Facts

I do not rack as many miles as some but I do it every day. Ride to work, work to ride.

I am fortunate enough to have a company car I have to take to work, and I work at night. But I will say that anytime I can run an errand and it will fit into my saddlebags or strap to my seat, I take the bike. I also use it to visit friends/family members, Doctor appointments, etc. Oddly enough, to tie into the original post, I even rode up to Canada on my bike once to go SCUBA diving (I rented the gear and the shop had a van to get to the boat).

I love the fact it saves me gas, pollutes less, keeps miles off my car, is easy to park anywhere, and is of course, FUN!

I'm IN


10,000+ miles a year, as often as I can.

It's crazy out there, but I wouldn't give it up in a minute. Too much fun and so much time and fuel saved.

It was a BIG reason to return to street riding and a big reason to buy a BMW.

I don't need a special day to ride in, in fact there have been only three days in the last four-years that I drove in for an 'office' day and that was because of injury (I got my Larynx fractured and the chin-strap was not a good thing) and ice. My co-workers think I'm nuts, and that's OK with me, I am NUTS!

I hope to ride again for the rest of my life. Everyday.

Plus parking is easy at the 'other' location I go to on a regular basis.

Russ

Thankfully, my commute is about 15 yards, from the bedroom to my home office.

If we're talking about riding downtown, commuting on a motorcycle here in Atlanta is very risky. It has gotten somewhat better recently with the addition of HOV lanes, but still, the aggressiveness of other drivers here would make me think twice about taking on the expressways.

And your riding suit winds up smelling like an exhaust pipe.

Lane splitting and stoplight filtering are verbotten here. I really enjoyed MC commuting when I had an office in the Bay Area. People seem much more attuned to motorcycles there.

Clearly, motorcycle commuting makes sense, but in less urban areas, it seems.

jmo.

Ian

ps => regarding pollution, I know you can't believe what you read in the papers, but there are studies that show motorcycles pollute more than cars

I ride EVERYDAY regardless of weather (except ice, which is rare down here) so that my pickup just sat. Sold it and now contemplating a second bike (dial purpose).
Doctor found that my blood pressure has lowered also. So.....riding to work is healthy, too.

Visian said:

....Lane splitting and stoplight filtering are verbotten here....
jmo.

Ian

ps => regarding pollution, I know you can't believe what you read in the papers, but there are studies that show motorcycles pollute more than cars

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What is stoplight filtering? Forgive my ignorance please.

THanks,
Brian

I ride the 10 miles to work virtually every day the weather allows. This winter we've had a lot of snow and ice, but I can still get in some riding every month. I've thought about a t-**** with "40 MPG" printed on the back in big yellow letters, but decided that might just make me a target for some road-rage SUV driver.

Belquar said:

What is stoplight filtering? Forgive my ignorance please.

THanks,
Brian

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When there is a line up of cars in both lanes at a stop light and you on the motorcycle split the lane (or share the lane) to the front of the line. The light turns green (you look both ways) and then take off in front of all the cars.

"If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!" Red Green"

Off topic sorta...I just ordered a Red Green DvD! I cant wait to see it again!

Hey DoC, what did you mean: "...(I got my Larynx fractured and the chin-strap was not a good thing)..."?? Is there a typo in there or something..I'm missing something here!

back on topic: I don't like to just ride for fun either...I ride when ever I can...for work, going to church (wouldnt it be fun to say 20 yrs from now when I sell my bike, "yeah, I only drove it to church on Sundays"!) Ive even picked up 5 gallon pails of paint and drywall mud on the bike!

Belquar said:

What is stoplight filtering? Forgive my ignorance please.

THanks,
Brian

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As Stephen says... when you get to a light, you cut up between the cars so that you can take off ahead of everyone in the cages.

They do this as a matter of course in places like California and Europe...

Whatever you do, *don't* try that in Georgia.

Ian

mcclimans84rt said:

Hey DoC, what did you mean: "...(I got my Larynx fractured and the chin-strap was not a good thing)..."?? Is there a typo in there or something..I'm missing something here!

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Nope, no typo I just gave too much info and not enough explanation. I'm a LEO and we were doing 'Carotid Restraints' (Choke Holds) training and it was performed wrong. 24-hours in an ICU and two-months no riding. It's a very rare injury and one I would not wish on anyone that didn't already need to have their neck broken. Still bothers me a year and half later.

GregFeeler said:

I've thought about a t-**** with "40 MPG" printed on the back in big yellow letters, but decided that might just make me a target for some road-rage SUV driver.

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I like that idea A LOT................

