Former seven-times F1 world champion Michael Schumacher will race this weekend in Germany’s leading bike racing series, the IDM Superbike championship. I just wish my retirement was that great at the age of 37.
Good luck, Schumi! We’ll be rooting for you.
Source: Motorcycle News
I was riding back home from work. I was merging from one freeway to another. Going down the on-ramp, cautiously splitting narrowing lanes. I noted a rider on the freeway I was merging on. Something looked familiar, his helmet looked familiar, his jacket, his bike. Wait, it is Motodisiac. By the time I ended up on the freeway he was a good quarter mile ahead if not more. A chase was useless and stupid. Especially given that we talk on the phone pretty much every day and in person at least once a week. So why expose yourself to an unnecessary risk just to catch up and talk to him.
Why am I telling this story? Because of how I noticed him and how I could still see him clearly even though Motodisiac was way ahead of me in dense traffic. And the reason is - his helmet.
I had already mentioned before that to my surprise helmet color matters a lot. I just did not think that a bright helmet will let you be seen from that far away. Motodisiac’s bike is of dark gray color as mine, his riding jacket is black. So even with all that being sort of dim he still stood out from very far. One can never overestimate the importance of bright gear. May be that is why I special ordered the Aprilia Techno jacket in sport red. Or may be because it says Aprilia on it and looks cool.
We will find out pretty soon. It arrives next Monday. I can’t wait …
P.S. This is not me in the picture.
Motodisiac and I went canyon riding earlier today. One of our friends joined us. For future reference his code name on this blog would be SpeedRacer as I am sure he’d get a mention or two in the future. As the name suggests he drives and rides very fast which sometimes ends up in speeding tickets. He is a very good and experienced rider though.
SpeedRacer owns a 2002 BMW R1100S. Today he was nice enough to let me demo it in the canyons. I got to ride it for approximately 10 miles on one of our canyon run stretches.
The beemer engine had a sort of electric feeling to it. What that means is I never felt there was a “hit”, it emitted exactly the same sound at 7000 rpm as it did at 3000. There was not a point during my accelerations when all of the sudden you feel “woooow, it just really took off”.
Even though its weight is almost identical to my Aprilia Futura the beemer feels much lighter possibly to a lower center of gravity. The bike felt really tight. Throttle felt tight, handling - tight, suspension tight, seat - tight and firm, definitely not a tourer seat. Another interesting observation - once you rev the engine past 5000 rpm my behind could feel a slight vibration right under it.
The good about the beemer included but was not limited to a sportier than my Futura suspension, impeccable handling in turns, really good brakes and just the all around tightness. I can’t stress it enough - the bike felt tight.
All in all the beemer turned out to be a sportier bike and I can’t say I did not enjoy the ride. It was a fun bike to ride in the canyons. However if I were to choose between the two I’d stay loyal to my Futura.
Ever since the Hypermotard hysteria began both Motodisiac and I were sort of on a quest to find the next bike each one of us likes. We had already drooled over the Hypermotard and the Super Duke a little bit. And frankly both of us got pretty much over both of those motorcycles. The next one in line for me was the Tuono.
Aprilia has been manufacturing Tuonos for quite some time now. All reviews I found on it were raving. It is a great street bike. Basically a street down racer replica of the Aprilia RSV1000 Mille. I was excited and could not wait to get my hands on it. At the same time while browsing the Aprilia website I came across another bike - the Shiver. The styling peaked my interested. And even though it had a smalled 750cc engine I still did not want to count it off.
Motodisiac had some prior family arrangements that he had to attend to. So I decided to betray our friendship and go do the test rides alone. I found an Aprilia dealership close to my house, placed a phone call and 30 minutes later I was knocking on their front door asking if I could take both the Tuono and the Shiver for a quick spin. David, the president of the dealership was kind enough to let me test ride both without prior arrangements or appointments. The first one in line was the Shiver in silver color.
