The crash stories are many and colorful but Lotho is right in they give the impression we never did anything else. If we crashed any more than I have related already, there would not be much reason to logically believe we should have lived through it.
But, sure, there are lots more.
Also this happened ...
The stories haven't told of when Lotho let me ride his Yamaha FJ1200 so we could ride together ... with our wives on the back of each bike. The Mystery Lady was on the back of the FJ1200 and Lotho was riding a Yamaha FZR1000 with Mrs Lotho on the back. Mrs Lotho is tiny but definitely all-out wild. She is not one to ask him to slow down.
These bikes were as smokin' fast as Yamaha made at the time and were as close to full-race as was legal for the street. Oddly, the FZR1000 was faster and had better performance than the FJ1200 which had been built a year or two before.
The FJ1200 had 1200 cubic-centimeters of Yamaha badness and that was plenty for me.
That is total ferocious bad-ass here at the Rockhouse ... but ... the Yamaha FZR1000 was even faster.
According to some it was the best bike of the eighties, first for its extraordinary power and also the engineering of the frame. Just put a number on it and roll it onto the track for some big displacement Moto Grand Prix.
So ...
there I was with the Mystery Lady motoring down I-275 at a ridiculously-high rate of speed on a beautiful Summer day. She's diggin' it because it's free, it's the life, and it does not have One Single Computer. To this day, I really don't know if she knew how fast we were going and that would have been right about 130mph / 210kph.
The riding was grand too because the engineering of these motorcycles is magnificent. Even at that speed, the bike was solid on the road and as stable as if you were sitting on a sofa.
The Mystery Lady and I were so diggin' it as the speed is enough to be exciting without a wild risk to life, the sun on us is a Summer delight, and all of it wide open. This was all absolutely grand and I knew Lotho had fallen back but that said to me, hold speed and watch.
I did. The Mystery Lady did not know but there was a suspicion in my head what was going to come.
The next thing I notice is a distant whine and it resolves into a high-power motor turning maximum RPMs. That motor is on Lotho's FZR1000 which quickly grows in my mirrors and if he grows any faster he will be sucked into a wormhole or something.
At unbelievable speed it comes, there's a blue flash to one side, the motor hammering for everything in it, and that flash disappears in front of us like something out of a Star Wars movie.
There's no doubt in me the FJ1200 was doing 130mph and, to have a passing speed like that, he had to have been going well over 160mph / 260kph. The FZR1000 was rated for a top speed of 160mph but Lotho loves to tinker with motors. It would not surprise me at all if he had jacked it into more performance somehow.
(Ed: no crash?)
Nope. Motorcycle grandeur at its finest. This is one of the reasons you ride. So long as you stay cool when you're running fast, there's not that much danger. Staying cool can sometimes be a bit of a problem ... as we discover in the following story.
Lotho had loaned me the FJ1200 to ride for a week or so. That was huge generosity already, even being brothers, as motorcycles are a bit like guitars and you really don't like it when someone else rides them. Maybe they won't treat her right.
I did behave on the bike as I had immense respect for it because the power in her was more than I would ever need. So long as you don't go over your head, you probably won't get dead. That sounds simplistic but it doesn't play that way. Stay cool, stay alive.
Behaving on the bike did not include adhering to speed limits but I wasn't road racing, only running at a good cruising speed ... which happened to be twenty or thirty miles an hour faster than the police considered a good cruising speed.
So, I was tooling along, feeling good, as the bike is sounding sweet, riding so fine, and transporting a rush hour journey to a place I don't mind at all.
It was cool like that until I noticed some cage behind me with an apparently annoyed driver. The problem part is he is tail-gating me and you never, ever tail-gate a motorcycle. If the bike goes down, the rider gets dead and all you need to do is find a car wash. Don't do that. It's bullshit.
So this guy is back there and only one answer comes: hit it. I take the bike way over the speed limit since I figure this lamer won't even consider it ... but ... sure enough, he swings eventually into view behind me again.
My thinking now is this is some nutjob road-rager back there but he doesn't attack. He comes in really close but holds there.
There's nothing else for it, what the hell does this wanker want. I slow the bike down so he can pull alongside me. When he gets there, I can see him waving his hands at me and that's nice but the problem part is one of them holds a badge.
We conclude, hmm, off-duty cop, really pissed off, no particular reason I should stop.
There was no way to throw him a kiss because I was wearing a full-cover helmet. I like to think I did not flip the bird at him but that's a bit hard to believe.
The next answer was to hit it again but don't slow down, at least until outside the city limits. No-one heard a word from this guy. Maybe he was the Ghost Cop of I-75 and he just drove around annoying people.
