{"id":11011,"date":"2015-12-06T07:25:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T07:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=11011"},"modified":"2015-12-06T07:40:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-06T07:40:30","slug":"new-wheels-maybemotorcycle-live-rampant-sexism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=11011","title":{"rendered":"New ride coming\/Motorcycle Live & rampant sexism"},"content":{"rendered":"

New ride coming<\/strong>
\nI’ve been mulling over a change of chariot for a couple of months.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0started when I thought I wasn’t enjoying the ZX9R, but then I bought the new Daytona and discovered that I didn’t like that, and felt that\u00a0the ZX9R was the dog’s danglers after all.<\/p>\n

Good that I know my own mind, eh?<\/p>\n

External factors started becoming an influence with the\u00a0soon-to-be-delivered cheque from the insurance company for the old Daytona.<\/p>\n

Then I got the new job and, with it, a company car.<\/p>\n

So I have decided to sell the Jag.<\/p>\n

And also decided to sell the new Daytona.<\/p>\n

And let the ZX9R go?<\/p>\n

And then, in February, I could pool all this cash together and buy myself a brand spanking new ZX10R?<\/p>\n

\"ZX10r\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I think so, yes.<\/p>\n

Motorcycle Live & rampant sexism<\/strong>
\nLast Saturday we went to ‘Motorcycle Live’, the UKs biggest bike show, at Solihull’s\u00a0glittering NEC.<\/p>\n

Motorcycle Live gave me an opportunity to sit on a (static) version of the will-be-released-in-February ZX10R.<\/p>\n

Even though it was static, I enjoyed sitting on it.<\/p>\n

It felt like ‘home’. It felt comfortable, and right.<\/p>\n

Sitting on the ZX10R crystalised my thoughts about selling both the ZX9R and the Daytona, and getting the brand new, leaner, meaner, and much, much quicker big brother to the ZX9R.<\/p>\n

We browsed various trade stands and I bought (though they haven’t yet called me to complete the sale), a lovely leather jacket.<\/p>\n

We had a chat with the highly entertaining motorcycle travel author, Sam Manicom<\/a>\u00a0(who I have an enormous amount of respect for).<\/p>\n

We also met writer and adventurer\u00a0Jeremy Kroeker<\/a>, who promises to be a similarly entertaining author.<\/p>\n

We watched the freestyle motorcross nutcases doing their FMX\/X-Fighters lunacy.<\/p>\n

We thoroughly enjoyed that!<\/p>\n

But oh, the sexism.<\/p>\n

It started with the LWP* and me looking keenly at a bike, when\u00a0a punter leant in and began a conversation with her:<\/p>\n

Punter: This is a bit sexist, isn’t it love?
\nLWP: What?
\nPunter: This bike. No rear pegs. No pillion.
\nLWP: I wouldn’t want to carry a pillion when I was out on it.
\nPunter: (genuine surprise) Oh, you ride do you?<\/p>\n

Well no she doesn’t, obviously.<\/p>\n

Because riding motorbikes is the exclusive preserve of sexist morons like you.<\/p>\n

Isn’t it?<\/p>\n

Later, as we were ambling about the various halls that comprise Motorcycle\u00a0Live, we saw the girls.<\/p>\n

The high-heeled, spray-tanned, poured in to body-clinging\u00a0lycra, cameltoe-fronted girls.<\/p>\n

In the name of all that is sensible, what is the relationship between half a dozen girls, dressed like this, and motorbike insurance?<\/p>\n

Really?<\/p>\n

What?<\/p>\n

There were several troupes of such girls, and seeing them wandering around the halls, handing out leaflets to goggle-eyed, pot-bellied, midlife-crisis-dodging attendees made me wonder.<\/p>\n

It is the 21st Century, and we – as a civilisation – have given women the vote, we are striving for gender equality (because we recognise that women are, after all, people, people who make up 50% of the population of this planet), and yet there are businesses who think it is acceptable to draw a link between a woman as a sexual objective and their product?<\/p>\n

Really?<\/p>\n

We really think this?<\/p>\n

Companies think that this 1950s\/1960s mentality\u00a0is normal\/acceptable\/right in 2015?<\/p>\n

All it made me do was question the ethics of the companies that go down this road.<\/p>\n

It made the LWP decide not to use MCE Insurance when she buys her Royal Enfield next year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*LWP = Living with partner. LWP is used as an anonymous, and temporary description that doesn’t denote ownership, gender (though that is implied), or the ability to kill people with her ‘fuck you, moron’ laser eyes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New ride coming I’ve been mulling over a change of chariot for a couple of months. This\u00a0started when I thought I wasn’t enjoying the ZX9R,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}