I truly believe that everything in life happens for a reason. My lane splitting etiquette post generated a somewhat sophisticated comment the other day - “Lane Splitting is for IDIOTs”. I was never the one to participate in pissing matches. But again, everything in life happens for a reason. So just the next day after that post I saw a proof of why staying in your lane on a motorcycle in traffic is more dangerous than being in between lanes.

I was riding on a freeway, traffic going at a very quick pace. I positioned myself in between lanes but did not bother going faster than the flow of traffic. The traffic was going at the speed of at least 60mph and was pretty dense too. I spotted a couple of chopper riders further away in the lane left of me, no more than 6 cars away. Suddenly IT happened. Apparently the traffic was slowing down significantly way ahead and someone fell asleep, woke up and stopped abruptly. The wave of brake lights began rolling on. The choppers promptly braked, slowed down and stopped too. However this old pickup truck one car behind them did not. Once the driver realized he had to slow down significantly he hit his brakes. The smoke from his tires was as big as from a motorcycle burnout. I was sure the truck was going to rear end the car in front of it which in turn would roll over the choppers. The unsuspecting choppers were not even slightly concerned. Miraculously the truck stopped one inch away from the car in front of it.

I slowly kept going in between lanes and looked at the chopper riders. They seemed to look unaware that their lives could have been changed a split second ago. I was just glad to see that everyone was safe. Life goes on, lessons are hopefully learned.

I had already blogged about this a little bit. Today is the time to revisit this subject.

I was riding back from the office, traffic as usual, splitting lanes at around 30 mph I caught up to a cruiser rider. My aftermarket Taylormade Racing exhaust has a pretty loud note, usually I don’t have to rev my engine above 5000 rpms for people to hear me even when their car windows are closed all the way. So I would imagine that a rider in a brain bucket style helmet would not have any trouble hear me too. Apparently either I was wrong and he did not hear me or he did not bother paying attention to a faster rider behind him. I was patiently droning after him at a whopping speed of 10-15 mph. Not trying to be aggressive or obnoxious I decided to keep pacing him and see how long would it take for him to realize that there was a faster rider behind him and move over. It is pretty simple in my book - it does not matter who the better or the more experienced rider is, it is just the matter of someone having a wider bike and not being able to split lanes as effectively as another rider.

Well, it took him 2 miles, and approximately 7 minutes. He had had plenty of opportunities to move aside but he chose not to. When finally he lazily moved aside he did not wave like most of the riders usually do. Correction, most of the sport bike riders. For some reason cruiser/chopper style riders don’t wave at the sport bike riders.

Not sure where this whole thing stems from and not sure if I want to come up with any kind of stereotypes for this matter. But this incident annoyed me a little bit. Oh well, I will get over it. I think I already did.

In his first day of the German International superbike championship Michael Schumacher skidded onto a gravel pit and failed to finish. Despite the loss Schumi seemed very optimistic and said that he did have fun. And even though he did not confirm whether he would participate in other motorcycle race events rest assured he will. Personally I have no doubts in my mind.

via The Canadian Press

Perplexed from my Monster demo ride I wandered around looking at Speed and Street Triples. I saw a lonely Sprint ST and decided to sit on it, see how it feels comparing to my Futura. They belong to the same bike class after all - sport tourers. In a blink of an eye Scott, the salesman I was making a conversation with a bit earlier had offered me a demo ride on it. I honestly admitted that the only purpose of this demo ride would be to feed my curiosity about the competitor of my bike. “It’s ok”, - he said. I did not object.

We went outside where they had a demo Sprint ST in tornado red. It did not have the saddle bags attached to it which was great. I could do more fun stuff with the bike this way. I went on to the same route I took when I demo-ed both Ducatis some 20 minutes earlier.

The first thing that popped in my head was the engine sound. It sounded electric. Unlike the BMW R1100S’s engine it did sound louder with more rpms though. Long story short the bike did feel good but fell a little short in the sport section of the sport touring comparing to the Futura. I mean it was not bad. But when I got on my Futura and took exactly the same route it did feel tighter. And weaving around cars was more crisp.

