u/Lamb-Of-Fox

This morning before my ride, I started my ritualistic polishing of my high vis vest, and matching panties collection. I try to exemplify the true moto community, I’m passionate and dedicated to ATGATT, it saved my life today. I started my ride as I normally do. I first went on Reddit to complain about e-bikes, and watch missionary soft core porn, it’s good stuff. I then completed my 110 point inspection, checking tire tread depth, leather seat polish, and of course, turn signals. Even with this preparation, I was not ready for what came next. Maybe I let my confidence get the better of me, maybe I let my guard down. I was doing my normal loop of the neighborhood, revving my engine to let my neighbors know loud pipes save lives, when I lost complete control. I was driving at reckless speeds (25 in a 20) when my front wheels spun out, and I smashed into a curb. I was really shaken up, I didn’t even know where to apply my emergency tourniquet. Luckily, I was wearing a helmet. They say that motorcyclists are much more likely to suffer serious injury or death when automobiles are involved in crashes, that’s why as a motorcyclist, I wear my helmet when I’m driving my car. When the airbags deployed, my helmet took the blunt of the force, probably saved me from ejaculation out the front windshield. Luckily, my 2008 Mini Cooper has proper insurance, else we’d be having a completely different conversation. I was able to exit safely, and laid in the middle of the road until the ambulance came. The rims were scratched up a little, and I think I sprained my big toe when I slammed the breaks a moment before impact. This is exactly what they talk about on Reddit, you gotta dress for the slide, I’m lucky to be alive today. My mini cooper, not so much, but it looks really nice next to my winterized 2022 CBR1000RR (the RR stands for “rich retard”)

Take this lesson from me and for the love of God, stop passing me on your Groms!! (It’s scary :c )

Grades are for the team that lost the trade. An F- means somebody should’ve taken the GM’s phone away.

1. New York Islanders — Alexei Yashin, 2001
Grade: F-
The Islanders gave Ottawa Zdeno Chara and the pick that became Jason Spezza. Then they signed Yashin for ten years, because apparently one terrible decision wasn’t enough.

2. Boston Bruins — Joe Thornton, 2005
Grade: F-
Boston traded its 26-year-old captain for Marco Sturm, Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau. Thornton landed in San Jose and immediately won the Hart Trophy. Just a clean, direct kick to the teeth.

3. Washington Capitals — Filip Forsberg, 2013
Grade: F-
Washington traded its best prospect for Martin Erat and Michael Latta. Erat scored two goals as a Capital. Forsberg became Nashville’s all-time leading scorer. Legendary deadline work, legendary.

4. Toronto Maple Leafs — Tuukka Rask, 2006
Grade: F-
Toronto traded Rask for Andrew Raycroft. Raycroft lasted two seasons, while Rask spent the next 15 years making Leafs fans even more toxic.

5. Montreal Canadiens — Scott Gomez, 2009
Grade: F-
Montreal took on Scott Gomez’s bloated contract and gave up Ryan McDonagh. Gomez forgot how to score and McDonagh became a top-pair defenseman and captain. Other than that, Habs had a great time

6. Edmonton Oilers — Griffin Reinhart, 2015
Grade: F-
Edmonton gave up the 16th and 33rd picks for Griffin Reinhart. He played 29 games for them. The 16th pick became Mathew Barzal, because the Oilers’ decade of darkness needed a bonus level.

7. Columbus Blue Jackets — William Karlsson expansion deal, 2017
Grade: F-
Columbus gave Vegas Karlsson, a first and a second to steer the expansion draft. Karlsson then scored 43 goals. They basically tipped Vegas for robbing them.

8. Calgary Flames — Marc Savard, 2002
Grade: F
Calgary traded Savard for Ruslan Zainullin, who never played a single NHL game. Savard became one of the best playmakers in hockey. That return wasn’t a player, it was a rumor.

9. Philadelphia Flyers — Patrick Sharp, 2005
Grade: F
The Flyers gave Sharp to Chicago for Matt Ellison and a third. Sharp won three Cups and scored nearly 250 goals for the Blackhawks, he was an important piece in the 2010 Stanley Cup finals which saw Chicago trounce Phili. Ellison scored three goals as a Flyer. Close one.

10. Florida Panthers — Roberto Luongo, 2006
Grade: F
Florida traded Luongo for a package led by Todd Bertuzzi, who played seven games for them. Luongo became one of the best goalies of his generation, then eventually came back to Florida anyway. Complete waste of everyone’s time.

11. Pittsburgh Penguins — Jaromír Jágr, 2001
Grade: F
Pittsburgh had money problems, so trading Jágr was understandable. Getting Kris Beech, Michal Sivek and Ross Lupaschuk was not. That’s the sort of return you get for a used treadmill, not Jaromír Jágr.

