Okay I know this is an ad – and so I wasn’t expecting much – but it’s really pretty cool. I am at least 50% more likely to buy Icon gear now. Thanks a lot.

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1. Cool Isle of Man TT-Tribute
2. Five Tips on Keeping Cool
3. Extreme Mods

Remember to buy your tickets online (here) and print them out in advance rather than waiting on the long line at Javits.  Also, you can EM3OFF ($3 off), or EM2, or or also PAULJR. Cheers!

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2. The “Bike Show”
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It turns out that the president of Dennis Kirk isn’t just the president, he’s a gearhead, and here’s his latest creation.  A cafe racer from a CB750…on a reasonable budget no less!  What’s your jones: Streetfighter, cafe racer, chopper, race bike?

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2. Winter hooligans…
3. Piano man on motorcycles

A couple of years back there was talk about bringing Formula 1 to Monticello (MMC), or maybe building a new track in Liberty State Park in NJ…  For a lot of CityBikers, it would have been like we died and went to heaven to have a world class racetrack 5 minutes outside lower Manhattan – with a view of the Manhattan skyline.  But like lots of great things – it just wasn’t meant to happen.  Then around a month ago we got news that F1 WILL come to NJ, on a road coarse like Long Beach or Monaco…  Maybe it’s not as good as a world class race track, but at least the price of admission is cheaper…  You can go check out the route yourself…  Let us know what you think.

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2. A different kind of track bike…
3. “Check Your Helmet Month”

I wouldn’t say riding is always “THE” high point of the week, but commuting by two wheels sure makes everything a little more fun…  We’ve had pretty good riding weather all week.  The only thing that could make it better is some nice views of Barcelona…  Although the NY skyline ain’t bad either when you’re riding in from the boroughs or NJ…

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1. Night riding in Barcelona
2. Nice roads, Baden Baden edition…
3. TGIF – Moto-ski-booting?

If you ask me, Triumph had the right idea…  The Japanese bikes have the lock on screaming high revving four-cylinder engines.  The Italians know how to do v-twins (or L-twins) with their mellow traction-anywhere engines… So what’s a free thinking Brit to do?  Why not split the difference and try to get the best of both worlds.  Now I don’t know if a three-banger really is the best of both worlds – but it seems to me they came up with something totally different…  It screams with top end power that’s something like a four, but has more torque and the grunty exhaust note something like a twin – but not exactly…  And that “not exactly” is a good thing.  I don’t see very many newer Triumphs around the city (I see a lot of the older and new-old models, Bonnevilles, Scramblers) – but when one does go by you just have to turn and take a close look after hearing the exhaust note wondering, “what the heck was that?  It sounds awesome.”

Now the triples seem to be an underdog in the sportbike category. You’ll see ten Honda/Yamaha/Suzuki bikes, four Ducatis, and even a couple of BMW’s for every Triumph Triple. So Triumph decided to run a one-make race series to show people (riders and viewers) how great their bikes are on the track – all the riders on the same bike, just come to the track and race… Too bad for us all the races are in Europe. Here’s the promo:

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1. Moto-Myths, Part 1 (Size Matters?)
2. Why we love twins…
3. A different kind of track bike…

Germany seems to have a great motorcycle culture. They don’t have the sky high accident rates of, let’s say, Italy in August… they believe in safety, perhaps even more than the U.S. But unlike the U.S. with boring Interstates, Germans also understand motorsport, performance – and great roads. So if you happen to be in Germany, you might want to check out the B500 for a scenic ride.

Yes – this is a SHELL commercial. But it does what a gas commercial should do – make you want to ride. Here’s another with some nice views and sounds…

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1. The Safest Roads…
2. TGIF, happy Veterans Day, and a nice view of Barcelona
3. Nice onboard track video…

It started to feel like Fall right after Labor Day on the East Coast… that means baseball is winding down (don’t really watch), football season is getting started (don’t really watch that either), and road race teams are getting ready for the Macau GP.  The wha??

The Macau GP is probably the most challenging “track” in professional motorcycle racing.  Not as scenic as the IOMTT, but instead of a rural countryside it runs through a city much like many famous Formula 1 races… Ever year around November cars and bikes line up to attack 3.8 miles of turns right next to metal barriers.  Fun!  You won’t see Rossi or any other MotoGP names on the roster, but you might see John McGuiness and other IOMTT contenders.

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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. He’s best known for giving a lot of dumb kids in the U.S. even dumber ideas about motorcycles… But if you’re not actually an idiot in real life – then these videos can actually show you a thing or two! GhostRider is an excellent street rider. There’s a video out there of him riding Sachsenring, and on the racetrack, he doesn’t seem exceptionally fast…But on a public roadway, among predictable Swedish drivers (somewhat accustomed to autobahn speeds), he’s quite fast and in control of the traffic around him… Notice how far in advance he changes his speed (throttle position), and switches lanes to put him on the line he wants to take…

Anyway if you slow this down ten times, and change the setting to 2nd Ave instead Stockholm, it kinda’ looks like my morning commute… Kinda’.

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2. What fast looks like…
3. The World of Superbike (2011)!!

Speed and safety (and maybe most of life) is really all about having good timing:  Knowing when to pass, knowing when to lay back, knowing when you can open the throttle, knowing when to slow down…  This squirrel has mad timing.

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