Ducati Hypermotard: Even CNN Takes Notice!

In their "Art of Life" segment, CNN recently acknowledged Ducati's ever growing share of the motorcycling marketplace by visiting the Ducati plant in Bologna, Italy. Naturally, the show featured the Hypermotard (as well as the 1098 and Casey Stoner's domination of the 2007 motoGP Championship).

You can watch the video here.

It won't be long now ...

Adrenaline Overdrive: Dr. Sardonicus Hypermotard Video

Oh my. Watching this thing damn near gives me a heart attack. I've seen Dr Sardonicus's videos before. First one I ever saw ("Slidewinder") totally redefined motorcycle videos for me. Just unfreakingbelievable. The many ways he hangs a camera off a bike to get such superb video footage ... the way he captures the essence of acceleration and lean angles ... the professional editing and post-production work ... and his riding. Incredible stuff. Just effing incredible.

Well, Dr Sardonicus -- bless his adrenaline-addicted heart -- has gone and added a Ducati Hypermotard to his riding stable. Naturally, he's sharing some of that riding with those of us still salivating over the bike and waiting for the day when we take delivery of our own.

Watch this video. If this doesn't get the blood pumping, you're already dead. Be warned, if you don't want one of these bikes already, you will after watching this video.

Destination: Crossbar Ranch Offroad Park, Davis, Oklahoma

Sunday, 30 Sep 07. (All photos compliments of Danny and Kim Holloway, cause I was too busy trying to remain vertical!)

So James Pratt calls me one Friday evening and says, "Hey, Sunday morning, some of us are heading down to Crossbar Ranch in Davis. You wanna bring that badass new 450 of yours and come along?"

The question, of course, was rhetorical. James knows good and well it doesn't take much to get me out on one of my bikes. Crossbar Ranch? Never been there. That was reason enough to say yes. The place was supposed to be huge (6,500 acres!). It had once been a working ranch, but was now owned by the city of Davis and had just survived an attempted buyout which would have shut down the offroad park. Oklahoma dirtbikers had descended on the city council meeting in droves a month or so back. Believe it or not, the city council had listened to them and voted not to sell. Amazing!

Sunday being Danny's birthday, I thought, "What better way to spend your birthday than riding your dirtbike!" so I gave him a call. His wife Kim decided to join us. Danny and I convinced her to ride my CRF230F instead of her street-legal Suzuki DR200. The CRF's suspension is better and there are no signals and lights and whatnot to break. I don't think she ever did get comfortable on it, though. I think she was worried about throwing it down and damaging it or something. I kept telling her not to worry. I've taken about a thousand soil samples with that bike; there was no way she was gonna hurt it.

Danny would be on his WR450, and I'd be on my new CRF450X, which I'm still trying to get accustomed to. After a year and a half of wringing the snot out of the little 230, learning to ride the powerful 450 is a whole new ballgame. Riding the 450, I alternate between sheer terror and maniacal giggling. The funny thing is that the two reactions are pretty much indistinguishable from one another. Ha!

Sunday morning, the Birthday Boy swung by my place with his trailer and WR in tow. We strapped on my two Hondas -- and we were off!

Crossbar Ranch is in the heart of the Arbuckle Mountains, about 90 miles south of OKC. We arrived to find Brad, the guy who runs the place, leaving in his truck on a gas run or something. "Drive 3 miles south until you see the American flag," he said. "Park and wait for me there. I'll be right back."

So we tried to follow his directions -- honest. This place is really out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Where the hell's that flag? A local guy in a truck passed us and we flagged him down to ask where the parking area was located. "Turn right and you'll find it." So we did. Up and down the hills ... rocks and rocks and more rocks ... bumpy two-track just barely wide enough for Danny's truck (and my arm, hanging out the window, got smacked a time or two with pine branches) ... until eventually we decided the local had played a nasty trick on us. This couldn't be the right way. There was no room to turn around the truck and trailer, but somehow Danny managed it. I thought for sure we were going to have to unhook the trailer, but Danny knows what he's doing. He had to drop the truck into 4wd, though, and hop a few boulders, but he got turned around.

