Squids

Picture this: A young guy, riding his plastic crotch-rocket along the roads at excessive speed, wearing nothing more protective than a pair of shorts and flip flops, not even a pair of gloves to protect his hands from the dangers of road impact. You see this often, and those of us who ride have a name for them… “squids” and it’s not in reference to their ability to multi-task with multiple hands. These “people”—a term that is generously applied in this case—give the rest of us a bad name, create a hazard for other riders and generally dilute the gene pool with their faulty sense of self-preservation. What drives otherwise potentially viable humans to do this? What makes them think it’s “kool” and what makes them think that the rest of us don’t laugh at them?

The other day, I was walking through Georgetown, on my way to some tasty BBQ at Old Glory, and walked past a gaggle of these squids, flailing about trying to impress one another with their stupendous acts of unadultered stupidity. I could hear one talking about how he’d just gotten his bike out of the shop, having had to replace all the plastic on his (at most) 6 month old Yamaha R6, and how he’d narrowly missed an oncomming car when trying to pass a car on the way into the city. Now what exactly possesses these people? I want to know, so that I can erradicate it from the planet.

My only wish is that eventually, they will all be dead, and that hopefully they will manage to do it in a way that doesn’t take anyone else with them, doesn’t burden an already swamped healthcare system, and more importantly, doesn’t manage to destroy the joy of motorcycling for the rest of us—those who always ride with full gear, ride safely and manage to not hit