90s early internet/BBS punk rocker/computer nerd. Hated school angry.
Dropped out to work as a bike messenger for 5 years before packing a bag and moving west randomly. Couldn't sit still. Rode freight trains around the country for a few months.
Washed dishes and landscaped to cover my cheap rent till that fell thru. Discovered shop lifting. Covered food and beer stealing from local progressive grocery store chain. Stole goods to sell on CL to cover my rent. That scam went tits up and narrowly escaped serious charges after the head of loss prevention from a regional retailer caught up to me
Was sleeping in the park--this was pre super meth/fentanyl crisis so street living was a bit more stable and low key. Didn't want to wash dishes or dig holes any more so looked around on CL. Found a small company trying to bootstrap a regional office for an established linux-related open source company. Worked for free / interned using a stolen laptop for a year or so while sleeping outside or couch surfing local punk houses.
Eventually got hired on for s but stayed for a couple years and made many FOSS connections. Eventually left to join a well known FOSS-centered company that was fully remote.
Told myself when I was young that I would never work in an office. ~15 years later and I never have ,but now work in bit tech, get paid too much, own a home and have a great family with kids who play at the same parks I used to crash at. We shop (and pay) at the same stores I used to crib from.
I'm respected and tenured at my gig but Imposter syndrome still holds me back. Nobody I work with knows where I came from and thankfully have nothing incriminating that would block a background check
Had to look away to stop from tearing up in Panera a few times at the end.
Sending this to my sister who has had struggles like this. She recently finished her BS and hopes to be an counselor or therapist after finishing her masters.
Thank you for sharing. It’s refreshing to see that there are people who will take a chance on you. Your story helps with the burnout of pushing through with little to no results and exponentially diminishing resources.
I haven’t been so lucky, I joined a tiny startup in 2018 that shut down a year later, landed contract work in 2019 that was meant to convert into full-time, but was let go due to the pandemic right before converting. My most recent employer fired me on christmas of 2022.
I had a falling out with friends because they wouldn’t refer me for any role including tech sales. My uni wouldn't consider me for a master's degree because my microprocessor architecture professor wasn't "comfortable" writing a rec letter despite me sitting front of class and getting an A, all while practically begging students to apply (all 2/2 people that applied got into the program). Even in grade school my 2nd grade teacher was fired for lying to my parents that I was underperforming in school and that I needed to get kicked out of the talented and gifted program and repeat the grade. I still don't know what to make of all of this.
I haven’t been able to land phone screenings, let alone a first round interview anywhere. I am having a hard time getting minimum wage work due to being "over-qualified". I've been priced out of my hometown. I’ve completed web development, data science, and cloud infra bootcamps as a way to up-skill while also having a degree in electrical engineering. I would consider myself adaptable: I've worked in designing/improving electrical hardware, reverse engineering, web, mobile.
I am first-gen American, grew up homeless, but received a world-class education. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a blacklist somewhere, or if I need to fall further for something to finally click. I guess I’m just having a really long bad luck streak, so here’s to hoping something better is around the corner!
I could've never imagined long-term-thinking like this from a former addict.
<3
Also, Preston Thorpe (who Gavin mentions as inspiration) has an interesting story as well: https://pthorpe92.dev/intro/my-story/
I’m a software engineer née scientist, but my spouse is a therapist who specializes in addiction. They (and I!) cherish stories like yours because we had seen up-close the struggle that so many people face.
A good felon buddy of mine has been out now for 4 years. He slowly built a car repair business, with steady clientele, and got his life back on track – including reasonable sobriety and a steady relationship. He and his girl would cruise around often, enjoying their newfound happiness.
Last week he totaled his Harley and his body (destroyed bike, multiple broken bones). Total reset. He now gets PTSD whenever a Harley revvs by passing... physically cannot work.
Please don't get a motorcycle.
No part of the prose was machine-generated. You will not find machine-written prose on this blog. I consider it deeply disrespectful."
I really like this disclaimer, by disclaiming that a single small thing was done with AI, you make very credible and notable that you did not use LLMs for the important parts.
