Motodisiac

Today is the day of the Californian “national disaster” - rain. Knowing that it would rain I decided not to ride today. For those who are unaware whenever it rains in Southern California the traffic situation becomes much worse. For some odd reason people drive super slow.

Armed with this knowledge I decided to leave my house much earlier this morning. At 8am I was already on the road. When I ride my motorcycle my morning commute usually takes 20-25 minutes, when I drive my car - 25 - 35 minutes of approximately 15 miles on the 405 freeway. Today the same commute took me … 56 minutes. I took picture of my trip computer to show the details of this tedious trip (below) - 15 miles in 56 minutes with the average speed of 16 mph. Wow, that is lightning fast.

Now here is my big question - is rain such a disaster that wreaks havoc all over the Los Angeles freeway system? Have we indeed become the generation of sissies? Slowing down to 16mph on a freeway while it rains might as well be the indication of that … May be driving tests should be more difficult and involve some basic car handling exercises so people feel more confident while driving under “severe” weather conditions like today … This is highly unlikely as car sales will plummet in Southern California. And no one wants that, right?

On a slightly different note I was appalled by the number of drivers who had their lights off while riding in the rain. How oblivious and ignorant should you be? It rains, the traffic is going very slow, the visibility is not at 100% - is that enough clues to turn the lights on? Instead of going after someone who drives 5mph over the speed limit may be highway patrol officers should go after these guys? I firmly believe they are more dangerous on the road than someone who’s a little over the speed limit. Look at the pictures below and judge for yourself. Have a safe weekend.

I chose Israel for my last vacation getaway. Apart from the obvious reasons like all the history of the world and religion associated with this area I had other incentives like scuba diving in Red sea for instance. In any case I went and spent 10 days there.

What I could not help but notice was the abundance of people riding scooters and motorcycles everywhere. Scooters prevailed and the most of the motorcycles I saw were a dual purpose 125 to 400cc Kawasakis and Suzukis. I spotted some older sports bikes on occasion and even did see a brand new Yamaha R6 parked right next to my hotel in Tel Aviv.

Apparently motorcycle safety isn’t regarded highly in the promised land. The helmets are loosely fit on almost all the riders. I even saw one rider lift up his helmet to have a smoke as he was riding his scooter. That’s not the proper helmet fit if you can easily lift it up over your face. Almost noone wears protective gear. Some scooter riders wear shorts and flip-flops.

The street riding style is somewhat cautious with motorcycle riders being more cautious than the scooter riders. More than once there were riders on freeways just going in there lanes when there was more than one opportunity to split lanes and advance in traffic. May be it is against the law? Surely that didn’t stop hundreds of automobile drivers there. And definitely didn’t stop some scooter riders from riding on sidewalks to avoid splitting lanes on the narrow streets of Jerusalem.

In any case I was happy to see that the riding club has a lot of members in Israel as well. Makes me feel like I am a part of a secret society of some sort. The one that welcomes everyone to join. And the one where members chivalrously wave to each other each time they meet.

I came back in town from an overseas vacation on Monday night. Overseas vacations usually imply jet lag. So with that in mind and given my 11 hour flight back to Los Angeles I figured that I should not be riding to the office on Tuesday. Motodisiac also approved my idea. “You are not sick of driving yet” - were his exact words.

On Tuesday I got into my car, got on the 405 freeway and hit the slow moving traffic. Of course there were a couple of accidents on the 405 that morning, so it took me twice longer to get to the office. As you can imagine I got sick of driving or rather crawling fairly quickly. I was really envious of the riders zooming by.

Today even though I am feeling a bit under the weather I decided to ride. More and more it looks like the mileage I put on my car is going to be very limited.

P.S. Tomorrow three of my coworkers start their motorcycle riding course. I am excited :).

Everybody is talking about Chinese cars. Before you know it world marked could be saturated with them, cheaper alternatives to their Japanese cousins.

What Chinese car manufacturers are known to do is take their competitors car, copy it and sell it for 50% less. I would even consider buying one when they showed up here, what is wrong with driving reliable copy of Toyota Corolla for half the price?

However, it seems to me they are not the same as the original. There must be a reason they are so cheap, and it seems that what they make up in price they lose in safety.

Please meet Chery Amulet, the car that is currently in production from the biggest and the fastest growing automaker in China.  

After seeing this video of crash testing at about 40mph I will make sure every member of my family NEVER gets to ride in one of these “cars”

Judge yourself……

If you ever wanted to own a piece of Moto GP history, here is your chance. Together with AGV, Valentino Rossi is offering his Mugello helmet for sale, along with autograph and personal delivery by 7 time World Champion. This helmet is one of 3 ever made (one Valentino threw in the crowd after emotional win of Italian Grand Prix and the second one he is keeping) The graphics on the helmet are reflecting that Vale is still racing with his heart. The proceeds from the auction will be donated to the biggest children hospital in Italy.