We drove back to the main road and continued south, all the while expecting to find a tall pole and a big American flag snapping in the breeze. Eventually ... hell, that looks like a parking area. After all, there's even a port-a-potty. We stopped. A few minutes later, Brad comes by in his truck and starts fussing at us, wanting to know what the hell we were doing stopping when he'd given us very clear directions to drive "exactly 3 miles, no more, no less, until you see the flags!" Damn city folk, can't follow simple directions! We explained about the guy in the truck who'd sent us off on a wild goose chase. "What the hell are you doing listening to the locals?!?!" he admonished. "You'd never find your way back to civilization listening to them. It's a wonder you're not hopelessly lost right now, waiting on me to send out a search party!" He chewed us out for a few more minutes, then finally sent us on to the parking area with our tails between our legs.

Arriving, we saw two tiny American flags (the kinda flags you glue to Popsicle sticks!) flapping from a nondescript sign about the size of a postcard. Danny actually thought it'd be funny to ask the guy where the flags were. I thought Brad was gonna burst a blood vessel or something! I think this was about the time he told Danny to tell me to slow down in the parking area. We had unloaded the bikes and I was zooming back and forth across the field at a high rate of speed, popping wheelies. Just warming up my bike, doncha know. The parking area was the size of three football fields and was occupied by a whole 3 vehicles, but Barney -- which was the name Danny gave him and forever more shall he be known -- was worried I'd hit something.

Anyway, we paid our $10 each (actually, Danny paid for all three of us -- what a sweetheart to pay my way on his birthday!) and signed waivers saying we wouldn't sue if we fell off our bikes and broke a bone or something. Then Barney showed us a map of the trails. The map was pretty straightforward, but Barney commenced to scribbling all over it with a black pen, crossing out some sections of trail and adding in others. His directions were so cryptic and convoluted that we were totally lost. Going over the map and the rules, he must have told us ten times not to ride on the road. "We closed this section, so you have to turn left by the split cedar tree. Go straight until you see the cactus that looks like Jesus. You absolutely cannot ride on the road, but I mowed a section beside the road over here, so follow the mowed section, then cross the road by the big rock that looks like an elephant's ass and go past the fence post with the blue ribbon ..." and on and on. (I didn't mention that "crossing the road" would mean that we were actually on the road!).

The scribbled-upon Crossbar map, guaranteed to confuse the hell outta city folk!

Eventually, we gathered that despite its size there were really just two loops to Crossbar Ranch. The easy loop (11.5 miles, 45 minutes of riding according to Barney) and the hard loop (21.5 miles, 3 to 5 hours). We decided to try the easy loop first.

About this time Adam Pratt and Phil Templeton showed up. Seems James wasn't going to make it. Adam and Phil are both great riders. Phil used to race, and Adam ... well, Adam is graced with a lot of natural talent and the fearless bravado of youth. I've eaten both their dust at CrossTimbers before; can't even begin to hang with them on my best day.

Danny and Kim.

Danny, Kim, and I tried to get a head start on them on the easy trail, but it didn't take long at all before they blasted past us. I was running out in front of Danny and Kim, forging ahead and then stopping and waiting for them to catch up. The trail was littered with a lot of large rocks, but you could generally work your way through them, occasionally riding over the rocks for short stretches. The scenery was nice. There was a lot of cactus: prickly pear and these purple flowers that kinda reminded me of thistles, but they were hard and prickly. One smacked me a good one on the arm in passing and hurt like hell. You don't really want to fall at Crossbar, because you're guaranteed to land on something that's gonna hurt, be it rocks or cactus or rattlesnakes.