Absolutely!

I pick up a stack of those cards every year from the RIDETOWORK.ORG folks when they're at the local Cycleworld Show here in town.

The majority of my motorcycle seat time is actually commuting. Since I live in Minnesota, I usually take off December through February. Last year, my first ride to work was sometime in the middle of March, my last was the middle of November. My goal is to ride a minimum of 3 out of the 5 work days on 'cycle. I usually meet or exceed that goal.

I wish more folks in the U.S. would see a motorcycle more as a commuter vehicle instead of just a recreational vehicle.

I think the ride to work thing should be expanded; one day a year just doesn't seem to be too influential - I work in a 700 person office building and my bike is the sole two-wheeler in the parking lot sad to say. Course it was 26deg this morning; but that's what long undies and Gerbings are for

While I'd love to see more people out of cars and on to bikes for the commute, a part of me worrys thats only going to jack up the number of accidents and collisions; unless the states get on the ball and really improve their rider training (and they make it mandatory if ask me) Besides, I don't really mind having the HOV lanes mostly to myself

Here in California they are allowing hybrid or 'clean air' cars into the HOV lane. They have to buy stickers from the DMV for $8. I don't like it. Those cars can afford to sit in traffic and they have zero emmisions in traffic.


Google was (and I don't know if they still are) giving $5000 to employees who bought clean air cars. I see a lot of Priuses exiting off of Shoreline on their way to Google's offices. The Prius population in this area are most likely the highest in the country.

Burnszilla said:

Here in California they are allowing hybrid or 'clean air' cars into the HOV lane. They have to buy stickers from the DMV for $8. I don't like it. Those cars can afford to sit in traffic and they have zero emmisions in traffic.

Google was (and I don't know if they still are) giving $5000 to employees who bought clean air cars. I see a lot of Priuses exiting off of Shoreline on their way to Google's offices. The Prius population in this area are most likely the highest in the country.

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Most likely. We've got a Prius. Got the stickers to go with it, too.

But don't worry, Burnszilla -- if I see your Hi Viz lime yellow self coming up behind me on CA-85, I'll move out of the way for you. ;-)

California has been giving the stickers out for the last 4 months. They've given out almost 50,000 of them, and there's a hard limit of 75,000, which they expect to reach before summer. And the stickers are only good until 2008, unless the "experiment" is extended. Which I hope it is, those stickers look to be a royal pain to remove.

I used to ride to work and I rode while AT work. It's neat to get paid to ride a motorcycle and have fun with it.

Oh and if you lane split in AZ. you'll have a nice piece of paper to go with you later on.

Motorman said:

I used to ride to work and I rode while AT work. It's neat to get paid to ride a motorcycle and have fun with it.

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Indeed.

Motorman said:

Oh and if you lane split in AZ. you'll have a nice piece of paper to go with you later on.

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Indeed, on those roads in the cities maybe. But thank God for the great AZ 'countryside' with the long straights, full moon and high speed occasional curly twisties! I love AZ. But thanks for the heads up, because I apparently got away with some t'in' a couple few times.

As for the emissions ... well, I did a fuel efficiency calculation on my K100 over a week with normal riding, in town and highway, years ago in Idaho. I averaged 40 MPG. So when I look at what my Mercury (18) and the GMC (9) do, on those days when I cannot ride, I believe that the motorcycle still wins the overall formula for being the best factor of the negative environmental impact of my commute to school. Because the emissions, while important, are not the sole determination of treehugdom utopia. The other factors, in my opinion more important ones, are not only the significant savings in aggregate fuel expended, but the subtracted significant presence of a 4 wheeler further contributing to the congestion, resulting in the fellow commuter wasting more time idling. In addition, there is a cost/benefit to my bank account directly. Which as a slightly not stupid person, allows me the ability to save up for the third Prius in the family. And that's fine, for US.
But going even further, there is a limit to what I donate my personal energy towards. If we act responsibly as world citizens, we realize that the leading causes of the environmental degradation of the world are best addressed by teaching good energy practices to all we can. So my question to y'all is this: what have you done to educate someone else today?
Besides ourselves here on the forum.

Think Global!

So when do the new, more accurate (and less optimistic) MPG test fgiures for hybrids go into effect? I wonder if the boys and girls in Sacramento took that issue into consideration when they cooked up those stickers?

Motoman, I've given a lot of thought to getting paid to ride, and no offense, but being a moto-cop is probably the bottom of my list of potential rider-jobs.
Despite the nonexistent pay and dismal prospects for breaking into it, I think being a moto-mag journalist would be the most fun.