A motorcycle can be very convenient to park, taking up less space and fit into areas a car never can. While a few places have reserved motorcycle parking, most parking lots have nothing specifically for bikes. This leads to an array of parking scenarios for bikes, ranging from taking up a normal size space to parking on the sidewalk near an entrance. Today, we will go over whats acceptable and what is down right illegal in regards to parking.

From guest artist Dinoman.

The Honda 350 is reported to be the best-selling motorcycle in history. They were produced between 1968 and 1973. Many riders learned to ride on the street with these machines, including myself. The simply-designed twin engines were dependable and easy to maintain. With 36 horsepower, the motorcycle had a lot of pep with a single rider, but suffered on the highway with a pillion along for the ride.

Giving yourself plenty of room to maneuver can prevent many of the common accidents that happen when riding a motorcycle. Space equals time and time is most often what is needed to change direction or speed. Using the proper following distance and maintaining the space between the motorcycle and other vehicles requires almost constant adjustment and awareness of the surroundings.

Buying a good used motorcycle is a great way to save money. The depreciation from the new retail price has already been taken off, sometimes saving thousands of dollars. The question often comes up as to how much should be offered on a particular year make and model of motorcycle. While not an exact science, there are some guidelines to help the motorcycle buyer.

Owning a house that is nearly 100 years old sometimes presents some challenges. Over the weekend, the compression fitting on my water service developed a leak. The old plumbing coming into the water meter was corroded galvanized pipe, so I needed to replace the whole works. I needed to find all the correct parts to swap this all over to ¾ inch copper pipe and find a way to adapt the new plumbing to the 1 inch HDPE service line coming into the basement. At this point, a reader may be wondering what this has to do with motorcycling. Read on and I'll make the connection.

I like lists. I personally keep a to-do list on my desktop. A grocery list keeps many of us from forgetting to buy the potatoes. Aircraft pilots follow a detailed checklist before takeoff. Motorcycle riders can also benefit from a list of items to check before starting their machines and hitting the road.

Today will be marked as a sad day in motorcycle racing as MotoGP rider Marco Simoncelli passed away following a crash at the Malaysian MotoGP. Simoncelli rode for the San Carlo Honda team and was 24 years old. He started sliding in turn 11 but regained traction only to swerve into two other riders, Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi.

Here's a submission from Dinoman.

Acronyms have likely been used since ancient times. They are great memory devices, if you can remember what they stand for. While riding a motorcycle, I keep the acronym OLDE in mind as a safety tool. OLDE stands for Observe, Line-up, Decide, and Execute. There are several variations to this acronym taught in riding classes and even the military, but OLDE has always been the easiest for me to remember.