I was running the new fender packs on the 450 -- front and rear. The front was pretty stable, but I wasn't sure the rear pack would stay on the bike, even though I'd Dremel'd out some little notches in the fender for the fasteners to grab. I'd told Danny to watch the trail behind me just in case one of them separated from the bike. Sure enough, the rear pack didn't stay on. (I've since bolted it to the fender so that it can't possibly come off.) Danny thought it was pretty funny to come across the pack lying in the middle of the trail. Naturally, his camera came out: payback for me making fun of him in Mexico earlier this year when he'd lost his tool tube on the trail.

Danny finds my fender pack on the trail.

We all did good on the easy trail. I was having a blast on the 450, really opening it up through some of the wide open sections. Felt like I knew what I was doing. Little did I know how humbling the remainder of the day would be. It was time, you see, to ride the difficult loop. Kim opted to remain behind at the truck while the four of us went to see how difficult it was. I wish I'd stayed behind with her!

Kim on my CRF230F, riding like a pro.

I'd be lying if I didn't confess that the northern loop at Crossbar put an ass-whuppin' on me. I think I fell four or five times, always on the rocks. This is most definitely not an easy trail. There are a lot of steep sections that are nothing but rocks. Large rocks. The only way to climb that stuff is balls-to-the-wall, on the pegs, weight over the bars. I lacked commitment. I lacked cojones. The rocks -- let's just call them boulders -- would bounce my front end this way and that until eventually I lost all momentum. Inevitably one foot or the other would search for the ground, find nothing but air, and over I would go. Crunch! All my falls were easy tip-overs, a sure sign that you just aren't committing to the terrain.

On short stretches of rocky terrain like this, you generally have time to recover when the bike gets out of shape, but the rocks here were endless. The only way to ride it is to have big ones, maintain enough momentum to sail over that stuff. The 450 has the right stuff. It just needed a better, more experienced rider.

Every time I think I know what I'm doing on a dirtbike, a nice humbling trail like this one reminds me I've only been doing this for a couple years and that I'm a 47-year-old, out-of-shape engineer-slash-writer.

CRF on the ground. Bahwolf on his last legs. Insert all the usual business about it being much steeper than it looks and so forth.

After some of the steep climbs or treacherous downhill sections, Phil and Adam would stop and wait on Danny and me to catch up (Danny can't keep up with those two either, but mostly he was hanging back with me that day -- even helping to pick up my bike on more than one occasion). When we'd catch up, Phil (who'd ridden here before and actually helped to cut some of the trail) would assure me that the trail was gonna get a whole lot easier just around the next bend. Every time he said this, the damn trail would get harder!

Eventually, the northern trail ("red trail" on Barney's map) crossed a road. I don't even think we were halfway through the loop. Barney was there in his truck and asked us how we were doing. "Where's the shortcut outta here?" I asked. I wasn't kidding. I confessed that I was done. We'd already been on this trail for like 2 hours and it was kicking my ass. Danny looked a little disappointed, but agreed to bail out with me. Though it was against the rules, Barney let us ride on the road back to the parking area, but he insisted on leading us in his truck. 6,500 acres of emptiness, but Barney's afraid we're gonna disobey the 15 mph speed limit or something.

Me, Adam, and Phil. Adam's giving Crossbar the big thumbs up. He and Phil sailed through treacherous terrain that had me flopping about on the ground like a polliwog washed ashore.

When we rejoined Kim at the truck, we both told her she should be glad she hadn't gone with us. I told her that I wished I had stayed with her! I think she wanted to make another run at the southern loop, but once he was off his bike Danny discovered he was very sore. So sore, in fact, that I had to load the bikes on the trailer, as Danny could barely move. I think this might be in part due to a fall he took. He was walking back down a steep hill, you see, to help me when he slipped and fell on his ass. Sorry, buddy. But at least I wasn't carrying a camera and didn't take a picture of it. Ha!

Danny and his WR450.

Phil does the "I'm the King of the World!" thing while Adam wonders if I'll ever catch up.

With the bikes loaded, we got the hell outta there. On the way home, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Norman and I bought Danny a birthday dinner. Least I could do for my brutha-from-a-different-mutha.

