I'm a freelance computer programmer. In my spare time, I run, circuit train with the army, mountain bike and do martial arts. I am also training to become a personal trainer with the plan to pack in the day job and make a living out of fitness (might never happen but I really need to get out of office work).

I'm also a motorcyclist.

What do you ride?

Lot of bikers here...not me though.

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Get it sorted...and get it sorted early.

The bus.

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GONE RUNNING

Ahh its all good fun, i road raced for a few years.....but ran out of money.

I then went through a faze of buying the newest spanking and fastest kit you can buy.....my last venture was a Crescent Suzuki GSXR-1000 K5 special. It produced 180bhp, and i saw 186mph on the clock.

Sadly....years of racing including race schools till my knees bled....gave me way tooo much confidence, way tooo much ego.....and on a sunday afternoon last year i decided to show a few lads on their bikes how fast i can ride.....fine left them 5-6 miles up the road.

Got to a round about decided to go round it at silly speed.....as i exited i high sided through the road not being grippy as a race track would and i ended hitting a transit van on coming.

Free ride in a Helicopter though, and a nice nurse fondeling my balls.

Before



After

Just as well it wasn't a kid or something crossing the road eh?

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In place of the oncoming transit van? Unless of course it was going the wrong way around the roundabout?

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I've got a Honda 600 Hornet. I've started playing around with it recently. Cut off the rear footpegs and put twin headlights on the front.

I'm hoping to get GSXR-750 soon but I'll probably still keep the hornet for a while

I've got a 750 Gixer ! - Luv it ........ go on - get one, best bike I've owned !

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Premiership by the end of the 2009 :D

If a kid was crossing on that stretch of road, he's either really really stupid or his parents need to be shot for being bad parents!

Natural selection in both cases......it was a isolated road, and high sides tend to happen when you are changing direction....i.e. as i was exiting the round about. The van was entering the round about.

Iv had loads of GSXR 750's great great balanced bike. I used them loads for road racing (they fall into the class well)

The New Gixer 750 is a super piece of kit, and in the right hands can a be a potent tool.

The police in Sussex take bets on how many weekend warriors are going to die on sunny weekends I'm told. The amount of deaths is very sad and there's often no other vehicle involved. Perhaps people do need track days so they can control these powerful machines safely.

I used to work with horses until I was trampled in a field and decided to give it up! ..... went on to be a self-employed jewellery designer but realized that I didn't like being stuck at home all day on my own (very lonely). Now I work in a very nice Boutique selling expensive clothes to ladies who lunch and have far to much money! (Nice staff discounts though!) I still do the jewellery on the side and sell from my website. When I'm not at my paid job I spend my time being a free taxi service to 2 children and a cook, cleaner and bottle washer to husband and afore mentioned children. Not forgetting looking after 18 chickens, 2 ducks, 1 dog and a rabbit! When I get a spare 5 minutes I run!!

Sadly its no laughing matter...i lost 2 freinds in the space of 12months, both in bike accidents. Both killed by bad drivers!

The standard of driving is astonishing!!! Iv travelled all over the world and i can say the british are the worst. I think every one should have to do a motorbike test before getting a car licence.

Ill try and find a paper somewhere i was reading where study was done into bike deaths in 2005-2006, lots were from people pulling out on bikers.

.........I would class myself as a fairly "good" rider, i have a FIM race licence and also i am AIM trained. Last year i spent alot of time working with Road Safe (on there track days) a police organisation training bikers for all road conditions.

How ever in my instance....i stepped over the marker, and the road surface (we call in shale) that builds up on the exit of a round about caused me to lose traction, bit like trying to run on marbles......mine was a very very rare accident.

The other big killer is left hand turns, people go in.....panic bang the brakes on and skittle across the road, either being killed by telegraph poles, cars or the normal inccidnet where by as they move over curbs the spine gets broken, and also the C spine vertabra normally resulting in death or severe parallisis.

...............Going back to it, sending people on track days is NOT the answer, as it will give people the miss guided judgement that they can ride fast.

The way to stop Bike deaths is to educate riders on smooth control of their machine and how to corner confidently.

And more so......educte other road users of the way motorbikes move and behave, how to judge junctions properly....sadly as a car driver, i can say we are amongst the worst in the world.

Various views... I'd agree sending people on track days is not the answer to get people to understand their machines, though people need to realise that the track is the place for riding fast, the road is simply not meant for driving/riding fast.

I also agree there's some bloody terrible motorists on the road, and in reality the best way to compensate for this is to drive with the expectation that any driver around you could do the stupidest thing at any time. Teaching people how to ride their bikes 'properly' is surely only going to encourage the the idea that they are able to handle the speed better, giving them even less chance of survival when something beyond their control happens? (shale, roadworks, parked car, puddle across road, tightening bend, driver pulling out of junction..).

I'm very sorry to hear of the loss of your friends stacka - drivers really do need to be educated better on the whole. Just as an example, it shocks me the number of times I get into a car with people and approach a roundabout in completely the wrong lane as they just don't seem to grasp the basic concept of how roundabouts work!

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