You know, I had a similar experience, but in my case I got an appointment with a psychiatrist afterwards, described the experience in detail, was given a computer test, diagnosed with ADHD, and then given a prescription. (Also in my case, I learned Adderall doesn’t actually feel great or help you if you take too much).
Take care of your kids. The war on drugs is stupid. Etc.
Had to read this a couple of times, to let it sink in that he is cutting with scissors and placing this paper document in a manilla folder.
Open source has changed the life of so many, from so many situations. We should be proud of our industry. Together we built something beautiful
Can relate. Been 45 years, for me. Got my act together at 18, but before that...
Sending a 14 year old convicted of drug crimes anywhere but a location that will help them is bizarre. Sending them to a max security anything leaves me speechless.
Thanks for sharing this part of your story dude!
there’s lots offered near the bay area (where I’m from) and they don’t cost that much for what you’re getting in return
I've not had nearly the adversity of the author, but I do know a little bit about what it's like to have an alternative background that makes companies not want to take a chance on you. It motivates you to take advantage of the chances you're given. The first time someone gave me a job, I felt so utterly grateful that I worked twice as hard as most and complained half as much. You could cynically call that exploitation, but I didn't see it that way.
When I came into a position to make my own hiring calls, I tried paying that forward, and I got some great employees from it. Arguably a couple duds as well, but I never regretted giving the chance.
Shout out to Hasura as well, btw. I've encountered their leadership team a couple times and everything about them has screamed integrity. It did not surprise me to hear that they are part of this story.
Key insight: relying on AI for writing assistance helps neither the author nor the audience.
She's been trying to get anything, even an unpaid internship, doing sound design, going to local meetups, online conferences, and hasn't had much luck.
But I told her: it's just a matter of persistence and time. If you're agreeable to be around, passionate about something, and just show up everyday, eventually something is likely to happen.
Closest feeling you can get to flying and a helluva lot cheaper.
Bike costs are line noise, (cheap!) planes I fly are better part of $200 an hour.
I get what you're saying though. Barely been on bike since latest baby and wondering if I should just sell them for now.
As much as I miss riding and wife misses riding with me, if the worst were to happen, yikes.
(fwiw i agree regardless, don’t get a motorcycle, lost too many friends to accidents or the following addiction)
A freaking motorcycle with 300+ kilos moving ate highway speeds or more.
Apparently the numbers for bicycles are a bit better, even in adjusted terms, but still. They're very unsafe in general.
Successful people in the music world (both on and off stage) HAVE to mingle with musicians (not other engineers) heavily to get noticed and recommended
Absolutely. Broken bones, and all.
----
>wondering if I should just sell them for now
>if the worst were to happen, yikes
Listen to yourself, Papa.
----
It's a young (dumb) man's game.
It's not bad advice, just unlikely to land. Thrill seekers seek thrills.
The effect on physical and psychic health largely outweighs (sometimes to x30) the risk of accidents and pollution disease.
(2012, french) https://www.ors-idf.org/nos-travaux/publications/les-benefic...
Not saying it is, just pointing out how messed up the world we live in now is.
But... was it?
Would recommend joining a local film club, and get a few small projects done. Additionally, volunteer with local church events, or regular city music festivals.
Also, could join the local union intake for the production studios. It will be awful until one gets the base hours completed, but it is a feast or famine kind of work schedule some can tolerate. Fine work if you are still a kid.
Finding stuff online is usually a fools errand these days mostly due to "AI" data mining operations, or outright cons. Best of luck =3
I’d say this is a strong case against getting one for anyone who has struggled with addiction. In my experience a part of the constant battle is a difficult relationship with sources of stimulation.
What are your thoughts on Roller Coasters? Hit a good theme park, ride maybe 6 with your eyes closed within a couple of hours.
I can't help but feel riding one (Roller Coaster) is much more optimal than $200/hr flying a plane, and much safer than a motorcycle, even if you rented vs purchase one.
~30% of deaths involve drunk riding
~30% of deaths involve not wearing any helmet (let alone full face ECE 22.06 rated ones or any other gear at all)
~30% of deaths involve someone with no motorcycle licence.