We will be going back. Danny and I have already discussed it. I left something there, ya see. A bit of pride or something. I gotta go back. Maybe that trail will kick my ass again. If it does, I'll just be going back again. Eventually, I'll beat it. Count on it.

Oh, I asked Phil -- when I saw him at Clayton last weekend for the Oklahoma Dualsport Rally -- if that trail ever did get any easier. "Brian," he said, "you can be glad you quit when you did, because it only got harder." It even took down Phil and Adam before it was all said and done.

Damn.

I Can't Take Much More of This...

Yet another glowing review of Ducati's Hypermotard.

If your momma was hip to motorcycles, this is the kind of bike she might want you to stay away from...

::heavy sigh::

"L is for Landmarks..."

Check out Hampton Landmarks. Pretty cool, eh? Sure, they're pushing their hotels, but there's a lot of useful/interesting information there.

The Hampton Landmarks website says:

Hampton Landmarks is the ultimate road trip honoring the world's greatest roadside attractions. It's our mission to uncover Hidden Landmarks, track down Lost Landmarks, and save any landmarks in need of repair.

I don't know what they're actually doing (if anything) to "save landmarks," but they do provide a nifty online directory and guide to hundreds of the country's unknown, unconventional, and most unbelievable secrets and legends. The listing was created with assistance from Chris Epting, pop-culture historian and author. You can search by city, state, or more than 12 categories such as "Mystery/Tragedy," "Sports," "World's Largest," etc.

Click on "Really Different" and you'll find everything from rattlesnake farms to diamond mines to a giant duck. Of course the World's Largest Ball of Twine is listed, as is the World's Largest Clam. There's Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, Evil Knieval's jump site, Maxwell Smart's Shoe Phone, a glass test tube said to contain the last breath of Thomas Edison, Elton John's Platform Shoes Museum, Jake the Alligator Man, and more Elvis Presley stops than you can afford the gasoline to visit.

There's lots of information on Route 66 roadside landmarks. A search on the state of Oklahoma yields 31 results, including such local pop-culture icons as the Admiral Twin Drive In, the Blue Whale in Catoosa, Jim Thorpe's home in Yale, the Rock Cafe in Stroud, the Round Barn in Arcadia, the World's Largest Concrete Totem Pole in Foyil, and many more.

Who will be the first OK rider to explore all 31 of our landmarks? Let the quest begin!

---

Addendum (10/27/07): Just two days after my rather flippant "I don't know what they're doing (if anything) to save landmarks" (I was really just too lazy to research it; shame on me!) , I received an answer via email. Here then is exactly what Hampton Hotels is doing to preserve our nation's landmarks. Good for them!

Hi Brian,

I came upon your posting, “L is for Landmarks” on Ride Oklahoma this morning – it’s a great site for road trip enthusiasts. But, since I work for Hampton Hotels’ PR agency, I thought I could offer a clearer explanation about the company’s involvement in the actual preservation of landmarks.

Hampton Hotels founded its “Save-A-Landmark” program in 2000. Since then, the company has invested more than $2.5 million and tens of thousands of volunteer hours toward this cause, enabling the restoration of 33 roadside landmarks to date. But Hampton’s not resting – the next Save-A-Landmark project will take place next week. On October 30 Hampton will refurbish its 34^th landmark, the World’s Largest Pumpkin in Manitoba, Canada.

To view a history of refurbished landmarks, please click here. If you would like any additional information, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks,
Spencer

_____________________________

Spencer Woolcott
Cohn & Wolfe
8730 Sunset Blvd. 5th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Ph. (310) 967-2974
Fax (310) 967-2910
spencer_woolcott@cohnwolfe.com

Chicken Run! (Part Two)

(Part One of this ride report -- in case you missed it -- is here.)

Day Two, Sunday, 2 Sep 2007.

With the sun tentatively peeking around our hotel room's curtains, we three -- me, Kim, and Danny the Hero -- crawled out of bed after a night of competitive snoring (Kim conceded that I had won) and got ready for another awesome day of riding our scooters.