The bike looked even better “in person”. The styling was beautiful. I was excited. Once I started the bike I immediately noticed its exhaust note. It is louder than your typical stock exhaust. Somewhat similar to my Futura’s Tailormade Racing exhaust. Nice. The riding posture is aggressive with a rider leaning forward, reminiscent of the Hypermotard, but without the super moto styling. There I went. The bike felt a little underpowered at first. But then I decided to keep my rpms higher, around 6-7 thousand. The red line is at 12 thousand, so I did not feel that I was abusing the bike at all. And that is when the true fun began. The bike came alive, turns were easy to take, leans were intuitive, the bike felt nimble and light. I ended up getting lost in that neighborhood. That led to a longer test ride which I did not mind at all.
When I came back David had the Tuono ready for me. So without any delays I went on my second test ride. The Tuono’s exhaust note was not as loud and did fell like a true stock exhaust. Something has to be said about its brakes. My first stop light I braked and found myself stopped way short. The brakes on the Tuono are amazing. The riding posture is a race bike like, with your legs tucked in. I was going to say “with your feet resting on the foot pegs”. However being 6 feet tall (1m82cm) my legs were not “resting”. This position would not be comfortable for longer rides. Besides the seat comfort was not the best virtue of this bike either. The bike did feel heavier and more powerful. Obviously the race inspired 1000cc engine would make you feel more power than the 750cc Shiver engine. I also was not too thrilled about the color scheme. The arrogant blue rims did not feel at home with the red and silver colors of the Tuonos.
I rode back in to the dealership parking lot with mixed feelings. The Tuono is a better and a more expensive package no doubt. It is engine is more powerful, the Brembo brakes are absolutely out of this world. However I did not enjoy the riding posture, nor did I like the seat at all. On the other hand the Shiver was surprisingly fun, nimble, comfortable to ride and had enough power for a naked street bike. Even though the Tuono felt heavier in fact it is the Shiver which is approximately 10 lbs heavier. That was a shocker. It felt much much lighter. And it was SO MUCH FUN to ride.
Here comes the resume - the Tuono is a great bike. Just not the one that fits me. The Shiver is the one I enjoyed more and that fit me better in terms of both the way it rides and its styling. Of course this conclusion has been made solely based on a brief ride around and some visual impressions. It takes time to develop a “relationship” between a bike and a rider. As far as availability and pricing go the Tuono’s have been around for over 7 years now. You can find used Tuono’s here and there. The Shiver came out on the US market about a couple of months ago. So like for SuperDukes and Hypermotards it would be virtually impossible to find a used Shiver. The good part is that a brand new Shiver will be in the realm of 9 thousand dollars.
By no means I am an impulse buyer. However I did feel an “impulse”. The Shiver gave me shivers :).
I was driving home (I took my car today instead of a bike) getting on a freeway going approximately 15 mph merging into a lane. The traffic was slowly moving, lets say at a pace of 5 mph. A police cruiser was among the cars in the lane I was merging into. I passed it and kept moving at slow and steady pace. All of the sudden it jumped from its lane got right behind me and turned all his strobe lights on. I pulled over. Per officer I made an unsafe passing on the right. Besides being rude he’d cited me with the violation of the section 21755 of the California Vehicle Code. The ticket says that I made an “unsafe passing on the right in stopped traffic”. It also states my approximate speed of 25 mph where 5-10 mph is safe.
The California Vehicle Code section 21755 states that “The driver of a motor vehicle may overtake and pass another vehicle upon the right only under conditions permitting such movement in safety. In no event shall such movement be made by driving off the paved or main-traveled portion of the roadway.” So lets try to dissect this and apply to my situation. I was never off the road, I was always within the lane markings. My speed in relation to traffic was 10 mph which is approximately 14.7 feet per second. The length of my car is 15.05 feet. So basically my relative speed was one car body per second. I can’t imagine this being unsafe in any way.
Furthermore the citing officer had absolutely no way to correctly identify my speed, neither could he have seen me being within or beyond the boundaries of the lane. He was on the left of me as I drove by. His line of sight was limited to his window and then obstructed by the body of my car. He could not have paced me, nor could have used any other legitimate techniques to calculate my speed as he would not have had enough time to do so.