These aren't all mutually exclusive obviously, rather the Venn diagram probably looks rather...circular.
The issue isn't so much everyone trying to kill you, you can fix a lot of the visibility issues and you have some additional options if someone is about to hit you. The problem is that two wheels make for a VERY dynamic system and you're managing two different brakes with weight shifting between two wheels based on your inputs. To that end ABS and TCS are absolutely huge, IIRC something like >60% safety improvement.
Tldr don't buy an old retro bike with no safety systems and ride it drunk without a license or gear, you'll continue to pad the numbers.
I'm just offering real-world advice after witnessing all the broken bones and jerked roadrash upon this tattoo'd convict's broken body. Shouldn't be alive.
----
Certainly speed was a factor but isn't that why ya'll ride?
I haven’t ridden on the road since. Just no joy in riding anymore if it just takes one careless individual on a cell phone…
Every so often I think about linking up with a group ride again or even going to a spin class, but I just don’t see the fun in it anymore.
I live in a non-California state and I'm shocked whenever I see a motorcyclist who doesn't illegally lane split, who maintains a standard following distance (ideally 3 car lengths on an interstate), etc. Plus, most of them aren't even good at choosing leather jackets (not enough schotts or even made in Japan actual horsehide, lots of slop non-protective because most of these people are poor from the Harley purchase) and they don't wear proper protective heavy bottoms (i.e. leather/kevlar pants or HEAVY selvedge denim like 25 oz+). Many don't wear helmets because doing so might make them look like "fairies" to their friends in the outlaw biker gang.
Similarly, half or more of the cyclists in your average complete streets/walkable cities liberal area either 1. actually don't have a drivers license and are thus oblivious to road laws when they routinely get on the road, 2. refuse to use a helmet/put lights on at night/hand signal when turning, and 3. refuse to use perfectly good empty sidewalks (yes its legal here to bike on the sidewalk) to cycle on when possible.
I see this shit all the time, and I understand why they end up as roadkill time-and-time again. Keep winning Darwin awards. My heart goes out to those who legitimately did everything right and ends up squashed anyway, but the myriad number of idiots ruins it for the victims.
I actually don't know which makes me more scared to see on the road, a clapped out Nissan/dodge, a Harley rider, or a cyclist. At least the cyclists and nissan drivers are probably young and thus far more alert than the average geriatric who thinks they're so cool for owning the worlds most gaudy motorcycle.
It allowed me to "get my hands dirty," and experiment, as well as build a portfolio.
To this day, I have a large amount of public code. It's a habit that I've had, all my adult life.
This has been a very terrible and very real lesson in mortality. Wish we had some basic social safety nets for middle-aged unemployables (e.g. single-payer healthcare).
It's a thrill for sure. Mostly on the smaller coasters thee days because of the kids.
So sad to see; I am walking his dogs; last time I saw him I said "I am just worried that this will make you spin out, again."
Definitely helped me continue deciding not to get a motorcycle, myself.
This has been my favorite sentence (so far) in this discussion – whatever one's opinion is on motorcycling. Capital 't' Truth.
----
Thirty years ago, my mother gave me some small amount of money to NOT ride a motorcycle on roadways until after she died. Being young and broke, I took the money. stopped riding.
After she died, I had aged just enough to realize that I didn't actually want to ride motorcycles on-road, anymore. Even after decades of wanting to...
Somehow mama-up-there knew I'd eventually grow up, and it only cost her a few hundred dollars [to not have to witness my motorcycle accident (while alive, nor ever from-above)].
Half of the group rides I see are to "honor" or "remember " a rider who died doing something stupid as well.
Having said all that and despite being in recovery for many years... I still lust after the feeling of completely unfettered freedom being on a bike on an open road. Before I bought my bike a friend had warned me that once you ride, you’ll never not want to ride. He was right.
That’s like telling a skydiver to go ride the Drop Tower (or whatever the ride is that drops you straight down).
