Common sense versus science

Quote: beachbumbabs

This is the funniest part of all of this, Face...you HAD TO? They couldn't be so obliging as to see you coming up on their bumper like a banshee and simply hit the ditch? You HAD TO do this.

I also thank God you sold that thing. How you did not become an organ donor....wow. I do get the adrenalin rush of it; sounds like acrobatic stunt flying to me, which I loved to the point of craving it for years afterwards. But damn, man. I got to ride with a pro on the Daytona track for 3 laps and we topped 185 mph, and it didn't feel as fast as those two videos looked.

Yes, had to. Either that or pile into the back of them lol. I'm actually happy none saw me coming. I wanted them to stay right where they were and to remain predictable.

I had that bike one year (just enough to get comfortable with it) when Bucky Phillips went fugitive. Being an escaped con and having shot a number of Troopers, they sent everyone after him. And the roads? They were all ours for the entire summer.

I shit you not... that video accurately depicts how we rode everywhere. Right at the ragged edge, everywhere we went. Cuba to Salamanca is about 30 miles. We made it in 12 minutes. That's an average speed of 150mph, an average, done for the whole 30 miles of I-86. And that hardly even registers on the list of epic rides that year. I could talk for hour upon hour of all of the completely unbelievable experiences we had that one, magical year.

But that video captures it all. The wiggles going into the corner as the rear reaches its limit of grip. The wiggle of the bars as the front gets light powering out of the corner and the front sort of "skips" without the weight on it. The front blowing up into the air as you crest a rise on full power (I had that happen at 160mph and didn't see it coming. THAT got my attention but quick).

But it's still not even that. It's those twisty bits when they come faster than the brain can process. Like chess, you have to think two, three corners ahead of you. And if you fuck it up, just one wiggle or one kink you didn't expect or one apex you miss, you are just dead. There's no coming back from it, no room for error. You must be perfect, or your cousin or your father or your buddy are going to watch you die.

And when you get it perfect... my god. Everything comes together. There is no thought. There is no time for thought. You can't think at all. I'm pretty detailed in my experiences, but I have almost no memory of my 171mph run down I-86. You just act. Just do. Just be. Everything is gone. You feel nothing, you think nothing. You and the machine become one and turn into something else entirely. It's ethereal. It's cosmic. Supernatural. You cease "being". You are just energy; a perfect, harmonized, homogenous point of infinite, blinding energy. There is nothing under the sun that can bring you as close to eternalness as running a bike on the ragged edge.

God, I miss it =,/

Quote: Face

Yes, had to. Either that or pile into the back of them lol. I'm actually happy none saw me coming. I wanted them to stay right where they were and to remain predictable.

I had that bike one year (just enough to get comfortable with it) when Bucky Phillips went fugitive. Being an escaped con and having shot a number of Troopers, they sent everyone after him. And the roads? They were all ours for the entire summer.

I shit you not... that video accurately depicts how we rode everywhere. Right at the ragged edge, everywhere we went. Cuba to Salamanca is about 30 miles. We made it in 12 minutes. That's an average speed of 150mph, an average, done for the whole 30 miles of I-86. And that hardly even registers on the list of epic rides that year. I could talk for hour upon hour of all of the completely unbelievable experiences we had that one, magical year.

But that video captures it all. The wiggles going into the corner as the rear reaches its limit of grip. The wiggle of the bars as the front gets light powering out of the corner and the front sort of "skips" without the weight on it. The front blowing up into the air as you crest a rise on full power (I had that happen at 160mph and didn't see it coming. THAT got my attention but quick).

But it's still not even that. It's those twisty bits when they come faster than the brain can process. Like chess, you have to think two, three corners ahead of you. And if you fuck it up, just one wiggle or one kink you didn't expect or one apex you miss, you are just dead. There's no coming back from it, no room for error. You must be perfect, or your cousin or your father or your buddy are going to watch you die.

And when you get it perfect... my god. Everything comes together. There is no thought. There is no time for thought. You can't think at all. I'm pretty detailed in my experiences, but I have almost no memory of my 171mph run down I-86. You just act. Just do. Just be. Everything is gone. You feel nothing, you think nothing. You and the machine become one and turn into something else entirely. It's ethereal. It's cosmic. Supernatural. You cease "being". You are just energy; a perfect, harmonized, homogenous point of infinite, blinding energy. There is nothing under the sun that can bring you as close to eternalness as running a bike on the ragged edge.

God, I miss it =,/

Then you have it all, my friend. You did it for a whole year. You beat the odds and lived. And you can remember it, and watch video, and know you've got the t shirt when damned few do, and still be there for your son.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Then you have it all, my friend. You did it for a whole year. You beat the odds and lived. And you can remember it, and watch video, and know you've got the t shirt when damned few do, and still be there for your son.

Indeed I do. But it's weird.

I remember being upset about my ecstasy use. I remember thinking that it felt so good, that I would never be the same. That all other "good" would never match up. And for quite awhile, I was right. But that faded. Now thinking back to that is just a "weird funny time" that I can get nostalgic about, and not a year goes by that I don't have several moments when I feel better than even that.

But here, almost ten years later, nothing can match what I felt in the bike days. I mean, watching a video, sometimes even daydreaming about it, and I get an intense physical reaction. Heart races, hands shake, eyes water... I get an adrenaline dump just thinking about those days. A real, live adrenaline dump, as if I just missed a car accident. Just from thinking about it.

I got problems, man. I can't know it's out there and not pursue it. I gotta have that feeling again. I just don't know how to get it =/

Quote: rxwine

I saw a discovery about a month ago that the most aerodynamic shape in some cases can be a rough surface. That's not where common sense might lead one.

Common sense is often mistaken assumptions.

Quote: Pacomartin

Common sense is often mistaken assumptions.

They did this on Mythbusters. Covered a whole car
with golf ball dimples. It was indeed more aerodynamic
and got better gas mileage.

Quote: Pacomartin

Common sense is often mistaken assumptions.

Perfect example.

Quote: beachbumbabs

did not become an organ donor

From Face's description of his vacay in BVI my guess is his organs are too pickled to donate :-)

That goes for his brain too with this turn right to go left business... :P

Quote: chickenman

From Face's description of his vacay in BVI my guess is his organs are too pickled to donate :-)

That goes for his brain too with this turn right to go left business... :P

It is not generally known, but older people are not good organ donors. The ideal organ donor, it is said, is made by something like a safe landing on a 20 yr old 's head, making him brain dead but otherwise alive, preserving his young organs till needed.

Not nice to talk about, and isn't . So people think their 55 yr old organs are desirable. No.

I don't know if such are rejected outright.

Quote: odiousgambit

It is not generally known, but older people are not good organ donors. The ideal organ donor, it is said, is made by something like a safe landing on a 20 yr old 's head, making him brain dead but otherwise alive, preserving his young organs till needed.

Makes sense, if I want to swap out a bad transmission do I want one from a car with 100K miles of hard driving or a Mustang some kid got for graduation and wrecked within a month?

OF course not all organs are created equal. Some things you donate, like the white of your eyes, logic would say they don't get as bad with age as a heart. Not to sound a simpleton, but "wear items" seem the same on either a car or person.

Quote: odiousgambit

The ideal organ donor, it is said, is made by something like a safe landing on a 20 yr old 's head, making him brain dead but otherwise alive, preserving his young organs till needed.

Well, they have been nicknamed donorcycles.