laserracer
9th February 2010, 19:21
I pissed myself reading this...a guy in Aussie selling his death trike
The first five times that I advertised the Trike of Death for sale, people thought I was joking about how insane these things are. I'm not. Okay, so I may have stretched the truth a little here and there, but from my experience the truth can be stretched a long way before it finally snaps off and ruins your reputation and bruises your spuds. My feedback score is proof that either I have been very honest, or I've spent a lot of time creating user accounts and selling myself things. So take my word for what you are about to read.
Most people have come across a cactus at some stage, probably in some stupid pot decorated with pebbles and perched importantly on the boss's desk. You know it is spiky, but you can't resist touching it. There are even those ones which have natural velcro on them with really sharp hooks hidden amongst the stinging hairs. They are the best to touch, because it's only when you try to pull away that you end up getting impaled on them. I was once impaled on a cactus and had to walk myself to the doctor with a four inch cactus stuck on my shoulder.
Anyway, what does a cactus have to do with a Yamaha Trike of Death I don't hear you ask? Well, having this yellow plastic cactus sitting in my shed is going to kill me. Instead of a covering of spines, this yellow cactus has a tank of poison which feeds its evil root system, cleverly disguised as a 175cc two stroke motor. If I was told by my doctor that I had to attend jazz concerts daily, I'd be happy to ride this thing just to kill myself to avoid the pain. It's not that I don't like jazz, jazz doesn't like me, that's how emotional jazz can be.
I've gotten pretty game on the other trike I have, it really inspires confidence with its vague interpretation of suspension. I've also become proficient at not having to zip start things, because my other trike has electric start. The Trike of Death doesn't have electric start because the weight of the starter motor may have slowed it down a bit, saving dozens of lives. When I saw the Trike of Death in the shed, it drew me towards it like a crowd of blokes at a wet T shirt competition. I went to start it and either:
a) I've become extremely strong
b) the trike had too much compression, or;
f) the starter cord wasn't as strong as it was 25 years ago.
Snap, the cord broke on the first pull and my right arm flew off and tumbled 20 yards through the air. I managed to fight my arm away from the meat ants and stuck it back on with some duct tape. After three weeks my arm is healing well. The skin and flesh has fallen away from it and the flies don't seem that attracted to the remaining bone.
Armless, but still enthusiastic I still wanted more. Fortunately, you can clutch start these trikes, which I did by being towed with the other trike. Then after turning around and completely forgetting how dangerous the trike was, I took off on a two wheel adventure that I won't be forgetting until the wound on my leg heals.
Turning such a sharp corner which was about the same curvature of the earth, I sent the trike over onto two wheels, one front, one rear. That left only one rear wheel in the air just enjoying the breeze. I managed to stay in that semi out of control state for ages, in fact nearly five seconds had passed by the time the rear wheel dropped back to the ground. Feeling pretty cocky about such a stunt, I decided to do a wheel stand to impress my friends who were watching on and waiting for me to get hurt. They didn't have to wait long at all. I've seen my fair share of front wheels pointed to the sky, but there is something about the trike's design that makes a mono so much fun. When I tried to apply the rear brake in an effort to put the front wheel back on the ground and give me back that so called control you have on all three wheels, my foot slipped from the brake pedal. Normally, I'd just put it back on, but somehow my leg got jammed between the foot peg and rear tyre. The only thing that slowed the trike down was the calf. There is a phrase which goes on about the skin of your teeth, well this time I was saved by the skin of my leg.
Expecting to die, time slowed down to the point that I could understand the lyrics to Vader's This is War. I also had a moment where I thought that all Red Hot Chilli Pepper's songs didn't sound the same, but as I was dying it was just my imagination and in actual fact they do. With time passing so slowly during those few fatal seconds, I wondered if I would be featured on Trike Crash Investigations, where they piece my final moments together for all the armchair experts to critique.
