Some people might be curious about the name Ghostrider for my blog url. As a kid I liked to read comics. I never really got into the Ghostrider comics, but he showed up in several of the Spiderman comics that I did enjoy.

If you don't know Ghostrider is a comic book hero that rides a bike with flaming wheels which can go anywhere. They are apparently making this into a movie, which will have Nicolas Cage playing Ghostrider. Seems like a bad casting call, but I'm not in charge. The production crew has released a few photos of the movie including some publicity shots of the bike.



This is a graphically altered image that likely accurately represents the appearance of the bike for the movie. You can see that the forks are made to resemble heavy chains and there is no apparent shocks. I imagine this is not the bike you want to cruise the country on. It sure would look wicked in your driveway though.


This view is a non-altered seat and rear view on this bike. I particularly like the pipes. They really blend with the bike. Could you imagine a get off situation where you fall over the rear fender?!?! I think taking a header over the handle bars would be more comfortable, but those studs certainly look fierce.

Anyways, this is the initial idea that lead me to choosing my site name. I like to incorporate fire into all of my screen names and web-sites. If you don't realize it "PuriChristos" is modified Greek meaning, "on fire for Christ." The hidden meaning behind "Ghostrider" is not just the fire, but my pentecostal heritage. The Holy Ghost.

I just thought this might be interesting to some people.

Well, I am sure I mentioned that when my wife let me buy a bike she thought that I would stop staring at every other bike on the road. Naive.

Today I saw about 50 bikes while I was rolling along in a truck wishing I didn't have to deal with a tree that same down in my yard. Today would have been a great day to get out and ride my bike.

One of the bikes I saw was a recent model GSXR 650. This is the descendant of my bike. It is so much hotter though. Realistically this is the most powerful street bike that I should ever consider getting. I am certain that anything more powerful will kill me ... well make it easier for me to accidentally kill myself. This doesn't mean I can't dream.

This brings me to another dream bike. I will never buy this bike even if I have the money and have bought every other dream bike. I know myself well enough to know that I could never own this bike without finding out what 200+mph feels like. This would result in finding out that too much speed is much too addicting, which ultimately leads to the revelation that driving that fast anywhere but a track will eventually kill you. ... unless you live in a place with, oh, say, an autobahn.

The Hayabusa.

This sleek looking bike is the fastest production bike period. It has a 1299 cc engine and weighs 478 lbs dry. It gives up over 155 horsepower and nearly 100 ft/lbs torque. Several other bikes have larger engines and more power, but not at this weight. The HP to weight ratio out matches everything in its class and beyond. There is a governor that limits this bike to 189 mph, but that is a quick fix which results in over 200 mph ... assuming you can hold on in 200+mph winds.

I can think of a few nicer ways to die, but this does make my top 10 list of ways I wouldn't mind dieing. Still, I know it is much to dangerous for a guy like me to own a bike like this ... then again I can't imagine anyone wanting a bike like this unless that were like me. Anyone that would buy this bike and never open it up should have the bike taken away from them. It would be like buying a leer jet and then taxiing it up and down the runway.