All winter long at my previous job, a fellow 2-wheeled co-worker and I talked about Sportbikes a lot, and came to the conclusion that the motorcycle season starts in March.
Turns out, we were right! After what seemed like months of snow, which in actuality was only a few weeks, the temperatures are back in the 50’s here in Colorado which is just nice enough to be able to ride to work and back home without turning into an ice cube. When the sun is not out here in the months leading up to, and following summer, if the sun is not out its quite cold. I believe the lows here are still in the mid 20’s at night at the moment. There’s still a lot of gravel on the roads, especially since we’ve had so much snow in the past month, so I’m taking it very easy around turns and in parking lots. You have to be very careful at this time of year if you dare go out.
My ride to work isn’t quite as fun since I don’t have an HOV lane now, nor a sharply banked turn with no other traffic to worry about, but its still a nice little 10 minute jaunt to work. Unfortunately its on Highway 36 to Boulder, which is notorious for containing cell-phone jabbering, traffic ignorant SUV driving idiots.
In fact, I’ve already had my first “stare at death” already and this is only the second day I’ve rode to work. A mini-van was merging onto 36, didn’t even look into the lane in which they were merging, and I had to swerve over into the left shoulder (which is not wide at all and has a concrete wall) while accelerating to avoid becoming road kill.
Its not a matter of will I wreck or not, but when. I’m prepared for that I think, and I think the risk is worth the benefit. I wear plenty of gear, but there is not enough gear to protect you against someone not seeing you when making a left turn, merging into traffic, etc.
Anyhow, back to the good stuff. It sounds like I’ll be in the St. Patricks Day parade with people from the Colorado Sportbike Club which should be a good experience since I haven’t met any of them yet except for a couple of them that I know from various car clubs and message boards. If you care to watch, the Parade is on Sunday, March 16th starting at 10 AM on WB2.
I do wonder if Sportbikes will explode this year due to Biker Boyz, just like import racing did after The Fast and the Furious. There are so many poseurs and losers now into import racing, I hope the same doesn’t happen to Sportbikes. I’m sure we’ll end up with plenty of new squids, though… just like we ended-up with a lot of ricers in the import world. BTW, for those of you unfamilliar to what a ricer is, that term has nothing derogatory to do with race as I don’t consider myself racist.
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