Motorcycle Blog roundup April 16, 2007

April 16, 2007

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  • A Boy and His Bike has some very moving pictures of tulips him and Jeff Henshaw saw on a recent ride. Jeff also has updated his site with a very clean layout.
  • AMA News reports that KTM’s David Knight of Isle of Man fame has finally won his first Grand National Cross Country Race.
  • Why bike? Discusses the safety of helmets vs price point. You would think that safety would increase with price, and the data he mentions doesn’t. I’ve never really met a long time rider who had a “KBC head” as he mentions. I know I definitely have an HJC shaped head. Me personally I’d rather have the top of the line HJC than a $500 bucket from Shoei. One thing I’ve always wondered though, is what happened to Bell? Why don’t people consider them as high quality as Shoei or Arai. In any kind of racing other than Motorcycle racing Bell is always one of the top names. Wouldn’t you rather use the helmet that is tried and true? I used to have a poster from Bell that read “If you have a $10 head, wear a $10 helmet.” I think that holds true for MOST < $100 helmets, but > $100 pick the one that fits best holds very true.
  • Erin Baker brings attention to the fact that off-road bikes in the UK may soon be required to display number plates, including ATVs.  I have no idea what the true motive with this bill is, but such a bill in the U.S. would seem really absurd.  I could understand being required to title all off-road bikes, as that’s a good thing mostly, you get an official statement of your ownership in exchange for a nominal (~$10-40) fee.  It would seem strange to be able to be ticketed because your ATV lost it’s tag in a mud bog earlier in the day.
  • KillaCycle announces they have made a run of 8.168 @ 155.78mph with their electric drag bike.  Interestingly they made the runs at an All Harley Drag Racing Association (AHDRA)  event.  I was surprised that they didn’t have to recharge after every run.   Also very cool is the part about the Zilla controller which runs the motors in series initially to maximize amps and torque and later in parallel for maximum voltage to make them turn faster.

Motorcycle Headlines and Links April 14, 2007

April 14, 2007

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Daily Motorcycle Blog roundup April 13, 2007

April 13, 2007

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  • Mike Werner has a post about a new book covering the History of Choppers. Also check out the youtube video he has on the Kawasaki ZX-6R here.
  • Canyon Chasers shows off a very clean looking “Military” Suzuki SV650. They say it has a ZX-6R front end and ZX-10R brakes.
  • Why Bike covers what happens when your in an accident with an underinsured motorist.
  • The Kneeslider shows off Mark Foulkes’ custom Kawasaki KZ1300 which is equiped with a 330 rear tire. Quite a deviation from usual Honda CBX 1000’s you see.
  • Bikenut shows off a picture of a very custom V8 motorcycle. Not sure if this is of Boss Hoss origins or not.
  • Faster and Faster mentions that JeanRichard (apparently a watch maker that I’ve never heard of) is partnering with MV Agusta to produce a MV Agusta watch series.
  • 360bikers.com has a post covering custom mirrors. You rarely see THAT many billet or custom style mirrors, at least in proportion to how many different styles are made. One thing you might remember is that Yamaha has for ages used left hand threads on the right hand mirror, all other metric bikes use right handed threads on both sides.
  • Autoblog has an entry about Defiant Motors reviving the VW GX3 concept from the dead. Now what exactly is going to happen when these beasts like this do hit the market. I can see why they need to be considered motorcycles, but they really just aren’t. Are motorcycle dealers going to sell them? What will the technical name for these beasts end up being. Are they as fun to drive as they look? I guess only time will tell.

