Commuting: The strange. The Odd. And the FUN

I saw my first "Hells Angels" biker today, leather vest with a patch and all, and wearing a full face helmet. For some reason, I though the helmet was odd, since helmets are optional here.

Evidently she had tunes on in the helmet, because she was practically dancing on the bike at the stop lights.
It looked like she was having fun!

One of the nice things about commuting by motorcycle:

Yesterday I had to make an unscheduled trip to a job site to help a coworker.

"Oh no! You mean I have to take a one hour motorcycle ride in the afternoon on a weekday in beautiful weather? Good thing you guys are paying me for this crap."

She? I didn't think the 1%'ers let she's in...??

.....come to think of it though, maybe it was Darla

I had a small group of three patch outlaws pass me the other day. They were riding in tight formation and hard as they could go.

I saw a group of Banditos riding in tight formation all with black helmets with tinted face shields in northern New Mexico.
When I asked a Bandito customer of our store about it he explained that when traveling out state they didn’t want to be photographed by facial recognition cameras as many of them were on probation, and could not leave the state.

Some years ago, during the morning commute on the Interstate, a trio of Pagan's went by me in the adjoining lane (they purposely misspell the club name using the possessive.)

Anyway, I remember two things:
1. I was passed almost as though I was parked. By three Motor Company bikes.
2. Theirs was the tightest formation of cruisers I've seen at any speed...and given their sheer speed, I was impressed.

First dark AND rainy commute of the season. Fall is here. I find that this is the worst season for commuting. The roads in the 3rd world country of New Jersey are rather unkind on dark rainy days - potholes are not visible, the ruts and cracks in the lane separator white lines are more treacherous, the natives forget how to drive - no one knows how to keep their car windows defogged... adds to the excitement.

I installed a rekluse clutch on the bike and it’s so much easier to lane split in slow backed up traffic that I’m saving 5-15 mins on my 40-60 min commute. Loving it and my hands are happier too.

You're saying the Rekluse makes your commute 5-15 min faster? I get that it's handy, but don't understand how it's faster. Is the entire 60 minute commute stopped traffic? That would be a bad commute!

Of course the slower the cars, the more lane splitting helps, assuming you limit your lane splitting to a fixed speed delta faster than cars. For example 45MPH cars vs 60MPH you isn't a huge advantage, while 0MPH cars vs 15MPH you is.

One of my bikes is DCT, and I think that's the best thing ever for commute traffic. My other bike has a regular manual gearbox, and I seem to commute faster on that one--because it's narrower and also more agile at very low speed, with both those making it a little easier to fit through traffic. I can see how the auto clutch would be great, but I don't see it being a factor on elapsed times.

My commute is 23-25 miles each way. If I leave home before 6:20am it’s 40 minutes on a good day.
In the evening, a good day is 55 mins. The evening commute is pretty much 70% lane splitting. My threshold is 25mph i.e if traffic is moving at 25mph, I won’t lane split.

Where the rekluse helps is that I’m not worried about stalling and shifting/clutching way too many times. So, I can lane split for longer distances.

Yes, it’s a shitty commute. I commute on a bicycle as well and that takes me only 1:15 - 1:30. But schedules don’t always cooperate.
Welcome to metro NYC / Jersey City traffic.

K75. 30 years old and versatile

Those are cross bars to go over the truck bed strapped down so I could roll two wheels rather than 4

Speaking of the bandidos, I had a tire changed at a shop seemingly owned and controlled by them in the Hispanic district of Oklahoma City...they treated me well despite being a Soldier on a BMW

These (fast progress/ speed) have NEVER been my experiences. They've always been slow processions.
Plano/ Frisco Texas. Kinfolk. 40- 60 bikes. Just a moving cacophony. Blocking intersections to let the whole group get through a red light etc. I was in my car and trying to get wherever I was going faster than they were going. Urban environment, to be fair. they held up a lot of traffic.

Pagans? (I wasn't paying too much attention.) 3 riders. Somewhere in Louisiana or Mississippi. Hauling ass trying to get back home from Barber Motorsports Museum. I could see them from miles back. Left lane, making progress versus traffic, which was pretty heavy in both lanes. I weave and wend my way past everybody. Get behind them, but i'm still a ways behind them; they have a semi truck in the right lane next to them. They pass. They stay in the passing lane. I flash my high beam. They stay. I pass the truck, merge right, pass em, merge back left, go on on my merry way. Sure they were going a little faster than traffic, but I was doing 90. Slower traffic keep right.

Santa Barbara County, CA. Southbound 101 freeway, just north of Santa Barbara. 4 bikes. Loose staggered formation. Resolutely in the fast lane. I rode right through their formation after flashing my high beam several times where they could have moved left and let me through. I was doing 80, speed limit 60.

I should probably slow down.


Edit; coming back to Texas from Nor Cal, in Plateau(?) TX, I think. Stop for gas. Two patched brothers stop as well, going the opposite way. It's fucking hot. We chat. My favorite part

Me "so where y'all headed."
Him "We going to San Diego for the weekend."
Me "and where are you coming from?"
Him "Florida."
Me, high fiving him "that's goals right there."

He might have named a city in Florida, I don't exactly recall.

Then again i've ridden to see people I could very easily facetime/ skype. Phoenix. Los Angeles. Portland. Seattle. Salt Lake City. Cincinnati. Appleton WI. etc

Um, those prevent lane splitting. Do we need to quote you from the good book of lane splitting?

I've seen worse.



Charles.

As if I needed more reasons to be terrified of Teslas...



https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2019/TESLA/MODEL%25203/4%2520DR/AWD#complaints370

Self-driving cars are like fusion power - perpetually 10 years away. Driving is actually hard, making a computer that can outsmart people isn't a problem, making one that can out-stupid us is.

To be fair, self driving cars in and of themselves are pretty simple. I'm pretty sure that I could kludge one up by dropping a cinderblock on the gas pedal of my dad's POS LaCrosse.

Down the lower part of 395 again today towards ‘4 corners’ and on past Barstow.

kudos to the trailer (RV) guy who pulled right to let me pass in a very long no passing zone.

raps on the heads of the Four different drivers that cause me to move to the shoulder to ensure they didn’t cream me while passing head on in my lane.

Oh geez...don't get me started on autonomous cars. As a programmer in robotic automation, I can go on and on about issues with the technology. Nothing in that video surprised me.

software defects can be fixed and the program will work well eventually. the behaviour of idiots behind the steering wheel will never improve. my money is on the Teslas' of the world. We will eventually have self driving cars and nothing else - massive time save, no traffic, no speeding, no accidents, ....

All good and well except "software defects" kill people out on public roads. Public roads are the wrong place for debugging...especially by a company that has so little grasp on the technology they are trying to utilize. The Summons feature is a perfect example of this negligent application of technology. Until you master going down the interstate with no incidents or intervention, you cannot responsibly navigate something complex as a parking lot with full autonomy. Do a quick search on the subject...lots of cars hitting garages, going left of center, running stop signs, etc. while trying to navigate to their drivers. For bonus points, read up on ISO 13849-1:2015 safety standards and see if Tesla is anywhere in the same ball park as these standards. I guess thier mentality is "why not put a 4k LB automated machine out in public roads without following safety standards learned from decades of human-machine relations in automation. We'll just de-bug everytime someone gets killed."