"Which way do you want to go?" Danny asked, unfolding a map on the table.

"How about we cruise down Highway 23," I suggested, tracing the twisty road on the map, "do the Pig Trail, then visit Mount Magazine...? I've never been there; have you?"

"Nope."

"Okay. After Mount Magazine, we can work our way south on Highway 71 to Mena, hook up with Talimena Drive and cross over into Oklahoma. Sound good?" This would definitely be taking the proverbial "long way home," but we weren't in any hurry.

"Sounds great. You lead."

Danny and I study the map, while Kim sneaks a photo through the window of the hotel room. Cryin' damn shame that I've gotten old enough to require reading glasses to read a friggin' road map! (Photo by Kim Holloway.)

"Okay. You wanna get breakfast at Granny's?" (This is a great little country diner in Huntsville where we've eaten before.)

"Might still be a little early for breakfast," Danny said. (Huntsville is only about 30 minutes south of Eureka Springs.) "Let's try to put down a few more miles than that before we stop."

"Okay ... I know another little Mom-n-Pop diner in Ozark. I've eaten there with the ZZR boys before. How about that?"

"You're leading, so you make the call."

We packed up our stuff, loaded up the bikes, and got the Hell outta Dodge (or Eureka Springs, as the case may be).

There was very little moving on Highway 23, seeing as how it was Sunday morning. All the locals were either already in church, sleeping off Saturday night's hooch, or sneaking out of some cousin's bedroom window before Uncle Cletus caught 'em. We had a great time laying the Tiger and the GS over in the curves of the infamous Pig Trail, slipping quiet as ghosts through the still morning air with the squirrels playing chicken and the early morning air all forest-damp and crispy. I stopped at ZRod's corner to show Danny where ZRod had gone over the edge a couple years ago and where just this past spring I'd watched a ZZR rider lowside and do the same. Soon we were south of I-40, in the town of Ozark, where I was glad to see I hadn't misremembered the location of the diner. It was late enough that we were all in the mood for burgers for breakfast ... then we were on the road again.

The roads around Mount Magazine were twisty and fun, but the pavement was a bit broken up in places. The Tiger and the GS, however, both have the suspension to soak up this kinda terrain without drama. Danny says he's more comfortable laying the GS into a curve than anything else he's ever owned. The unorthodox but highly stable telalever front suspension on the big Beemer probably has a lot to do with that, as does the low center of gravity afforded by the horizontally-opposed twin cylinder engine. I'd have to label the Tiger as an adequate corner-carving machine. It actually turns in better than you'd expect, given that 19-inch front wheel. The leverage of those wide handlebars helps, but I certainly can't carry the corner speeds that I can on either of my sportbikes. Still, it's a blast railing corners on any two-wheeler.

Twisty roads around Mount Magazine with me and the Tiger taking the lead for a change. (Photo by Kim Holloway.)

We stopped somewhere near a little lake to stretch our legs. Kim and I were snapping photos while Danny practiced his wheelies. Trying to get a good photo of my buddy's antics, I stooped down near a metal guardrail and promptly caught my ass on a very sharp corner. Damn but that hurt! I reached back and, holy crap, there was a gash in my jeans! (Later, I'd discover there was a matching hole not only in my underwear but in the cheek of my ass! I'd carry around a nice bruise and a one inch laceration for the next week or so.) Though Danny's my hero, he did not offer to staunch the flow of blood or even kiss my bobo!

Danny demonstrates the proper way to make your front tire last twice as long ... (Photo by Kim Holloway.)

... while I probe my injury. (Photo by Kim Holloway.)

