My Self-Esteem Depends On Your Tire Choice

Something strange is happening to the way we view public discourse in America. We were once a country of fierce and passionate argument on nearly every topic ranging from King George and his repressive taxation to the war in Vietnam. This was once a place where both sides presented their arguments and fought it out with the bulletin, the ballot box, or the bullet.

No longer. Today, the most common cry regarding any particular topic of controversy is that it be suppressed. We don't need to talk about abortion --- that's settled. We don't need to talk about a Basic Income grant --- that's ridiculous. We don't need to talk about income inequality or bakers being forced to make cakes for causes they find repugnant or military adventurism or the idea that humans of different "races" or "genders" might actually be different from the neck up as well as the neck down. Bring up any hot-button topic in this country and your opponents won't be trying to disprove your assertions; they'll be demanding that you be shut up.

This attitude isn't limited to the pundits or the professional politicians. It's spread like Ebola (oh yeah --- we aren't supposed to discuss why Ebola patients are being flown to geographically diverse locations for no apparent reason --- that's "ignorant") to even the nicest regular people out there. And so we find the exceptionally meek and gentle Wes Siler, my occasional colleague and fellow CTS-V Challenge competitor, taking time away from his hipster-guide-to-emulating-the-activities-of-real-men-using-as-many-Urban-Outfitters-items-as-possible "Indefinitely Wild" blog so he can call for the suppression of a debate.

Yesterday R&T published a version of an article I'd written about "Darksiders". That's the name adopted by a diverse group of touring motorcyclists who have decided to use car tires on their bikes. I think Darksiding is a fascinating phenomenon. It's American in the traditional sense: these are people who are ignoring the status quo and the instructions on the box to come up with new and different ways to use things.

It's also perfectly in line with the actual spirit of motorcycling. Men (yeah, mostly) have been using motorcycles for purposes beyond that for which they were originally designed since, um, pretty much forever. The Pre-Cambrian explosion of motorcycles into tourers, sportbikes, naked bikes, choppers, cruisers, ADV rides, dirt bikes, enduro bikes, dual-purpose bikes, trikes, Can-Am Spyders and whatnot all sprang from people "misusing" their Super Cubs or Harleys or Indians or CB750s.

I do not personally endorse "darksiding". Nor do I personally condemn it. I'm not a touring rider; with the exception of a single two-up run around Columbus on a BMW 1200LT many years ago, I avoid the big bikes. I have no dog in the fight. However, I'm interested in what the phenomenon says about tire technology and real-world adaptation. Therefore, I wrote about it for both TTAC and R&T. It did not occur to me that I was doing anything irresponsible by covering the Darksiders and their activities, particularly since I linked to an industry-PR source condemning the activity as well.

That, however, did not satisfy Wes, who managed to get FIRST POST on the article:

This is a pretty irresponsible article guys. I hope people don't read it and actually fall for this car tire bullshit... it's the ignorance of the unique vehicle dynamics required by a two wheeler that created the myth that this is a safe thing to do

Well, if "Wild" Wes thinks it's "irresponsible" to discuss "darksiding" in public I assume he just hides in the closet and pisses his pants every time CNN reports on ISIS or shows a beheading. This attitude --- that is it "irresponsible" to have any discussion other than the PR-approved sales message --- is what's killing American journalism. This is a guy who has had no fewer than three life-threatening crashes pretending to be a racer on the streets because he's never managed to put a number plate on his motorcycle and actually race it. Is it "irresponsible" of him to discuss his riding and his crashes in public? Of course it isn't. Nobody is advocating child molestation here; we're talking about different ways to operate a motorcycle.

As far as "the myth that this is a safe thing to do", the problem with that is that Darksiders have logged millions of incident-free miles on car tires. Is what they are doing perfectly safe? Maybe not. Is there any evidence that carefully chosen car tires are not as safe as bike tires on touring bikes? Not yet. I'll tell you this: Darksiding is absolutely safer and less "irresponsible" than the 169mph wheelie Wes promoted on his site a while back.

Why don't we do this: I'll ride a Gold Wing across the country on a car tire, and Wes can do a 169mph wheelie across the country, and we'll see who survives.

I suspect that Mr. Siler's real problem with Darksiding is that there's no PR money in it. Car tire manufacturers won't send you on junkets and bike tire manufacturers will. Therefore, the anti-darksiding tripe has become standard operating procedure for the bike-journo industry which incidentally makes autojournos look like paragons of rigid ethics.

But Wes isn't the only guy who's personally upset about it. A commenter by the name of "Bruce Steever" posted multiple times attacking the credentials of Darksiders. When another commenter stated that he had put more than 50,000 safe miles under his car tire, Steever whined

Any advanced training? Any cross-discipline riding?

and then persecutes the Darksider for having none of that stuff. But what the fuck does it matter? If I put 50,000 safe miles on a car tire and I'm not an advanced rider --- if I'm the worst, most unsafe, uneducated rider in history --- doesn't that prove the theory? If an "advanced rider" could handle any situation but a "squid" can't, and the squid is out there putting more safe miles on a car tire than most people will ride in a lifetime --- doesn't that lack of qualification and skills further make the case for the safety of Darksiding?

Looks like advanced training in motorcycling is far more common than advanced training in logic.

Of course, there are the usual swipes at me as a "car guy". I am absolutely a car guy but I've owned six motorcycles and have been riding since 1992, in a variety of conditions including rain and snow. I'm not a licensed motorcycle racer but then neither is Wes Siler. (Digression: I'd love to be a licensed motorcycle racer. Problem is I weigh 240-plus pounds and have broken my wrists three times each on a bicycle already, plus my neck. I doubt my motorcycle-racing career would be glorious or particularly long-lasting.) This belief that there's something special-snowflakey about riding a motorcycle is ridiculous. There are more motorcyclists around the world than there are drivers. Motorcycles are the default; cars are the exception. All you need to ride a motorcycle is awareness and vision and common sense.

And, of course luck.

So maybe all these Darksiders have just been lucky. If so, we don't need to suppress them; we need to put them in the little Matrix cages and suck the luck out of them. After all, America hasn't just suffered from a shortage of rational debate lately. Aren't we short on luck, too?