Attitudes.

"Wherever you go, there you are."

These are certainly sage words to live by. We see the truth of them all around us. People change partners, geographic locations, vehicles, and a host of other things. I hear them say things like they're looking for a new life or a fresh start. They tell me that if only they had ( fill in the blank ) then things would be so much better for them. Sometimes these things can be the correct answer. Oftentimes not, though. It depends on the question, doesn't it?

Mostly, though, what happens is that attitudes and shortcomings follow the person no matter where they are, what they drive, or whom they live with. I see this exemplified in the world of motorcycling over and over again.

Make no mistake about it. People bring existing attitudes to riding. As an instructor I feel lucky to have a chance to help shape these attitudes. My hope is to create an environment where a student is comfortable sharing what's on their mind. Knowing where they're at, I can maybe nudge them in another direction. I firmly believe that education and shaping attitudes is a much more powerful force for positive change than the punitive measures government takes.

Some people are much more free about sharing attitudes than others. A recent example drives this home. I thought you might be interested in a follow-up to a previous post.

Remember this tire? It was on the back of a Yamaha sport bike I saw in a parking lot. Here's the rest of the bike.

This bike's had a hard life. My question in the post was whether the tire was in this condition due to neglect or economic necessity. I believe I now have the answer to the question.

We're having a small sunny spell, as you can probably tell. Being out and about for work, I found myself near the mall again. Curiosity was running high, as usual for me. On a whim, I decided to see if the Yamaha was in the lot. You can see why I wondered what condition it was in. How much longer could someone ride a bike with a rear tire in that condition? There was no Yamaha, but the KLR belonging to Cass was there. So I thought I'd go look him up and get the 411.

You probably noticed that I'm riding Sophie. I just love that bike. I keep trying to make the posts short but I always seem to end up adding these little side trips. My riding is like that, too, interestingly. Talk about attitudes coming with you wherever you go, huh?

I advertised Sophie for sale for a few months with no success. Maybe the market is partly to blame. Part of it is probably the mileage of the bike. With average mileage being somewhere around three to four thousand a year, people expect an eight year old bike to have twenty five or thirty thousand miles. Fifty thousand is considered pretty high. When they see a bike that's waaaay over that average, it must seem like a million mile bike.

I'll put the ad back in during February sometime. In the meantime, I'm happy. I really don't need to sell her. I'm certainly not going to just give her away. With the FJR ignition switch recall pending, it's just another excuse to give Sophie some more miles. Yamaha doesn't officially have the recall in the system, yet. The kind lady from Yamaha gave me the official line. Don't ride the bike until it's fixed. You know me. I'll take the chance anyway. Still, I'm more than happy to throw a leg over my dear old friend Sophie.

Ok, back to the planned route.

I was really hoping that the young man riding the Yamaha was just poor. I'd learned earlier that he was hired to do deliveries for the store. They sell large appliances, televisions, home theatre systems, and so on that customers can opt to have delivered. Our young rider didn't last long, it seems.

There's an abundance of scraped bodywork on the bike. When you hear the rest of the story you'll understand how the attitude thing applies.

In the beginning I really wanted to like this rider. As the Christmas season approached, I'd toyed with the idea of helping a financially challenged rider get a new rear tire. We always want to believe the best of people. Ok, mostly I'm a grouchy cynic but I have my moments of weakness.

Here's the story as told to me.

So the kid gets a job driving a delivery truck. According to Cass, who rides the KLR, things were quiet for a few days. There's two or three guys who work in the stock room that are sometimes riders of sport bikes. Cass is more or less their supervisor. He'd come in from time to time to find them standing around exchanging stories of crashes and acts of bravado, if you get my drift. Now, Cass is your typical hardcore commuter. He's taken training several times and rides responsibly. Polar opposite of our young Yamaha rider. Two examples of different riding attitudes.

So far we've got a rider who's taking credit for every scratch and scrape on the bike. True or not. Not only taking credit, but bragging about how it happened. Was this attitude confined to riding or did it show up other places?

It wasn't long before a complaint came in. A delivery presented particularly difficult spatial challenges. LG makes a large, double compartment, stainless steel refrigerator. Get this. Not only can you get cold water and ice from the door, but there's an LCD television in the door, too. Seriously. It can be hooked up to a DVD player, cable, or satellite. You can watch the news while fixing a meal, I guess. Someone with a little over three large just had to have this appliance. Enter our rider.

Room to maneuver was scarce. Have you heard the saying "If it don't fit, don't force it"? Our young rider had his own intrepretation. "If it don't fit, use a little more force."

A running start and a big shove got the box through the small archway. Fortunately, the damage was confined to a few tears on the box and some scrapes on the sheetrock. Young rider was later made to profusely apologize to the offended customer. Given a reprieve, our rider was calm for a bit. Until The Freeway Incident.

Our young protagonist had an out of town delivery. Things were conspiring to make him run late. According to Cass, the kid had a party he was planning on attending after work. Now he would be late getting back to the store. Thus being late to clock out and get to the party. In what was described by a later witness as "aggressively working traffic" our rider was making a lot of lane changes in the panel truck. Normally we'd make sure the lane was clear and then move over. The first, but very vital step, got left out.

The truck crashed into a small pickup that was to the right of it. Nobody was seriously hurt but the accident was enough to warrant a police response. You know what happened this time, don't you? Yeah, there is no longer a job position open for the young man.

I'll let your draw your own takeaway conclusions from the story. Since I'd opened the book earlier, I thought you might find it interesting to know how the story ended. I do find myself a little peeved, however. Being a rider who's trying to be taken seriously as a legitimate road user, I'm probably a little over-sensitive. I strongly resent, however, anyone whose approach to riding gives the rest of us a black eye. You know the public and the government. It's so much easier to notice and judge the whole group by a few individuals.

I sure hope this rider gets smart before he gets dead.

Miles and smiles,

Dan