Moto Broad

I swear, I’m not riding my bike for fun. I’m riding it to save the environment. Well, at least, to save my wallet.

Damage from Hurricane Ike has put a kink in the gas supply pipeline for the Southeast. The shortfall is exacerbated by the particular “clean” gas mandated for the Atlanta metro area: it’s hard enough to get gas, harder still to get the designer blend. Governor Sonny Perdue was a little late applying for an exemption, so relief has been delayed. (It really adds to Georgia’s sheen of sophistication to have a governor named “Sonny,” doesn’t it?)

The situation is exacerbated by the dramatic posturings of news anchors (after all, hyperbole sells more ads, right? These are the same guys who populate Severe Weather Warning Command Central Headquarters, warning us of impending sleety doom if the temperature drops below 60). Local motorists overreact, and suddenly the Escalades and F-150s are lined up for half a mile at the QuikTrip.

I’m lucky: I don’t have to commute, and most of my clients are out of town, so I drive 40 miles to the airport, park, disappear for three days, and drive home. Otherwise, I’m chained to the keyboard, writing. But I have a couple of local gigs coming up, and I’ve warned my clients that I may show up on the bike, with my hair looking even worse than usual.

If there’s absolutely no gas (and I saw quite a few empty stations today), eventually it will catch up with me, too. But the Honda’s full, and if I can find premium, I can fill the bike with much less than the $20 limit we’re seeing at some stations. I can go about 180 miles on a tank, and, even in Atlanta, that’ll hold me for a while.

Calm down. It’s not “Mad Max” out there yet. And it won’t be, if y’all will just go back to watching NASCAR and stop watching the news.

What a gorgeous day! After a chilly start, there were blue skies and skittering white clouds, and temperatures topping out in the high 70s. A friend and I rode our bikes up to Year One in Braselton for the Year One/Chip Foose Braselton Bash, a car show to benefit the Progeria Research Foundation.

And here are more photos.

We parked in the special motorcycle parking area, amid lots of Harleys and custom jobs, and just a few sport bikes. Most of the show cars were old Chevrolets and Fords. But there were also kit-car Porsche 356s and a kit Shelby. I understand wanting to build a kit — the paint jobs and interior workmanship were great — but it was odd to see them identified as if they were the real thing (”1967 Shelby.” No, it isn’t.). Only when you looked closely could you see the manufacturer plates revealing their true ancestry.

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In the MSF class, the instructors harped on conspicuity, which is a chewy word for visibility. I’ve caught myself overlooking bikers in all black, on their black low-slung cruisers, with their half-watt taillights, so I know how easy it is to not see us.

So I ordered a yellow helmet, thinking, “well, it’ll be ugly, but it’ll be safer.” I’ve never had a piece of yellow clothing, nor lusted after anything yellow. I’m a teal/taupe person from way back.Yellow was so not my fave. So I purtied it up by ordering a spiffy iridium shield.

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