It is clearly a bogus ticket. I can understand a running the red light ticket or a speeding ticket. But this is something I can’t comprehend. And it frustrates me to know that the California highway patrol resorts to these in order to cite motorists.
I was watching the Costas Now show on HBO the other day. One of the topics was blogs and sports coverage. And one of Bob Costas’s lines stuck in my memory. “Are we becoming a generation of highlights?”. It was very eloquently put.
This got me thinking. With a huge mass media expansion into our homes in the recent past television and then the internet have come to substitute other sources of information, such as newspapers and books (I believe I’d blogged about a somewhat related subject before). You can compress way more information into a TV segment than on to a newspaper page. It takes more effort to read than to listen. Obviously people get used to this compressed highlight style information delivery. Why would someone take an effort to read a book when all you need is a flat screen TV, beers and a burger to enjoy yourself watching the latest on Britney Spears family troubles or Brad Pitt’s dating habits? I do have a theory on why is that.
In our modern society the ultimate measure of success is money. The wealthier you are more successful you are perceived to be. But what if your line of work is not that financially rewarding? What if you are a world class specialist in something that can’t make you a millionaire? Then our modern society rules that you are not successful. With this said people try to become successful by optimizing their life the way they can make as much money as they possibly can in their lifetime. Now here is the catch - you don’t have to be well rounded and educated say in the matters of world history to become a successful stock exchange broker or a real estate developer. The fact that you can name all Roman emperors or point Mongolia on the map is not going to earn you as much respect as say a 10 million dollar house and a high-end Italian sports car. That is why a lot of people do not even try to get to bottom of things, only highlights. That is why it is easier to learn history by movies such as “Gladiator” and “300″ both of which could not be further away from the actual history.
One of the problems with the highlight style information delivery though is that you can’t effectively convey a complicated controversial piece of news as people no longer see shades of colors so to speak. It is always black and white and good or bad. Lets review the last 60 years of the world’s history. Soviet Union and USA - allies during WW2, enemies during cold war, kind of friends now. So is Soviet Union good or bad, enemy or not? Take Bin Laden. He was a weapons transporter used by the US to deliver weapons to the insurgents during the Soviet invasion to Afghanistan in the 1980s. Fast forward 10 years. Is he still a friend of the US? Our society became so highlight driven that people can no longer understand how these things are possible that your friend is your enemy now and vice versa. Now if you take an effort and read a book on the matter you would probably get to understand the complexity of the problem and hopefully realize that its not only black and white and good or bad in the world. There are shades of that, connotations etc. But why would you want to read a book? A typical representative of the generation of highlights is not interested in reading or having long conversations, they loose interest 2 minutes into it as their attention span is highlight driven. Therefore you get all these people that you can’t even talk to as they loose interest in anything unrelated to superficial stuff they are being fed from mass media.
Generation of highlights is taking over the world. What are you going to do?
So Motodisiac and I went down to one of the motorcycle dealers tonight to check out the Hypermotard and the Super Duke. Of course they did not allow any test rides. We are yet to go to another dealership down in Orange County that had offered test rides for the Hypermotards. So this comparison review will be based on only visual impressions from walking around these bikes and sitting on them. Lets start.
The only Ducati Hypermotards this dealer had were 1100S which will ring you up to 14,5 thousand dollars MSRP as opposed to 11,995 for the regular Hypermotard. As usual with all Italian bikes there is attention to details and style. The bike does not feel cheap. The seating posture is somewhat high reminiscent of the fact that it is a supermoto type bike. The posture is aggressive which will most definitely translate into the riding style and per multiple reviews of the Hypermotard you can’t ride it in a non-aggressive manner.
The Super Duke was a bit different. It looked a bit smaller and once on it felt MUCH lighter despite of the almost identical weight. The Super Duke is actually 16 lbs (7 kg) heavier. The styling and attention to details were absolutely inferior to the same of the Hypermotard. Coming in at whopping 13,5 thousand MSRP you would expect a better look feel. The bike did seem a bit toy-ish. Don’t get me wrong I am sure it would be fun to ride. We are talking visuals now. Also the seating posture was more street riding like, imposing less aggressiveness even though the Super Duke would probably smoke the Hypermotard due to the fact that it’s got 28 more horses in its engine.
