03-09-2014, 04:14 AM
(03-09-2014, 03:11 AM)Red Mist_imp Wrote: Well the truth is we are mostly just a bunch of grumpy old men who are pissed off at all the young dudes, who are getting all the tail and are too young and dumb to know better.
Now ain't nobody here gonna tell me that when he was in his teens and twenties and thirties, he didn't put a pipe on his bike or do some kind of crazy stuff and do a lot of courtin' and sparkin'.
Now then, along comes kids and wife and house and mebbe a few nice bikes and cars and airplanes and boats, and all that stuff and over time we start to worry about losing those accumulations of worldly goods. So's we start to notice all the stupid dangerous stuff everyone else is doing that threatens our peaceable, productive lives.
Then we decide it's dangerous, wrong, stupid, misguided, and there oughta be a law.
Well, except for the stupid, dangerous stuff that we've decided is OK for us to do.
All o' my bikes are perfectly stock now and quiet as a cadre of churchmice and they're gonna stay that way. But it's the first time in 30 years. A lot of my bikes had loud pipes, some were well nigh earsplittin' and somehow I managed to make it all those years without anybody tryin' to pound my head because of the racket.
Now here is a philosophical-like qwestion: Should we all pay some kinda penance for our misguided youth?
Oh, I got the answer: bein' pissed off at the younguns for their youthful, reckless, ignorant abandon IS PENANCE.
Sure, even though I'm a little older now (50) I can make some allowances for youthful exuberance; however, all visual evidence I've seen is that most of the people with loud pipes on their cruisers -- and that is the most common type of bike around here -- are around my age or older. It's a lot harder to excuse obnoxious exhaust in our age group. I'm all for people acting young even when they're not, but not so much when it mindlessly intrudes upon other people's peace and quiet.
Super loud exhaust at our age marks you out as a dimwit IMO. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go yell at some kids on my lawn.
