May 2012 — Bike Review: 2012 Triumph Tiger 800XC — Crouching Tiger. Hidden Dragon.
by Paul Berglund
paul@mnmotorcycle.com
Motorcycles go in trends just like fashion. I don’t understand why year after year stupid fashions persist. Mullets, pants that hang down below your butt and motorcycle rear-ends that angle up. These are all stupid, senseless things that won’t go away. A new trend in the motorcycle world is the “Adventure Motorcycle”. The name is redundant and smells of testosterone, but I like the bikes.
When Triumph announced their version of the adventure motorcycle, my first reaction was that they had cloned the BMW F800 GS. The strong resemblance lessened the impact of the big fanfare. I wondered why they had copied BMW, instead of looking at the Triumph on its own merits. Once I compared the specifications of both bikes, it was the Triumph that I most wanted to try out. I’ve never been a fan of parallel twins like the one powering the BMW, but I did like the Triumph triples that I’ve ridden in the past.
The styling of both bikes is the same; if you like one, you like the other. Some of the details gave the edge to Triumph in my mind. Like the 645 watt charging system. That is more than my last full boat sport touring bike put out. With a long list of optional parts available from Triumph and the aftermarket, you can easily build a world-class traveling companion.
Editor Pearman and I headed down to Bell Plaine Triumph. They had a new demo bike that we could take out on loan. The first walk around was very promising. I liked the look of the bike and the fit and finish were first class. All the manufactures follow the latest trends and have come to some sort of agreement on what an Adventure Bike should look like. I’m fine with that. What I love about Adventure Bikes is that they are designed like Swiss Army knives. With the right accessories it can be the right tool for many different jobs. If you just want a good all-around motorcycle, the 800 XC fits the bill when it rolls off the showroom floor.
Photo courtesy of Triumph Motorcycles
I took an instant liking to it as I rode away. It’s tall, so not everyone will fit this fashion trend. The seat does adjust; I put it in the tall setting to maximize legroom. The foot pegs come with rubber inserts. Removing them gives even more legroom. The seating position is “standard” or dirt bike style, my favorite. The handle bar looks like a standard dirt bike bar, but Triumph has rotated it all the way back so it comes off the triple champ and strait back towards the rider. I thought perhaps it was set up wrong? When I got back to my house I used the well-equipped tool kit (under the seat) to adjust the bar. All the controls are pinned to the bar, so if you do rotate the handle bar up out of the “tiller” position, it would take some work. If it were my bike that is the first thing I would do. On the road it’s not so bad, but if you were to take this thing off road, it would make standing on the pegs more difficult. We didn’t take the XC off road during this test so I can’t speak to her off-road manners. My guess is like any other 500-pound bike, not for the faint of heart.
On road this thing worked great for me. The dash kept me well informed. I found all the information I wanted from a bike was there. I didn’t have enough time to learn the correct order of button pushing to access it. With time, even I could be trained to do that. Speed, rpms, fuel level, fuel mileage, miles till empty, even a gear indicator. I love having a gear indicator. The ride is plush but the bike handles smartly. The 800cc triple was a blast. I would love to ride the new Triumph 1200 Explorer back-to-back with the 800. My guess is the power-to-weight ratio would be close, but I would choose the lighter bike every time. The 800 didn’t feel underpowered like the Honda NT 700V we tested a while back. Honda only gives you what you need. Triumph knows Americans better and gives us what we want. Power levels are good.
May 2012 — Feature: The Old Man
by John Wright
This past summer my son and I had the good fortune to share a 2,000-mile bike odyssey from the Deep South to the Northern Plains. But this isn’t a story about motorcycles or being on the road. Nor is it a story about a father’s love for his son.
It’s a story about an old man I met for but an instant, the single most memorable of the entire trip.
After riding from New Orleans to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma my son, Forest, and I spent three days at my dad’s place. He turned ninety-one this year and is unable to do most things for himself, so I helped him as I could: even when his caregiver was available. While doing so I attempted to empathize with his life, to see the world through his eyes and to understand the struggles and challenges he faces with even the simplest of tasks.
