[jhugh]

When you get on a bike, you accept your mortality. It can come at any time, and will likely come exactly when you're NOT expecting it.

The anti-motorcycle thing is based on jealousy and machismo. When I lived in Marin, the commute to SF in a car took an hour. On my bike, it took 35 minutes. There were people I passed who wanted to kill me just because I was beating them to work. WTF? And people in cars think that because their vehicle is bigger than yours, they are bigger than you and they're going to dominate you. An old man in a Lexus, enraged at the way traffic was crawling, once intentionally rammed me and my friend as we went by on my bike. He didn't act so tough when we got off the bike, kicked his mirrors off and dared him to get out of the car.

As far as the noise thing goes, put yourself on a bike in a daily lane-splitting freeway commute. Watch the way people drive, then see how you feel about a louder exhaust note. It works. I had a Ducati 900ss with a glorious sound. Not brash & cruddy sounding like a Harley. I blipped at people from behind if they weren't seeing me or were looking like they were going to do something stupid. And if they did something stupid or gave me attitude, then damn straight they took 140 decibels of 8000rpm glory right in their ear as I went by. I know that kind of thing doesn't endear motorcyclists to the general public. But there's something cage drivers need to know... the motorcyclist is going to beat you to the city no matter what. If you block him, you won't slow him down. You'll just lose a mirror or an eardrum.

I miss my bike. But my number was up. All the adrenaline and speed is so addictive. But ultimately the same adrenaline and all the aggression it stirs up became a downer for me. Too much negativity. Not to mention the prospect of spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair. 911 was a good substitute.