Comments on: Calling all Biker-Pilots!

By: chronic back pain and cancer

chronic back pain and cancer — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 01:16:20 +0000

While on the subject of lower back pain, it must be remembered that the actual severity of the
pain is not proportionate to the extent of injury or damage that causes it.
However, there is no specific proof that the meridians exist
and many Western doctors question the treatment, although many public health systems do support its use and
it is also supported by the World Health Organization. It is this kind of treatment for back pain which will help.

By: Dean

Dean — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:51:09 +0000

Been a while since this blog was active. I’ll chime in.

I’m in “The Club”

I have 3 motorcycles now (have owned 12 or more) Currenty, (2 BMW GSs -R100GS Paris Dakar and an 1150GS Adventure and a Triumph Tiger 900) a Mini Cooper S, 1990 Porsche 911 and now, a 2005 Cessna Skylane 182T G1000. All of my most prized possessions- at age 43- are my toys that move me, let me control them and take me places.
It was the same thrill on my Yamaha RD 400s when I was in college. I can go somewhere, solo or with someone else and it makes me feel good.

Add to these hobbies- the mountain biking, inline speed skating, snow skiing.

It’s all about the journey, what’s around the bend and the control and sensation of the machine.

I read that motorcyclists make good pilots-I’d agree. It’s our ability to pick up on small changes and adjusting for it to stay on top of the aircraft or motorcycle. I think our ears also, pick up more than others may hear. These higher sensitivities make us more evolved,
I believe.

Robert Frost said:
…I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

That’s all of us.

By: Torrent

Torrent — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:53:24 +0000

I think there is an exilleration with going fast – weather it is flying through the air, or driving, or skiing down a hill. Speed is an ultimate thrill – like sex. I don’t believe in evolution, so the monkey swinging from a tree is a streatch for me. I just think we all like the sensation of speed, and the andrenaline rush it gives you.

By: Claire

Claire — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:39:44 +0000

A little late, but I’d just like to state that while I like my Honda Rebel, it’s my Cessna 172 to learn on before I upgrade to my Harley sportster / Mooney. Great article Tom!

By: Louie Fonosch

Louie Fonosch — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:56:34 +0000

Ihave been a aopa member and pilot for 51 years part owner of a p t 19 and a cesna 150 built a b d 5 been checked out on 20 different plane models owned 21 diferent motorcycles first indien chief l a p d bike knockle head harley triums suzukis yamaha hondas goldwing cople of b m w still ride a 750 bmw k locomotive engineer and scuba diver love the sail boats trimarans love the speed ov everything that moves on land sea and in the air live is great so was the u s air force louie the pilotA

By: Allan Orth

Allan Orth — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:08:33 +0000

Or how about this from Charles Lindbergh: “A certain amount of danger is essential to the quality of life.”

By: Bruce Webbon

Bruce Webbon — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:30:27 +0000

Very interesting comments. However, there is a side to this that wasn’t mentioned. I vaguely remember reading a paper, I believe it was in Science, about identifiable differences in the brain chemistry of people who participated regularly in activities which others considered to be risky. Perhaps someone else with better medical credentials than I can elaborate on this.

As to my own risk credentials, the bottom line is at the young age of 63 most of my body parts are relatively intact and semi-functional. Like many of the other respondents, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything risky since I’m well trained and do my best to manage the apparent risks. If the worst should happen I’ll go along with one of my favorite philosophers, Jimmy Buffett, “I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

By: Steven L. Thompson

Steven L. Thompson — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:17:45 +0000

Terrific to see all the response to Tom’s blog on my book, and to see motorcyclist-pilots using the blog to communicate. 25 years ago, when I was AOPA’s VP-Publications and executive editor of PILOT, my (later Tom’s) 1983 R100RS was the only bike in the then-new Frederick HQ parking lot. Now, Tom tells me, many people ride to work.

There is of course a long, long tradition of pilots riding motorcycles (and/or bicycles), and as the research cited my book shows, the reasons why transcend trends, fads, and cultural norms. As noted in the book, whether or not one believes that evolution is responsible for the genetic predispositions some have for such mind-body activities, the key point is that some percentage of the population has a human-nature inclination for them, and some does not. Sensation-seeking research I explored in the book helps us understand why these traits persist across cultures, and are thus not “culturally constructed.”

Most of us, in any case, would ride or fly than wonder why, of course, and the significant response to Tom’s blog entry on my book illustrates how powerful is what used to be called “the need for speed.” (Though that phrase is inadequate to capture the scope of the “need.”)

As some reading Tom’s blog might know, I briefly became a hood ornament on a Chevy Monte Carlo in May 2004, while riding a ’95 Triumph Tiger in Annapolis, MD, and can no longer ride (bikes, that is; see next month’s Cycle World for my story on the Can-Am Spyder SE5 three-wheeler). So my 41 years riding on two wheels came to an end, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing (except maybe my line through the rain-slicked, blind, uphill, double-apex right-hander that proved my undoing) in my riding, road-testing, and racing life on two wheels. This strikes many non-riders and non-pilots as crazy, of course, which is why I titled the column I wrote for the first issue of AOPA’s *Ultralight Pilot* (Tom was the editor-in-chief of the magazine) “Welcome to the Crazy Club.” Are we really crazy?

Nope. As I tried to show via the human-factors, engineering, evolutioinary biology and psychological research explored in *Bodies in Motion: Evolution and Experience in Motorcycling,* we’re just differently configured than those who think what we do when we light off our engines is crazy.

Ride on! Fly on!

– Steve Thompson

By: Tom Horne

Tom Horne — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:06:14 +0000

Susan–

Yep, an old R60/2…..bought it from a friend for $500 in 1976. He had, er, problems paying his American Express bill. The problems cropped up on a bike trip to vermont. So I bought it right there and my first ride on it was from VT to my place in Maryland.

The following year it was I who had problems–I needed to pay for my instrument rating. So I sold the R60 for $1000–after riding it for about 20,000 miles. (with no problems–except I hated the brakes because they were so wimpy). It paid for my rating! But I still yearn for another one. I take a lot of heat for liking the Earles forks, but what the hey. I have a great B&W photo of it in my office–against the VT landscape.

The R60/2 ran like a sewing machine–smooth. AND you could work on them. Magnetos, carburetors, etc. Stone simple. Great parts availability. I can only change the oil on the R1150RT. For the rest you need factory diagnostics and franchise tools. Sigh.

By: Susan Kennedy

Susan Kennedy — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:46:43 +0000

To Tom and Phil:

Tom….you had a “64 R60/2″??? That “16K in 6 mos” was done on my dear Brunnhilde, a 1964 R60/2! Earles forks rule!

Phil B, old friend. You ride a Harley? I’m soooo ashamed! Anyway, ave atque vale (uh, look that up in yer Latin book). Hope to cross (flight) paths with you and Lois again sometime. Been a great 25 years or so since the beginning of old AVSIG and an AWESOME 17-year tenure as the Prez.