I will be auctioning my Girlfriend a day before the end of the auction, any takers? The price must be at least equal to the winning bid on the helmet

Here is the link to the helmet auction in case you want to try and outbid me

I have been using my Arai Quantum F for a little over 6 years. Helmet manufacturers recommend replacing one every 5 years or so, and considering my lid also survived a couple of small crashes it was time to replace it.

When I switched to Arai, I was a happy camper. It was clearly the most comfortable helmet I’ve ever had, so I didn’t feel bad about spending $500 on it. However daily use began revealing some of it’s flaws. Fogging shield, little rubber strip falling off, noisy and ineffective vents, poor visor removal design leading to broken parts and expensive visor replacement were among the problems I encoutered. Last 6 months were spent riding with the duct tape holding the side pot, and it wasn’t pretty. Time to get new one.

Right away I knew I didn’t want to spend another $500 for another problem prone Arai. So I started looking at alternatives. A dozen visits to bike shops, helmet swaps with my friends and more helmet trying at Cycle Gear lead me to discover that no helmet fits me as good as Arai. Did I mention my ears were RED? I must have tried every helmet available for sale in US, and when Astral X was on my head I was stunned by how good it felt.

A little bit of research led me to believe that Arai has made some improvements to their design. OK, I will give you another chance, Arai. Thanks to E-Bay, I got a great deal on this brand new Astral X Thierry van den Bosch Replica.

Initial impression was another shocker, it fit my head like I was born with it. Everything looked pretty promising. Unfortunately, after almost a month of use, I can assure you that it hasn’t improved much compared to my old Quantum F. The venting is a little bit better but the dreaded shield removal mechanism is still the same. Noise level is still pretty high. I don’t understand why Arai can’t use higher quality Anti Fog shields in their $500 + helmet. Instead, we are still stuck with basically the same design that debuted over 10 years ago. I would think that technology advanced a little bit since then, wouldn’t you agree?

With all the above said it it still extremely comfortable and probably one of the best helmets out there. However I’m dissapointed in the overall state of helmet industry, it’s about time something new and groundbreaking came out. How about a helmet with

• Automatic Tint Level
• Bult in Bluetooth system with the capability to connect to MP3 players, intercom systems and GPS
• Cooling fans operated by built in solar panel and controlled by voice (instead of vents that scoop air and howl like a wolf)
• Built in ear muffs to reduce noise

There are a lot of manufacturers that sell helmets produced in China, and prices start at $50. Can someone explain me how Arai can cost $500 +? The manufacturing process shouldn’t be much different, therefore the cost of manufacturing is about the same. Are we paying for that ARAI lablel? I would rather pay $500 for technologically advanced Chinese helmet with all the bells and whistles than pay the same for outdated technology from Japan. Can somebody step up?

Some of my friends call me a fast driver. I guess it does depend on a perspective. I have driven my car on a race track. So I know how to push it. I grew up driving a car in a European country with a semi-chaotic city traffic that makes New York driving seem like a walk in a park. With this said I know how to drive both defensively and offensively. To wrap up this somewhat long intro - I know how to drive fast and would occasionally employ that style - guilty as charged. That all changed once I became a motorcycle rider.

I have had my car for almost 2 years now. It is a nice piece of German automobile industry. I really love my car. But as with everything you tend to get bored with things. So earlier this year I was contemplating an idea of getting another German. A bigger, meaner one with more horse powers and a one and a half second faster dash from 0 to 60 mph. Common sense won and I did not make an impulse buy. Some time later I bought my first motorbike. It goes from 0 to 60 one second faster than that meaner German that I almost bought.

Now that I am a rider I believe it really affected my style of automobile driving. I confess, I did sin once. I learned my lesson. And other than that one instance I have been a really good boy. Now when I drive my car I have no inclination of gunning it off the light or going really fast on an empty freeway. I’ve mellowed down. What happened?

A motorcycle among many other things is a small rocket ready to be launched. Weighing approximately about 400 pounds it packs as much horse powers as some of the older compact cars. While the best of the high performance automobile world will accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in approximately 4.5 seconds a 650cc bike will do the same under 4 seconds easy. I will leave it up to your vivid imagination how fast would a 1000cc super sport bike do.

A casual flick of your right wrist will suffice to experience a wide array of emotions ranging from total fear to joy of being free. A light body lean will gently alter your flight trajectory. So now that I possess all these powers driving a car as fast as it could ever be still seems fairly boring and tame in comparison.

I truly believe it would be beneficial for overall road safety if everyone had to learn how to ride a motorcycle and potentially owned one. This way we would definitely see a steady decline in drunk driving (it is really difficult to ride when you are under the influence) and people would have no need for nightly super speed car chases on freeways (I have seen these in abundance). Did you know that America is third after Russia and Ukraine with the highest death rate in automobile accidents per 100 thousand people? Lets make a difference. Sign up for the riders course, get a motorcycle, start riding. I have a dream :).

