About Mike

I'm a 25 year-old tech schmoe from Aurora, Colorado. I've been riding bicycles since I had Tonka trucks and Transformers and I've always been most comfortable on 2 wheels. Since my mom is in the medical biz, I just got into motorcycles about 3 years ago- I had to wait until she moved out of the state. Now we have a deal, I don't tell her that I crash or have a close call (I don't even count them anymore) unless I get hurt. In turn, she assumes that I ride in a safe manner and promises not to bug me about getting run over.

I've logged 23K miles or so on 5 motorcycles. That number is relatively small due to a short commute (4 miles) I had for the last few years. Now my commute is closer to 20 miles and I've logged 5k miles between 11.27.02 and 2.16.03. I sold my last car in August and bought an unrunning truck in October but it turned out to be unfixable for what I wanted to invest in it. I have never driven the truck off of my block. Now I have a loaner car from a friend while I work the (many) kinks out of my bike that I've used about 10 times since November.

The Manifesto

Basically I decided (while laid up with a broken leg for most of November) that I only owned a car to do 2 things:

1) Drive in the snow
and
2) Carry bicycles

At that point I decided that if I could make it through the winter on my motorcycle I could definitely figure out a way to haul at least one bike on the back of a motorcycle. Now that I have officially proven to myself that I can make it through winter on 2 wheels, my next project is a bike rack.

Why no car? Here's what driving a car does for me:

Makes me irritable every time I leave my motorcycle at home (Yep- I get mean when I can't ride)
Costs me $90 a month in liability insurance whether I drive it or not
Gets me about 25 miles for every gallon of fuel
The protection of a seatbelt and "metal around my body"
Keeps me warm with a heater and by blocking the wind

Here's what driving a motorcycle does for me:

Makes me happy every day I can ride
Costs me $90 for full-coverage insurance every six months
Gets me about 60 miles for every gallon of fuel in the city (my F650GS, at least)
Provides the advantage of driving a small, quick, and lightweight vehicle that lets me to avoid most bad situations
Keeps me warm with all kinds of heat sources and blocks a lot of the wind
(ok, sometimes you get really cold and can't do much about it)
Lets me pretend that I'm "sticking it to The Man" by not joining the 4-wheeled masses

So that's that. There are other reasons but none of them include "chicks dig bikes" because, really, what girl is looking for a guy who has to rent a car to take her out on a cold night? If you know a girl like that, though, send her my way! Riding in winter, requires quality gear and a variety of special modifications that help keep the bike running well. Hopefully this site will help those who are willing to try it or at least provide entertainment for those that think I'm nuts. Someday I'm going to have to get back into the herd but for now I'm running far from it.