Commuting: The strange. The Odd. And the FUN

The woman on the scooter wasn't cut off. She tried to execute a right turn across the front of the truck in the lane to her right. Given this is India and the truck driver is on the right side, I don't fault the truck driver for not seeing her. The woman was a flipping idiot... a lucky one at that.

No shit... Thus the "Well... Almost NOBODY"

Fair enough. I stand corrected: If ANYBODY were to cut you off, you wouldn't give a shit.

I just remembered a write-up of an event I had back when I was commuting over 20k miles a year on a motorcycle... so I found it, copied it, and will paste it here. This did NOT just happen today - it happened back in Nov 30, 2011... but I don't feel like re-typing it to make its tense correct.

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I know I've always wondered how some guys limped their bikes home after their clutch cable broke. I've got to guess that some were lucky enough to have it happen when they were moving, but mine broke just as I was stopping for a red light - which means I had to figure out what was happening real quick, hit the kill switch, push the bike off of the road and think about what to do next. 9:15 PM, it's dark out, and I'm stuck.

The cheap pliers that come with VN800's are completely useless at trying to pull the cable to disengage the clutch - I can tell you guys that first hand.

First I wondered if I could start the bike, then give it some gas and knock it into first. This, of course, is dangerous and normally ends up in an uncontrolled wheelie, or a bump, start, bump sudden-stop.

It hit me that maybe I could pop it into first if the bike was started and already moving forward - so I looked for a place to do that that wasn't in the direct line of all the traffic we have.

More-over, I needed a direction I could go the farthest without having to stop if I did get it going. I had four directions I could have gone, and contemplated numerous side-street travels to try to do it.

If worse came to worse, I live in a flat state (sorta, in most places...) and a flat area. With this being a lighter cruiser and with me having recently replaced three of its wheel-bearings, the bike would push easily enough if I had to push it the miles home.

Then I looked in one of the directions and saw the main highway. If I pushed the bike across two intersections I'd have only two lights between myself and the on-ramp to our major highway. I'd have to chance hitting the lights green, or try to make it through them (probably wouldn't try it, but if it went red with no-one coming...)

It almost didn't work. After pushing the bike to where I thought I could get a pushing/running start, I started it in neutral and began getting it going forward with my feet. I mashed the shifter down into first; the bike lurched, then slowed, and sounded like it stalled, but I had to chance it - so I gave it more throttle and, I guess due to the rear wheel still moving while in gear it bump-restarted the bike and I took off.

I don't know how the lights stayed green as they were green for the entire time I was pushing the bike toward them, but were red just before that. On the on-ramp and the highway I thought of all the things that could go very wrong - especially at the off-ramp that leads to my house. I was just going to have to be careful, slow it down and downshift without the clutch, then stop the bike if I had to.

Or... option "B" that didn't hit me until I was near the end of the off-ramp... as I had to go right, and the light was newly red, I cut the corner a bit short - like, 50 feet short, through the grass corner and onto the sidewalk of the intersecting street.

Now I'm putting along the sidewalk - at first happy, then it hit me to be very concerned about the police seeing a street-legal cruiser with its lights on slowly heading down the sidewalk. I began looking for a way off of the curb, but there was no safe way back onto the street, and traffic had arrived so I couldn't really do it anyway. Now keep in mind I'm going, like, slow bicycle speed, so it's sorta like riding a bicycle on the sidewalk (which I never do, but everyone else in south Florida's rougher neighborhoods, like the one I was in, does). I didn't really feel too out of place when I saw one pedestrian coming at me. He was all the way over to one side, so I could easily make it past him what with the rest of the sidewalk and the grass... so I did. He didn't even blink (like I said, in neighborhoods like these, here, bikes, skateboards, and numerous versions of illegal or non-registered motorized two-wheel contraptions: pit bikes, micro-bikes, chinese scooters, chinese dirt bikes, bikes I don't even know the classification for, etc. ride the sidewalks and roads around this place, so I guess me being on it with actual lights and such didn't faze this guy).

Finally I make it to the first intersection with a side-road that both has en easy ramp down to the road surface, and will lead me to my house. It's at this point that I have to admit I ran - as slowly as I could (brakes on, nearly a stall) - some stop signs to get to my front yard.

I think this is why the other guys who have written about their clutch going out, but limping it home, refrained from writing about it... but just wrote that they never wanted to have to do it again. It's not pretty, and it's illegal if even for nothing more than you really don't have complete control of the vehicle when you are moving forward. I know that I've read that certain types of bikes are more prone to this than others, and that I've read in at least one forum (not here in the Vulcan forums) that it is strongly suggested that every rider of that forum's particular bike make/model carry a spare clutch cable for traveling roads.

I'm not too sure I will carry a spare yet as mine needs a custom-length clutch cable, but I suppose I could carry a stock cable and somehow mount the clutch-handle somewhere closer in an extreme emergency...

But that's my interesting tale for the night. Feel free to flame away - I know it weren't right, and I'm not bragging... I'm gonna guess that eventually one newer rider here might use the same rolling jam-it-in-first start I had to do to get their bike to a garage or closer to home, 'cause this crap can happen with a cable or with a hydraulic clutch if you're real unlucky some day.

