Stay Dry! Stay Warm! Sit at Home with a VR Headset!
- Thread starter guzzirider
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guzzirider
Well-known member
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As long as they keep making bikes where you can turn all that crap off, I'm ok with it.
The more people that are able to ride motorcycles to their comfort and ability, the more the industry and companies within stay afloat and keep making motorcycles that I *do* like to ride. Inclusivity has it's benefits, even for those already in the club.
Also, I'm not a young man. I do foresee a time in the near future when my legs will not be strong enough to hold a tall bike upright, where my sense of balance won't be as good, when my left hand cramps up when pulling in the clutch, my reaction time not as quick. I bet then I won't complain that there are aids like self-balancing, auto-ride height, adaptive cruise control, ABS, IMU, automatic transmissions, LOLWTFBBQ, blah blah blah.
Tech that allows me to extend my riding years well past the visible horizon.
Personally, the disturbing trend for me is when they mandate things like front ABS being impossible to defeat, like the EU has done, then that bothers me.
Also, what does VR have anything to do with self-riding motorcycles? Are VR and piloting your own bike mutually exclusive? Impossible to enjoy both?
Spent last weekend playing this on my new laptop:
Does that mean I'm not as serious a rider as someone who doesn't play VR games?
If it does, then... Oh well... I'm okay with being a casual motorcyclist hack.
The more people that are able to ride motorcycles to their comfort and ability, the more the industry and companies within stay afloat and keep making motorcycles that I *do* like to ride. Inclusivity has it's benefits, even for those already in the club.
Also, I'm not a young man. I do foresee a time in the near future when my legs will not be strong enough to hold a tall bike upright, where my sense of balance won't be as good, when my left hand cramps up when pulling in the clutch, my reaction time not as quick. I bet then I won't complain that there are aids like self-balancing, auto-ride height, adaptive cruise control, ABS, IMU, automatic transmissions, LOLWTFBBQ, blah blah blah.
Tech that allows me to extend my riding years well past the visible horizon.
Personally, the disturbing trend for me is when they mandate things like front ABS being impossible to defeat, like the EU has done, then that bothers me.
Also, what does VR have anything to do with self-riding motorcycles? Are VR and piloting your own bike mutually exclusive? Impossible to enjoy both?
Spent last weekend playing this on my new laptop:
Does that mean I'm not as serious a rider as someone who doesn't play VR games?
If it does, then... Oh well... I'm okay with being a casual motorcyclist hack.
Relax
Well-known member
Your last sentence sums it up. It's a catch-22 situation. If adding self-driving tech increases sales, they'll just keep adding it to their lineup. Then when the government sees the "benefit" of this tech for a subset of people who really should have the skills but don't, they step in and mandate it on every vehicle. You can argue about the usefulness of ABS. Maybe even tire pressure monitoring. But rearview cameras baffle me. People can't be bothered to turn their head to look behind them when reversing? And since it can't be disabled, it blinds me at night even with the brightness turned all the way down causing a glare on the inside of the windows making it even harder to reverse.
North of Superior played at the Cinesphere was a form of VR and had timid people freaking out. Shut your eyes and you're just sitting in a chair. I miss it. Were there any motorcycle Imax films?As long as they keep making bikes where you can turn all that crap off, I'm ok with it.
The more people that are able to ride motorcycles to their comfort and ability, the more the industry and companies within stay afloat and keep making motorcycles that I *do* like to ride. Inclusivity has it's benefits, even for those already in the club.
Also, I'm not a young man. I do foresee a time in the near future when my legs will not be strong enough to hold a tall bike upright, where my sense of balance won't be as good, when my left hand cramps up when pulling in the clutch, my reaction time not as quick. I bet then I won't complain that there are aids like self-balancing, auto-ride height, adaptive cruise control, ABS, IMU, LOLWTFBBQ, blah blah blah.
Tech that allows me to extend my riding years well past the visible horizon.
Personally, the disturbing trend for me is when they mandate things like front ABS being impossible to defeat, like the EU has done, then that bothers me.
Also, what does VR have anything to do with self-riding motorcycles? Are they mutually exclusive? Impossible to enjoy VR *and* ride a motorcycle?
Spent last weekend playing this on my new laptop:
Does that mean I'm not as serious a rider as someone who doesn't play VR games?
If it does, then... Oh well... I'm okay with being a casual motorcyclist hack.
Relax
Well-known member
I don't know about motorcycling, but I do remember watching Super Speedway at the Cinesphere and it was great.
Not IMAX, but there was an Isle of Man 3D film:
Is anybody out there actually working on autonomous motorcycles? No, rider aids don't count
BMW. Of course...
After it comes back home, it will also post up a ride report... generated by AI, naturally...
The older I get, the more I realize how much of an old fart I sound like, yelling at clouds and everything.
*sigh*
guzzirider
Well-known member
Will motorcycles become cheaper since they will not need handlebars, controls, tach/speedo, brake levers and will require only a passenger seat?
Since there will be speed control there will be only need for less powerful engines.
Since there will be speed control there will be only need for less powerful engines.
Arthritis after 50 YO is an issue for turning heads to reverse or shoulder check.
So funny you say this.
A couple of decades ago, when I was teaching theory for the M2X course, we'd tell students to be wary of passing cars if the driver was wearing a hat - not a baseball cap, like a full-brim fedora, which was popular in the earlier half of the 1900s. It could signify a driver in his *ahem* Golden Years, and they have trouble turning their heads fully to do a shoulder check.
