Plight of the Responsible Hooligan

Starting my (car) commute back home today on Woodside Rd, Redwood City (for those familiar w the Bay Area) heading to SF and was stopped at a signal. I quickly spotted a biker on the opposite side of the road who had lane-split to be at the limit line. I see lots of riders during the day as I travel the peninsula and usually don't think twice but what I noticed about this bike was that he had no headlight on. I also could see from the general silhouette of the bike it was a naked sportbike of some kind. Initially I was thinking, gee I wouldn't want to ride around here without a working headlight what with all the distracted urban drivers... As the light turned green, the emerging side profile of the bike became more apparent: big ass rear cog, beefed up frame sliders, no headlight to speak of...it's a stunt machine. Sure enough, the rider hops two feet on the saddle and pulls a big 12 o'clock wheelie down the road as I continue on my merry way through the clumps of distracted drivers all the way back home.

As I drove, I guess I was equally guilty of driving somewhat distracted by my thoughts on that rider and my own personal views on "responsible" moto riding. For starters, coming back home in one piece with a bike that looks the same as I took out of the garage is a priority. When I still had my SD, I admit I'd justify some "spirited" riding and a little loftiness of the front wheel (if you saw my wheelie class vid, I can't pull one off longer than 200ft or higher than 2.5 ft ) but only in the absence of traffic/people. Otherwise, my riding ethic was use the bike within my ability to survive to ride again. The only times I've had costly encounters with LEOs were from times of poorer judgement and letting "fun" get the better of me. Now that my only ride is my tractoring '83 BMW R100RS, the amount of sheer effort it would take for me to approach anything resembling hooliganism has me choosing to ride sedately before I even turn the ignition on.

I got to thinking about how susceptible I was to riding a machine differently depending on a number of factors. Is it the bike's inherent abilities/setup? Is it my personality? Is it the stereotype of the bikes image? I do believe I rode the SD "harder" on the street because TBH it was a more "capable" machine at doing just that than my RS. As such, I was much more confident (or foolishly overconfident) riding the SD the way I did over the RS now. I've been told a squid, is a squid, is a squid no matter what machine they ride. Maybe I was just a closet squid on the SD and a now restrained poser on my RS.

I do think if I owned a bike purpose-built to stunt, as that rider's clearly was, I'd just be totally stressed about riding it around the street like the expectation to stunt it is too much to get away from. Between being on a badly geared bike for general riding and drawing the negative attention of probably every LEO within a 500ft radius, I feel I'd be miserable. Even if my sole existence was to pull massive wheelies all day long wherever the hell I pleased, the inevitable fix-it tickets and impending loss of license would be a major buzz kill.

I guess the point of my rant is that I loved the SD for being a closet-hooligan's bike. It could be ridden sedately and just look fast while your at the stoplight or rolling at 25mph...it could also cause you to lose your license (or more, knock on wood) with a little more right hand.

So I wonder, does anybody else here ride differently depending on the bike being used? Why or why not?

For years I had motorcycles that asked too much out of you to ride fast and stop fast, or should I say ride quick and stop quick. I would push these bikes to their limits wishing the front end would just please come up or that the back end would please break loose to steer it through the final part of a bend. I have had multiple dual sport bikes that hooligan to a certain extent, mainly in the fact that they feel like a cardboard cutout of a real street bike and with knobbies they get to roll around themselves at good cornering pace. I am a firm believer that it is not the bike that determines your destiny but more the bikes deficiencies I bought a FJR1300 in 03 that was a whale of a time. It was a ridiculously heavy hooligan it would wheelie on purpose but it cornered like a 68 cadillac. I traded it in for a v-strom and a Duke II and ended up with two scrappy toys that functioned quite similar. I was finally home. I said to myself that no matter how many bikes come and go through my greasy hands, I will always have one that will wheelie up in second gear at a twist in a moments notice. My ratio of accomplishment of the promise is 3/5. In that i would conclude that I may just be 3/5 hooligan heading everyday to 1/5 cause I can ride a bike all day and leave the front end down. But please don't take my ability away. I think you have a Duke in your future.
I mounted one of those tyres I scored from you with my new No-Mar tyre changer. I have yourear wheel mounted on the bike .
You got it bad, you wanted to try that bike out soooo bad

get out of my head and glad you're getting to use that tyre

Getting back to bikes, I think tons of people love to/tend to justify a machine based on the potential for performance "oh ya, it goes sub-10 1/4 mile out of the box...has tech straight out of motoGP...steve mcqueen had one...it has the word 'dual' in the name." Few folks want that one trick pony.

Like a swiss army knife, maybe you use a tool once or several of them are never used, but in the event you want to hoon it up or cruise around, I don't think many bikes can do better than an SD.

I think all the 990 LC8s will be headed for classic status. The Dukes and the SMs, all of them. They're rock-solid reliable, raucous bikes that are tough and simple yet genuinely perform at the same time and which just get better and better the harder you ride them, and they seem to be designed with home maintenance in mind. They're biker's bikes, keepers, the real-deal in a world of corporate motor-giant clones which is where most mass produced bikes are now and where all are heading.

I think in my case it's a bit of both. I'm on my second full fat SDR. Both have (had) the standard mods of exhaust, airbox (homemade Rottweiler copy), mapping and LSL flat bars. I've also had 37 other bikes, ranging from RS250 Aprilia's to 1000cc sports bikes and a few Aprilia Tuonos. Currently have an MV Agusta F4 keeping the SDR company.

The first SDR I wheelied into oblivion, going over backwards at 120 kmh when my ambition very much outweighed my ability. That scarred me physically and mentally. I still wheelie, but the days of sitting on the back wheel through the gears are long gone. And doing wheelies on the MV is so fooking fast it scares me to death!

Having said that, I absolutely love the SDR and its characteristics. It's the most incredibly fun bike to ride.

Well said mate. It's almost impossible to ride a bike without thinking 'what'll it do??'

I find myself always pushing hard on whatever it is, to the extreme on some lesser bikes and probably nowhere near the limits on others (my mates cbr1000 comes to mind with that one), but the end result is normally around the same area where I feel comfortable, it's just how close the limits of the bike that changes.

I tested a Bonneville T120 last year, found myself pushing it quite hard, as if I was on the SD, even though the Bonnie has a different image.

Riding round on an MT10SP at the moment , not the prettiest admittedly , however the electronics are so shite that its not so dissimilar to the 990SD , you just feel like being a bit naughty as soon as you go out
It can even mimic the old 2005 mileage per tank , its very easy to only reach double figures.
Even sounds like a twin with the Graves EVR system on it

BUMP, might as well keep it going. I started out in the dirt,(think everybody should if only because it's a bit softer than concrete) and my dad would buy stuff to flip and make some coin. I come home 15 years old and see a cb350 in the driveway and being a typical kid I find the keys and take that thing onto the trails, WOOHOO for about 20 minutes then I nursed it home with a busted fork tube and got the h e l l out b4 my dad got home, and that was the power bikes always had on me.... until I started buying nice, read expensive ones. Now i've had paved roads turn to dirt beneath me at + 150 mph on my SDR and all I think is I hope I don't scratch the paint! The 1290 encourages mischief and I already totalled 1 this summer, so, i'm layin back a bit. best I can anyhow. I will say being over 50 wrecking bikes take f o r e v e r to heal from. The responsible part I guess is chillin' til i'm in open country to go full retard. My other bike is a k1600 and for all its qualities it never makes me want to ride like the SDR does.