Daily Motorcycle Blog roundup April 12, 2007

April 12, 2007

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  • BBC News - Neil Hodgson the former world superbike champion has signed with Ducati to be an official test rider.
  • Helmet Hair covers denim helmets by Nexx and I’m sure correctly calls it out as a simple publicity stunt.
  • Road Racing World has a press release about Oxtar boots becoming the official boot of Rich Oliver’s Mystery School. I’ve never heard of either but the names of both are quite quirky.
  • Motorcycle Misadventures has a post about a new motorcycle travel forum they’re starting up. If the posts in this forum hold up to the quality and work that has been put into the homepage for the site, I think you can expect a really good site.
  • Erin Baker posted a rant entitled “Bag the bike, not the biker” encouraging people to not judge a rider by the type a bike they are riding as they may enjoy many different flavors of bikes. I totally agree with that sentiment as I enjoy a KLR650 immensely and I find that most people don’t really get why.
  • BeachCruiser has an entry about Red Head gadget’s motorcycle map clips. While I respect their entrepreneurial spirit, I can’t ever see myself wanting one of these. I guess I’ve never been a fan of bikes with windshield’s big enough that this would be much use. I think she should make a run them for COG (Concours Owner’s Group) as I think this is right up their alley. I’ve seen more Concours with custom master cylinder covers saying the owner’s group name than anything else.
  • thescooterscoop has probably the most captivating picture of the day in my opinion. I don’t know how many motorcyclists were lego fans, but I figure out of the ones that are in the correct age group its higher than norm. Anyway the picture is of a Vespa scooter made out of Legos. Check it out.
  • Mike Werner covers the new Tom Tom motorcycle specific GPS.
  • The Superbike Blog discusses an article about cruisers being on the way out. I don’t agree with the argument at all really. I think the days of mega cruisers and let’s see who has the most cc size may be coming to an end for the general public, but I don’t see cruisers heading on the way out. I do think the image of custom cruisers has been over sold and frankly I sometimes get weary of all the custom bike shows on tv, I mean they are fun for a while, but very repetitive. He makes a couple assertions which don’t hold up really. The fact that Victory’s newest bike is a tourer not a cruiser is insignificant, as I would bet the nation wide sales of he Victory Vision are less than 1,000. The decline of V-Rod selling price is also a moot point, any bike that sells over MSRP in the beginning eventually sells for lower it just takes time. I would say the fact that Honda “dropped” the Valkyrie is insignificant I wouldn’t put it as really dropped but simply never upgraded it to 1800 (although there was the Rune, and I would bet it met Honda’s goals for such a bike). This is inline with my thoughts that the days of “megacruisers” might be limited though.
  • Motorcyclist at Large: gives a synopsis of the new Honda Unicorn a model which we don’t get here in the U.S. Check it out to see a Honda you aren’t likely to see here in the U.S.
  • Kropotkin Thinks follows up on his post about Ilmor’s decline by mentioning that Andrew Pitt will be getting support from Ten Kate Honda.

Daily Motorcycle Blog roundup April 11, 2007

April 11, 2007

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This is something I’ve been planning on doing for awhile now. Its simply a roundup of all the current posts in the motorcycle blogosphere. There are quite a good deal of motorcycle blogs, but they aren’t always as interconnected as you see on the technology blogs.

  • Mike Werner has an interesting post about a “helmet hair” addon for helmets. This product doesn’t really seem like it could ever catch on to me. Mike also has another post on using garbage bins to cover speed radars.
  • A boy and his bike has posted a new video of his drive down Washington state highway 11. It seems pretty typical of all the other youtube videos I’ve seen with some obnoxiously loud music playing, but I will admit its not was bad as some others.
  • This is from a few days before but its pretty important news. BMW has launched three new models into its G series, naming them all some derivative of X (Xchallange, Xcountry, Xmoto).
  • Forty Years on Two Wheels has some great coverage of the 23rd annual Antique and Classic Motorcycle Show. Really a gem here with some really clean pictures by Doug Klassen. He also has another great post at
  • Gaijin Bikers has an interesting post relating bikers to open source hackers. I would agree with it seems like a good deal of very technical minded people love bikes, but I still think its a case of vocal minority and silent majority. I think he does make a good point about how customizing your bike to make it your own is in ways similar to making your linux distro your own, both take a great deal of work, but once you have it like you like it you know you’ve accomplished something.
  • Helmet Hair has posted a video about Paul Yang’s design process with this really outrageous custom bike he built. I agree with Jesper’s sentiments though this video isn’t that interesting, I’d much rather see a video like this from one of the mainstream manufacturers.
  • Kapital moto has a post about the Buildbase Ducati Team’s appearance at Brands Hatch GP circuit.
  • Kropotkin Thinks discusses the fall of the Ilmor MotoGP team’s decline. Apparently they were a former F1 team that took on MotoGP as well. It seems that the team’s engineers had problems understanding that riding a motorcycle is not like riding a F1 car as you can’t simply hold steady one rpm, thus why most MotoGP bikes will have a wider powerband than say a F1 engine. This reminds me of how a car dealer always wants to start a motorcycle dealership and rarely does it work with the success they imagined. I’m not really that up on MotoGP news, and I should probably fix that.
  • Old Guy has a post about how driver awareness month is fast approaching (May).
  • The Kneeslider covers Timeless Motor Company’s reproductions of early Harley Davidson bikes similar to the Model 7. These machines are quite pricey at $10,000 but look to be of almost perfect quality. There is also a new post about the Art of Racer custom which is like all extreme customs interesting to look at but just doesn’t seem practical.
  • Tim Kreitz has a post on the Superbike blog where the main thing of interest to me is he claims that BMC air filters are superior to K&N. I think I’ve heard this before, but is there any data to back it up? Also would it matter on the application? I could imagine a world in which K&N was superior in some situations.
  • Whybike - discusses a rider he saw wearing a $500 Arai and flip flops on a scooter.
  • This is old, but this site is always worth checking out. Worldrider has some newer pictures posted, I highly recommend going through his archives as they are some of the best pictures you’ll see.

Wordpress and vBulletin integration part 2

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I still have a little more work to go on getting the plugin working exactly like I want it.  I need it to rewrite the whole comment page part.  I think it would be best to show the three most recent comments in the form (if they exist) and then allow the person to easily post a new comment.  I’ll get to doing this eventually. 

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