New Rubber Stirs My Blood!

Okay, the CRF now has some gnarly new tires and is ready for some major roosting! These new Maxxis Desert ITs ought to generate a major dust cloud at CrossTimbers. Who's game?

I keep thinking the more I do this tire changing thing, the better I'll get at it ... but to tell the truth, I've yet to see a drop in the cuss-quotient and the number of busted knuckles remains constant. Many thanks to my buddy Danny for swinging by and lending a hand at the tail end of this job. When I heard his GS crunching down my gravel driveway, I knew I was saved. Tire changing is one of those jobs where you wish you had three hands (or the prestidigitation capabilities of a spider monkey), so it's always nice to have someone lend a hand.

Now I just need to take these out in the dirt and spin off all those embarrassing rubber titties. I'm tied up with street activities this weekend, but am free before and after. Who wants to hit the trails with me?

(Oh! For those who may be thinking, "Wait a minute, doesn't he usually just buy a new bike after he wears out the tires?" -- don't think I didn't try to sell the wife on that approach! Sooner or later, the little CRF230F has gotta go for a CRF450X. It's only a matter of time ... maybe when these new Maxxis are shot? Ha.)

UK Safety Campaigns

I keep coming across these excellent UK commercials advocating motorcycle safety and public awareness. This one definitely gets the message across.

It's a pity that the USA doesn't take a very active role in educating motorists...

"The Right Tool for the Job..."

Most non-riders, when they get around to asking the question "Just exactly how many motorcycles do you own?" (and they always get around to it sooner or later), can't seem to grasp why I need more than one. I do my best to explain that it's a matter of having the right machine for the task at hand. Sometimes they get it ... sometimes they just think I'm spoiled rotten, like a kid with too many toys. When I tell them that a lot of my friends own even more motorcycles than I do, it just confirms that I hang out with a buncha nuts!

I'm not sure anything explains it better than this story about a group of 48 Harley riders who decided to take their bikes to Deadhorse, Alaska and Prudhoe Bay. Not that riders haven't done the infamous Haul Road (otherwise known as the Dalton Highway) before on Harley-Davidsons and other motorcycles ill-suited to that sort of riding, but clearly this group didn't know what they were letting themselves in for:

The caravan of bikes — in various stages of disrepair — pulled back into Fairbanks late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. During the trip, windshields were broken, engine guards were lost, fork seals were damaged. Holes were punched in oil tanks, belts were torn and metal frames were bent.

One bike spontaneously burst into flames on the road, and another $10,000 ride was totaled when it hit a soft gravel patch and flipped. Two riders sustained broken bones and were forced to abandon the trek and head for home.

Yikes! That whole "burst into flames" thing sounds like absolutely no fun at all! Fortunately, the group had several "support vehicles" following them ready to pick up their flotsam and jetsam, the dead mounts, and the exhausted riders. If only I were so lucky when I travel. I'd be happy most of the time, just having someone else to pick up my little dirtbike for me!

The complete story, if you're interested, is here.

Recommended Reading

As a writer, I know that occasionally -- rarely it seems, given the sheer volume of what a writer reads -- a piece will come along that makes you sit back with a mix of envy and humbled admiration and sigh, "Damn, I wish I had written that." As a writer and a motorcyclist, I have tried repeatedly to express what motorcycling means to me ... and, in my admittedly-callous opinion, failed miserably. This article captures what I've been trying to say.

Be sure to read Peter Jones's "Love Machine" in the September 2007 issue of Cycle World.

H is for Hooligan ... oops, I mean Hypermotard!

Since the Ducati dealership here in OKC didn't have one of the new Hypermotards when I checked a week or so ago (and I was riding in Canada when they had their premiere party back at the end of June), my friend Elaine arranged a test ride for me in Dallas. I wanted to go down there anyway to spend a day riding with Gregger the Alien. We were going to ride our CBRs, but I never got around to mounting a new rear tire on mine this past week. (2,400 miles and the rear tire is shot! Sounds like somebody probably needs to back off the throttle once in a while, doesn't it?) Instead, I hopped on my ZZR1200 Friday afternoon and made one of my patented warp speed assaults on I-35, strafing the DFW metroplex several minutes ahead of the thunderclap generated when I broke the sound barrier. I'm sure the Highway Patrol boys are still puzzling over that one, wondering how they could have possibly missed the opportunity to give me yet another performance award.

Elaine fixed us motorheads an excellent dinner, then it was off to beddy-bye with visions of red-cloaked Italian twins dancing in my little pea brain. Saturday morning, Greg and I were there when the Ducati dealership opened the door.

So what did I think of the Hypermotard? As some of you know, I've been lusting after this svelte Italian beauty since it was first revealed in Milan as a concept bike in 2005. When Ducati shocked the industry by deciding to actually produce the bike (after the unveiling of the one-off concept bike caused such a stir in the moto community), I was already making room in my garage for one, my heart pounding against the inside of my chest with unbridled lust.

Nothing in the test ride diminished that longing. In fact, it was like tossing gasoline on the fire.

With wide-spaced bars and an upright seating position that places you flush with the tank and almost over the front tire, tossing the Hypermotard around felt a lot like I was on my dirtbike -- except the little beast had ten times the traction that my dirtbike has on pavement (ten times the power, too, but we'll get to that in a minute). I can only imagine how well this thing corners once a rider has practice sliding out that rear end, motard-style. Ride it in a purely sportbike manner, and it'll carve corners with the best liter bikes. Power delivery was smooth and instantaneous -- none of the low rpm hesitation that requires me to feather the clutch on my CBR1000RR from a standstill. Probably the best fuel injected tuning I've ever encountered, in fact. It felt like there were more than 90 horses in my fist, which had a lot to do with the fact that the bike weighs nothing and even more to do with the Heavenly sound of that v-twin ... Oh my ... this is how a motorcycle is supposed to sound! (Of course, the test bike I rode was sporting the optional 2-into-1 race exhaust system.) Snap the throttle and the front lofts skyward faster than you can say "pop-a-wheelie," even with the seating position placing the weight bias to the front. Slide your weight back on the surprisingly comfortable seat and all-day wheelies are probably possible even for a sedate, mature rider like myself. The Ducati's brakes were incredible (as good or better than the CBR's, which are damn impressive); no problem standing the bike on its nose (or throwing the unwary or inexperienced rider over the bars). I'm thinking when the stunt community gets their hands on the Hypermotard, we'll see a new level of heart-in-your-throat bravado. I don't know stunts from shinola, of course, and the only time you'll ever see me standing on the seat or with my legs wrapped up over the handlebars is mid-crash, one of those "oh shit" moments that I do my best to avoid at my protracted age, but I can tell you that this bike is the sort of mistress that inspires one to misbehave. Inspire's probably not even the right word here, as this drop-dead-sexy, crimson-cloaked lady is undoubtedly something of a dominatrix. She would demand a fair amount of hooliganism on every ride.

So, did I bring it home with me? Nah, the dealership only had the demo bike, which they're not selling at the moment. The initial demand for these beauties is such that you'll pretty much have to place an order for one. I'm thinking maybe around the end of the year before I fill the new Ducati corner in my garage ... after all, I need to buy a new red helmet and matching gear first. Ha!

After our test rides (Greg also rode a Ducati ST3 that peaked his interest), the Oatmeal Kid and I spent about 5 hours terrorizing the Texas countryside southwest of Fort Worth. The front wheel on the ZZR wouldn't come up nearly as easy as the Hypermotard's. It's hard to be a proper hooligan on a 600 pound sport-touring rig...