Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I think most of us are guilty of doing some really dumb stuff when we were younger. And the older I get, the dumber those things begin to look.
Guilty as charged.
I participated in a group ride from a Honda/Kawasaki dealer. Probably about 40 bikes. We were all behaving nicely until we hit I-20. Then some idiot shifted down and took off and like lemmings we all followed suit. Ran all the way through Grand Prairie at 12,000 rpm in 6th indicating 150 on a 1989 Kawasaki ZX600C2 Ninja. (factoring speedometer error probably about 135-140). Backed down to 120 through Duncanville and into Dallas so my friend on an EX500 could catch up (indicated top speed of 135)
When we hit Central Expressway, the big bikes had flat run away from us leaving me, a Turbo Seca, the EX500, and a Kawasaki Concours. We stopped at an all night pizza place by the bars. We could hear the bikes coming back down Central. They must have turned around. They were followed by a chorus of police sirens. A police helicopter blasted our bikes with it's searchlight for a good 10 seconds....felt like 10 minutes. If there had been a policeman in the restaurant we would have been busted just by the looks on our faces. But then I guess he saw the giant touring fairings on the Concours and Seca and decided that we weren't the bikes he was looking for.
If we weren't through being young and dumb, we raced a pair of Fox-Body 5.0 Mustangs on the way home. They couldn't pass the EX500 on top speed so maybe the 135 indicated on the Kawi's speedometer wasn't so inaccurate. They certainly couldn't pass my 600 and over 140 I was walking away from them.
Ran away from a thunderstorm on my later GSX-R from the Red River to Ft Worth down I-35 and I-35W well into triple digits. It's trajectory allowed it to eventually catch me near downtown. Got soaked but was close to home when I did at least.
Dumb dumb dumb.
I learned. Apparently the Dallas Police did not but I did. I was participating in another group ride early on a Sunday morning on my GSF400 Bandit years later. We were a little above the speed limit. Not to a stupid degree but above the posted mark. Went past a cop and he took off after us. When his overhead lights went on a cacophony of screaming engines blared out at us from ahead leaving me and an 883 Sportster behind. He had us. My 400 4 cylinder could easily out-accelerate the big Crown-Vic but I'm fairly certain the Ford would have had a higher top speed. The 883 probably couldn't have out accelerated the Police Interceptor from 70mph and definitely would have had a lower top speed. With the pedal nailed firmly to the floor the CVPI whipped around us on the right (while I was signalling right to pull over) and went in pursuit of all the bikes that were running. We went to a nearby coffee shop. Unscathed, unticketed, and at sane and mostly legal speeds.
Reminds me of the time I worked for a fly by night company and was driving a Ford 28 foot flat-bed with twice the legal weight of wrought iron in 98 F temperatures, after transferring the load by hand from an identical vehicle that blew out three of the four back tires because he did not fill his tires to 15 PSI over rated before leaving. I would pull over for five minutes, about every 5 minutes when the back end felt like it was on ice, to let the rubber cool so they would not bow. After dark the tires stayed cool enough that I did not have to pull over.
Back then the national speed limit was reduced to 55 to save gas, and I held 63 because that was the max you could do without getting pulled over. While the sun was still up, a group of Harleys go by at over 70 and a few minutes later red lights are flashing in my rear view. For a second I thought 63 was not slow enough, but fortunately he passed me by and went after the Harleys.
