The early '80's, and my pal and I were riding in Queens, NYC. He's on his '75 CB750, I'm on my '73 KAW Z1 (sorry, no Suzi's). Both bikes had 4-into-1 pipes, and I was groovin' on the beautiful music we were making. I love the sound of a couple of big air-cooled fours with pipes riding side-by-side.
We were both showing a lot of restraint, as Union Turnpike, the road we were on, is straight and flat and was freshly repaved. (Two lanes plus parking lane in each direction, concrete center divider.) The speed limit is 30 mph, and we were doing no more than 35. I was wondering which one of us would be the first to cut loose. I was about to do so myself when an odd sight presented itself.
On the sidewalk to our right stood a boy of about ten. He did not look happy. In fact, he looked as if he were being forced to do something he did not want to do. He was holding out a tennis racket. A sign was taped to the face of the racket with two hand-lettered words: "POLICE AHEAD". I felt like 'Clean' from Apocalypse Now: "This is sure enough a bizarre sight."
Sure enough, on the next block an unmarked Highway Patrol car sat idling in a driveway. It's radar gun, mounted outside the back door window, was in plain sight. My buddy and I looked at each other and continued droning on at 30 mph.
We've all heard of flashing your lights to warn oncoming traffic of a speed trap, but this was...slightly strange. In any case, it's always fun to get safely by a radar trap, particularly when you're on a large four cylinder motorcycle.
1982 GS1100e red, stock except exhaust
We were both showing a lot of restraint, as Union Turnpike, the road we were on, is straight and flat and was freshly repaved. (Two lanes plus parking lane in each direction, concrete center divider.) The speed limit is 30 mph, and we were doing no more than 35. I was wondering which one of us would be the first to cut loose. I was about to do so myself when an odd sight presented itself.
On the sidewalk to our right stood a boy of about ten. He did not look happy. In fact, he looked as if he were being forced to do something he did not want to do. He was holding out a tennis racket. A sign was taped to the face of the racket with two hand-lettered words: "POLICE AHEAD". I felt like 'Clean' from Apocalypse Now: "This is sure enough a bizarre sight."
Sure enough, on the next block an unmarked Highway Patrol car sat idling in a driveway. It's radar gun, mounted outside the back door window, was in plain sight. My buddy and I looked at each other and continued droning on at 30 mph.
We've all heard of flashing your lights to warn oncoming traffic of a speed trap, but this was...slightly strange. In any case, it's always fun to get safely by a radar trap, particularly when you're on a large four cylinder motorcycle.
1982 GS1100e red, stock except exhaust
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