12. Minnesota Wild — Nick Leddy, 2010
Grade: F
Minnesota traded Leddy for Cam Barker, then bought Barker out around a year later. Leddy became a quality defenseman and Stanley Cup champion. Fastest way possible to turn a good prospect into dead money.

13. St. Louis Blues — Chris Pronger, 2005
Grade: F
The Blues traded Pronger for Eric Brewer and two prospects. Brewer was fine. Chris Pronger was Chris Pronger. This was like trading a bulldozer for a pretty reliable wheelbarrow. I’m not sad that it’s over, I’m just happy it happened, FTB

14. Ottawa Senators — Mika Zibanejad, 2016
Grade: F
Ottawa traded Zibanejad and a second for Derick Brassard and a seventh. So they gave up the younger player, the better player and the better pick. Impressive efficiency, honestly.

15. New York Rangers — Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller, 2018
Grade: F
The Rangers handed Tampa two major pieces of a championship core. Most of the return turned into guys Rangers fans now have to Google.

16. Chicago Blackhawks — Artemi Panarin, 2017
Grade: F
Chicago traded Panarin because his next contract might cost too much. Shocking development: elite players are expensive. Brandon Saad never played his level of hockey while wearing the red. You could say this was… Saad. Anyways, if Bowman was still GM, and Saad was still playing, he’d probably trade Bedard for him.

17. Anaheim Ducks — Shea Theodore expansion deal, 2017
Grade: D-
Anaheim gave Vegas Shea Theodore so they’d select Clayton Stoner. Theodore became a top-pair defenseman and helped Vegas win a Cup. Stoner played three games for them, which feels almost rude.

18. Vancouver Canucks — Oliver Ekman-Larsson, 2021
Grade: D-
Vancouver gave up a top-ten pick and more to dump three contracts that were nearly finished, then took on an even worse contract. They eventually bought Ekman-Larsson out and got years of dead cap as a souvenir.

19. San Jose Sharks — Erik Karlsson, 2018
Grade: D-
Karlsson eventually won a Norris in San Jose, so he wasn’t bad. The Sharks just gave up Josh Norris, Dylan DeMelo, several other pieces and the pick that became Tim Stützle. Nice player, absolutely apocalyptic receipt.

20. Tampa Bay Lightning — Tanner Jeannot, 2023
Grade: D-
Tampa gave up Cal Foote and five draft picks for Tanner Jeannot. Five. That’s the kind of package you assemble for a star, not a guy whose scouting report starts with “hits people.”

21. Los Angeles Kings — Milan Lucic, 2015
Grade: D-
The Kings gave up Martin Jones, Colin Miller and the 13th pick for one season of Milan Lucic. Then Lucic left. At least they didn’t have to help him pack.

22. Buffalo Sabres — Dominik Hašek, 2001
Grade: D
Hašek wanted out, so Buffalo didn’t have much leverage. Still, he went to Detroit and immediately won the Cup while the Sabres got a fairly forgettable return. Even the excuse comes with a headache. I guess Canadian teams can’t catch a break.

23. Colorado Avalanche — Chris Drury and Stéphane Yelle, 2002
Grade: D
Colorado traded two important championship players for a package led by Derek Morris. Morris was decent, but Drury became exactly the kind of playoff center teams spend years trying to find. Then Colorado traded him away.

24. Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers — Braydon Coburn, 2007
Grade: D
Atlanta traded 21-year-old Coburn for 34-year-old Alexei Zhitnik. Zhitnik was gone soon after. Coburn played nearly 1,000 NHL games. Just a little issue with the timeline there.

25. Detroit Red Wings — David Legwand, 2014
Grade: D
Detroit gave up Calle Järnkrok, Patrick Eaves and a second for a few months of David Legwand. Järnkrok stayed useful for more than a decade. Legwand stayed until spring.

26. Dallas Stars — James Neal and Matt Niskanen, 2011
Grade: D
Dallas got a good defenseman in Alex Goligoski. They just had to give up two good young players to do it. Not a disaster, more like paying $900 for a perfectly decent toaster.

27. Nashville Predators — Kyle Turris, 2017
Grade: D+
Turris started well, then his six-year contract went bad almost immediately. Samuel Girard became a top-four defenseman and won a Cup with Colorado. Nashville got the expensive disappearing act.

28. Carolina Hurricanes — Justin Williams, 2009
Grade: D+
Carolina traded away Justin Williams, who became one of the best playoff performers of his generation. They recovered some value later, but Los Angeles got “Mr. Game 7.” Carolina got paperwork.