Not only is the experience different, but you aren’t in control. You aren’t controlling what’s happening.
For me a big part of the enjoyment comes from being in control of the bike.
Personally I would get zero enjoyment riding as a passenger on a bike. The thrill comes from riding and maneuvering the bike, not just going fast.
You can be the best rider in the world and still have a bad day/week/month/year/life.
It's laughable how proud some cyclists become when they think a painted stripe will somehow protect them from cellphoned sharks.
Obviously US bicycling infrastructure is laughably dangerous, and nobody deserves full-blame for exercising their legal rights upon roadways -- but e.g: biking up Lookout Mountain's shoulderless 2-lane highway is. stupid.ly common. These are tourist roadways winding through a mountainrange – are you cyclist's suicidal, or just hubric? Nobody knows where they are, and your dumb_ass is in the blindcurve going 2mph.
Your legal right #RIP
Sometimes it felt like I'd never get a break, things wouldn't get better. But I tried to tell myself "Every occurrence in life is a numbers game. Against tiny odds, eventually enough attempts statistically OUGHT to pay off."
And the alternative is bleak, sort of sulking in this pit of despair without hope for tomorrow.
>Many don't wear helmets because doing so might make them look like "fairies" to their friends in the outlaw biker gang.
I now live in a state which requires helmets for all riders.
This is a good idea – for exactly the reason you stated.
So a combination of looking at what I had done to myself + everyone around me and going "what the fuck." and my ever-vigilant wife who knew I had the capacity and desire to get better.
For me it really took literally losing everything.
This rider (I described above) was
~sober
~helmetted (fully faced)
~licensed
> sobriety doesn’t guarantee that AI companies won’t kill off what’s left of your career
The ironic thing is, I work for one of those "AI Companies" ;^)
Claude Code and Codex have done most of my work for the last year, and with the pace of AI improvement, I'm not sure that you'd need (or even want) me in the mix.
From a business perspective, it makes a lot of financial sense, too.
I'm sure it's a limited amount of time before I'm dead weight, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, and I'll figure something out if/when it happens =)
> When I came into a position to make my own hiring calls, I tried paying that forward, and I got some great employees from it. Arguably a couple duds as well, but I never regretting giving the chance.
I spent ages 14–16 in a maximum-security juvenile prison, became a felon at 19, lost almost everything to addiction, and later rebuilt my life through software, open source, and a few people who took a chance on me.
I've wanted to write this for a while, but kept finding reasons not to. It felt too personal, too risky, and too easy to misread.
Recently, I decided on two things:
I wrote this for anyone quietly wondering whether they have no chance at a future.
Below is the much-condensed life story of my struggles with addiction, poverty, and incarceration + life after being a felon. My hope is that it serves as encouragement to others who are in similar circumstances that things CAN get better.
I was a model student up until around puberty and middle school. Then, I think a combination of being bullied for being overweight and teenage hormones, led me to be just the wrong combination of resentful, angry, unhappy, and rebellious.
I started getting in fistfights with people that made fun of me, being a huge asshole to teachers, stopped doing schoolwork, and started experimenting with drugs.
The beginning of the end: The day I bought an Adderall from a classmate. When that amphetamine feeling kicked-in, it was as if life was perfect for the first time. I was happy, confident, felt I could do anything. I wanted to feel this way every waking moment for the rest of my life.
Being 14, I had no job, and I do not come from money. So, logically, I did the thing one must do if one wishes to sustain a drug habit: Devise a way to make money.
The easiest way to make money at 14 turned out to be dealing drugs, so I started selling various prescription medications on a "buy-low-sell-high" basis from other students at school.
This was short-lived, as I had the huge mouth of a rebellious "I'm invincible" 14-year old boy, and I was shortly arrested and charged with 17 counts of Possession with Intent to Manufacture or Distribute a Scheduled II Controlled Substance.
I wound up spending 2 years, from 14-16 at a maximum security juvenile prison (Lookout Mountain YSC, Golden CO).