Miraculously, and no doubt due to the power of enzymes, I didn't die (otherwise you would be reading a ghost story). I didn't even have the handlebars come down and fracture my skull. Nor did the back of my head hit the ground with a thud. Yamaha had accidentally fitted the Trike of Death with something which improves safety. The grab bar at the rear enables the trike of death to convert to a hat stand with one simple wheel stand. That's right, it just sits there until you tip it back over again. I lay on my back, enjoying the burning pain in my right leg for a while, but then my imagination took off and I could see how stupid I would look if I survived the crash only to have the fuel pour out of the tank and into my mouth. My vindaloo had not long passed through my oesophagus and getting a mouth full of two stroke petrol would have been a disaster. Flames from both ends.
With a new found appreciation for the stunts that the Trike of Death can perform, I took it for its fastest ride ever. I even raced my mate on the four stroke trike and he couldn't even get near me, especially since he was scared of the barbed wire fence that separated the two paddocks. I remembered once again, that the trike was special. Being brave, I took it over a bit of a jump but it came down on the front wheel and stayed like it while I wondered what sort of ambulance would be collecting me, or would it be straight to the hearse. I found that giving up trying to avoid a crash on the trike is the best way to ride it. It for some reason just sorts itself out, rider or not.
After lunch, the rear wheels hit the ground and was time to put the trike away until the next Ebay ad results in nothing.
It may only look as spicy as the curry prawns from the RSL, but be warned, this trike is like doing a wee after playing with habanero chillis – in the wrong hand it can be dangerous!
You might think that the starting price is too high, but it isn't. If I put the starting price at $4,500, that would be high. I know the condition that this thing is in, and how rare it is, and how rare living people that have ridden it are. I also know that I will have to put a new starter cord in it which will no doubt lead to another adventure and another tube of betadine.
Please ask questions because I've probably forgotten to mention anything specific about the trike here, but I have attached the previous ads in small print for those who enjoy reading about other people's misfortune. There is also that stupid saying that they use at training courses which goes, “There's no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people.” I feel like saying to those clowns, “There's no such thing as stupid software, just the idiots that read powerpoint presentations out word by word to people who can read it themselves.” I love training courses.
Old ads below. Warning, ads written in English and beyond 100 words may offend some readers.
The first five times that I advertised the Trike of Death for sale, people thought I was joking about how insane these things are. I'm not. Okay, so I may have stretched the truth a little here and there, but from my experience the truth can be stretched a long way before it finally snaps off and ruins your reputation and bruises your spuds. My feedback score is proof that either I have been very honest, or I've spent a lot of time creating user accounts and selling myself things. So take my word for what you are about to read.
Most people have come across a cactus at some stage, probably in some stupid pot decorated with pebbles and perched importantly on the boss's desk. You know it is spiky, but you can't resist touching it. There are even those ones which have natural velcro on them with really sharp hooks hidden amongst the stinging hairs. They are the best to touch, because it's only when you try to pull away that you end up getting impaled on them. I was once impaled on a cactus and had to walk myself to the doctor with a four inch cactus stuck on my shoulder.
Anyway, what does a cactus have to do with a Yamaha Trike of Death I don't hear you ask? Well, having this yellow plastic cactus sitting in my shed is going to kill me. Instead of a covering of spines, this yellow cactus has a tank of poison which feeds its evil root system, cleverly disguised as a 175cc two stroke motor. If I was told by my doctor that I had to attend jazz concerts daily, I'd be happy to ride this thing just to kill myself to avoid the pain. It's not that I don't like jazz, jazz doesn't like me, that's how emotional jazz can be.
I've gotten pretty game on the other trike I have, it really inspires confidence with its vague interpretation of suspension. I've also become proficient at not having to zip start things, because my other trike has electric start. The Trike of Death doesn't have electric start because the weight of the starter motor may have slowed it down a bit, saving dozens of lives. When I saw the Trike of Death in the shed, it drew me towards it like a crowd of blokes at a wet T shirt competition. I went to start it and either:
a) I've become extremely strong
b) the trike had too much compression, or;
f) the starter cord wasn't as strong as it was 25 years ago.
