Rueing the Sherpa

As hysteria about Coronavirus spreads – faster than the disease and possibly more dangerous than the disease – I’m really regretting having sold my dual-sport Kawasaki KL250 Super Sherpa (the Lesser Known Kaw) a few years ago.

A motorcycle that can go off road – can go places even a jacked-up 4×4 truck can’t – is the perfect tool for dealing with Hut! Hut! Hut! WuFlu “checkpoints” and national prison “lockdowns” pretexted and justified by what may prove to be a contrived panic, contrived for just that purpose.

Nahhnlevven – when “the enemies of freedom” supposedly struck – was messy and too local. If you weren’t in NYC or DC it was abstract. But a continental plague or fear of the same is just the ticket for penning in the cattle, with the cattle lowing and mooing to be led to saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety, as per H.L. Mencken’s axiom about government.

I’d rather look out for my own saaaaaaaaaaafety than trust it to – of all things – the government. That would be like giving a meth addict your debit card and PIN number; see what your balance is tomorrow morning. This is exaggerated – but only a little. Remember Katrina – and how “helpful” the government was then. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $25.00 (as of 11:14 UTC - Details)

No matter your political persuasion, realize and come to grips with the hard cold fact that you and yours will be on your own if things get ugly.

Or rounded up.

It is much better to rely on yourself – and your friends and family. Do not make the mistake of relying on the government, that lice-infested nest of indifferent incompetents, grifters, power-trippers, fools and knaves who not only think they know best but will use guns to convince you that they do.

Which is why I miss the Sherpa, a small dual-sport (on/off-road) motorcycle Kawasaki made in the early 2000s, which was the era of the apogee of motorcycle design, just as ten years or so earlier was the apogee of car design – if you wanted a car with all the bullet-proof reliability, minimalist maintenance of modernity without all the crap (e.g., “assistance” technology and such) that modernity has become.

The little Kaw had more range on 2.5 gallons of gas than any electric car has now – because its single-cylinder engine only needed a gallon to travel 80-100 miles, which is twice as far as any hybrid car. Two or three five gallon jugs of gas stored in my shed means mobility for weeks – months – if there’s no more gas available at the station.

Even if the power gets cut off, I’m still mobile.

Well, I was.

A dual-sport/dirt bike can get to places – and away from places – you can’t get to (or get away from) on four wheels, even if you have a 4×4. A truck, no matter how much ground clearance it has, is too wide for the woods unless there’s a trail and any trail can be blocked. A dirt bike doesn’t need a trail. Everywhere is its trail and good luck following a dirt bike unless you’re on one, too.

Most armed government workers aren’t – and the few that are ride big on-road bikes that are much less useful for travel than your own two feet when the pavement turns to grass turns to rutted muddy earth.

The Sherpa would give me the option to break left – or right – and into the Woods at the first sight of a Corona “checkpoint” and the ability to put real distance, quickly, between myself and armed government workers sent to enforce a “lockdown.”

Read the Whole Article