$4-5 a gallon gas is now a reality in some parts of the country including Northern California. This is clearly changing the way that we live and travel. It's also forcing people to drag out some serious rat bikes that have not seen the light of day in 20-30 years.

When faced with filling up the Escalade for the third time this week--to the tune of $100 (each fill)--that dusty and nearly forgotten old DT175 or CB550k looks mighty inviting, it seems. And with an optional milk crate bungee'd to the luggage rack or just to the rear of the seat via the turn signals, there's plenty of room for some easily-shifting groceries or boxes of ammo.

Soup's official world champion rat bike sighting thus far--and the season is just starting--is a rusty Bridgestone 350 with a plastic five gallon bucket bungee'd to what was left of the seat.

For me, $4 a gallon gas is still cheap; well, relatively inexpensive anyway. In 1994, after attending the WSBK races at Monza, I spent Sunday night in Como, Italy and then set out for Zurich the next morning. Shortly after crossing the border into Austria (this, shockingly, was still of the era when the Italian border guards kept a machine gun pointed at you while they inspected your car) I stopped for gas and was in for more of a shock. The credit card bill from just that stop later revealed that for 11 gallons of gas I paid--with the exchange rate--just over ten dollars a gallon.

In other gas-usage news: Soup's Jim McDermott (Jimola from Imola) reports that his '08 WR250X Yamaha delivers well-over 60 mpg and is an absolute blast to ride. He promises to file a report, just as soon as he finishes reenacting every scene of the kid being chased by the cop-robot from the film Terminator 2.