At the same time, I did my best to resist the urge to immediately jump to his aide before determining whether he could complete a task himself. Perhaps this is true of all bikers, and perhaps for all of us, but there are few liberties I value more highly than my autonomy and independence. Unfortunately, so much of this erodes with advancing age, as does the dignity that accompanies it.
May 2012 — Monthly Photo Contest
This Month’s Winner
Steve Ballantine — “This photo was taken at an airshow in Michigan. We befriended the crew of this AF Galaxy C5a who allowed us to pose for this photo in the cargo bay. I’m sure it was against some sort of regulation”.
If your photo didn’t win this month it could still win in the future. It all comes down to which one that’s in our posession that we like best.
Send us your photos and we’ll pick one each month as our winner. Winning images will appear on our website, facebook page and, space permitting, printed in the paper. Valuable prizes include bragging rights and maybe a piece of pie, but you’ll have to shake us down for that. The photos should be motorcycle related. We lean towards funny. Bribery welcomed and encouraged. Please do not send copy-righted, R-rated or hatin’ images. We are a family-friendly publication. Images need to be jpgs and no larger than 2 mb. Send your images to bruce@mnmotorcycle.com. Thanks for your participation.
May 2012 — All The News That Fits
by Thomas Day
thomas@mnmotorcycle.com
Ride It to Work
Monday, June 18 is 2012’s Ride to Work Day. This year, along with riding your motorcycle or scooter to work, take time to contact your mayor, city council members or legislators and encourage them to take part in RTWD by making parking available for two-wheeled vehicles and “promoting and encouraging the positive social benefits of riding.”
Straight from the AMA
You can’t make this stuff up, so I’ll quote the AMA press release directly. “The AMA is pleased to announce the Bay Area Riders Forum (BARF) as the association’s first official ‘AMA O/MC,’ or Online Motorcycle Community. The recognition comes on the occasion of the group’s 10th anniversary as the San Francisco area’s go-to Internet gathering spot. BARF members have established a contribution fund in the group’s name at the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame. You can find BARF online at http://bayarearidersforum.com/forums/.” Seriously.
Catch This Pass
University of Arkansas football coach, Bobby Petrino suffered four broken ribs and a cracked vertebra in his neck from a motorcycle crash on April 1. Nine days later, he was fired after being accused of a “pattern of misleading and manipulative behavior to deceive” the school’s Athletic Director, Jeff Long. Petrino had an undisclosed passenger on the motorcycle at the time of the crash, Jessica Dorrell, 25, whom he had hired in late March as a football staff assistant. During the investigation, Long found that Petrino had given Ms. Dorrell $20,000 for unknown “services” and from an unknown source. Having been fired “for cause,” Petrino will not be eligible for a multi-million dollar buyout of his $3.6M/year contract. That’s one expensive motorcycle crash.
MN Trails Are Open
Thanks to Mike R and TC Dualsport for this information, “The trails are open because people who are responsible for maintaining those made an effort to see that they were in good condition to ride. Five members from the Straight Arrows Enduro Riders went up on April 5 and cleared a significant amount of trail in the Nemadji. Please consider joining the Straight Arrow Enduro Riders. The trail you save may be your own. www.straightarrows.org
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
About 62,500 people came to a free party at the Charlotte Motor Speedway for a “Vietnam Veterans Homecoming Celebration.” The event was supposed to end with an “orderly procession” out of the facility after “a day of live music, drinking and patriotic camaraderie.” Instead, several riders stuck around to take laps on the racetrack, some travelling in the opposite direction, until two riders, Alan Richard Mockus (66) and Thomas Franklin Hollingsworth (71), collided on one of the track’s banked curves. They were rushed to the hospital where they died of their injuries.