In prison, I got my GED, and after release briefly enrolled in community college. I was working as a landscaper doing manual labor for $8/hr and then riding a bus 1hr each way to night classes. Not to say this sort of thing can't be done (people do it all the time), but I didn't have the tenacity or motivation to keep it up, so I dropped out.
I stayed sober for a brief period between 16-17. Not having learned my lesson, I again started selling drugs. I had learned about The Silk Road and the Darknet and was ordering (what was then) a legal "Research Chemical" with effects similar to MDMA (Methylone/bk-MDMA) shipped to my parents house. Eventually, my dad got home early from work and intercepted a package. Asking me what it was before I left for work, I told him "I don't know, never heard of the return address name". My father was not an idiot; he told me he was going to open it while I was at work, so I confessed "it's drugs."
Cue huge argument, him insisting he was going to remove everything from my room except my clothes and bed (most of which I paid for myself) and I would not be allowed to leave except for work. This was not an agreeable circumstance to me, so I refused -- at which point my dad said "then you won't be living here anymore!".
It's important to note that in Colorado (at the time, at least), emancipation of a minor was not a status one could file for, but instead purely a court status to be recognized during legal proceedings. That meant there was technically no avenue for me to legally move out before 18 with proper legal status.
So this, to me, sounded like sweet freedom & release, rather than a punishment. "You really won't call the police if I leave?" "Nope." I packed my backpack with my laptop and cash savings, and a suitcase with my clothes, and left. I had no plan but that was a bridge to be crossed.
It turned out that the parents of a friend had an unused bedroom in their trailer they would rent to me under-the-table for $300/mo. I jumped at that and slept on the floor of a trailer for 6 months.
I worked as a landscaper, at a lumber mill, and as a cashier at Walgreens, continuing to sell drugs on the side.
Inevitably, I wound up being arrested again on drug-related charges, and spent 18-19 in county jail. It was then that I became a convicted felon with a low-class felony.
While I was in county jail, one day the newspaper had a small article in it: "Tech company offers internships to at-risk & underprivileged youth"
I had spent my childhood on the computer, playing videogames and eventually teaching myself to program to make game mods. I knew from a young age I wanted to be a programmer (I thought I wanted to make videogames, as most young children do).
This to me, seemed like a fortuitous opportunity. I cut the article out and put it in a documents folder.
Eventually, I was moved from regular jail population into the Work-Release jail program, where they let you out during the day for work. You had 1 week to find a job, and if you couldn't secure employment you were sent back permanently to finish out your sentence.
The first day out, I walked into the offices of the company from the article and asked to speak to someone. I explained that I was fresh out of jail and had seen their article while inside.
They interviewed me, decided to hire me, and I was now an intern Full-Stack Web Developer! I knew nothing of web dev, and didn't even particularly have an interest in it originally, but the job was already beyond my hopes. I had assumed I was going to spend the rest of my life working construction or similar, because of my felony.
The same news reporter that had done the original article later came to visit, and after interviewing me, did a whole writeup on it!
Working at Techtonic was the best possible early-career experience I think anyone could have had. They did contract development, a lot of which was greenfield Saas MVP launches, across various tech stacks. There was not a lot of time for mentorship so it a very "trial-by-fire" experience -- either figure things out and ship stuff, or get the boot.
I learned frontend, backend, and dev-ops while there and worked across several languages + DB's. This was around the time Ruby on Rails + MongoDB was the hip thing. ES6 JS was still fresh and new, and it was there that our CTO did a company meeting on this new thing called "React" that we were to start learning to replace jQuery.
It's also where I met my now-wife, who I pulled into my drug use and unstable life.
Being possibly the most hardheaded individual in the universe, I fell back into drug use shortly thereafter. I managed to remain mostly-functional, until the manager at Techtonic (who did not like me) lied to the owner that I was showing up hours late every day.
She fired me (and my now-wife), and I was later redeemed when they found the truth in his Slack message history after firing him many moons later. But oh whale, "them's the breaks", as they say.
Not having a job, I spiraled harder into addiction, and eventually ran out of money to pay my rent and bills. We moved in with my biological father in Florida. He was also an addict, and instead of stability, the situation became enabling and destructive. It exploded in short order.