Snap, the cord broke on the first pull and my right arm flew off and tumbled 20 yards through the air. I managed to fight my arm away from the meat ants and stuck it back on with some duct tape. After three weeks my arm is healing well. The skin and flesh has fallen away from it and the flies don't seem that attracted to the remaining bone.
Armless, but still enthusiastic I still wanted more. Fortunately, you can clutch start these trikes, which I did by being towed with the other trike. Then after turning around and completely forgetting how dangerous the trike was, I took off on a two wheel adventure that I won't be forgetting until the wound on my leg heals.
Turning such a sharp corner which was about the same curvature of the earth, I sent the trike over onto two wheels, one front, one rear. That left only one rear wheel in the air just enjoying the breeze. I managed to stay in that semi out of control state for ages, in fact nearly five seconds had passed by the time the rear wheel dropped back to the ground. Feeling pretty cocky about such a stunt, I decided to do a wheel stand to impress my friends who were watching on and waiting for me to get hurt. They didn't have to wait long at all. I've seen my fair share of front wheels pointed to the sky, but there is something about the trike's design that makes a mono so much fun. When I tried to apply the rear brake in an effort to put the front wheel back on the ground and give me back that so called control you have on all three wheels, my foot slipped from the brake pedal. Normally, I'd just put it back on, but somehow my leg got jammed between the foot peg and rear tyre. The only thing that slowed the trike down was the calf. There is a phrase which goes on about the skin of your teeth, well this time I was saved by the skin of my leg.
Expecting to die, time slowed down to the point that I could understand the lyrics to Vader's This is War. I also had a moment where I thought that all Red Hot Chilli Pepper's songs didn't sound the same, but as I was dying it was just my imagination and in actual fact they do. With time passing so slowly during those few fatal seconds, I wondered if I would be featured on Trike Crash Investigations, where they piece my final moments together for all the armchair experts to critique.
Miraculously, and no doubt due to the power of enzymes, I didn't die (otherwise you would be reading a ghost story). I didn't even have the handlebars come down and fracture my skull. Nor did the back of my head hit the ground with a thud. Yamaha had accidentally fitted the Trike of Death with something which improves safety. The grab bar at the rear enables the trike of death to convert to a hat stand with one simple wheel stand. That's right, it just sits there until you tip it back over again. I lay on my back, enjoying the burning pain in my right leg for a while, but then my imagination took off and I could see how stupid I would look if I survived the crash only to have the fuel pour out of the tank and into my mouth. My vindaloo had not long passed through my oesophagus and getting a mouth full of two stroke petrol would have been a disaster. Flames from both ends.
With a new found appreciation for the stunts that the Trike of Death can perform, I took it for its fastest ride ever. I even raced my mate on the four stroke trike and he couldn't even get near me, especially since he was scared of the barbed wire fence that separated the two paddocks. I remembered once again, that the trike was special. Being brave, I took it over a bit of a jump but it came down on the front wheel and stayed like it while I wondered what sort of ambulance would be collecting me, or would it be straight to the hearse. I found that giving up trying to avoid a crash on the trike is the best way to ride it. It for some reason just sorts itself out, rider or not.
After lunch, the rear wheels hit the ground and was time to put the trike away until the next Ebay ad results in nothing.
It may only look as spicy as the curry prawns from the RSL, but be warned, this trike is like doing a wee after playing with habanero chillis – in the wrong hand it can be dangerous!
You might think that the starting price is too high, but it isn't. If I put the starting price at $4,500, that would be high. I know the condition that this thing is in, and how rare it is, and how rare living people that have ridden it are. I also know that I will have to put a new starter cord in it which will no doubt lead to another adventure and another tube of betadine.
Please ask questions because I've probably forgotten to mention anything specific about the trike here, but I have attached the previous ads in small print for those who enjoy reading about other people's misfortune. There is also that stupid saying that they use at training courses which goes, “There's no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people.” I feel like saying to those clowns, “There's no such thing as stupid software, just the idiots that read powerpoint presentations out word by word to people who can read it themselves.” I love training courses.
Old ads below. Warning, ads written in English and beyond 100 words may offend some readers.