Thing 33 Ride A Motorbike

I once asked my Da if he'd object to me getting a motorbike. His response: "Ya, I think it's a great idea. Every morning when I'm off to work I'll reverse over the it. And every evening when I get back from work I'll drive into it. And every night when I'm locking up the house, I'll pop outside with the baseball bat you have in your room and spend ten minutes smashing the thing..." So that's a no then??? As you can tell, my parents were not big fans of motorcycles and actively encouraged their little darling not to go thrill-seeking on a mechanised death-trap. But I always wanted one... I've had some friends with 'bikes though. And I always tried really hard to pretend that I wasn't massively impressed, but secretly I envied them...

Thanks be to Evil Dave for coming to the rescue. He's got a Yamaha 600 Diversion, or Inspiration or Elimination or something motor-bikey. Which to be fair is a pretty class bike to drive. A pretty poor choice for your first driving lesson mind. Token Northy informs me that the motorbike would easily outperform his Audi for speed on a straight stretch of road. Yep. I took my first motorbike lesson on a rocket with two wheels.

Here's Evil Dave showing me how it's done.
The cool thing is, that I actually did it. For a short little spin in an empty industrial estate (almost empty, I think one of the Spin South West presenters, Lisa Lawlor actually drove into the parking lot we were in - I gushed a little) I managed to get both feet off the ground, onto the pegs and drove that bad boy all on my own. It can hit a top speed of 112mph in 12.5 seconds, apparently. I wouldn't know. I didn't get out of first gear, nor did I go any faster than about 6mph. But it doesn't matter how fast I went... I was driving a motorbike. Yahoo.

I was a little nervous before we took off...
All messing aside, I know I don't know join a biker gang, just because I managed not to crash and die in a nearly empty car park. But it really was a rush. There's something eminently cool about some bikers, and something dreadfully, horrendously uncool about others. Remember the remake of Starsky and Hutch with Ben Stiller? The scene with them driving the Harleys to a biker bar looked class, even though it was supposed to be a piss take. Ditto Wild Hogs (terrible movie by the way), which was supposed to be a complete joke (unfunny) managed to make William H Macy look kind of cool. Steve McQueen rode one - also looking cool.

Then there's "bikers". You know who I mean. Entirely unaware that they look, and act like complete tools. Oblivious to their own irritating behaviour. Think South Park Biker episode. Except in suburban Ireland. Go on, give yourself a giggle at the South Park... Makes my eyes water with how annoying they are. But I guess that's the way with all people. In every walk of life you'll meet the cool people and the annoying ones - from pilots to teachers to other motorists (I'm talking to you, anyone who owns a convertible in Ireland).

It's up to you to decide whether or not this fits into the Douche Bag category or not. Token Northy and Evil Dave think it fits into the "smug bastard" category. I'm inclined not to disagree...

P.S. The Project can now be accessed through Boob.ie. It's a manly website with funny things on it. And there's also some boobs. Nice....