Another thing I noticed was the Sprint’s saddle bag mounting system. It had a plastic rail running on the side of the motorcycle. And it looked really toy-ish. Did not have an expensive stylish feel to it. I guess it is hard to beat the Italians in the styling department.

Overall I did like the Sprint. After all I was considering it as on of the “next” bikes after my SV650S. But I am really happy that I own the Futura. Would not trade it for the Sprint.

Out of curiosity I wanted to try the Monster. I see a lot of people ride it around. So I wanted to see what it was all about and dismiss or confirm the assumption that the Monster is too small for my height. With this said my second demo ride of the day was waiting for me - the red and white Ducati Monster S4R S.

Same route as of the Hypermotard demo lied ahead of me. So there I went.

This time around the riding posture seemed more familiar. I felt that my vehicle had two wheels again, not just one. Surprisingly the bike did not feel small for my height. Obviously a 5-10 minute demo ride is not enough to make it conclusive. But sill, I had expected a smaller bike feel to it. I tried gunning it a couple of times and at no time the bike felt underpowered. Well, I was not riding its 696cc younger brother after all.

The Monster did feel really nice and tight. The seat was not too hard and was actually relatively comfortable, same crisp shifts like the Hypermotard, tight suspension, nice feel in the turns. And the freeway ride did not feel all that bad either.

I got off the bike with mixed feelings. Again I was confused. I wanted to do this demo ride just for the hell of it. Someone offers you to ride a bike that you don’t even like or consider purchasing. Why not? A bike ride is a bike ride after all. But what came out of this demo ride was something I did not expect - me kind of liking the Monster. Again, a 5-10 minute ride can’t be conclusive. Besides the more common 695cc and effective 2008 696cc engine bike might prove to be less fun and more underpowered. Perplexed I went on to the Triumph section of the dealership.

The time has come. The visual inspection of this bike that Motodisiac and I had some time ago can not do the justice. I had to demo the Hypermotard. I had to see for myself if my interest in this piece of Italian motorcycle engineering really died down.

The demo bike they had was the more expensive S version featuring the termi slip-ons - nice note. I got on the bike and cautiously started moving. The riding posture was foreign to me as I’d never seriously ridden a supermoto style bike before. As I got on the street I tried to gun it. The bike gladly complied and I got scared. Actually the proper word would be weirded out. The riding posture was such that it felt like I was pretty much riding the front wheel or rather I was riding a one wheeled bike. You look down and you see the road in front of you and not your gas tank. Really strange. It took me a couple of minutes to get used to it.

The demo ride itinerary offered by the dealership was approximately 5 miles and had a little bit of everything - some street riding, some canyon roads (ok, not canyon roads, some turns) and a bit of a freeway ride as well. I became confident only once I got past a few blocks of street riding. The one wheeled feeling was no longer strange. I felt like being a bit of a hooligan. Definitely fun to ride.

Some side notes - the brakes felt really good, some what Tuono-ish, the seat was not all that uncomfortable, the riding posture was pretty aggressive and still somewhat foreign, although I am sure I could get used to that.

I think I’d have to try riding more supermoto like bikes to understand if this type of bike is good for me in general. And if it is then the Hypermotard is a very worthy prospect. The Hypermotard hysteria lives on.

Yes, today was the demo ride day. As mentioned earlier we had been offered a demo ride on a Hypermotard and possible a couple of other bikes by the Southern California Ducati, Triumph and Victory dealership in Brea. Motodisiac went off-roading for the whole weekend with our mutual friend. Last night I figured that I would not have anything better to do this Saturday other than ride 50 miles to do a couple of demo rides. So todayat 9 in the morning I was already on my way to the Brea.

After a pretty uneventful 50 mile ride in the scorching hot 100 degree (37 degrees Celsius) weather going 65 mph I arrived at the dealership where I met with Craig and Scott. Craig was kind enough to let me demo the Hypermotard 1100S and the Monster S4R S. And Scott was nice enough to let me ride the Triumph Sprint ST.

Here are my demo ride details:

• Hypermotard 1100S
• Monster S4R S
• Triumph Sprint ST

Enjoy the read and have a nice hopefully not so hot weekend.

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 39.

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.