OLD BLASTARD: Why comes after X and before Z

There's a lot of talk right now, at this moment, on the series of tubes and wires and masking tape and Elmer's Glue that is the Internet, about Motorcycle Awareness Month.

Motorcycles, were not just those pissant weirdos who wander about in our lanes like drunken toddlers, with loud or buzzy mufflers and neo-Wehrmacht or Easter egg helmets stuck on our heads. Right now, across the country, we are the cause celebre.

State governments are warning everyone that we're out there.

The national government is warning everyone we're out there.

People who have never tossed a leg over a scoot are writing stories on the front page about us, or waxing poetic from the chest-up on their television news about us.

Even the cops are out targeting us for enforcement in honor of our month.

The only thing they'r talking about, however, is how dangerous we are to ourselves and how dangers others are to us.  The recent post of the press release from the NHTSA talks all about being safe and, by default, dangerous, but it doesn't say how much fun it is to drop a couple of gears as you cruise down Rio Road East, move the outside of the lane, hit the brakes, tip it over and roll on the throttle as you come out on to Greenbrier Drive.

It doesn't talk about kicking back with the stereo blasting and the bird dog on as your tour de force down I-64.

It doesn't talk about kicking the bike on a backroad on the way to a friends only to find the road suddenly disappears and your coming up quickly on a guard rail and.... never mind about that.

So why do we ride? What is it we get that the safety geeks forced to write about us but have never been one of us don't understand.

Well, watch out. Sometime in the next month you may be sitting sipping some sweet beverage and some damn fool will come up to you, hand you a card with TJ on it and start asking questions and taking pictures of you and your bike. The next thing you know, you'll be on this site telling the damn fools and cagers what it is that makes you tick.

Let's tell 'em. Maybe they'll join us. There's safety, after all, in numbers.