Letters
LETTERS
head, more is to come, we motorcyclists are going to see the snake, too. There are forces at work here that think that Americans enjoy too much feedom. They’ll laugh me off as a crackpot, but fight with the cloak of silence to see that views such as mine are never disseminated, while all the time dreaming up safety laws “for your own good.
“What can I do?” you say? Well, we all know that an army is better than one soldier. Our army is the American Motorcyclist Association, The National Rifle Association, and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Join them and help out. Later is too, too late.
Mark Kostal
Bolingbrook, Illinois
The nighttime is the right time
Your “Baja Or Bust” story made the statement that on one day in particular, you all continued riding because “there was a lot of daylight left.” This makes me think you guys
may have missed one of the best parts of ATV riding: nights. Nightriding in a group is a blast on ATVs, even if all of them don’t have lights. You just lead off with a lighted one, then alternate, making sure the last one has lights.
The fun of night riding is evidenced at our annual Pumpkin Run Night Enduro, where ATVs now outnumber bikes 4 to 1.
Paul Malloy Titusville, Florida
On the warpath in Indiantown
The double-page spread on pages 60-61 of the August issue entitled, “The Other Side of 60 Minutes,” and “What We Can Do For ATV Safety!” made me see red.
Indiantown is a small village out in the “boonies” on the northern edge of the Florida Everglades. There is an inordinate number of ATVs here for the size of the town. They are ridden by “kids” of all ages, from six or seven on up. Little
kids ride adult machines without protective clothing of any sort (two or three do wear helmets); they sometimes ride twoand-three up, up and down the back streets of town and on trails in the adjacent woods where they negotiate steep banks of drainage ditches (dry much of the time). But I do not know of anyone ever getting hurt on them.
I’m just the sort of old fuddyduddy you’d expect to be opposed to these fun (and sometimes annoyingly noisy) vehicles, but I’m not. In fact, when I look out my window and watch them riding up and down the street, I turn green with envy. I think it’s great that those young folks have such fun machines to enjoy.
Not that I don’t have fun of my own. Never having ridden a motorcycle until I was over 63 years old, I have since ridden more than 80,000 miles in the last eight years, including two trips to New England and back on a little KZ440, which now has over 70,000 miles on the odometer.> I think CBS should be soundly trounced for airing that negative 60 Minutes broadcast. And our congressmen in Washington who are bent on “protecting” us from ourselves should be voted out of office.
Samuel H. Eastman Indiantown, Florida
Between Hogs
Paul Dean's August editorial set off alarm bells. Not that I felt any real longing for a motorcycle when I was six years old; but more so now, here, today.
I am among those unfortunate bikers who are momentarily afoot, or as I prefer to think of it, “between Harley-Davidsons.” Each time I see someone enjoying our sport, I get the wishful longings you attributed to the kid in the car. Actually, it’s worse, because I know what Em missing.
If it weren't for the usurious interest rates charged for motorcycle financing. I'd be back in the saddle again. I will, however, soon be able to pay cash for my new Hog, and will gleefully thumb my nose at the banks as I ride off into the sunset.
Scott Barber
San Francisco, California
Progress, intelligently managed
I recently ran across a 1966 CYCLE WORLD test of a Kawasaki 250. I was amazed to find that this bike was quicker, faster, lighter and, of course, cheaper than a Ninja 250. Kawasaki calls this twenty years of progress?
Jon C. Meese Montclair, California
Just remember that the sum total of "quick, ” "fast, " "light" and "cheap" is not "better. ” s