We rode up Mount Magazine to check out the lodge. It looked nice, but is probably pricey. We stopped at a cliff where hang gliders launch, hoping to see somebody take the plunge. Unfortunately there was no one around. We stood on the edge and tried to imagine what it must be like to make that leap of faith. What an adrenaline rush it must be. Though Danny's uncomfortable with heights, he stood near the edge with me -- probably just to make sure I didn't stumble and fall or anything. Heroes are like that, capable of overcoming their own fears in order to help others. Danny's like Charles Bronson, Charles de Gaul, and Charles Nelson Riley all rolled into one. He's my hero.

Of course, Kim teased him about keeping his wallet in his pocket, a reference to our Mexico trip where Danny'd almost lost a 100 peso note over the edge of a cliff and I had ultimately rescued the bill for him by hanging over the edge. (Hey, maybe I was Danny's hero on that day!)

About this time, a large family joined us: mom, pop, Cousin Billy Bob, and a half dozen or so ankle-biters. The woman walked over to me, looked at my helmet, and said, "So, are you guys getting ready to jump? Are ya? Huh?"

I wanted to say, "Sure, lady, my hang glider's folded up in my pocket and I was just about to get it out and trip the light fantastic," but instead I was racking my nice-guy brain for something that didn't sound like a smart ass and make her feel too terribly stupid. She sensed my hesitation, looked back at the two motorcycles they'd parked next to not ten seconds before, and realized she was an idiot. You could see the epiphany creep over her face like an acid reflux gag, slightly reddening her cheeks. "So," she said when I still hadn't responded, "those are your bikes?" Another stupid question, cause we were the only ones there and -- hey, hello! -- do you see the helmet in my hands, lady?

"Yeah," I said kindly. "We just stopped to check out the view and were hoping to see some hang gliders, too. Maybe some other time."

Then we mounted up and moved on down the mountain, leaving her standing there, with her rugrats leaping around her like hyperactive Jack Russell Terriers, and staring after us -- a bit wistfully, I think. Just an average, not unattractive, mid-thirties woman from Arkansas with her husband coming home each night stinking of the chicken farm or with grease under his fingernails as he gropes at her, hollering from the sofa for a beer where he sits in his wife-beater tee and stained boxers, the kids driving her to drink quietly in the kitchen during the long afternoons as she contemplates a wasted life.

But I've already admitted that I have an overactive imagination. Maybe she's a happy camper.

From this cliff, hang gliders make their leap of faith, soaring into the brisk Arkansas wind, the sweat scent of pine and cedar wafting up from below, the warm kiss of the sun on the back of their neck. Pity there weren't any of them out the day we were there ... maybe I could have conned them into letting me try it.

Danny and Kim at an overlook atop Mount Magazine. Love you guys!

After exploring an overlook, we return to our bikes and I notice that Danny's smart enough to park his R1200GS in the shade...

...while silly ol' bahwolf parks his Tiger out in the hot sun. D'oh!

From Mount Magazine, we cruised south through the rural Arkansas countryside (remember my motto, "There really are no bad roads in Arkansas"), eventually arriving in Mena, where we gassed up and then turned west to traverse the Kiamichi Mountains, bound for Oklahoma.

We stopped at the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge (glancing toward the campground, as is now traditional, for the tent we'd left behind the year before). While standing in the lobby, who should we run into but my good friend Greg Ruffin. He was out for a day ride on his Goldwing with a lady friend. They were stopping for lunch. We considered joining them, but we were still stuffed from our late breakfast.

We pressed on into Oklahoma, putting the bikes through their paces in the most excellent curvage offered up by the Talimena Parkway, gliding left-right and up-down along the staircase-like string of peaks. Before we'd gone too far, however, we came across a police roadblock. They were checking license and insurance and whatnot. Just hassling bikers was my first thought, but then I saw them also stop a Bronco coming from the other direction. I waited for the cop to comment on the Texas plates that I still have on the Tiger when he examined my Oklahoma driver's license and insurance card, but he didn't say anything. When the cop handed back our paperwork, he said, "Be careful up ahead, we're working an accident."

