After a spectacular week for riding, the rain clouds are threatening once again. I do realize that we need the rain; I just want to hang on to these final beautiful days of summer. Recently, I’ve been doing some work on virtual worlds and thought I’d see what’s out there for motorcycle enthusiasts.
So I plugged into my virtual world called Second Life and did a search for some motorcycle islands. For those of you who may not have heard of Second Life, it is a virtual space comprised of linked servers. Each of these servers is called an island. On SL people can own land, create avatars to represent themselves and buy stuff — like motorcycles. In fact you can even test drive one before you buy it.
Second Life is a virtual world created by Linden Labs in an effort to create a world that was totally created by its inhabitants. It has its own economy, and you can purchase money called Linden Dollars (L$) that you buy with real dollars. You get about 2,000 Linden Dollars for about $7.99. Not a bad deal. The motorcycles that I was looking at cost from L$999 to L$1000, so probably around $4 for a Harley. Not too bad.
They also had police motorcycles for L$999 and a complete highway patrol outfit for just L$899. So for about $7.99 you could have a police motorcycle with flashing blue light and an official highway patrolman outfit. You could also test drive the police motorcycle while shopping too. The SLurl is slurl.com/secondlife/Jet%20Ski/231/178/21. To use SLurl, you need to have downloaded the free software and gotten yourself an avatar. You copy the SLurl into your browser address line. Then you can simply click on the SLurl and transport to that spot and enjoy. While there, I test drove a Harley (no shifting required) with pretty genuine sound effects, a police car and a tank. The above island is rated PG, so most anybody can visit safely.
Next I visited Sturgis Harley Davidson custom cycles; some of that area was rated mature. There were lots of bars and places that looked very much like the real Sturgis. When I visited, the spot was fairly well populated with other visitors. You can have a conversation with other in-worlders by either texting just like you do on IM or chatting if you have a headset with a microphone.
In addition to the shops and clubs, there are also many other Harley Davidson groups located on Second Life. You can tour around and visit or join a group at your leisure. Just a reminder that Second Life is an Internet playground and like most Internet areas can contain content that you might not want to participate in. Many islands and areas are rated such as the ones mentioned above. You need to be as careful with the content on SL as you do in any online environment.
My next stop was Hawthorn Island, (slurl.com/secondlife/Hawthorne/165/167/22) there was a small shop called White’s Bikes. At this store they even had a cute little scooter for sale. The next teleport took me to Death City bikes and choppers. Lots of clubs here, and this area was rated mature.
I was amazed at the amount of motorcycles out there in the virtual world. It would seem that we do indeed bring much of our likes and dreams into the virtual world. You can even dress your avatar in leathers and boots if you like. In Second Life you can have the bike of your dreams and wear the clothes that you can’t afford in first life and have yourself a real badass avatar with a real badass bike.
You can get more information about Second Life and begin your virtual bike tour at secondlife.com. This will make it especially fun when the snow begins to fly and you can’t get on your first-life Harley Davidson. If you do go out there, you can look for my avatar. I go by Suzuki Constantine. Don’t let the costume fool you, I just can’t figure out a good look.
w
