Quitch yur bitchin...

... there's worse out there.  Dan's a good man.

(This is written in response to a few postings regarding reader's affinity or abhorrence of Dan Walsh.  I saw Mitch's comment on "One Subscribers Opinion..." blog posting and I thought my yea or nay might be relevant regarding a continuing relationship with Mr. Walsh going forward.  It's also a good-natured poke at another US cycling mag.  Nothing personal against them.)

WARNING!  Readers offended by blatant displays of script and acts of sheer writing stupidity or those with a penchant for writing letters to the editor and canceling their subscriptions in response to other letters to the editor should save me the trouble and immediately turn to... any other letter to the editor.

A person or two on Motorcyclist's message board has made it known that, in their humble/they're not worthy opinion, Dan Walsh is a sloshed, gorked, narcotized nincompoop who has visions of Che Guevara rattling in his coconut as he cruises the western hemisphere on his "lookin for adventure" cycle.  That he has the wanderlust and sense of T. E. Lawrence.  And that he loves the pistola, brew, and himself.

Look guys, here's the real low-down on Dan: he's a regular Kofi Annan, a motorcycling U.N. ambassador when compared with others who shall remain nameless, such as Dale Lomas as recently published in  _____ World, a potent mix if ever there was one.  He wrote a piece that ____ World printed about the Euro Cannonball Rally.  If you read the article (it could've been his prison memoirs) you'll see that in comparison Motorcyclist's Dan Walsh is all about the ambassadorial aspect of motorcycling.  Lomas is about a "inflaming" the ambassadors perspective.

Seriously, Walsh's experiences are actually about... experiencing.  A more leisurely pace.  Chatting and drinking it up with the locals.  What's the worst that could happen as he souses it up while enjoying a brew with a band of guerrillas and waving a pistol?  One of them might lose an eye or crack his skull falling down drunk.  Maybe they argue the finer points of which is better, tacos or Bultacos, then heated words are exchanged, and things degenerate into a Mexican standoff.  Big deal.  The destruction is kept in-house so to speak.  No harm, no foul.  

Lomas?  This felonious ZX14, 300kph, two-wheeled, land-missile loving Euro could easily have taken out an RV full of scenery loving European citizens while jetting away from the polizei on a mountain pass and not even known it.  The things done and attempted while shredding European roadways (not to mention motorcycling's image) and rutting about like a crazed otter and disrespecting the law-enforcing Clouseaus on this Rally would make Robert Craig Knievel cringe.  If you don't know what's up with this then look for "Euro Cannonball" by D. Lomas in that other US cycling magazine.

So, let's all take it easy.  Dan Walsh is looking like a professorial, law-abiding, moped-scooting, good-hearted writer.  Dan, we got your back.  Just keep the pistol holstered.  

Hey Carnac, I with you on Dan Walsh. I enjoy reading what he has to say about the locals in places I probably will never see.

Now to Lomas. That guy is a nut. Cycle ______ pushed the envelope with the article. I read it for the same reason I look at train wrecks...I was waiting for the police to catch up with him and throw his a** in jail. I'm not sure what Cycle ____ was trying to accomplish with that article. Is that what we can expect the Cannonball they are organizing here in the U.S. to be like?  If so you better watch out and you better pray. If so something bad happens with ZX14's and other like bikes blistering up and down U.S. roads at 160 plus mph the rider if he lives and the organizers are going to get there butts sued up one side and down the other. The whole thing smells of disaster. Speeds like that are for tracks only where you don't have to worry about killing anybody but yourself and some other guy or gal who has signed on to take the same risk. I can hear them now at their briefing with eyes glinting and sly smiles..."tell the officer it's a rally not a race."  B.S. on that.  I look forward to the next Dan Walsh article.  

Yo, cmoore,

What moore could you c than what you have said about this "Rally here, next year"?  You identified the one element to a "US Cannonball Rally" in the US West next year that will get, at the very least, the organizers flambe'd -- the legal liability for even sponsoring such an event.  And now D. Lomas' publishings from "Cycling Universe" (named changed to protect the potentially culpable) could very well be indicting against said organizers if any were hauled before a judge.  It's been reported that his article, "Euro Cannonball" was printed in Performance Bike in Europe earlier.

That's funny... like looking at train wrecks.

Your comment got me thinking about a few dynamics to a US Cannonball Rally that has been proposed for next year so... I put another post out there.  "Bauer shuts down the US Rally next year".  If interested check it out.