After the living situation with my father exploded, I was fortunate enough to have a friend who had a spare room in the house and agreed to let me and my (now wife) stay with them for some tiny sum of money, but only temporarily until we could find work + save enough to move out and get back on our feet.
It was at this point we had nothing: A few dollars to our name, no vehicle, some clothing and a single laptop.
I had lost everything. And I had dragged this poor woman into it with me who had lost everything, too.
It was at this point my sobriety began. I had hit what we addicts call "a bottom". Not the first one, but the one that was finally grim and bleak enough to make me look at myself and go "What the fuck are you doing?" The one that finally knocked it into my skull that I didn't want to live like this anymore.
I started washing dishes at a restaurant, and my wife took a job delivering and installing large appliances (ovens, fridges, etc) at the same warehouse where the friend worked. Having no vehicle, she had to borrow the friend's bicycle and ride 30 minutes in the dark before work, and 30 minutes in the sweltering heat after work home. The hours were very long, because it was often on-site installation paid by the appliance, so many days she would work 10-12 hours + 1 hour bike ride, and come home so exhausted all she could do was sob a little before getting just enough sleep to do it all over again the next day.
Eventually, she told me that it made more sense for me to quit my job while she worked, so that I could spend all of my free time trying to get another tech job. So she alone carried us for several months. I sent out hundreds of applications. I went through final-round interviews and received offer letters from 8 companies, only to have them rescinded each time due to corporate "No Felons" HR policies. It was like having the carrot dangled right in front of my face, to be snatched away each time.
Finally, I got an interview with a tiny startup in Miami. I passed their phone screen, and drove 4 hours each way to do the in-person.
They offered me the job, and helped pay for us to relocate and temporarily stay in Airbnb's. It paid $50k, with the promise of a significant raise in 1 year when the company had more revenue. I was overjoyed with the offer and immediately accepted.
The system at work was an ageing Rails app that had accrued significant tech debt and was the result of an amalgam of outsourced development shops. One of them was clearly quite proficient, and the others... not so much. Part of my job was designing and implementing a V2 rewrite. While evaluating technologies for this, I stumbled upon Hasura
Put simply, it automated the work of generating CRUD for Postgres apps, and was designed by people who clearly had hit the limitations of traditional Backend-as-a-Service type platforms. Only core CRUD was automated, and you integrated the rest of your app through wiring up your own API endpoints and implementing your own AuthN + AuthZ.
The first time I plugged in our localhost Postgres URL for dev, and had a full working CRUD API, I was hooked. Coming from a background of rapidly churning out SaaS MVP's, this was solving a very real problem for me, and it was PERFORMANT.
I became heavily involved in the Discord server, answering other people's questions, and also started sending PR's to implement features I felt were missing.
When my 1 year anniversary came around at work, the founders unfortunately still were not in a position to pay me much more. I knew the financials of the business and they weren't lying, but it was still somewhat of a disappointment. One of the Hasura employees had recently made a joke that I should just apply to work there. I figured that it couldn't hurt to at least get more info.
I went through the interview rounds more as a formality and was given an offer letter. I was offered slightly more than double my current salary! I genuinely loved working with the founders at my current job and felt terrible about leaving, but I did accept the offer and stay on for another month to finish up current work and make sure there was someone to hand off to.
The company was so small back then that there was no background check done during the interview process. After working there a while, I eventually disclosed to the Hasura founders that I had a low-grade felony, and, thank the stars, they were cool with it.
I had my dream job: Working on a developer-facing tool I genuinely loved and was a power-user of, that was also part of the Postgres ecosystem. I could not have conceived of such a perfectly-fit position. I have been working at Hasura (now PromptQL) since 2020, and I plan on riding this one all the way to it's end: either fired, bankrupt, or bought-out. (Hopefully bought-out).
I don't tell this story because I think it is clean, heroic, or universally applicable -- It isn't. I made TERRIBLE choices. I hurt people who loved me. I wasted chances that other people would have killed for. And even when I finally started doing the right things, I still needed luck, help, timing, forgiveness, and people willing to judge me by what I could do next instead of only by what I had done before.
