Biker Pulls Wheely Overtaking Me

[Deleted member 126251]

Kneejerk reaction.

99.99% of wheelies result in 0 children killed.

That is not what I said...Specsavers.............

 

[Yugguy]

Just because a stupid manoeuvre does not end badly does not make it any less stupid.

 

[Ted]

Coming home today, in the main Bilton Road, teenager l plate biker in frontfof me on his 125 with the drilled out exhaust and no proper biker gear pulled a wheelie.

I was driving on the Bilton Road today - must have missed him.
Not a good road to be pulling wheelies with all the side roads/bends/lights.

 

[Edd1968]

Blimey, not seen this thread since first thing this morning and still it's dividing opinions.

 

[Deleted member 126251]

I was driving on the Bilton Road today - must have missed him.
Not a good road to be pulling wheelies with all the side roads/bends/lights.

What I don't understand is a group of (mature) men, on bikes that seem to think that they own the road (gang culture. pack of dogs, mob, chicken $h1t tough guys in a gang (that would never face a man one on one) ....... ...always the same) - solo bikers are much better behaved and more considerate. Seems to be a correlation.

And..the other 2 wheelers.......Driving home today...large packs of cyclists doing the staggered 2 abreast thing so that they are effectively 6 abreast. I'm with the MP that wants the cyclists to be registered and have plates so that they can be identified & hopefully prosecuted! Mongrels.

 

[Yugguy]

I saw this a couple of weeks back coming home through Coventry, phalanx of motorbikes, 20 odd, two of them parked across the roundabout stopping cars so they could all pile through. Then staggered across both lanes of the DC doing 50 so noone could go past.

 

[milleplod]

I saw this a couple of weeks back coming home through Coventry, phalanx of motorbikes, 20 odd, two of them parked across the roundabout stopping cars so they could all pile through. Then staggered across both lanes of the DC doing 50 so noone could go past.

Possibly some sort of 'memorial' ride? But jut as likely a 'club' type one....in which case we revert to 'look at me, look at me....'.

(As an aside, I mentioned in my earlier post 'the old offence of death by dangerous' - I should have said '....death by reckless', which was always very difficult to prove, and eventually led to the 'dangerous' legislation being introduced later on. I blame my age.....!

Pete

 

[Deleted member 6183]

Non-riders won't ever really get what biking's about. I think as we get older, our idea of 'fun' changes, as do our ideas as to what's acceptable on the road and what isn't. The urge to pop a wheelie, for example, is inexorably tied-in with the urge to show off in front of others - just the same as the idiots who floor the accelerator in their lukewarm hatches down a busy high street - look at me, look at me, look at how cool I am....except, of course, nobody is actually thinking that, what they're really thinking is what a *nob said biker or driver is. I've slowed down on my bike as I've got older, and as we age I think we consider our mortality more frequently! I always had a healthy sense of my lack of invincibility because of the job I did - clearing up seemingly endless numbers of crashed, and sometimes dead, bikers, and car drivers, who'd 'gone for it', or just made a silly mistake, or who'd been wiped up through no fault of their own, certainly made me very, very careful when riding...but never stopped me having fun, in the right place, at the right time.

The one accident that stands out in my mind involved a young lad on a Suzuki GS1000, it was bonfire night and a crowd of people were walking home from an organised display. The lad decided to pop a huge wheelie down the high street - a cracking opportunity to display his 'skill' in front of a huge audience. Because the bike was pointing skywards, he didn't see the two little girls, sisters aged 8 and 11, crossing the road in front of him. He hit them so hard, he propelled them through the Co-op window, killing them instantly. I got the job of knocking on the parents' door to tell them what had happened. Laddo got 7 years for the old offence of 'death by dangerous' x 2. Lives ruined.....

So...my view of wheelies, and similar antics, on public roads is somewhat jaded.

Pete

Pete

I find it very distasteful that you should repeat this gruesome tale in a feeble attempt to win an internet argument.

 

[milleplod]

I find it very distasteful that you should repeat this gruesome tale in a feeble attempt to win an internet argument.

'Win'?? Folk will think what they think, and I'm not out to win anything. I have a view on inappropriate riding and explain it through my experiences. My point stands, as does my question, that you've still not answered.

Pete

 

[Yugguy]

I find it very distasteful that you should repeat this gruesome tale in a feeble attempt to win an internet argument.

.That is massively trolly even for you. Blimey.

 

[Deleted member 6183]

.That is massively trolly even for you. Blimey.

I don't know what massively trolley means but it sounds cool.

 

[milleplod]

I don't know what massively trolley means but it sounds cool.

