Quotes

[conn-e-rot]

That is why, as soon as I felt a real attraction for my first passion which was the motorcycle, and in spite of the danger it could represent, they encouraged me.

- Jacky Ickx

I want to go ride my motorcycle on my ranch.

- Lance Armstrong

Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death…

- Hunter S. Thompson

Why are motorcycle dealers closed on Sundays? Because Sunday is for worship… Catholics go to church, Motorcyclists go to the track.

- Justin Skalka

98% of all Harleys ever sold are still on the road. The other 2% made it home.

- Anonymous

I’d rather be riding my motorcycle thinking about God than sitting in church thinking about my motorcycle.

- Anonymous

I believe many Harley guys spend more time revving their engines than actually driving anywhere; I sometimes wonder why they bother to have wheels on their motorcycles.

- Dave Barry

People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it’s safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.

- Anonymous

You know, Motorcycle Diaries has no incredible stories, no sudden plot twists, it doesn’t play that way. It’s about recognizing that instance of change and embracing it.

- Gael Garcia Bernal

Ever since the young men have owned motorcycles, incest has been dying out.

- Max Frisch

I think a lot of people, myself included, like to be… like to do expeditions and trips. To me, this feels a little bit like a motorcycle trip.

- Duane G. Carey

A mother is neither cocky, nor proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child had just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium.

- Mary Kay Blakely

I had been warned not to get on a motorcycle, sort of. I think there is a clause in most general basic contracts to keep yourself in one piece and not alter your looks without telling them first.

- Charisma Carpenter

And I to my motorcycle Parked like the soul of the junkyard Restored, a bicycle fleshed With power, and tore off Up Highway 106 continually Drunk on the wind in my mouth Wringing the handlebar for speed Wild to be wreckage forever.

- James Dickey

They say C is a pitch; it’s the name of a sound. So is a cat’s meow a sound, so is a motorcycle, so is anything.

- Lester Bowie

Riding a motorcycle on today’s highways, you have to ride in a very defensive manner. You have to be a good rider and you have to have both hands and both feet on the controls at all times.

- Evel Knievel

And, actually it was interesting because I had done a lot of traveling in the United States and Canada and Mexico on my motorcycle; and I was really, it was the first time I had really gotten out of the Minnesota area to speak of.

- Duane G. Carey

Yeah, but people aren’t comfortable with a woman who looks very masculine or rides a motorcycle or wears leather or has facial hair or has short hair.

- Pam Grier

You see, I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle, actually.

- Henry Winkler

When I was 21, I got into a motorcycle accident while traveling in Europe and I had to lie around a lot in the aftermath, which was really the first time in my life that I became really focused and inspired to write.

- Chantal Kreviazuk

I jumped 18 cars on a motorcycle, so I did almost everything.

- David Ellis

“Racing is living, everything else is just waiting”

“There’s the V-4 thing: there’s just something about it that inline 4s don’t have, and V-twins have too much of.”

– Murray Duncan

Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.

“There are only three sports: mountain climbing, bull fighting, and motor racing. All the rest are merely games.”

– Ernest Hemingway

“200mph, no hands. Damn that’d be cool right before the part where you die.”

– A. Duthie

“Calling upon my years of experience, I froze at the controls.”

– Stirling Moss

“Most motorcycle problems are caused by the nut that connects the handlebars to the saddle.”

Seen on a motorcycle’s rearview mirror:

“Warning: objects seen in mirror are disappearing rapidly”

Got a $5 head? Get a $5 helmet.

“Life may begin at 30, but it doesn’t get real interesting until about 150.”

If you’re going to lead, then lead. If you’re going to follow, get the hell out of my way!

“Keep thy eye on the tach, thine ears on the engine, least thy whirlybits seek communion with the sun”

– John 4:50

“You start the game with a full pot o’ luck and an empty pot o’ experience... The object is to fill the pot of experience before you empty the pot of luck.”

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting GERONIMO!”

“Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don’t have the balls to live in the real world.”

– Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden

“A zest for living must include a willingness to die.”

– R.A. Heinlein

If you think you don’t need a helmet, you probably don’t.

“If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.”

– Larry McMurty

Valentino Rossi: At the beginning when you try the first time the 500, Ahh Fwak!

Mick Doohan: I use to think all road racers were nuts. You know racing around a track at that speed.

Kenny Roberts: It's just like a video game that has... the element of danger.

Wayne Rainey: As a racer you always have that at the back of your mind. That you always wonder when's it gonna happen. Cause it will happen, you know you will fall off.

Valentino Rossi: The speed is something dangerous but very exciting.

Loris Capirossi: The top speed is 340 kph. It's good, yeah!

Max Biaggi: For the first approach you will think this is a crazy sport, but at

the end of the day it's not that crazy.

Kevin Schwantz: Growin' up as a kid, always thinkin', you know If I could ever just race motorcycles and make a living that would be the coolest thing know to mankind.

Bob MacLean: This is a real war, these 16 races.

Eddie Lawson: That's you job and that's what you do and you have to win, or you're out of your mind. If you got second you just wanted to kill everybody.

