Callow Youth

[OTB]

Fact: The older we get, the longer it takes to heal.

Fact: The older we get, the slower become our reaction times.

Fact: The older we get, the more our vision degrades and our hand/eye coordination degrades.

Fact: The older I get, the more I have to lose, and the less willing I become to lose it.

I was driving to van home from work the other day in the unseasonably warm weather the east coast was having, glorying in just having the windows down, when three brave lads on sportbikes passed me on the Baltimore Beltway doing well over “the Ton” in heavy rush hour traffic, weaving back and forth between lanes of all but stalled vehicles, with closing speed differentials somewhere in the 70-90 mph range, by my well calibrated seat-of-the-pants-o-meter. Scary.

Two weeks ago, during a similar break in the spring drearyness, I was out tiptoeing the Bimota on through a stretch of sweepers not far from my home, the corners still dusted with a light coating of winter sand/cinder/salt crud from the last sleet storm. In the middle of a turn I was passed on the outside of the double yellow by a wobbling Gixxer mounted hero, clad in “racing” shorts and that always handy wife-beater t-shirt, tenny shoes and no gloves. I’m sure he thought he impressed me with his skills.

The older I get, the less I really care what other folks do, as long as it doesn’t have a negative effect on me and mine. I don’t even rant about the long-term negative effects that such idiocy has on the perception of the public in general. I know that along with the tweet-tweet of robins will soon come the wrecks and the in-depth reporting pieces by the local media on the scourge of high-speed racing bikes turned loose on a terrorized public, and the calls for “somebody” to “do something”.

I guess what warms the cockles of my hard little heart is when I pick up another cheap sportbike from some young guy who scared himself silly, or like the guy I just bought the Superhawk from with a scant 1500 miles on it; wife was out shopping and saw him making an arse of himself on the thing, came home and made him sell it; I got an almost new bike, he screwed himself.

There is always the “Darwin Effect”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve pulled my share of boneheaded moves; like the time in my youth when I grew impatient with a bunch of Harley riders cruising up one of “my” favorite backroads at ten under the speedlimit whilst I sat back twiddling my thumbs (lots of opposing traffic and all double yellows) till I’d finally had enough and blitzed up the middle of their two-by-two formation. THAT pissed ‘em off and got them following me at well over the limit, shaking fists and hurling dire threats. Not something I’m proud of.

Or the time I ran my number-plated no-lights racebike up the interstate to do top-gear redline plugchops the night before the race to get the jetting right.

The state trooper wasn’t impressed with my explanation.

Ah, youth. If we’re lucky we survive it and maybe even learn from it.