Interesting tidbit. I have what is known as perfect/absolute pitch. It runs in my family (number of previously professional musicians in the family).
I play guitar and sing. I’d recommend picking up an instrument just for the fun of it if you have time 
Yep. It was aboout 65% post STEMI.
No telling what it must have been prior. 
30x the risk of getting into a fatal accident! 20% of people involved in a car accident wind up injured or dead. With motorcycles EIGHTY percent of crashes cause injury or death.
In Australia, 33% of all accidents occur on roads with speed limits that are 100km/hr+. Of those accidents, 27% are motorcycle accidents… However only 800 thousand motorcycles are registered in Aus. Motorbikes make up for 1.8% of civillian distances travelled, 5.7% of vehicle registrations… BUT 18% of all road deaths (27% on freeways) in Australia are from motorcycles.
I want a motorcycle, and it’s very possible that I’ll get one the second I move out. But good god are they dangerous! It’s not about “if” you crash… It’s about “when” you crash!
Imo, everyone should wear a helmet, and an airbag padded jacket (reduces forward momentum if you crash by 60%)
I like motorcycles… I’ve ridden dirt bikes and quadbikes from the age of around nine onwards. Have only fallen off a handful of times, worst injury being minor (second degree) thermal burn.
Motorcycles are REALLY cool. Lots of parents will drone on and on about how dangerous they are… But in this case, the parents are actually 100% correct. It’s not a fear tactic to say “lets go down to our local ER/trauma centre and look at people who have crashed on motorcycles”. If you go down to a trauma unit… you’ll invariably see a lot of motorcycle crashes because a disproportionate amount of roadside crashes are in relation to motorcycle accidents.
Motorbikes are smaller, and therefore one tap with a larger vehicle can send the driver flying… That and, motorcyclists tend to drive like dicks… swerving in between cars when traffic is present. One TINY misstep… and it could spell the end of your life!
Is such awesomeness worth the risk? I say… It depends if you have a family… if you have responsibilities i.e own a business or if you are unreal24278. In the latter case it’s probably worth it
I remember seeing one accident while I was working where one guy had fallen off while swerving, the impact between his motorcycle and another car shattered his leg (compound fracture). It appeared he had an open tibia fracture (look it up at your own discretion).
I always thought my folks were exaggerating, the stereotypical “jewish parents fearmongering” that is all too common… But they were actually dead on about how dangerous motorcycles are!
Saw another one where a guy fell off a moped (not even a motorcycle) and cracked his head open. His girlfriend jumped into the back of our ambulance, they had a child… She started screaming at him “we have baby!” followed by Hebrew that I couldn’t understand.
I stood there and thought about potatoes. There was nothing I could do to get her out of the ambulance as she was NOT meant to be there…
My fathers best friend lost two fingers in a motorcycle crash… Had them re-attached.
Why not boxing? Or Muay Thai?
Honestly, it’s because I find all aspects of fighting fun, and it’d annoy me if I only knew how to strike and not grapple. Like I said, since I’m most likely not gonna do anything more dangerous than hard sparring, I’m free to avoid anything I feel that’s too damaging to me. When I was boxing, I let my sparring partners know of my issues and they were very understanding. Perhaps I’ll do a boxing/MT smoker if my body progresses to that point.
However being strong like that and being active MASKS symptoms. The second I get injured and decondition not only do I fall apart (as has happened over the past year), but the damage that has been incurred over that duration of time suddenly rears it’s ugly head.
Yup, which is why my PT strongly recommended that I lift and do rehab moves until the day I die. I’ve said it on here before, but I was so atrophied in 2019/2020 that a 3lbs floor press and holding a coffee cup were basically max effort movements for me. I refuse to get that weak ever again.
do you intend to undergo regular cardiac monitoring? Heart problems can more/less pop up out of the blue for people like us.
After 35 yeah, but I was planning on that even if I didn’t have EDS.
fuck I’m so sad about this… haven’t gotten out of bed this weekend… Need time to grieve. This is not what I signed up for…
Please, take all the time you need to grieve, but I do agree with @SkyzykS that obssessing over this will only make your life worse. Even if we didn’t have EDS, we could die or be crippled by 55 from an accident/cancer/some other unseeable issue. Predictions based on a diagnosis are just that… predictions.
Yeah. When my brother broke his neck the average lifespan for a quadruplegic was about 20 years.
So, 35 years later…
And I was supposed to never be able to do a push up (or any sort of pushing move, even on a machine) ever again.
And awesome to hear about your brother!
@BrickHead I sent you an email Brick
Just goes to show you have no valid retort. WTF are you even saying? What something is and what it means?
You ever give a girl flowers & chocolates?
Do you think she actually cares about flowers and chocolates?
The answer is no.
She is more impressed with the fact that you care enough to take the time and thought to get the flowers and chocolates than by the actual objects.
What something is vs. What something means.
Dumbass.
I did Muay Thai for a little while (maybe a year cumulatively). Full contact Karate for seven ish years (is/was like kickboxing in a gi), sometimes you’d practice wristlocks or something but the grappling component wasn’t there
In Muay Thai there is the element of the clinch. Within the clinch you can strike (elbows, knees etc), and also sweep, dump, trip, use a very specific set of upper body throws.
It’s grappling… albeit in a limited sense
This makes muay thai more wll rounded relative to other striking arts. However muay thai does lack the defensive footwork and head movement present in boxing. Opts for more of an emphasis on parrying and trading hits.
Not to say you can’t avoid getting hit in muay thai, but ‘dodging’ movements are far more subtle and thus the learning curve required to pull off the subtle counters and dodges is WAY higher than the curve required to slip a punch in boxing (in MT this opens you up to a nice knee or kick to the face).