[conn-e-rot]

Julian Ryder: Anybody who could ride a 500cc GP motorcycle well enough to qualify on Grand Prix grid is a hero, Anybody! because these things are the most evil devices if your treat them wrong they will bite.

Valentino Rossi: The 500 is another world. The bike come from another world.

Trevor Morris: There's no word to explain the acceleration.

Graziano Rossi: I'm a big fan of motorcycle and a big fan Valentino.

Mick Doohan: Al lot of fun when you get it right but the other side of the coin is when you crash.

Kevin Schwantz: I think 90% of motorcycle racing is between the ears.

Graziano Rossi: In Italy, the Doctor is a name you give to someone for respect. It's very important "The Doctor".

Dr. Claudio Costa: It is incredible what a rider filled with irrational desire can achieve.

Fan: They're all superstars, even the one at the back.

Wayne Rainey: Oh, it's not a rivalry at all. I haven't seen Biaggi win anything.

Himself (Pilati, Tad): There's no feeling from the center of his chest down. He's being held in a hospital, he's in stable condition and the next 48 hours are gonna tell us everything.

Wayne Rainey: Now all the sand traps are smooth but sometimes it takes a big incident to get something changed.

Mick Doohan: I don't know where he gets his excuses, but I wish I had them when I was racing.

Kevin Schwantz: I use to love the rain because I felt like it made my motorcycles exactly the same as everybody else. At that point it turned in to a rider to rider battle.

"Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed from a tube. That's why god made fast motorcycles, bubba" -HST

"On a superbike, you get to the point in the corner where you open the throttle fully, then you get your paper out and have a read" - Unknown racer commenting on the differences between superbikes and GP bikes

"What do I like best about GPs? The Crumpet, I suppose." Barry Sheene

"I wouldn't say it was easy, but off the record it was a cinch" - Scottish racer Alan Duffus.

"You'd have to be William Tell to hit a hay bale there" - Barry Sheene talking about safety in the Isle of Man

"Girling Spring Gas Shocks" - headline in MCN.

"He'll fall apart like a cheap watch." Schwantz on Kocinski after a good start to the season.

That is the Curse of Speed which has plagued me all my life. I am a slave to it. On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME." -HST

You have to be a little crazy to ride these super-torque high-speed crotch rockets anywhere except a racetrack - and even there, they will scare the whimpering shit out of you... - Hunter S. Thompson

"I saw Jesus so many times I started to use Him as my braking marker."

I don't know why they put all those fancy gauges in there. I am going to run it till it blows up anyway.

Unknown reporter: "Barry, what goes through your head when you crash like that?"

Barry Sheene: "Your ass, if your going fast enough!"

"That first season, I rode ON the gp bike. It wasn't til the second season that I RODE the gp bike." - Scott Russell, commenting on his time with the Suzuki GP squad.

That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. ~Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Midnight bugs taste best. ~Author Unknown

You're the guy that'll be sneaking out of your bedroom at three o'clock in the morning to look at your bike. ~Paul Teutul, Sr., American Chopper, "Billy Joel"

It takes more love to share the saddle than it does to share the bed. ~Author Unknown

Bikes don't leak oil, they mark their territory. ~Author Unknown

Keep your bike in good repair: motorcycle boots are not comfortable for walking. ~Author Unknown

The best alarm clock is sunshine on chrome. ~Author Unknown

And I to my motorcycle

Parked like the soul of the junkyard

Restored, a bicycle fleshed

With power, and tore off

Up Highway 106, continually

Drunk on the wind in my mouth,

Wringing the handlebar for speed,

Wild to be wreckage forever.

~James Dickey, "Cherrylog Road"

A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. ~Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

What do you call a cyclist who doesn't wear a helmet? An organ donor. ~David Perry

If you don't ride in the rain, you don't ride. ~Author Unknown

Whatever it is, it's better in the wind. ~Author Unknown

Catching a yellow-jacket in your shirt at seventy miles per hour can double your vocabulary. ~Author Unknown

Life is too short for traffic. ~Dan Bellack

Work to ride and ride to work. ~Author Unknown

Burn rubber, not your soul, baby. ~Craig Fernandez and Reggie Bythewood, Biker Boyz

Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. ~Mac McCleary

Remember folks, street lights timed for 35 mph are also timed for 70 mph. ~Jim Samuels

Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window. ~Author Unknown

Well-trained reflexes are quicker than luck. ~Author Unknown

Don't argue with an 18-wheeler. ~Author Unknown

Safety doesn't happen by accident. ~Author Unknown

Sometimes the best communication happens when you're on separate bikes. ~Author Unknown

When you're riding lead, don't spit. ~Author Unknown

Maintenance is as much art as it is science. ~Author Unknown

Safety is a cheap and effective insurance policy. ~Author Unknown

Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly. ~Author Unknown

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol. ~Author Unknown

Two-lane blacktop isn't a highway - it's an attitude. ~Author Unknown

Accidents hurt - safety doesn't. ~Author Unknown

If you ride like there's no tomorrow, there won't be. ~Author Unknown

Keep the paint up, and the rubber down! ~Author Unknown

Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don't. Some can't. ~Author Unknown