Originally Posted by vader1

Just sold my bike yesterday. Back to cages exclusively.

Originally Posted by TommyDeVito

Very bad idea. I ride very weekend, twisties or track only. You'll be in the morgue commuting these days. Too many surfing on their phones. Don't do it. If you ever thinking about getting a bike, ATGATT, which means full suit, armored gloves/boots,,back protector, full face helmet, and lots of training (MSF + Track instruction). I commuted circa 1999-2001. You couldn't pay me to do it today. Amazing that my knee an inch or two off the ground out in my twisties is safer than your local city street or highway. My sportbikes are parked Mon-Fri.

Had a guy this past Sunday try to kill me. Brake checked me on an overpass and he had his whole foot in it. I locked the front up, it started to wash out, I let go so I wouldn't wash the front out and go down and covered the rear brake ready stomp on it until the bike stops. Guy had it in for bikes, started wagging his finger at me, at which point I flipped him off. No idea why he was so upset, I never even reached his rear bumper. I had downshifted into first, he goes to brake check a second time and I flick it and pass him on the service road of the overpass. I'm just clear of his front bumper and he swerves at me with everything he had, attempted vehicular manslaughter. Guy ahead of me is in a Camaro doing normal speed for this overpass, probably 50 mph. Douche had slowed to 35mph in his Ford CUV which is why I was closing on him. Since the Camaro driver wasn't being a douche I just keep a couple car lengths gap. Watched my mirror and Mr. CUV is tailgating. Downshifted again, ready to do a pass on the Camaro and escape this insanity if need be. From the mirror I could see his missus in the passenger seat chewing the driver out royally so he backed off to a car length. We finally merge onto the highway and I vanished like an aircraft. Had I not spent years at the track, taking and re-taking MSF courses (experienced class I took many times just to go through the slow speed maneuvers over and over) I could have died. You lock the front brake and you've got traffic behind you, you're going down and will be run over and likely die. I tell you this story because I care. Don't commute on a motorcycle. It's not worth your life. The weekend, if you've got farm roads, a mountain, or canyons, then it's a blast. Just be prepared for asshatery on the way there and back. Nothing I did in closing on this guy was worthy of a full pedal brake check nor attempted manslaughter when he tried to swerve at me and take me out. But I always keep a margin for the extreme. This was not a regular occurrence. Something like this once every few years however.