On looking back, these stories are better than the crash story. That one will keep.
But, sure, there are lots more.
Also this happened ...
The stories haven't told of when Lotho let me ride his Yamaha FJ1200 so we could ride together ... with our wives on the back of each bike. The Mystery Lady was on the back of the FJ1200 and Lotho was riding a Yamaha FZR1000 with Mrs Lotho on the back. Mrs Lotho is tiny but definitely all-out wild. She is not one to ask him to slow down.
These bikes were as smokin' fast as Yamaha made at the time and were as close to full-race as was legal for the street. Oddly, the FZR1000 was faster and had better performance than the FJ1200 which had been built a year or two before.
The FJ1200 had 1200 cubic-centimeters of Yamaha badness and that was plenty for me.
According to some it was the best bike of the eighties, first for its extraordinary power and also the engineering of the frame. Just put a number on it and roll it onto the track for some big displacement Moto Grand Prix.
So ...
there I was with the Mystery Lady motoring down I-275 at a ridiculously-high rate of speed on a beautiful Summer day. She's diggin' it because it's free, it's the life, and it does not have One Single Computer. To this day, I really don't know if she knew how fast we were going and that would have been right about 130mph / 210kph.
The riding was grand too because the engineering of these motorcycles is magnificent. Even at that speed, the bike was solid on the road and as stable as if you were sitting on a sofa.
The Mystery Lady and I were so diggin' it as the speed is enough to be exciting without a wild risk to life, the sun on us is a Summer delight, and all of it wide open. This was all absolutely grand and I knew Lotho had fallen back but that said to me, hold speed and watch.
I did. The Mystery Lady did not know but there was a suspicion in my head what was going to come.
The next thing I notice is a distant whine and it resolves into a high-power motor turning maximum RPMs. That motor is on Lotho's FZR1000 which quickly grows in my mirrors and if he grows any faster he will be sucked into a wormhole or something.
At unbelievable speed it comes, there's a blue flash to one side, the motor hammering for everything in it, and that flash disappears in front of us like something out of a Star Wars movie.
There's no doubt in me the FJ1200 was doing 130mph and, to have a passing speed like that, he had to have been going well over 160mph / 260kph. The FZR1000 was rated for a top speed of 160mph but Lotho loves to tinker with motors. It would not surprise me at all if he had jacked it into more performance somehow.
(Ed: no crash?)
Nope. Motorcycle grandeur at its finest. This is one of the reasons you ride. So long as you stay cool when you're running fast, there's not that much danger. Staying cool can sometimes be a bit of a problem ... as we discover in the following story.
Lotho had loaned me the FJ1200 to ride for a week or so. That was huge generosity already, even being brothers, as motorcycles are a bit like guitars and you really don't like it when someone else rides them. Maybe they won't treat her right.
I did behave on the bike as I had immense respect for it because the power in her was more than I would ever need. So long as you don't go over your head, you probably won't get dead. That sounds simplistic but it doesn't play that way. Stay cool, stay alive.
Behaving on the bike did not include adhering to speed limits but I wasn't road racing, only running at a good cruising speed ... which happened to be twenty or thirty miles an hour faster than the police considered a good cruising speed.
So, I was tooling along, feeling good, as the bike is sounding sweet, riding so fine, and transporting a rush hour journey to a place I don't mind at all.
It was cool like that until I noticed some cage behind me with an apparently annoyed driver. The problem part is he is tail-gating me and you never, ever tail-gate a motorcycle. If the bike goes down, the rider gets dead and all you need to do is find a car wash. Don't do that. It's bullshit.
So this guy is back there and only one answer comes: hit it. I take the bike way over the speed limit since I figure this lamer won't even consider it ... but ... sure enough, he swings eventually into view behind me again.
My thinking now is this is some nutjob road-rager back there but he doesn't attack. He comes in really close but holds there.
There's nothing else for it, what the hell does this wanker want. I slow the bike down so he can pull alongside me. When he gets there, I can see him waving his hands at me and that's nice but the problem part is one of them holds a badge.
We conclude, hmm, off-duty cop, really pissed off, no particular reason I should stop.
There was no way to throw him a kiss because I was wearing a full-cover helmet. I like to think I did not flip the bird at him but that's a bit hard to believe.
The next answer was to hit it again but don't slow down, at least until outside the city limits. No-one heard a word from this guy. Maybe he was the Ghost Cop of I-75 and he just drove around annoying people.
On looking back, these stories are better than the crash story. That one will keep.
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