Sure enough, a few turns later, there was a Harley in the ditch with the usual assortment of riding buddies and scantily clad female passengers standing around looking concerned, as if one of their group didn't wipe out in a curve just about every weekend. Sure seems like they do anyway. Seems like I can't go anywhere these days where there are popular motorcycle roads without coming across at least one similar scene. These accident-prone motorcyclists are making it damn difficult to enjoy some of my favorite routes anymore without a police presence; just reference the license check we'd just come through.

There were a couple cops, an ambulance, and assorted spectators on site -- more than enough to handle the situation -- so Danny and I didn't stop. Just another guy who didn't know how to control his motorcycle, wasn't wearing adequate gear, and so on. Insert my usual rant here (or, if you've never read it before and actually care, go read some of my older ride reports; like I said, this isn't the first accident scene I've come across on my rides).

Once we cruised through Talihina, the really good roads were gone. I relinquished the lead to Daniel-san again. We worked our way up through McAlester and eventually into Henryetta, where Danny wanted to stop in for a visit with his mother. We parted with our usual hugs and totally macho, no-trace-of-homophobia"I love you, man," then I grabbed I-40 and shot home.

Total mileage for the trip (I didn't record daily mileage): 863 miles. Out of curiosity, I checked the gas mileage on the Tiger three different times on this trip. (1) 116 miles and 2.4 gallons for 48.3 mpg. (2) 182 miles and 3.94 gallons for 46.2 mpg. (3) 167.2 miles and 3.63 gallons for 46.1 mpg. That's more than acceptable. Better, I think, than I used to get on my 2000 model Tiger. It's a great traveling machine, with tons of luggage space and a wide, comfortable seat. It's unusual enough that you're unlikely to pass another and it draws attention wherever it goes. Though certainly not as refined as the GS, it's a good, reliable machine. I'll be keeping it for a while.

Yours truly and my brutha from a different mutha. (Photo by Kim Holloway.)

See You At Clayton Lake State Park!

This weekend is the annual Oklahoma Dualsport Rally, hosted by James Pratt and his family at Clayton Lake State Park in southeastern Oklahoma. Always a great time!

A few last minute tweaks to the CRF450X and we're ready to go:

A RAM mount on the handlebars allows me to take my GPS, so that I can hopefully avoid getting lost -- like I did last year! I hope to eventually upgrade to one of the new Garmin Zumo GPSs, but for now my old Magellan at least lets me know where I am.

A numberplate bag gives me a bit more space for carrying tools, snacks, and schtuff (though it does hide my snarling wolf decal).

You can never have too many stickers advertising your website!

And a warning sticker to remind me the 450 is definitely NOT my 230 wouldn't hurt either, especially when I think about how many times I got thrown off at Crossbar Ranch a couple weekends ago! (That story's coming, as is the second half of the "Chicken Run" story and the 9-day ride I just came back from ... I am just really far behind on stuff right now!)

Hope to see everyone at Clayton!

The Taunting Continues Unabated and Relentless...

This has to be the most talked about (hyped?) motorcycle ever. They simply will not quit until mine is in my garage ... just a couple more months now! Here are three more examples of the Hypermotard getting noticed by the media.

The September 2007 issue of Men's Journal magazine has an article titled "97 Perfect Things." One of those 97 items of perfection is the Ducati Hypermotard. Just think how much more perfect one of these babies will be with me on it. Ha!


A television show called Motorweek -- which runs on both PBS and Speed TV and typically features automobiles -- covered the Hypermotard in their episode that aired on the 12th on PBS and will debut on Speed TV on the 19th. I can save you checking your local listings, however. Here's what they showed. Careful not to drool too heavily on your keyboard.



And, last but not least, you have heard that Casey Stoner has won the 2007 motoGP Championship, right? He rides a Ducati sportbike, of course, and if you've been watching this season, you know that he and the Ducati have totally dominated, leaving the likes of even Valentino Rossi in his dust. Casey just turned 22 years old on Monday. What did Ducati give Casey as a birthday present? You guessed it.


I wonder if Ducati knows that my birthday is in December...?