Posted in motorcycle on Dec 13th, 2011
[obligatory ice "racing" video]
Muscles get weaker when not used, and this is especially true for that big grey muscle between your ears. Accident statistics in the Spring suggest that riding skills atrophy quickly between the three months of winter. You may not FEEL like it does, and some people get back up to speed faster [...]
Posted in misc, motorcycle on Sep 14th, 2011
No not twins… Twin cylinder engines (like you find in Ducatis and Harleys, also popular sportbikes like the RC51, SV650), and also single cylinder engines for that matter (like you find in dirt bikes and scooters) have a quality that higher powered four cylinder engines don’t have. We call it “tractability” or manageability; there’s [...]
Posted in motorcycle, time waster on Sep 8th, 2011
Quick! What do you see? According to Tom Tom, the GPS navigation people, this city (which city is it?) is supposed to have the worst traffic in the country… But when you see this, what do you see?
Posted in misc, motorcycle on Jul 28th, 2011
The computer in your phone can crunch a spreadsheet full of numbers faster than you, remember more dates and facts, and that’s nothing compared to what your desktop or server can do… But that’s just comparing surface brainpower. It turns out that there’s no computer (today or in the immediate future) that can do the [...]
Posted in TGIF, motorcycle, time waster on Jul 15th, 2011
And Abba, and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo…we get the VHS street racing video series “Ghost Rider.” Now if you are too sensible to know who that is – it was a series of full length videos showing “crazy” footage of an illegal motorcycle rider who sometimes taunted police cars and zoomed away. [...]
Posted in motorcycle on Jul 12th, 2011
[btw - can't see the video? Here's the YouTube link]
It’s hard to watch MotoGP without falling for the usual PR storylines… Valentino Rossi is the one everyone is supposed to root for, and “everyone else is just a prick or a poseur…” But that’s just PR for the kiddies. Make believe, really. [...]
Posted in motorcycle on Jul 1st, 2011
Many street riders tend to shift too frequently: One test to see if you fit into that category is to ask yourself, “do you forget which gear you’re in?” If you can’t tell the difference between your speed and engine sound in 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th or 5th – then it’s probably because [...]
Posted in motorcycle on May 24th, 2011
Although the graphic is entitled Vespanomics, it might as well be called Scooternomics. Because I live in NYC, my (economy) car only gets around 35mpg, but my 125cc (non-Vespa, but still cool) scooter gets 95mpg! I still need the car to lug people and gear for work sometimes, but when I’m just in or around [...]
Posted in motorcycle on May 24th, 2011
Traditional lap timers have gone the way of point and shoot cameras and home phones… if you have an iPhone or Android phone you can probably come up with a high quality GPS lap timer setup for less than the cost of even the cheapest I/R lap timer. Now if you’re not a wannabe [...]
Posted in motorcycle, time waster on Apr 28th, 2011
If you want full on race bike, you might do better spending your money race prepping a Kawasaki, Yamaha, or Honda… And if you wanted the ultimate in Italian performance, the Aprilia *might* give the 1198 a run for its money… But when you talk about the Monster, there really is no competition. [...]
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