But that is exactly why I wanted to write this.
If you are reading this from the middle of addiction, poverty, a criminal record, or some other hole that feels permanent: I won't insult you by claiming it's easy. It may be unfair for a long time. You may have to hear "no" from people who never even look at your work. You may have to rebuild with less room for mistake than everyone around you.
But you are not necessarily finished.
And if you are in a position to hire, mentor, review pull requests, or let someone into a room they normally would not be allowed into: please remember that talent is not evenly distributed by background check. Sometimes the person who looks risky on paper is also the person who will spend years trying to become worthy of the chance they were given.
I am alive, sober, married, employed, and working on software I care about because a handful of people took that risk on me.
I wake up grateful for that every day. And I hope, over time, to become the kind of person who gives that same chance to someone else.
AI Use Disclaimer: claude code was used to generate the OpenGraph SVG image.
No part of the prose was machine-generated. You will not find machine-written prose on this blog. I consider it deeply disrespectful.
While it probably sounds crazy, owning a tractor is almost as good. There are even more mechanical widgets to play with and it is dead simple and easy to work on like a motorcycle. I still miss the motorcycle but now I can actually do useful work while somewhat scratching the itch.
Yes. Chasing perfection every time.
How smoothly can you roll out of this corner. How perfect a line can you take. How smoothly can you shift up or rev match and shift down.
I don't think I've ever been a passenger. My young wife enjoyed riding with me before our youngest came.
But somehow no old bold riders.
I sometimes lament that I wish I could ride in a group again, but it’s such a hurdle to get over mentally for me.
It is a lot of fun having camaraderie with similarly skilled riders hammering it out in the big ring for two hours, but just never have been able to get back to that place where I’m comfortable enough to do it.
Edit: oh, rereading your comment… my friend was not at fault in her crash. She was a careful rider just out for a spin and happened to cross paths with the wrong idiot who was distracted and veered onto the shoulder. I was expressing sadness that that is all it took to end her life.
"Just say no"?
Sadly, it doesn't work. If you're an addict, you'll end up manifesting in one way, or many ways. Drugs aren't the only way that it expresses itself.
I hate alcohol. I always have. The taste makes me sick. The best way to ruin a dessert, is to pour expensive booze on it.
That didn't stop me from becoming a prize-winning lush, though.
The thing about addiction, is that it just doesn't make sense. It can't be understood, when looked at, through a rational lens.
That's a big reason that Recovery is difficult. It's also often badly supported by family members, who don't understand the mechanisms.
But that's a long story, for other venues. I am happy to read his story, and sincerely wish him luck.
In other countries they are a huge means of transport.
I am back on the horse. It is just a zen and still relaxing time, albeit more anxiety while riding, than before. Thankful I can still ride, and I do.
Putzing around an urban center on a cafe bike is not what it means to "ride a motorcycle" in the US.
That's the thing. On a bike you can do everything right and still lose.
California is one of the safer places to ride given how many bikes are here and I've still had too many near misses as a trained, experienced, and conservative rider.
Most people put 1-2k miles a year on their bikes, when I was riding often I put on 2-3k/ month.
I'm glad you're better. Tenacity.
There will be no change of course, sadly.
E.g. the most common motorcycle in Vietnam is the 110cc Honda Wave with a top speed under ideal conditions of ~60mph. It literally would not be called a motorcycle in the US.
More likely you're belted in your cage and surrounded by airbags.
Apples to orangutans.
Same with anything in life.
Same with a car, just less so. Of course you could also stay at home, wearing protective bumper suit 24/7 (and can still die from any number of things anyway).
At some point there's a tradeoff people make. Some people make it where the tradeoff slider says "motorcycle", rather than stop at "car". And I'm not talking a tiny niche, but about 1-1.2 billion people globally.
Not to mention all the junk on the streets: the oil, anti-freeze, gravel, wet painted turn arrows.
When freeways become unsafe is when the loose nut behind the handlebars decides to wick it up and just "go around all of these big slow things". But that's not the freeways fault.