There you have it. America approaches the gas prices that Europe has been having for quite some time now. For a long while Americans were enjoying the 6 liter engine muscle cars, gas guzzling SUVs and trucks without being too concerned about how much they spend on gas. You go to Europe and you rarely see a full size sedan, let alone a large pickup truck or an SUV. It is mostly a small size cars that are widely ridiculed here in the US. Well, ridiculed no more. With the gas prices going up to $4 per gallon I am sure the public opinion will change. May be we’ll start seeing some BMWs with 1.8 and 1.6 engines, Audi A3s and A4s with 1.4L engine, more TDI engines etc? Who knows …

I was in Rome last year. And I was surprised to see the number of motorcycles and scooters on the streets of the eternal city. They were everywhere. You can see for yourself. What you see below is a typical picture there.

So may be the time finally came for people to make a change in their lives. May be motorcycles and scooters are the way to go? I sure hope so. I see them more and more on the streets of Los Angeles, 3 of my coworkers have already signed up for the riders course, a couple of more already bought scooters and motorbikes. All that makes me feel I made the right choice.

P.S. And here is the Reuters news article as a point of reference to my gas price rant.

When I purchased my motorcycle it was pretty clear that I would need new tires real soon. Being a good friend that he is Motodisiac gave me a set of new tires as a birthday gift in the end of September. A couple of weeks ago I found a motorcycle shop near my work, called them in and dropped off the tires and my bike. A couple of hours and 80 dollars later the job was done. How complicated is it to change tires? It is a pretty basic job. With that school of thought I did not feel there was a need to double check that the job was done right. Boy was I wrong.

A couple of days ago we went to watch the Supermoto championship races. Early that morning I arrived at Motodisiac’s parking garage. As we both were getting ready to leave we noticed my chain being a little saggy on the bottom part. That did not look right. After a closer examination we discovered that the chain was not installed properly. And I had been riding like that for a couple of weeks at least. Of course we ended up fixing it. There was a big chance of me damaging my gear box had we kept it unchanged.

Fuming the anger about a sh*tty unprofessional job by that shop questions came to mind - how could a simple job be screwed up so royally? Does one have to double check everything after they leave a shop? May be it makes sense to do things yourself to be sure things done right? From now on I know I will be double checking everything and anything done to my motorcycle. The room for error is much smaller when you are riding than when you are driving …

Last Saturday Motodisiac and I rode out over 100 miles to watch the AMA Supermoto championship held at Morongo casino in Cabazon, CA. After quickly fixing a loose chain on my bike (courtesy of the “professional” tire change work of Moto Club Di in Santa Monica, CA a couple of weeks ago) we took off around 10 in the morning and arrived there right when the race was about to start. The ride itself was slightly tiring. It took a little over an hour to get to the races. No significant traffic on our way, cruising at 85mph (hopefully CHP is not reading our blog :)). But it seemed like either I am not used to riding such long distances yet, or my bike’s seat is not the most comfortable in the world, or my bike is a little low for me. It could be the combination of the three as well.

We were excited to see the riders take off and happy that we got there right on time. The start is the most impressive part. Over 20 riders take off and immediately try to take a sharp turn as fast as they can. And they are doing this in a tightly packed group. Very impressive.

For those who don’t know Supermoto is a cross-over of motocross and road racing. Races are held on road racing tracks with an off-road section. Most Supermoto race tracks are typically configured with approximately 70% tarmac and 30% dirt with small jumps. This sport is very popular. Unfortunately it did not seem like it was THAT popular here in the US. The track was built on a parking lot right in front of the casino featuring beautiful mountain views all around.

Unfortunately other than that not a lot of stuff to look at for a wandering eye. Yes, there were pits. Yes there were some good looking Red Bull girls. But the scale of the event seemed meek. Regardless of all that we had fun watching the races, being slightly perplexed at times at how the heck they don’t drop their bikes when taking turns at such speeds and almost highsiding their bikes on the way out of turns. Even though it seemed like a pretty aggressive sport the riders were true professionals and tried avoiding being too aggressive. We witnessed only 3 collisions all at the crazy group starts.

We headed out around 5:30 in the evening. And that is when I started feeling that I desperately need a winter jacket. My Rev’it Airforce is great for warmer weather. But it was 60 degrees outside, no sun in sight and the wind was pretty strong. So we decided to take a small detour and hit Chaparral Motorsports store in San Bernardino on our way back. When we got there the store was closing in 15 minutes. Turns out 15 minutes was plenty to make a purchase. Now I am proud owner of the black Fieldsheer Tour Temp TX jacket. Gear review coming soon.

We hit a very heavy traffic on our way back. Evidentially there were a couple of car accidents on the 10 freeway. We had to slow down to 30-40 mph as we were splitting lanes in a stand still traffic. The way back took us 2,5 hours. I could really feel a seat discomfort then. The only positive thought - thank God we were on bikes. It would have taken us hours to get past that traffic jam had we been driving.

We safely get home around 8pm. Discussions start about whether my bike is too low for me. Motodisiac pitches an idea of me changing my bike soon. I don’t object strongly. Today I am already looking at my options online. “I am sorry SV650s. I will have to break up our beautiful relationship soon. It is not you, it is me” :).