A Yamaha Scooter/Limo
Yamaha unveiled the Gen-Ryu hybrid motorcycle concept vehicle at the Tokyo Show this year. The futuristic scooter uses a high output lightweight YZF-R6 600cc motor and an electric motor to deliver sportbike performance and is blessed with advanced aerodynamic styling dubbed “hideous” by Editor Pearman. The Gen-Ryu features cockpit area noise cancelling, a voice-activated navigation system, mobile telephone, passenger intercom communications, headlights that follow the steering input and multiple rear cameras and LCD screens in the dashboard, plush white leather upholstery and long, feet-forward styling. It’s a brave new world.
May 2012 — From The Hip
by Bruce Mike
bruce@mnmotorcycle.com
Some things happened recently that have me thinking about some of the “firsts” I’ve had in my life. This is a family-friendly publication so I’m going to keep it clean and avoid embarrassing myself. My first pet I ever had that was purchased by me and cared for by me was a Raccoon. Her name was Zimmy and she was definitely the most interesting pet I ever had. I took care of her and we had tons of fun for about a year and then I set her free into the wild. It was the right thing to do and I’d like to believe she had a full and happy life.
The first two-wheeled motorized vehicle I had was a mini-bike with a Briggs & Stratton 4-stroke lawn mower engine on it. I bought it for $15. That was a lot of money for a kid. The frame was yellow and the motor was green. I added a centrifugal clutch to make it safer. The kill switch was a string that was tied to the plug wire. It worked fine so I didn’t change it. Even early on I was a “function before form” guy. It had a foot brake that consisted of a metal plate with a piece of car tire screwed to it, that when applied, rubbed on the back tire and slowed you down. There were no quick-stops with that righteous machine. I probably put 1,500 miles on that thing, which is a lot in mini-bike miles. After years of fun followed by years of neglect, it went to the dump.
May 2012 — Redneck Files: Bike Week Shenanigans
by bj max
bjmax@mnmotorcycle.com
The alarm sounds and I reach blindly over and touch the slider on my iPhone. It’s 4:00 am and I’m scheduled to meet longtime friend and riding pardner’ Danny Parker in one hour six miles from where I am now struggling back to consciousness so I’ve got to hustle. We are off to Florida this morning for a weekend of fun, food and motorcycle shenanigans. Our agenda includes the Iron Butt Association’s annual banquet in Jacksonville and the AMA Daytona 200 SportBike classic at the Daytona Speedway.
For once packing was completed the night before and my pre-loaded machine sits waiting in the garage ready to roll. I take a quick shower, shave, pop a k-cup in the Kurig coffee maker and while it brews I pull on my pants, socks and boots and in two shakes I have gulped down half the coffee, geared up, slipped on my helmet and now, fully awake, I step out the door, mount up and hit the road.
Danny and his FJR are waiting at our RP and I never cut the engine. We just nod our good mornings, point the bikes south and with no traffic to speak of, we are on the open road in minutes slipping quietly and quickly through the night. We have US-78, the future I-69 corridor, almost to ourselves. It’s a beautiful morning and with Daylight Savings Time revoked just a few days earlier, it’s still dark as Miller’s Cave, the sky glitters with stars. By the time the sun makes its appearance, we are closing on Birmingham.
May 2012 — Geezer With A Grudge: Why Stop?
by Thomas Day
thomas@mnmotorcycle.com
I’ve written before about the newbie claim “I’m good as long as I’m moving,” but this is a different take on changing momentum. Holding on to momentum is not a “skill.” The fact that you’re able to continue wandering in a generally forward direction is less about your ability and more about Newton’s Laws of Motion. When you jump off of a cliff, you’re “ok” as long as you’re falling. It’s when you stop that you discover Newton’s second law also applies as your mass and acceleration result in forces that rearrange your body parts.
