Motoredbiking and the price of gas

[Large Filipino]

I Searched for a thread similar to this but I strangely didn't find anything close.
I'm just curious to your thoughts about our price of gas going up and up and how it impacts or benefits our hobby and for some,way of life.
Here's my thoughts. I wish really that gas would surpass 10 dollars an hour. Think about this. Less cars on the road. More tiny cars on the road. More people looking at this hobby. Already this hobby is growing fast.
Less cars on the road would probably also mean that maybe we can stay away from the bike trails for our roads may get a bit safer....maybe.
America. We have gotten pretty spoiled with many many years of cheap gas.
We've built Muscle cars that drink gas with big blocks and we drive huge SUV's while Europe has the smallest car in the world run by a 50cc moped engine and their best seller is that Smart car and that ugly car you see in Bean with the three wheels along with the Mini Cooper. There are even some countries where the number of bikes surpass the number of cars.
It's gonna happen. Soon big trucks while they're still mass producing them will not get sold....that's already happening.
Right now (and this is why I have this in this forum and not the white zone) Legislation is a guessing game when it comes to these bikes. Some states say this is a moped. Others say this is a motored assist bike. Some say you cannot ride this bike on the bike trails. Others say an electric bike is okay. Our laws around these bikes are based solely on the people's reactions to them. If enough voters say these are mopeds,then ride on the same street with speeding death cars. And that's the key. ENOUGH VOTERS.
You can write to your Congressman,but he's gonna ignore your plea for even he doesn't know what you are talking about.
This is why I PRAY for 10 dollar a gallon gas. When gas becomes too expensive for all then more will learn about this hobby. More will see the benefits and SAFETY in riding the bike trails over riding next to cell phone more important than your eyes on the road death car drivers. And in turn maybe we'll have ENOUGH VOTERS to vote that a motor assist bike is a bicycle and should be treated as such.
Then we can rejoice with the roadies. The sky will become clearer.Entire species of animals we had thought to be extinct will come back.
But on the other hand,less cars mean less registration money for the state. Less insurance premiums to cover Paris Hilton crashing into you she's the only person that can afford to still drive.
So that may mean were gonna get special plates so the state can make some money off of us again.
So what are your thoughts?

 

[gone_fishin]

i keep saying the administration is playing right into our evil plan..to save the world

health, both physical and mental, will improve. 30mph motoredbike accidents can't possibly cost that much, the insurance industry will take a beating, litigation will take a beating, health care will be able to afford itself. grass-root local manufacturing of MB's and components are a possiblility also...and it goes on and on...

nice post...one thing, i was tempted to edit out every instance of "hobby" and replace it with "motorsport"...i think we've earned the ranking

 

[mickey]

As much as I like motored biking and eco vehicles in general, I don't look forward to any large increase in energy costs. I like that I can benefit from the produce of distant laborers and travel, anywhere, in safety and comfort.

 

[kerf]

I love my bike too but $10 gasoline is an insane statement. If you want to live in a third world country, get on a plane and go but don’t mess up my world. We must stop the fools in Washington and tell them to DRILL IN ANWR and to GET THE CORN OUT OF MY GAS TANK. Crude oil is only good to burn in my car and bike, I can’t eat it. Mandating 10% - 15% ethanol in motor fuel is causing skyrocketing food prices, it’s a less efficient fuel and it cost more than gas. So why are we doing these things, two words, Global Warming.

Global Warming is the greatest Marxist lie ever told, increasing CO2 levels aren’t the cause of temperature increases, it’s the result. Ice core samples indicate that the correlation between CO2 and temperature is the exact opposite of the GW theory. The samples show increasing levels of CO2 follow temperature increases, it doesn’t precede it. Then what is the cause, go outside and look up at that big yellow thing, it has been the cause since this world has been here. Just last night, on the news, there was a story about the severity of this winter and that we are headed for GLOBAL COOLING unless sunspot activity increases.

I’ll end my little rant with the fact that the USA is 25% of the world economy and our country runs on oil. Outrageous energy prices will kill our economy and possibility result in world recession or even depression. I’ve lived through recession and it’s miserable. I've not been through a depression but my parents, God rest their souls, lived through the great depression and told me, “Son, you don’t want to go there”.

 

[Scottm]

I would love to commute solely by motorbike and could imagine it if I took the crazy idiots with cell phones in their cars off the road. My big hold up now is family. It's not feasible to motorbike kids to grandma's or mom's and sporting events. I can hear them now telling their grandkids. Yeah our dad made us ride our bikes to school when it was 20 degrees and snowing and uphill both ways. I've been tempted to leave my car at the school and ride my bike the rest of the way to work and back. But then we wouldn't be geting home till 6 or 6:30 pm and I woulld have to pay for before school day care and leave for work earlier.

It would knock a hard blows on ambulance chaser lawyers. But I'm also afraid to build a motoredbike for anyone because we can get sued for anything these days.

I have thought this through.

The world has been through dozens of ice ages and warm ups in it's history long before us evil Americans runied it.

 

[gone_fishin]

i don't look forward to rising costs either...but i do believe it's time to ponder the day when any carbon-based source of energy will be priceless, and "what's to be done about it" is an issue we have to discuss now.

i think Large' was talking to the interim struggle while we figure it out & present our best solution, and was expressing a desire to get on with it instead of clinging to the sinking ship we know as petro-energy..."necessity and invention" and all that good stuff...now that i do look forward to

 

[kerf]

Don't get me wrong, I like clean air and water as much as anyone. New sources of energy are also great but drive up the cost of energy as much as some want, we will save the planet, through mass starvation. Knee jerk reactions based on little fact, will fix nothing.

 

[mickey]

We have several hundred years of known reserves of the liquid stuff, at current usage. Coal gasification and/or tar sands can extend the hydrocarbon age for a thousand years further. What we don't have, excluding the middle east, is 4-dollar-a-barrel-at-the-well-head oil and a solution to the NIMBY problem of insufficient refining capacity to meet the world's needs. We still burn coal, natural gas, and fuel oil to produce electricity when nuclear power is a safe, proven, French-approved source and that represents a simple lack of political will. A truly free market in energy will bring a gradual increase in price and a corresponding increase in efficiency and the use of alternatives. The Invisible Hand yadda yadda.

No other source of energy has the attributes of energy density, ease of transport, and reliability of supply that oil represents.

I still like my bike though.

 

[gone_fishin]

me too, and i like that it uses so little of the controversial black-goo...i should stay outta topics about this stuff, no need to talk it when yer walkin' it

 

[mickey]

no need to talk it when yer walkin' it

Word.