Mine broke at 1am after a 975 mile day, 3 miles from home. Was able to use vise grips to grab the end and limp home.

I always thought a deuce-and-a-half would make a fun commuter vehicle...
in a Mad Max kind of way.

'round here the go-to commuter in my mind is a rusty old 3/4 ton pickup with an equally rusty snow-plow hanging from the front of it and a gun rack across the rear window. Nothing quite says "go ahead, make my day" like that.

But yeah.

And me in my fuel efficient little import. (Or worse, bike!)

I used to drive an F250. You'd be surprised how many people jump in front of you. I can't stop this thing on a dime, you just g'head there...

I can only figure that all the yahoos jumping in front of me figgered 'he's in a truck. He's going slowly...' Which wasn't the case lots of times.

...or maybe 'I can't see around that big truck, so I'm going to get in front of him!' on that one either

Regardless, LOTS of people jumped out in front of me. Aggravating.

M

Regarding the clutch-cable odyssey, the way we dual sport guys do it is to route another clutch cable for your specific model of bike next to the existing "in use" cable, and then zip-tie them together. In the case of one breaking, you simply pop out the old terminations, pop in the new ones, and you're done. An ounce of prevention and all that jazz...

Things like this are why I fantasize about building a rotary paint ball cannon. You know, a motorized gatling paint ball gun? Mount it on your roof, then all you need is laser designation, and a program so it can spell out words and phrases on the target vehicle such as "asshole" or "blind-ass MF"

That reminds me of a idea I have had: Some sort of laser-tag like electronic system that would let you point a remote control like device at someone's car while commuting and thumb up/down them. Then there would be some sort of display that would show that persons karma scrore as a positive or negative number. Get three thumbs up and a thumbs down and you'd have a +2 net score. Someone lets you in in traffic and you blip'em a quick thumbs up. They cut you off or otherwise act like a dickwad, and thumbs down for you. Now I see you with a -xxxxx score and I know you are a top shelf jackass and give you leeway.

Basically this, but electronic, and cheap.

Right now I just use weather you are driving an accord or not as my indicator. Something about those full-size Hondas..

I drive an F150 Extended-cab long-bed, but drove plenty of loaded F250/F350 trucks, many times with skid-steers on traliers, and i can attest that people are TRYING to kill themselves around trucks.

OK, so maybe they're not trying, but they very commonly do exactly what you're saying - they see a truck, and automatically determine its speed to be much slower that any driver paying attention could see the truck going. I've had some very, very close calls on major highways with people who jumped out in front of trucks.

I'll never forget one commuter who came over so soon that, had I not done some quick and careful counter-manuevers, he would have clipped the front passenger fender and wheel before causing a massive highway incident which would have involved the F350, the Skid-Steer and trailer, the 5 co-workers and I who were in the truck, and who knows how many other vehicles that would have got crunched in that wreck.

I had five severely pissed off co-workers for a while there.

But that's why they always had me drive - they trusted me to keep them out of those situations, and I've had to do it more than I'd like to remember. All due to drivers who perceive trucks to be much slower, even if a truck is holding speed.

I used to drive a semi, and yes, people are idiots around trucks. I'm guessing its a gqme to them. Unfortunately I've hit people and not known it, had people pull a uturn right in front of me and I prayed thqt I wouldnt hit them, had people jump in front of me just to stop and I hit him. The cop told me I need to be in control of my truck, I told him I am in control but I cant control the people around me. Yes there is a big space in front of my truck, I need it incase I have to stop, and if you take it, guess who's getting run over?

Semis aren't too bad because most of the drivers take their profession seriously. They're not landscapers, small-time scrap metal dealers or minimum-wage equipment-rental employees. The guys hauling excavators and the like behind pickup trucks are often the cause of the problem because their "rigs" are totally inadequate when it comes to ability to change speed or direction yet half the drivers still think it's ok to drive like they are in their family car. I've lost count of the number of times some douchbag in a beat-up F250/350/whatever has passed me doing 15-over, pulling an overloaded/badly secured utility trailer or fifth wheel. The f***ing manufacturers don't help when all of their advertisements for full sized trucks are filled with images of plaid-clad cowboys hauling impossibly large loads across terrain 99% of their customers will never see.

I know what you mean. Lots of pictures of that stuff here. http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/tow-rigs-trailers/376271-big-dumb-loads-post-your-pics.html

The Army taught me to drive their AWD semi-trucks that we used to haul D-7 dozers.

That big ole lump of metal on the trailer? Yeah, its not stopping... If something happens, its fixin to push me completely though you, and probably the car in front of you so you just go ahead and cut me off!



M

Very entertaining link. I only did about every 10 pages and it still took a bit of reading.

M

Friday on the way home from work there was a complete stopage of traffic in a rural area where traffic never stops. After a few minutes the cars start to move forward, and I can see why traffic had stopped.


There was a house on its side in the middle of the road.

Best. Post. Ever.

+1