The Risk Continuum

It is de rigeur on the web these days to read about the appalling risk we take when we go out on the highways on only two wheels. To read these comments is to be forced to the conclusion that appearing on the highway on as little as two wheels is a death wish. Particularly if one is not wearing ATTGAT . Even more so if one is so foolish as to ride on small wheels like these: ATTGAT sounds ugly, but it simply means all the gear all the time. As with any abbreviation its does not specify what "all" is in either case. Nevertheless this subject is focused upon so intently that it doesn't take long to figure out what it really means. It means risk reduction from the outside. Its advocates mean well but as advocates frequently do, they see only a small picture while they preach so hard. Watch someone die in bed of a lingering disease and decapitation has its good side.

People who ride with all the gear all the time note that they are the objects of derision but such derision leads them to adopt a preachy tione that can be desperately annoying and to a contrarian such as myself leads me to think harder about wearing sandals while riding. I read on one blog the notion that because a motorcyclist is riding not-ATTGAT at 70 mph he just wants to die. As though the author has some divine dispensation from death thanks to a kevlar-lined jacket.

It has been pointed out that one would do well to wear a helmet while driving a car where head injuries are as fatal as those suffered by motorcyclists, but it doesn't look as dangerous inside a car and it definitely would look sillier. So no apostle of ATTGAT suggests a helmet in a car. Except race car drivers who also wear flame proof suits

I wear a modest open faced helmet which is a bad risk factor for my jaw, I wear gloves, and I try to carry a great deal of concentration. I don't ride on ice but I do ride on smaller wheels than the average motorcycle; mine are 12 inches at the front and 13 inches at the back and a lot of people with no knowledge will tell you I am taking my life into my own hands. What a nice place to put one's life!

So why not ATTGAT myself? I could spend a thousand dollars on the gear, but its not the expense. Its hot in South Florida, but they do sell vented gear. People think all the gear looks odd all the time, but I don't care what others think. No the reason I don't ATTGAT comes from somewhere else. Buggered if I know exactly where though. Force of habit perhaps, or the proverbial old dog and new tricks, something like that. Perhaps partly it comes from the discomfort and the complexity of a life bound in kevlar.

One of the amazing things about modern automobiles is their convenience. Not only are they climate controlled and sound deadened, they offer a stable platform to travel in, to make phone calls from and to eat lunch. Having said all that why bother with two wheels? Why bother to sit out in the rain and sun and not be able to take a phone call? Technically i suppose I could take a call with hands-off equipment but the point is that more than ever a motorcycle or scooter offers a respite from all this.

And the ability to just jump on and take off heightens the liberation that a scooter provides. And a death wish I suppose though I don't see it that way.

Speed kills, cell phones render drivers of cages irresponsible, its only a matter of time until you fall and so on.

I have seen the needle pegged at 96 on the turnpike (possibly 87 "real" miles per hour) but I'm usually trundling along between 50 and 70 on my daily rounds. Dangerous? I suppose it could be. Yesterday I was riding in Big Pine and a car stopped in front of me to turn left. It was an older model Cadillac with faint brake lights and it gave me a fright- but I slowed, and swerved round it, in control and focused once again on the road. Had I been tailgating....As it is I have 37 years experience riding in all sorts of conditions and making all kinds of mistakes. Experience counts for more than even I realise. Its by exposing myself to the inexperienced on the web that I learn how much I already do know. I have yet to exhibit a death wish.


I have sailed a great many miles and have answered numerous fears about pirates and storms and getting lost and drowning and on and on. Not many people ever asked about the most joyous moment afloat, or the most beautiful sight or the deepest satisfaction. They make it a point to reassure themselves that by failing to act on their "dreams" they are being sensible.


Of course when one chooses to live in the Florida Keys one opens oneself up to that other charge of recklessness and foolhardiness. When I was a California resident it was earthquakes that kept my interlocutors engaged. Now its hurricanes, and all I can say is that i do my best to be prepared, and isn't it nice that the rest of the time the weather down here is so delightful?

I could be living in Missouri and facing the New Madrid fault, or drowning in monsoon flood waters in Bangladesh or Britain. Instead I live in paradise, they say.


I write these words in hopes that they may inspire me when and if I lose everything to a storm or mobility to a wreck. Its not a challenge to Fate its an acknowledgement that life itself is a risk and there is no way out but Death. I reinforce my belief that the only way to cope is to do one's best. I am luckier than some, their taste for adventure is such that they can only cross the boredom threshold by actually putting their lives at risk. They are the true risk takers, mountaineers, parachutists, record setters of an extreme type. I just ride a scooter for fun, until the end of the road, wherever that may be.