Ever watch kids using a piece of cardboard to slid down a steep, grassy, incline? You hold your breath, hopping they stop before they
hit the fence at the bottom, or snag a short piece of metal just below the grass surface?
Now a little make-believe. If it makes you
feel better, put on your safety gear. All of it, boots, long pants, jacket, gloves, and helmet. I'm going to have you set in a chair,
a nice, comfy lawn chair located in the north bound lane of a two lane highway. Then I'll send a five thousand pound hunk of south
bound steel, glass, and plastic hurtling past you at 70 miles per hour and within 4 feet of where you sit. Didn't scare you? Well
lets try it again with an eighty thousand pound, fully loaded eighteen wheeler. You must be made of stone if one or both of those
didn't give you at least a small bit of panic. I'm thinking it would scare the daylights out of me.
We, as motorcyclist we do
the very same thing thousands of times as we ride. The only difference is we have to figure in our 70 MPH to come up with140 MPH force.
Now that I have you thinking, I have a question. Why in the world would you want to push those tires for another thousand miles? Why,
during a long trip, do you jump on your machine and ride out of the Motel parking lot without checking your tires? Team up, one person
watches the tires while the other rolls his machine forward – then switch places.
Hopefully we can go over some of this during our
June meeting. See you then and looking forward to your input.