First year/10,000 miles is the hardest. But the foundational rules apply: Wear the gear, slow down, don't ride impaired (drunk, high, tired...).
Lightning strikes, it sucks. But, anecdotally, my worst motor vehicle injury was while a passenger in a modern car when my friend drove into a left turning vehicle. "Fender bender", "no biggie". Chronic, notable, back pain ever since. Worst than anything I've ever suffered on a motorcycle.
I had two accidents during my 5 years of commuting, and both times I only got minor scratches and had to replace my shoes. Both happened at speeds a determined bicycle rider could achieve, but I suspect I wouldn't be as well protected on a bicycle (both the machine itself and the protective gear tend to be much lighter there than on a moped). If I needed to do that again, I'd buy a model with two wheels at the front, which would have prevented both accidents - though I'm not sure if added stability wouldn't encourage me to ride faster.
So it's pretty specific, but if you're somewhere where driving culture is not too cutthroat, the roads can support single-track vehicles, and the traffic rather than actual distance is the limiting factor - owning a bike can be an objectively better option.
Same with a car, or anything really.
The point of parent stands, globally there are billions of people going through their lives with motorcycles as their main vehicles, yet aren't involved in any life-changing accidents.
Some places are more dangerous than others, probably places that doesn't have this already motorcycle-heavy culture, like other countries in the world, has a higher incident rate and more severe accidents, as drivers aren't aware of how motorcycles usually operate.
THIS is the major difference, protecting even the best motorcyclist's abilities.
Some US highways are posted at 85mph [137km/h] – unprotected flesh doesn't stand a chance!
The relevant factor is that a street where motorcycles, cycles, pedestrians, and small/slow cars are dominant – all of which move at generally slow speeds – is of far, far, far less danger than a street (freeway or not) where the primary form factor is large automobiles traveling quickly.
You're describing American cities, while GP (to whom I was responding) was clearly describing the huge number of foreign cities (e.g. SE Asia) where motorcycles are the dominant form of urban transit.
The relevant factor is that a street where motorcycles, cycles, pedestrians, and small/slow cars are dominant – all of which move at generally slow speeds – is of far, far, far less danger than a street (freeway or not) where the primary form factor is large automobiles traveling quickly.
> First year/10,000 miles is the hardest
This is typical Intermediate Syndrome. The median rider involved in a motorcycle accident has nearly 3 years of experience.
No, road defects, obstacles, and weather are almost never the cause of motorcycle accidents.
It's the same risk dynamic as driving a car to work, just more so. Of course you could also stay at home, wearing protective bumper suit 24/7 (and can still die from any number of things anyway).
Promote language of responsibility and accountability.
I have seen what happens to motorcycle riders when there are accidents and I have seen what happens to car drivers when there are accidents. I won't get into the gory details but I avoid using bikes as much as possible.
- Licensed motorcycle driver
It's one way to process the negative feeling of being fined. But it doesn't really make the roads safer.
I'm sorry, but from a European perspective, this is the problem, not bikes. If your roads and driving culture encourage driving a tank for safety, that's a bit less than ideal.
I commuted to work for 5 years on a moped. I never used a highway, almost never exceeded 50km/h, and had 2 accidents during that time; both resulted in just a few scratches and bruises.
In another post, you said: "maybe speed was a factor" - actually, it's the only factor. If you never go too fast and never use roads where others may go too fast, you're safe - at least from life-altering tragedies.
If, on the other hand, it's generally impossible to get where you want to without using highways, or the sheer distance forces you to step on it - then yeah, don't buy a motorbike. Just note that it's not the bike's fault!
That is to say, those comparing car v motorcycle are doing the wrong comparison here. You'd be evaluating (car + substitute activity of drugs/crime/etc) vs. motorcycle -- rather than merely car v motorcycles.
While you're right about slower generally being safer, you should still treat it like a life-altering tragedy could happen at any time and like you're going 200 kph.
There's a reason the term accident is used (I know at least 10 countries where the meaning is the same).