" I'd like to begin this column with an apology. I'm sorry for ruining your day." writes Susan Carpenter at the LA Times.

I'd rather she apologize for an incorrect , incomplete at best, piece on the impact of motorcycles on the environment. She is wrong about advancements in emission technology on bikes, wrong about Cats not being available and really wrong to compare scooters/ dirt bikes and 2 stroke engines in general with the polluting ability of a modern bike and is hopefully ignorance rather than malice. Note she may not make that explicit but the type of bikes mentioned are not modern road bikes but recreational vehicles.

This issue sticks out.

Motorcycles and emissions: The surprising facts - Los Angeles Times

But extracting more energy from the fuel has a downside. It produces greater amounts of a smog-forming emission called oxides of nitrogen.

More energy? Where's this energy coming from ? So the same gallon of gas knows when it's in a car and holds a bit back. Why is a 1.5 litre inline 4 bike engine going to get more out of the same explosion in a similarly configured engine than the same one in a Scion? Er it's not.

What it's able to achieve is moving a lighter object which, oh may take less energy hence more efficient use of the engine. Less metal, rubber, plastics to make a bike. Less congestion when many people use one, less wear on the road and so on. To take one figure as the sole factor in demonizing bikes is akin to claiming all articles in the newspaper are as half baked as this one.

Discussion over at Wired