May 13, 2007
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- Ama News has another update about motorcycle awareness month, highlighting various ideas sent in by readers.
- Bikes in the fast lane has several updates including the BMW computer adaptor and cell phone adaptor to allow you to program your BMW’s electronic bus and read data via USB or Bluetooth. Looks really interesting, Suzuki just started rolling out a system such as this (although they don’t do bluetooth). Right now with Suzuki it is pretty much a dealer only tool but it’ll be interesting to see if these things pretty much become standard or what. Mike also has a post about a space age motorcycle (not really sure if its justa prop or a real scooter) but it’s definitely different. Also another interesting post covers the UK based OnTrak System which is another bike tracking gps that sends the transmitters current location via sms message to the phone you called it from. These are definitely good things and hopefully someday a manufacturer will include such a system stock.
- Helmet Hair covers the Mototuneusa breakin method of breaking in your bike. Now if I were rebuilding my bike every weekend and racing it, I might just do try out what MotoMan suggests. As it is I can’t really see a huge benefit as this isn’t a scientific test with controlled conditions. I don’t doubt that getting hard on it every now and then helps though. I’m positive the manufacturers have many reasons for the way they suggest to break it in, and I’m sure some of them are also legal reasons. Also I’m not really sure that it is as simple as the piston ring seal simply needing to be forced up against the cylinder walls. I’d like to see more scientific tests into this though.
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May 4, 2007
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May 3, 2007
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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.
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