Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/1054595
26 | WheelsOfGrace.com | Issue 43 MOTORCYCLE INDUSTRY NEWS COBRA GETS STUCK IN MOTORCYCLE SIDE PANEL A motorcyclist in India was delayed in going for a ride when he found a 5-foot cobra occupying the vehicle. A video filmed in Yadgir, in the central part of the country, shows a crowd of onlookers gather to watch as the cobra hisses and poises to strike at anyone who comes too close to the side panel. Witnesses said the snake is believed to have slithered inside the motorcycle and go en its tail caught. Snake catcher Chand Pasha responded to the scene and spent nearly an hour safely capturing the cobra. Pasha said the cobra was likely seeking shelter from the rain when it crawled into the bike. HONDA MONKEY AND SUPER CUB MOTORCYCLES RETURN TO U.S. MARKET Honda is bringing back some classic bikes from its past. The Monkey and the Super Cub C125 will be available for U.S. customers from the 2019 model year on. Make no mistake, these are new bikes with modern touches like LED lights and digital displays, but Honda has kept their design and func onality very close to the mid-century originals. Both were first unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show last fall, in concept form, but Honda was eager to bring them quickly into produc on. Both have a remarkably large 125cc engine, as 50cc units were common in the originals. The Monkey originally started as an amusement park ride bike some 60 years ago, but it was quickly seen as viable for large-scale produc on. They've always been cheap, fun and robust, and celebri es like John Lennon have bought them just to get around on a farm. We wrote about john Lennon's Monkey Bike being auc oned off in a previous issue. The 2019 model year Monkey will be available in two colors, and if it's a Banana Yellow, you know it doesn't have ABS brakes, as the ABS version only comes in Pearl Nebula Red. The non-ABS one is just under $4,000, while the ABS one costs $200 more. The Super Cub C125 has ABS brakes as standard, and it costs $3,599. The original, American Honda Super Cub was available in the U.S. from 1958 to 1974, and it's been manufactured con nuously for other markets. It's the highest-selling motor vehicle in the world, as over 100 million Super Cubs have been made! The new bike is fuel injected and only comes in pearl blue. It will be available from January 2019. MOTORCYCLE CLUB HELPS SINGLE MOM AFTER VAN BREAKS DOWN ON HIGHWAY A woman from China Springs, TX, is thanking a motorcycle club a er she was stranded on the side of the road in Speegleville, TX with her son who has special needs. Ashley Ballew was heading to Waco on Highway 6 a few weeks ago to take her son, Benjamin, to therapy. Benjamin has cerebral palsy. "My van overheated. So I pulled over," Ballew said. Smoke was coming out of the hood of the car. When she opened the hood, there was brown liquid everywhere. "We sat there for about 10-15 minutes to cool off. I was going to drive it somewhere because I didn't know what else to do," Ballew said. "I put it in drive and it didn't go anywhere." Ballew called a tow truck but it was a hot day, and the van was star ng to overheat. She decided to get Benjamin out of the car but ran into a problem. "The ramp went straight at an angle in the ditch and the weeds were to my waist," Ballew said. She tried to get Benjamin out several different mes, but nothing was working. "I felt helpless. I didn't know what to do," Ballew said. Li le did she know, help was just a few hundred feet away at K&W Bar and Grill right off Highway 6. "I saw her struggling and that didn't sit well with me," Pablo Ramos III said. Ramos and a few other guys in the bar, including the owner, no ced Ballew struggling to get Ben out of the car. They rushed over to help. "I look up and I see three men coming from the access road yelling, 'Stop! Wait,'" Ballew said. The men picked up Benjamin's chair and carried him across the access road to get to the air-condi oned building to wait for the tow truck. But the next day, Ramos couldn't stop thinking about what happened. "It was just tugging at my heart strings. I just didn't like the situa on she was in," Ramos said. Ramos said he was raised by a single mother, too. He wanted to do something he hoped someone would do for his mom in that situa on. He decided he wanted to donate money and went to the other members of the Boozefighters motorcycle club to see if they wanted to help, too. They did. The motorcycle club collected $600 and the owner of K&W Bar and Grill wanted to help, so he donated $500. The group didn't know how to contact the mother and son, so they posted on social media. Thanks to mutual friends, they found them. The men were able to hand-deliver the $1,100 to Ashley and Ben to help with the cost of the repairs for the van. "I was just floored that there are s ll people out there who are willing to do those kinds of things for someone they don't even know," Ballew said. "We did what anybody would do, what any normal person would do. Just help somebody," Ramos said. MOTORCYCLIST HIT 135 MPH ON NORTHWEST INDIANA HIGHWAY ON HIS WAY TO WORK: POLICE By Nader Issa A motorcyclist who reached 135 mph on a northwest Indiana highway told a state trooper he was speeding because he was on his way to work, police said.