Motorcycles - Page 5

New K-bike:

Highway tooooo the danger zoooooone!!!




I really like those mirrors. The front end of this, and the new R looks really tough.

I know BMW bikes are really nice, but their aesthetics never did anything for me. Now, those sexy Ducs are another story. I'm a bimmerhead, I really want to like the looks of BMW bikes. Please...somebody make a sexy bimmer bike for once.

Such nice motorcycles posted in this thread; much more stylish than all the cookie cutter Japanese sportbikes.

I have an older Ducati Monster M900. I like it but it's starting to show its age. I want to upgrade soon but won't be able to until school is done. I'll probably end up with a new Monster S4 RS. The sport classic 1000 is tempting but I'm not sure about the wire spoke wheels and lack of passenger seat. I also want a bit of a power upgrade.

j, quick question. I see that you live in Seattle. How do you find riding in the rain down there? I'm moving to Vancouver, BC in september to goto school there and I'm a bit worried about my riding time being cut down considerably. I've rode in the rain before with no problems but I don't like getting soaked all that much.

My bike

Agreed.. Other than certain aspects, they are pretty dull to me as well. I really hope BMW gets into making a retro-styled bike. If they made a reissue R90S I would sell my car and my kidney to get one.


Ah, but the GT1000 comes available in a 2-up version. That would be the one I would get. I'm pretty sure the spoke wheels are for tubeless tires, and also pretty sure you could get cast wheels for it. And the 1000 has 92 HP, which serisouly, should be enough for anyone down here in reality. If you like to live anyway. If you track it, okay, maybe, but then why would you race a bike like that?

Anyway I test rode a Monster 620. (I told him to give me the easiest bike to test ride.) I was impressed with some things, not impressed with others. The sound is awesome. The power is smooth and useable. The ergonomics weren't great, but could be customized I'm sure. I don't like the posture of bikes like that, so that wasn't helping anything. But it was fun to ride. Most surprisingly, it didn't handle much better/differently from my bike, which has almost the best tech from 1974. This really surprised me. Also, the brakes weren't amazing. The front brake was good, but mainly because of decreased lever effort. The rear brake was surprisingly weak. I thought my rear brake was weak (it's a drum, and I think the shoes are partially glazed). But this thing was just as bad.

Anyway, I'm going to the event on Friday when Duc of Seattle gets the GT1k, and I will see what I think of it.


Get rain gear and good tires, go slower, learn to avoid manhole covers, white crossroad markings and arrows, railroad crossings, heavy white painted lines, oil slicks (the middle of the lane); make yourself visible and remember that you are invisible, and it's really not that bad. I ride in my leather Vanson jacket and Fieldsheer rain pants all the time even in downpours and it's no big deal. I never get soaked. In prolonged rain I sometimes wear a yellow rain jacket, but mainly for visibility. I rode all through the winter off and on, down into the 20s, though cold and rain together are pretty unpleasant. People were looking at me like I was insane, but it was fun and I was perfectly warm. Ice is kind of scary though.

Hopefully you are riding in good gear all the time anyway. You know they use a wire brush to remove gravel and pieces of clothing from your wounds if you beef it, right? ATGATT: all the gear all the time.

PS: I hear the Norton project is being halted and deposits refunded. They couldn't get enough money together. The project is on hold until they can get enough $ to start it right, but it still might happen.

BTW, for some reason I never posted a pic of my bike in this thread:



I have since taken off the grab rail on the seat, and I've got vintage Wixom luggage coming tomorrow in the mail and will be ordering lower bars and some sort of cafe fairing for it. I will probably be changing the seat to something sportier as well, as I think that's the ugliest thing about it.

My bike will turn 5000 (miles since I've had it) in the next couple of days.

Thanks j.

I do realize that 130 hp is definately overkill for the streets but I want liquid cooling, Brembo brakes and Ohlins suspension. I'm not really a crazy rider anyways. I like giving it a bit of gas comming out of corners and away from stop lights but thats about it. High speed runs on bikes with no fairings doesn't really interest me.

One nice thing about Vancouver is that I actually will wear gear more often because its cooler. I live in Kelowna BC right now which is regarded as the California of Canada and it gets too hot to wear gear. I can't handle being stuck in traffic in 40C heat. When I ride without gear, its only on roads with 50 km/h speed limits and I take it easy.

I typed out a response about the gear but it got deleted when I refreshed the page (duh). Anyway, my point was that you should check out Motoport Kevlar mesh gear. They custom make the jacket and pants to your specs, pockets, size, colors, everything, and it is breathable and reportedly comfortable up into the 80s-90s (F). A jacket and pants together runs around $1k, which I think is definitely worth it and not out of line with good quality RTW textile or leathers. Their site is pretty bad, but there are good in-depth reviews around the net. If I order one/get one, I'll definitely post about it here - after all it is custom clothing!

So I went and test rode this bike. It is really awesome. Very fast, comfortable, solid, seems very well-built. If I got it (and I think I might have to) I would have to change the throttle somewhat, as it's really loose (easy to turn) and seems like it would be a little dangerous in traffic, taking my left hand off the bar, etc. Probably a very simple fix. It is extremely powerful and sounds really growly at revs, but sedate at idle, which is nice. I am very tempted by this thing.

Afterwards my friends and I went down to the Duc of Seattle dealer for their event on Friday for the GT1000. We ate some of their food and drank some of their beer and got some promo swag. Checked out the Ferraris and classic Ducatis that came out for the event - some really gorgeous bikes. Good stuff.

Then Saturday Slim and I went to the Triumph dealer near here to check out the new retro bikes. I kind of like the Thruxton, which is their cafe style retro 900cc. However, it has only one front brake, something like 70 horsepower, weighs more than my current (1974) bike, and all around is probably not a whole lot better than my bike, just newer. And the seat is not very comfortable. Cool looking bike though:

I am no bike-person, J., but both the Ducati & the Triumph look pretty damn nice!

j,

That Ducati GT1000 is a great looking bike. It's pretty similar to the sport classic 1000 right?

Your BMW looks killer by the way. Looks like you take really good care of it.

My father had a friend's wife who was one of the first women in Shanghai to ride motorcycles. She rode machines like circa WWII Harley Davidsons, and vintage Indians, Royals, Triumphs.

The GT1000 is one of the Sport Classic series, all built in the same basic style/platform. The Sport 1000 is the $12k chopped cafe style bike (clipons, single seat with cowl, barend mirrors, rearsets) with some suspension tweaks, and the Paul Smart 1000 is a $15k limited edition race "replica" with trellis frame, bikini fairing and fully adjustable suspension. The Ohlins forks and rear shocks are available as options on the GT. Not cheap, I'm sure.

Thanks on my bike. I try to take care of it, but I must give credit to the previous owners. I bought it with unknown mileage, somewhere in the 40k range probably (the odos on these have a tendency to break, and mine is broken) but I had it gone over by a mechanic and it's running pretty strong.

PS: I just saw a dude ride by on a sport bike of some kind with no shirt on. I swear if I hit someone's blood streak and wipe out, I'm going after their family. (Easily found in the local burn ward or morgue.)

Check this out, airbag jackets for riding:



http://www.hit-air.com/english/lineup/jp/index.html


The only problem at the moment is that the rider has to be off the bike for it to go off. But I'm sure some kind of shock sensor isn't far off.

I may be isolated on my desert retreat, yet still Playboy has managed to bring me my newest object of desire (as it often does):
On road?

Off road?

Chick magnet?


This one is more my style than the Thruxton. But I'm not the only one.


Back into work-imposed exile!
Tom