Muay Thai guys who aren’t competitive also tend to have sub par hands. Lots of Muay Thai guys cross train in boxing 1-2x per week for this reason.
Muay thai guys have an arseal of kicks, punches, knees, elbows, trips, sweeps and upper body throws (hence more upright strance to avoid leg kicks, envage in clinch etc).
Boxers have punches (and footwork, but so do nak muay). Boxers have the most precise, powerful punches. It doesn’t take long to learn how to throw a decent punch. Being able to consistently land a solid blow on a resisting opponent is a different story
Even landing a hard low kick is less intuitive than a left hook.
Learning curve for sweeping a resisting opponent from clinch has a higher learning curve than arguably anything present in boxing aside from boxing footwork/rhythm.
Good rhythm takes a while to get down unless you drill it in your spare time constantly
Remember
Hard sparring is where CTE comes from.
Also boxed for a little while (maybe 6-12 months cumulatively). Tried wrestling and BJJ etc.
The issue is not that the motorcycle is inherently unsafe, it is that most riders have little to no training and do not know how to safely ride on the road, and car drivers also have no proper training and have no focus on what is around them when they drive . I have ridden motorcycles for more than 30 years, and have used one as my main mode of transport for the last 8 years. I see many terrible car drivers but I also see many stupid bike riders. In most cases, particularly high speed crashes the bike rider is at fault. Motorcycles are extremely fast and unfortunately many riders see that as an invitation to treat the road like a race track. This almost always ends up badly for the rider. If motorcycle riders took their racing to track days and learned proper defensive riding statistics would be very different. Although then track days would also be full of dick heads.
Even if no motorcyclists drove around like assholes
It takes one bad driver to TAP a motorcycle and the motorcyclist will go flying whereas the guy in the car is fine.
Look at the physics behind motorcycle accidents and car accidents. Even if we lived in an idealistic, utopian scenario where everyone adheres to road rules… motorcycles would still be more dangerous
Even if drivers took defensive driving courses (which I do believe may be mandatory for motorcyclists in parts of Aus)… the statistics still infer motorcycles are substantially more dangerous.
Often the crash has nothing to do with the guy on the motorcycle and more to do with a drunk driver. Though the guys on motorcycles who swerve through traffic are taking a huge risk…
My father LOVES motorcycles. The only reason he won’t get one is because he has a wife, kids (who are now young adults) and a farm to look after.
He isn’t willing to take the risk. Yet he has driven dirtbikes, quad bikes and occasionally motorbikes for 3+ decades.
I’m likely going to wind up getting a motorcycle because I have far less on the line.
I think if you look at the incidents, the number of incidents like this where the motorcycle could not avoid the accident, like someone running a red light or pulling straight out in front of them (where the bike was in the correct road position or not speeding) are actually very rare.
I agree that the consequences for bike riders are more severe.
I crashed my first motorcycle when I was about 7 years old, and my last one at about 27. Brand new CR 250, totaled while breaking it in. It had about 20 minutes of riding time on it.
The worst thing about motorcycles is me. 
No requirement for this, riders can do a one day course and ride a 250cc and then take another test and go to a 650. These riders have no experience and are riding bikes that are as fast or faster than most sports cars.
Not trying to be combative
But in Aus it takes a few years to get your full motorcycle license
You start out on your learners. This entails habing to attach a big yellow L to the back of your bike and you must wear a giant, illuminated green jacket at all times. You are also required to pass a number of tests/courses. You
To top this, I believe you are capped to a 660cc bike
You must always have headlights on + a slew of nanny state rules
After 3-12 months depending on what state you are in, you graduate to P1 license (still a ton of restrictions), followed by P2 license (still a ton of restrictions)
Then full license. As per usual draconaian Australian standards… getting a motorcycle license (full license) here takes a very long time. Wait is prolonged further if you don’t have a good driving record
Yet our motorcycle crash/fatality rate is still disproportionately high.
Full licence YES you are correct. The states vary, but in Victoria you can do a 2 day MPA to get an L plate (can ride bike up to 260cc) and then after 3 months you can do a test and essentially get a full licence but with a P plate which restricts you to LAMS approved motorcycles, most bikes up to 660cc.
This means an 18 year old with 3 months riding experience can ride a 660cc bike that has a similar performance to superbikes from 20-30 years ago. I dont really see this as a ton of restrictions. Whilst you may see this as over restrictive, I would say that these riders have no where near enough training or experience. And yes the crash and fatality rates are high. It is easy to make a small mistake in a car like clipping the kerb with limited or no consequences, the same mistake on a bike will result in the rider going down the road.
Even after all I said about not enough experience and the dangers I still love then and support anyone wanting to get into motorcycling. Just spend the money to get some advanced or defensive riding skills and dont ride beyond your capabilities, or take your fast riding to the track. There is nothing better than the freedom of riding a bike and even better the feeling of not getting stuck in traffic. Enjoy and stay safe.
Love motorcycles but mostly stuck to dirt over the years. Don’t have to worry about cars in the woods. Had a few road bikes and loved them but not a priority anymore. Maybe once the kids grow up I’ll get another.
Clint Smith on motorcycles:
4:02
Hypothetically.
Does someone need to have their own bike to do this? What if they have a dirt bike that could theoretically be converted to road legal status
Or could they borrow one and get the license without their parents knowing any better? This individuals parents would probably kick them out if a motorcycle were to turn up on their property.
HYPOTHETICALLY
This 22 year old is going to move out by the years end, and has ridden dirtbikes (up to 250cc), quad bikes from the age of 7
Tractors from age of 15
First time drove a car at 12 (hehehehehe), was arguably ready for his full license in terms of driving experience, skill, reaction time etc by 17. Has never had a speeding ticket
This is ALL hypothetical!