So after over 30 minutes of walking around and seating on the two of those bikes the following conclusions were made
Despite of all of the above the biggest turn off is the price. There aren’t a lot of used Super Dukes and Hypermotards for sale. Actually I am yet to see a single used Super Duke for sale. Motodisiac and I have found a couple of used Hypermotards. But apparently due to the fact that the “oldest” Hypermotard one can find is one year old or less the owners are jacking up their sale prices. A couple of ads we found were for the somewhat tricked out Hypermotards where the owners wanted a firm MSRP price only because they’d invested in a custom Termignoni exhaust or something despite the fact that their bikes are no longer new. So it does seem like both of us will put the Hypermotard hysteria on hold. Or may be not :).
Ducati Hypermotard is no doubt a beautiful piece of Italian motorcycle engineering. First time I saw it was at the Super Moto race Motodisiac and I went to last November. I really liked it back then. The second time was at the Long Beach motorcycle show a couple of months later. Then after reading some stuff online and watching some YouTube videos featuring this bike I started slowly falling in love with it. Hypermotard would be a very fun commuter bike. Obviously not a long distance runner as nothing tops the Futura seat comfort. But again most of my riding consists of commuting to and from my office. The last drop was last week when I browsed the new Aprilia Dorsoduro website. Somehow I felt compelled to get this kind of a motorcycle. My three options- Ducati Hypermotard, Aprilia Dorsoduro and KTM Super Duke. I did see a couple of Super Dukes in person and honestly pictures were more impressive than the bike in real life. Would still love to test ride it though. The Dorsoduro is not even on sale yet. That left me with one and only option - Ducati Hypermotard. I began looking into a possibility of a purchase.
I made a mistake of telling this to my good friend Motodisiac. That got him fired up. He’d started thinking about the Hypermotard too. By the way how cool would that be if we both bought the Hypermotards? We’d have 2 pairs of identical bikes. In any case last night we were talking on the phone. “Guess what I am doing right now”- Motodisiac had asked me. “I’m reading reviews on the Hypermotard, see what you did to me?”. Yeah, the idea of putting his hands on one really got into his head as well.
Hypermotard came out in 2007. Currently its MSRP is almost 12K with the S version running up to 15K. So there is not a big chance one can find a “good deal” on it. Regardless of this we will probably go to SoCal Ducati dealership in Brea. They told us they had one Hypermotard available for test rides. It would be unwise to pass up this opportunity.
Let the Hypermotard hysteria continue.
Don’t ask me how I found this. This is a pretty interesting picture collection I discovered on Flickr. It is a very creative way of comparing girls with motorcycles, or motorcycles with girls. It is entirely up to you to decide which is primary and which is secondary. Personally it would be a really tough choice as I enjoy both equally. Well, I tend to be attracted to good looking girls a little bit more than to motorcycles. But I am sure there are people out there who beg to differ.
I won’t say that all of these pictures are right on, but some of them do carry definitely similarities in their dangerous curves.
Enjoy all pictures here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/34748066@N00/.
The company began as an offshoot of the Agusta aviation company which was formed by Count Giovanni Agusta in 1923. It had its ups and downs but become prominent in the 1990s after being purchased by Cagiva.
Nowadays MV Agusta is in a somewhat trouble with its finances. It has not been able to develop new motorcycles over the last few year. Enter Tata Group, a Mumbai based multinational conglomerate. Tata is becoming more and more prominent especially with the recent 2 billion dollar purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover. And now rumor has it they express serious interest in purchasing a stake in MV Agusta along with Volkswagen group.
Hopefully if the deal does happen it will influx more money into the financially strained MV Agusta and keep it alive and developing beautiful bikes. We shall see.
Read story here - http://www.fasterandfaster.net/2008/04/tata-group-to-pick-up-stake-in-mv.html.