Stopping quickly and safely is a basic motorcycling tool. Everyone needs to know how to do it and the only way to perfect any physical skill is practice. You can read books, listen to riding coaches preach technique, and sit in your garage squeezing controls until your tires rot off and you won’t be better at stopping until you do the real thing. The best time to practice an emergency skill is in a safe, low stress, non-emergency environment. By that, I mean you should be practicing your braking technique every time you need to slow down or stop. By “every time,” I mean every time. Every opportunity you have to decelerate, you should be working on your technique so that it is automatic when the cell-phone-yakking, coffee-sucking, self-absorbed bozo in a 4,000-pound SUV sails through a stoplight and obscures the sun with his rolling mobile home.
One of the great advantages of learning to ride the old fashioned way, off-road and on little (250cc and under) motorcycles, is that learning to use both brakes in a variety of situations is less threatening. When all conditions are less-than-ideal, you get used to sliding tires and shifting center-of-gravity when your brake application is imperfect. Dropping a hippobikes on asphalt is almost always a catastrophe of some sort. Dumping a 225-pound dirt bike in gravel or grass is often just funny.
May 2012 — Random Scootering
Photo by Kevin Kocur
Che cosa è in un nome?
Vespa has announced that its concept scooter, the Quarantasei, is going into production and will be coming to the U.S. in late 2012 as the 946. The 946 pays homage to the 1945 Vespa MP6 prototype scooter, minus the fender-mounted headlight. The 946 still retains the wasp-like lines of the original concept. For the record, Quarantasei is Italian for “46”, which is the year Vespa production began. The new scooter will be powered by an all-new, air-cooled, fuel-injected, three-valve single, which will be available in 125cc and 150cc displacements. Price has not been set, yet.
And even more Piaggio
Piaggio is bringing a BV350 for 2013
Kymco gets some love from the Germans
If you’re a Kymco owner and have bemoaned the lack of support here in the States, here’s a reason to rejoice: a German company, Racing Planet, has announced that they will start sourcing to the U.S. very soon. Racing Planet is the premier web site for Kymco parts in Europe. Expect a full selection of exhausts, racing upgrades and performance parts for 150cc to 500cc Kymco machines. It appears that my dream of building a sleeper People 150 is becoming closer to reality… In the meantime, I’ll surf over to www.racingplanetusa.com
May 2012 — Book Review: The American Motorcycle Girls • 1900 to 1950 • A Photographic History of Early Women Motorcyclists
Cristine Sommer Simmons
Copyright 2009
Parker House Publishing, Inc.
B.P. Goebel
ben@mnmotorcycle.com
The book is an assemblage of images of female riders collected from personal photos and period advertising, some of them known, some simply an unknown rider lost to time. Some of the photos are primitive and grainy and some are staged studio photographs. The newest photo in the book by probably 60 years is the bio shot of author Simmons.
Author Cristine Sommer Simmons is a three- time Motorcycle Hall of Fame inductee and has been telling the stories of female riders since 1985. The Minnesota motorcycle connection vortex is, as always, spinning rapidly. Local Parker House Publishing publishes this beautifully turned out book. Tim Parker is also one of the many friendly faces at Ducati Minneapolis.
Karen Davidson, great-granddaughter of Harley-Davidson co-founder, William A. Davidson, wrote the forward. Speaking of the female riders from more than 100 years ago, she brings up words like, “Pioneer. Individual. Adventurer”.
What was it like to drive a motorcycle more than a century ago? It was certainly a different experience from riding today: Rough, unpaved roads that turned to mud in the rain and might stay that way for days at a time. Wrong or non-existent maps. Iffy temperamental equipment that was prone to failure was the order of the day. Even when running well, bikes were still hamstrung by the technology of the time; early metallurgy, weak electrical systems, feeble brakes, and tires only a step away from the original development of Vulcanization. Early on, fuel sources were far and few between and the fuel offered could be of suspect quality. Riding gear was ineffectual at dealing with the elements and offered “anything is better than nothing” levels of safety protection. Would you have ridden under such adverse conditions? Yes. Of course you would. At least some of you would. Just as some of them did.
