<\/p>\n
HONESTLY, fairings are for poofters.
\nSoft, buttery ones who selflessly enjoy rough man-sex in seedy Oxford Street toilets on weekends.
\nThis is a self-evident truth with empirical evidence to back it up.
\nNow, I realise many of us have been ruthlessly conned into believing fairings are simply peachy.<\/p>\n
Soft-as-wodge bike mag editors, devious marketing fascists, and our own foolishness combined to hoist the fairing to prominence and ubiquity that must only ever be reserved for chicks who\u2019ve got great legs and giggle when you suck vodka off their firm, golden bellies.<\/p>\n
Until about 25 years ago, most bikes were pure and nude and manufacturer\u2019s actually had to design pretty engines – which they mostly did – with some notable exceptions such as BMW\u2019s mouth-souring early K-series, Ducati\u2019s hideous Pantah thing and every CX500 Honda ever built.
\nThen something changed.
\nFairings began appearing on bikes.
\nThe cancer was metastasising.<\/p>\n
Flushed with youthful innocence I immediately bought a sharp little bikini fairing for my first ever brand new bike (an XJ650) – and spent hours savagely scarifying my fingers trying to fit the bike to the fairing, before powdering the universal-fitting bastard with a ball-peen hammer and sulking for days.<\/p>\n
Haven\u2019t liked them much ever since.
\nThat, however, didn\u2019t stop them from taking over the world.
\nNormal bikes are now \u201cnaked\u201d bikes or absurdly named \u201cstreetfighters\u201d ridden by hooligans.<\/p>\n
No longer do manufacturers have to make pretty under the tank.
\nIf you don\u2019t believe me, pull the fairing off yours and look at your motor.
\nPile of wretched eye-gouging garbage, isn\u2019t it?
\nAs aesthetically pleasing as swamp-buffalo rooting in a warm bog.
\nThank heavens there\u2019s five gorillas worth of flashy fibreglass covering it all, aye?<\/p>\n
Small mercies, people.
\nIt\u2019s like bandaging a wound. What\u2019s under the bandage is still painful – it just doesn\u2019t make small children cry anymore.
\nAnd wait until you bin it. You\u2019ll be the one crying when you realise how much it\u2019s possible to charge for bastard fibreglass these days.
\n\u201cOK, what about touring bikes?\u201d you say.
\nWhat about them?<\/p>\n
\u201cErm\u2026you do big miles on \u2019em and\u2026
\nAnd what? Why do you need a fairing for that?
\nIs it a health issue? Is the wind too hard on your old and broken body?
\nIf it is, buy a car. Just get off the damn bike before you succumb to being squidgey, kill yourself with the back of a truck and drive my insurance premiums (if I ever get insurance) up even further.<\/p>\n
And don\u2019t give me that \u201cI like to listen to the stereo when I ride\u201d, crap.
\nYou want to listen to music, join a band. Or stay at home, whack on the woolly socks and rot on the couch listening to Air Supply.
\nThere\u2019s no excuse for a fairing on ANY road bike, let alone a touring bike.
\nI mean, do you people like getting booked? Is that it?<\/p>\n
Look, it\u2019s common knowledge that police intelligence quite resembles a box of hammers.
\nAnd it\u2019s taken them a few years, but they\u2019ve finally worked out parameters by which they \u201cjudge\u201d the speed of a bike.
\nIn court, they\u2019ll say they only radared you because they first \u201cestimated\u201d your speed – a mystical process allegedly based on their years of\u2026um, experience in estimating things.
\nThey are lying like curs.<\/p>\n
The police use the following principle when practicing hot radar love:
\nHim see fairing – \u201cDatza race bike, Sarge! Them\u2019re fast \u2019cos veyz all swoopy! And look! The accused\u2019s crouchin\u2019. He\u2019s speedin\u2019! I\u2019m-a zappin\u2019 him!\u201d
\nMy best mate, Brother Silverback, is living proof of this.
\nIn 80,000 kays on his BMW GS chookmeister, he\u2019s never been booked. Even speeding and damaged by chemical imbalances, the police just ignore him. The crazed bastard even waves at them as he rides past.
\nIn the same time-frame, he also put a bucketload of miles on his tricked-up Kwaka ZX-12.<\/p>\n
Rode in the exact same fashion, waving his dick off.
\nBut crouched behind a fairing.
\nThe cops hammered his licence into extinction within three months.
\nThe conclusions are inescapable. Hunch behind a fairing fingering your clip-ons, and as far as the cops are concerned, you\u2019re speeding. Your gaily-painted full-face racing helmet only confirms it. Knee sliders, too? Fabulous\u2026<\/p>\n
Sit upright with an open-face lid, showing your motor, and the police will ignore you because you just don\u2019t compute to them. You can\u2019t be speeding because you aren\u2019t crouching and your bike isn\u2019t a swoopy one that goes fast, right?
\nI ride a Speed Triple and I encourage and applaud this line of reasoning in the police force.
\nIt\u2019s like this\u2026<\/p>\n
You want wind protection, buy a car.
\nYou want to know what 260km\/h REALLY feels like and sow confusion and doubt in the minds of the cops?
\nLose the fibreglass.
\nOr maybe you want to boogie with tanned gay men in sticky-floored nightclubs?
\nYour call.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the first column I ever wrote for Australian Motorcycle News (AMCN) back in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[220],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1715"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2103,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715\/revisions\/2103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}