Well, fast forward to now, we no longer say that. If you wore a fedora before they fell out of fashion in the mid-1950s, then chances you're close to 100 years old today! Only people wearing fedoras these days are Gen-Z and Millennial hipsters.
Nowadays, we tell students to watch for drivers wearing Pink Floyd or Rush T-shirts. Those guys are now well into their 60s or older...
Pink Floyd or Rush T-shirts. Those guys are now well into their 60s or older.. hey I resemble that remark LOL
Part of aging gracefully as a motorcyclist is aligning ones' ACTUAL needs with our abilities/limitations while reconciling our preferences and tastes. I recognized that as much as I loved my ADV1090R the height and top heavy nature were limiting factors, affecting my enjoyment at times and creating risk beyond the reward. So I traded it in on a GasGas 700 that has a lower seat height and is one that I can swing a leg over while standing and not have to play cowboy by climbing up on the peg. I will also be able to dismount in tricky off road situations to bull the bike around which was impossible with the 1090. I've sacrificed fuel range and overall power but gain lighter weight, maneuverability and both feet on the ground confidence.As long as they keep making bikes where you can turn all that crap off, I'm ok with it.
The more people that are able to ride motorcycles to their comfort and ability, the more the industry and companies within stay afloat and keep making motorcycles that I *do* like to ride. Inclusivity has it's benefits, even for those already in the club.
Also, I'm not a young man. I do foresee a time in the near future when my legs will not be strong enough to hold a tall bike upright, where my sense of balance won't be as good, when my left hand cramps up when pulling in the clutch, my reaction time not as quick. I bet then I won't complain that there are aids like self-balancing, auto-ride height, adaptive cruise control, ABS, IMU, automatic transmissions, LOLWTFBBQ, blah blah blah.
Tech that allows me to extend my riding years well past the visible horizon.
Personally, the disturbing trend for me is when they mandate things like front ABS being impossible to defeat, like the EU has done, then that bothers me.
Also, what does VR have anything to do with self-riding motorcycles? Are VR and piloting your own bike mutually exclusive? Impossible to enjoy both?
Spent last weekend playing this on my new laptop:
Does that mean I'm not as serious a rider as someone who doesn't play VR games?
If it does, then... Oh well... I'm okay with being a casual motorcyclist hack.
As I intensely dislike most rider aid tech I bought a 1982 BMW R100RS last year that is being mechanically restored by a specialist. While I'm capable of following instructions and have hobby level mechanical aptitude, I wanted this acquisition to be reliable enough to be a daily rider for years to come. So the realist in me said, "Better get somebody better to work on it."
If I live long enough to get to the stage where I can't ride ANY motorcycle I likely won't be able to drive either.
Somewhere, in a cardboard box shoved deep in the back of one of my closets or storage room or garage, is an original Grace Under Pressure three-quartered sleeve concert shirt that I picked up at Maple Leaf Gardens.
If I really wanted to find it, I could hire one of those airport drug sniffing dogs to ferret it out...
Absolutely the hell not lol. The exact opposite. All of this **** makes them more expensive.
Not to mention, @Lightcycle pointed out that this crap will entice more people to buy in, apparently. I don't think it works like that. I don't think rider aides and tech grows the market size at all. "I was going to buy a motorcycle, but there wasn't enough technology, so now I won't buy any," said no one, ever. Rider aides and tech just steers certain riders away from the bikes that don't have them, and towards the bikes that do.
I think another way that the "more tech = growing the motorcycle economy" narrative is fake is that it ignores the fact that many of us who have bought brand new, simple motorcycles in the past, simply outright refuse to buy a new motorcycle ever again in the future, because the prices are so inflated.
Did you know that if you damage a TFT screen on a mid-size BMW, you'll be out of pocket over about $1,100+? Think about how much that TFT screen probably adds to your MSRP.
For an example, adding ABS to a new KLR adds $400 for the cost.
Now think about all of the different pieces of tech that weren't standard ten or fifteen years ago, and how much those must all add to MSRPs. Even wholesale, all of those sensors alone add up to hundreds of dollars, then you add the rest of the systems they need to function and we're in the thousands of dollars.
I didn't mind buying a brand new motorcycle... in 2009. It was simple, it was carbureted, and if my speedo failed or got damaged, it cost $19.99 to replace, not $1,199.99 to replace. I've owned literally dozens and dozens of motorcycles since, and I could never justify buying another new one since then.
See the truth is, for every rider that honestly thinks "yippee, I'll buy this new bike just because it has this technojunk!" there are a handful of us who think "I won't ever buy a new motorcycle because all of that tech I don't care about has made the price of new bikes blow up."
The manufacturers add this stuff to try to gain market share from another... but by alienating existing riders who don't care for it, they end up cannibalizing their own industry. And now, I'm going to have a beer and cry, because I just realized I sound like the dinosaurs in this business.
Remember y'all, in another 15 years, lane change alerts, proximity alerts, etc. will start to be very common, if not standard.
But right now, today, no one is saying "I won't buy a motorcycle, because it doesn't have lane change alerts, and proximity alerts so I guess I won't buy a motorcycle until they have that stuff."
All this stuff doesn't bring new rider money into dealerships... They're either going to come or they aren't.
But all this stuff does keep keep current rider money out of dealerships.
Yes, I am still crying in my beer.
But right now, today, no one is saying "I won't buy a motorcycle, because it doesn't have lane change alerts, and proximity alerts so I guess I won't buy a motorcycle until they have that stuff."
All this stuff doesn't bring new rider money into dealerships... They're either going to come or they aren't.
But all this stuff does keep keep current rider money out of dealerships.
Yes, I am still crying in my beer.
