As most of you know, I'm concerned about how bikers are "over-represented" in the use of tobacco. That point was driven home to me, once again.

I am also a member of a cooking forum. This topic popped up there again, as well.

There are 14 black memorial bricks at our clubhouse. Thirteen from health issues, only one killed in club violence. No one so far has lived to be more than about sixty years of age. And my club officially began in 1969. Heck, there are a lots of Angels and Galloping Goose members in their eighties.

I saw something (again) that should be obvious by now. It was good riding weather for most of this last weekend and many bikers were traveling. There is a two-foot square sand receptacle at door of our dealership due to Madison's smoking ordinance. This weekend the receptacle was jammed with butts--I cannot guess how many hundreds of cigarettes there were--and the employees smoke in the back outside the service area. That receptacle is emptied daily.

Yes, yes, I know, I know. It's a "free choice." However, my doc is 38, and he tells me I'm in better shape than he is. To the contrary, (due to demographics and my knowledge of who abuses their health) my guess is that we will bury three or four club members this year, all in their late fifties or early sixties, none from violence and none from wrecks. The last guy to die in a wreck was a Prospect, over three years ago.

If an opposing bike club wanted to kill us all, they would quit buying bullets and simply ship us cases of free cigarettes. We'd kill ourselves--while laughing.

I agree, but the whole biker myth is "Living Dangerously" and too many people buy into it. As a biker that like you takes care of himself, I don't get it either.

I do have smokers as friends and it seems that the moment out weighs the long run with them.

Lead by example.

In that, I will fail. The example has always been "the romance" of motorcycling. That's why a peanut tank smaller than my 48's (and stuffed with a garden hose full of cash) became a cross country touring bike for Peter Fonda.

That's why a 1971 black Sportster coming out of a fog into an advertiser's camera with the tag-line "pull the trigger" sold iron engine bikes.

It's why 20 year old 'bikers' wear their grandfather's road clothes...

Last week I saw a parts guy at my home dealer smoking an electric cigarette. I asked him if it was helping him quit. He told me that he didn't smoke at all, he just bought one to look cool. The guy is older than I am.

Cool sells, and biker corpses are pretty cold. But I guess the dead are useful to sell stuff.