It usually refers to someone generally regarded as being more suited to controlling a trolley than a motorbike, although, of course, the context here may well be somewhat different.

And the question still hangs in the air.....

Pete

 

[Deleted member 6183]

It usually refers to someone generally regarded as being more suited to controlling a trolley than a motorbike, although, of course, the context here may well be somewhat different.

And the question still hangs in the air.....

Pete

Only in your mind fella.

 

[milleplod]

No, it's here, look -

You said - "Kneejerk reaction.
99.99% of wheelies result in 0 children killed."

I said - "99.99% of people doing 100+mph in a built up area didn't kill anyone."

So the question is "Should it (excessive speeding and wheelying) be allowed, on that representation of the stats?"

What do you think? It's a serious question, and I'm genuinely interested in your angle on it.

If you don't want to answer it, that's fine.

Pete

 

[Petrol Pete]

I remember a good 30 odd years ago when I ran a cheap 125 for a short while it had a rear tyre shaped like the top half of a six sided figure, it actually had angles in it.

I didn't know enough about bikes to know if that was weird and I only had it for a month or so.

Many years ago some road racing tyres for smaller capacity bikes had a VERY 'triangular' profile . The theory was the bike was light and did not have enough power to spin its driven wheel and keeping up momentum was everything on the track so keeping as far away from the brake levers as possible was the name of the game. Subsequently corner speed and massive lean angles through the coroners on these very skinny bikes was the quickest way around the track. So when lent all the way over these odd looking tyres provided a large contact patch to the road surface.

They were lethal on a road bike, so well done surviving that month !

 

[tbourner]

No, it's here, look -

You said - "Kneejerk reaction.
99.99% of wheelies result in 0 children killed."

I said - "99.99% of people doing 100+mph in a built up area didn't kill anyone."

So the question is "Should it (excessive speeding and wheelying) be allowed, on that representation of the stats?"

Yes.

 

[milleplod]

Yes.

Succinct, and it's a better answer than DrFeelgood could come up with!

Pete

 

[johnsco]

Dear me ... This thread is heavy with the burdens of moral rectitude (on many fronts).
In my biking days (1960s and early 70s), I could never afford a bike powerful enough to do a wheelie.
I always enjoyed my biking days, but was always very conscious of my own vulnerability .... probably because I remembered an almighty crash on a push-bike that put me in bed for 2 weeks and still leaves its mark today.
It was some years before I learned to enjoy the comforts of motoring in a powerful car to the extent that I'd enjoyed being a biker.

So - After 25 years of car-driving, I worked with a guy who had a seriously-powerful Japanese bike.
One day, I said to him .. I'd always wanted to have a go on one of the modern super-bikes.
The advice I got was very sound:
Don't do it John ... You've been a 1960s biker. You would drive carefully, but you would be unable to prevent that lapse of attention, when you would just twitch the throttle sharply for half a second, and the bike would do an uncontrolled wheelie and end up on top of you.
I never did get a go on a modern super-bike ...... Probably - Just as well.

 

[Deleted member 6183]

No, it's here, look -

You said - "Kneejerk reaction.
99.99% of wheelies result in 0 children killed."

I said - "99.99% of people doing 100+mph in a built up area didn't kill anyone."

So the question is "Should it (excessive speeding and wheelying) be allowed, on that representation of the stats?"

What do you think? It's a serious question, and I'm genuinely interested in your angle on it.

If you don't want to answer it, that's fine.

Pete

I just caught up on this.

You would do/say anything anything tin an attempt to win an argument, we are not talking about speeding so why bring it up?

You don't need to speed to pull a wheelie.

 

[milleplod]

I just caught up on this.

You would do/say anything anything tin an attempt to win an argument, we are not talking about speeding so why bring it up?

You don't need to speed to pull a wheelie.

Was your reply not made 'to win an argument' then, the argument being that 'wheelies are fine'? Or was it simply made for the greater good of the readers?

Of course you don't need to speed to pull a wheelie, nobody said that did they. I drew a comparison between errant driving standards in order to make a point, and then ask you a question. As you're back in the game now.......

Two types of errant driving behaviour result in virtually zero fatalities. We'll take your wheelie as one of them, and I'll come at it from another angle so you can hopefully get the point I'm trying to make. Forget speeding, let's go with....er....handbrake turns on a public road. Statistically, I'm sure the same number of people have been killed as a result of wheelying bikers as have handbrake-turn pulling drivers. So....the question is....are you ready?....

On the basis of those stats, do you think that the types of driving behaviour just mentioned should be allowed on the road?

Pete