Friday, November 10, 2006

Motorbikes



I ride a motorbike to work every morning. So does Jen.

If anyone such as Kevin, Dre, Gants, etc is reading this, they’re probably laughing their ass off if they can see the picture. These people either own, or have previously owned a legitimate motorcycle. Mine is certainly not a motorcycle. It only has 110 cc’s, whereas I think a real motorcycle has something like 4 x 106 cc’s. My bike in the US would probably be classified as a “scooter.” I’m ok with that. It is at least shaped like a motorcycle.

Actually it’s shaped like a dirt bike. I know this because the guy who sold it to me, said, in broken English, “This not dirt bike. It look like dirt bike, but if you jump…….” At this point he made a symbol with has hands as if breaking a large branch over his knee. I promised him I would not pretend to be playing Excite Bike.*

It doesn’t really go very fast either. But that’s OK also, because neither does Manila traffic. In a taxi, I could spend 40 minutes traveling 4 miles home after work. Most of this time you are stopped. With a motorbike, you are allowed, actually expected, to simply ride slowly through the stopped cars to the front of the traffic light. It’s a pretty great system.

Jen and I also have extremely large helmets and padded motorcycle jackets. The padded jackets are probably a bit much, especially since it never drops below 75 degrees here. But having big elbow guards makes me kind of feel like Barry Bonds, minus the part about being a douche bag.

* I used to make some pretty rad courses on that game.

2 comments:

M. Gants v4.0 said...

100 cc's or 100 ci's - who cares as long as you're on two wheels?! Live to ride, ride to live...just ride safe man!

NICHOLAS HUGHES said...

shocks...pegs...lucky. Have you taken it off any sweet jumps? I was nano seconds away from buying another motorcycle today.