29. Vegas Golden Knights — Marc-André Fleury, 2021
Grade: C-
Vegas traded the reigning Vezina winner for Mikael Hakkarainen, who never played in the NHL. It was a cap dump, sure, but they handled a franchise icon like an old couch left at the curb. C- but F- for how they dissed Fleury

30. New Jersey Devils — Cory Schneider, 2013
Grade: C-
New Jersey gave up the pick that became Bo Horvat. Schneider was excellent for several years, so this wasn’t robbery. It was more like buying a luxury boat right before moving to the desert.

31. Seattle Kraken — Jaycob Megna, 2023
Grade: C
Seattle traded a fourth-round pick for Megna, barely played him and later lost him on waivers. Bad deal, but nobody needs to make a six-part documentary about it.

32. Utah Mammoth — John Marino, 2024
Grade: C
Utah gave up two seconds for Marino and a fifth. Injuries hurt the early return, but this is mostly here because Utah hasn’t been around long enough to truly ruin anything yet. Give them time.

Not sure how authentic the source is, or where they get their information, but according to them, four teams are on Kane’s list. Two weeks into free agency, and we haven’t heard anything decisive.

I recently watched FortNine’s latest video on motorcycle purchases vs age demographic trends, and while very informative, I’d hedge we’re missing a lot of information. I’ve been running through these thoughts for some years now, and I’d like to extrapolate further than he did in his video.

The trends show motorcyclists aging, the median age of purchase going up, endorsements coming later and later in life than ever before. You could blame this on several factors, some being economical, others being golden aged freedoms. Those charts make the future of the industry look quite bleak.

Enter Electric Bicycles otherwise known as E-Bikes. If you’ve been out riding through residential areas or big cities alike, you’ll have noticed swaths of kids, some as young as 7-8, flying by on these bicycles. These E-Bikes are generally affordable, efficient (ish) and almost every kid or young adult wants one. Some are quite fast, fast enough that I do double takes, fast enough that cities are struggling to enact laws to restrict or prohibit their uses.

When people try and gauge the future of this industry, they often look at sales, or age demographics for known reputable brands, or they check endorsement trends. They look at everything except the thing shaping the industry before our very eyes. These kids and young adults zipping past on overclocked e-bikes, they’re experiencing something that hasn’t been experienced in this industry since its inception. They’re experiencing what the dirt bike craze could never match. It’s an experience, made more and more obtainable, of thrilling core memories. Hundreds of thousands of kids and young adults who will twist a throttle, feel a surge, and look to the stars for more.

In a time when, economically, things are quite uncertain, when cars have never been more expensive and DIY self reliance is fueled by limitless information via any platform imaginable, motorcycles make more and more sense to a struggling younger generation. Tied in with the generational prominence of two wheeled vehicles being a center point in core development, I think the future is potential made physical.

When you’re out riding, and you see these kids out on their e-bikes, what do they do? Do they stare? Wave? Smile? Do they twist their wrists at you and get excited when you rev back? We will witness something special within the next decade, a renaissance for this hobby and culture we love.

This isn’t a prophecy, nor a bluff into market speculations, this is a truly once in a lifetime resurgence that Harley nor Honda, or any other brand could ever genuinely replicate. No advertisement campaign, no commercialism, nor any push by the market by any of the big brands could have brought us here. It is something made organically, and it’s something truly remarkable to watch unfold. Motorcycle culture is shedding its skin, and something new is emerging.

TLDR: Electric bikes will encourage Gen Z and Gen Alpha into buying full sized motorcycles, reviving the industry as a whole

I was lucky to inherit my grandparents liquor collection. They were not avid drinkers but my grandfather, being a jeweler, would receive gifts from clients during the holidays. He did enjoy gin and bourbon but only on occasion. When going through his things after his passing, I found boxes of Beefeater from the 50s and 60s, unopened and with their tax seals intact.

Hard liquor is not like wine where it ages and becomes more complex with time. If taken care of, bottled liquor will taste the same as the day it was bottled; indifferent to passing time. So comes the test, how different does it taste from current beefeater?

I have bottles of the stuff from pre covid, and the newest iteration where they yet again dropped the ABV, so I decided to do a test between the three.

Old Beefeater was a completely different gin. Im not sure if quality got pushed off a cliff in the name of profits, but theres no other way to describe what was lost. Beefeater adamantly says they haven’t changed their recipe all this time. Bullshit, absolute lies. This, the 50s and 60s gin, this was what won them awards. Whatever they’re passing off now is a shadow of their past. I know these new iterations are watered down, but the flavor and bite are gone.

The beefeater you get at the stores today, it ain’t what your father or his father had, and that’s extremely disappointing. The fun machine took a shit and died, and there goes another storied gin.