I wasn’t sure how I was going to approach this, but while my drywall mud is setting I had a few minutes to think about it. This article comes (with permission to publish) from my friend Jason over at KFYR Radio News:

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) The Highway Patrol says man riding a motorcycle was arrested and ticketed for traveling 101 miles over the speed limit.
Troopers say 19-year-old Vitaly Poberezhnik (POH’-bears-nick) was clocked at 176 miles per hour Friday afternoon.
Captain Mark Bethke says the motorcycle was clocked from a trooper airplane, about 10 miles east of Bismarck on Interstate-94.
Bethke says the trooper who made the traffic stop said he could hear the motorcycle coming before he saw it. The trooper says it was just a blur as it went past.
Bethke says Poberezhnick was issued tickets for speeding and reckless driving.
Bethke says the fee for going 176 miles an hour in a 75 mile an hour zone is 505 dollars. He says Poberezhnik license is suspended, and 15 points have been charged to his license. That means he doesn’t have it any more.
Bethke says it’s the fastest speeding ticket he can recall in North Dakota.

So here’s my random thoughts on the whole deal:

It would be kinda hypocritical for me to be too hard on this guy, since I’ve done 176 mph on numerous occasions and been pulled over a few times for goofing around on one motorcycle or another. I could almost say I haven’t had a ticket this century, but sadly I did have a bit of an infraction in 2000. But we’re violation-free ever since. But there I go digressing again.

Apparently this guy was also involved in that multi-bike crash on March 8th over on the Expressway Bridge, but fled. That’s according to the Bismarck Tribune article I saw, if I remember correctly. On a brand new bike…a friend of mine owns the Kawasaki shop in town, and he has seen a lot of the bikes he’s sold come back wrecked within a week, such as one of the March 8th bikes. Sad.

One thing you don’t do if you’re a speeder: do it on the Interstate or Highway 83. It’s just too heavily patroled! They got this fella with the airplane, which I didn’t know they were still using, and officers on the ground. Talk about a bad day to test out the bike.

Then there’s the fact that you ruin a new engine if you take it to top speed within a certain number of miles. I have been breaking in new sportbike engines since the 1980s and have NEVER had a bad or weak engine because I break them in properly. You do it by doing lots of short rides, getting the engine up to full temperature, making it work under moderate load and medium RPMs, then let it cool. Heat cycles and moderate load are the key. Running high RPMs on a new engine like that will either score or glaze the cylinders, and then your engine is ruined (or will never reach its full potential).

I knew right away the guy was riding a Suzuki. I too have a Suzuki 1000 and it’s pretty much the only literbike out there that can even attain such a speed. The computer shuts down the fuel at 186mph but the speedometers are slightly inaccurate, so it would indicate 186 at 176. Yamahas and Hondas can’t attain this speed, and I don’t know of any new Kawasaki 1000’s out there yet. I wish I had one, the plan was in place until I found out I was destined for daddyhood. 3 bikes is gonna have to suffice for now.

I’ve seen a lot of new riders out there this year – no helmets. No protective eyewear. No jackets in many cases. No gloves or boots. Yikes. I’m a walking scar these days due to mountain biking and other sports, including a nasty crash that hurt me really bad despite the protective gear. These days I prefer to ride in my leather racing suit; it looks like I got dragged behind the bike for a couple miles due to a few crashes on the racetrack, but I have yet to get too seriously injured while wearing it.

While it’s easy to judge the flashy bikes that look like they’re breaking the law even while they’re sitting still, I still say the percentage of Harley-Davidson® riders in this town that misbehave is as high or higher. Their bikes are louder, and since Harley riders mistake noise for horsepower, they all grab as much throttle from stoplights as they can, in order to reinforce the “bad motor scooter” stereotype they spent tens of thousands to portray. But since their ranks include doctors and lawyers and real estate agents, they’re not as easy a target. I’ll say one thing, though: you always see Harleys lined up outside the bars at night – you never see lines of sportbikes parked out there. Ponder that one for a while.

Not to excuse the behavior of sportbike riders. I’ll admit that in my younger days, I was crazier than the rest. While I’ll never be one of those guys who “used to ride,” I have tamed down a lot. But when I see newspaper reports of a guy who flipped his motorcycle over backwards in a wheelie while speeding with someone’s drunk 14 year old daughter on the back (you think I’m kidding? That HAPPENED.) it reminds me of why people glare at me when I’m doing 24.9 mph in full safety gear through their neighborhood.

One thing that none of these guys – the sportbike guys popping wheelies in traffic OR the Harley-Davidson® riders roaring around as loudly as they can – understand is that they’re not impressing anybody. All they’re doing is making people angry, and adding to the numbers of people that dislike motorcycles. They don’t care if you held a wheelie all the way across the Expressway Bridge or hit the apex perfectly around Airport Road at 120mph. They certainly don’t buy into the fallacy going around out there among the H-D crowd that “Loud Pipes Save Lives!” either. All they know is they don’t want to have to hear it, see it, dodge it. I finally figured that one out in my mid-20s.

Yep, that’s me. I know the pic is grainy – it came from video
That’s when I decided to take it to the race track. Racing allows a guy to go as fast as he wants without fear of tickets, cars, curbs, chip-seal, and (most of the time, in Minnesota) wildlife. It’s the biggest thrill, and makes street riding seem dangerous by comparison, which it truly is. Try convincing your parents or girlfriend that going faster is safer…it doesn’t really work. But it’s true – the surface conditions are known, the traffic and obstacle problem of the street isn’t there – and the fact that a guy can go out and wring his throttle hand till it’s numb and come home with a smile on his face is testament to that. I’ve crashed on the track at speeds that would land me in jail on the street, and raced the next morning. That’s where the real riding is.

What the result of this arrest, and the resulting publicity, will mean for motorcyclists is a crackdown. Any leniency motorcycle riders used to have with law enforcement is certainly spent for the year. If these new rider nippleheads keep crashing their bikes before they have time to bolt a license plate on it, my insurance will continue to go up. Hey guys, try insuring six bikes sometime – it’s not fun, even with a clear driving record! I’m actually glad I sold a few right before I got married. So I expect now, after the radio/tv/print news has told us of the latest sportbike accomplishment, to have even more dirty looks from passers-by, more self-proclaimed know-it-alls telling me how dangerous “those bikes” are, and I’m sure a second look from any law enforcement personnel in the area.