By the time an actual `09 Ducati Streetfighter showed up in our garage, I’d already decided not to like the thing. Pictures really didn’t do it for me. And the whole idea of a de-fanged, undressed 1098 sounded like sawing off a Caesar Guerini shotgun: tragically inappropriate and potentially dangerous. But after 144 miles on the thing, I’m not keen on the idea of giving it back. Ever.

Logic obviously isn’t a factor, despite the fact that Ducati did a whole lot more than peel the plastic from a 1098. A new frame and longer swingarm add nearly two inches of wheelbase to keep the front Pirelli in closer to the pavement. I like that almost as much as the shockingly humane riding position: more legroom than the new Monster 1100. Unlike the Monster, this fuel tank feels nice and narrow between my knees. The tapered aluminum bar leans me into the wind at a comfortably sporty angle. The headlight lights up enough pavement to have some fun after dark, even around corners. Despite stock gearing that would be more appropriate for a land speed record attempt, the engine is a straight-up beast above 5000 rpm. With sharper steering and another tooth on the countershaft sprocket, the only thing keeping me from filling the Streetfighter-sized hole in my garage is the $15,000 crater it would blow in my budget. But since logic really isn’t a factor, I’ll be leaving that part of the garge open for now.

Generally speaking, turning 130-something horsepower loose on an expanse of wet, slippery white plastic in a hotel parking lot is very bad idea. But since our friends at Kawasaki said it would be okay, I did it anyway. They set the whole thing up to show off the 2010 Concours 14’s KTRC traction control system. After a day on the road, a cold Anchor Steam sounded better than skidding around in cold water, but they’d gone to all the trouble of bolting on a set of outriggers for the occasion and that beer wasn’t going anywhere.

To see exactly how slippery our mystery plastic was when wet, I cue up for a pass with the traction control circuitry switched off. Roll onto the white stuff and grab a handful. The rear Bridgestone spins up to an obscene speed roughly 15 times greater than the front and the 679 lbs. of motorcycle head for a very solid looking brick wall. Thank God and Jeff Herzog for the outriggers. Wobble through the parking lot for round two, and it’s thank God and Kawasaki engineering for traction control. Make sure the system is on – no KTRC light on in the bottom corner of the tach face – ease on to the slick stuff, roll the throttle wide open and…nothing. Sensing imminent disaster well before I would, the computer backs power to down to match available grip, the exhaust note goes flat and we trundle safely back onto actual grippy blacktop. No outrigger assist necessary. Nice. Kawasaki says KTRC is a safety feature and not a performance enhancer. That’s fine with me. Heading into winter and the possibility of actual precipitation on L.A. freeways, we need all the help we can get. 

Noise-induced hearing loss is a big issue for motorcyclists. The interior of a helmet can be an audibly offensive place: engine noise, road noise, and the sound of rushing wind combine to create a din that routinely exceeds 80 decibels, a level that experts consider “very loud” and potentially damaging. Your ears are a delicate system made up of tiny bones, fragile nerves, and microscopic hair cells, and the vibration caused by all those dB’s can be disastrous. When any of these components are damaged, the transmission of sound is permanently altered.

The noise level isn’t the only issue; duration is a major factor as well. And as motorcyclists, we typically like to ride for as long as possible, making us even more susceptible to hearing loss.  

Your ears aren’t the only thing that suffers. It’s well known among audiologists that high-intensity noise reduces your ability to concentrate, raises blood pressure, and causes fatigue.

Wearing ear plugs is the simplest and easiest way to prevent hearing-related problems down the road. The average pair of ear plugs reduces the clamor entering the ear by 25 – 30 dB, slashing the risk of hearing loss while simultaneously making you a calmer, more comfortable rider. All hearing protecting equipment is labeled with a NRR (Noise Reduction Rating), so look for the plugs with the highest number.

I’ve heard friends say “I don’t wear ear plugs. The noise used to bother me, but I’ve gotten used to it.” Unfortunately, you ears can’t adjust to loud noise. By the time you’ve become comfortable with the noise, it’s too late. Hearing loss is usually a slow and painless process, and once the damage is done, you’re screwed for life. So drop a set of ear plugs in your jacket pocket or tank bag, and make sure to wear them.

Like free stuff? 3M is giving away free piston-shaped ear plugs
at the site below. Click on the link and follow the instructions
to get yours.

http://www.aearoweb.com/sites/pistonz/request_sample.aspx

“The Factory at the foot of Mount Aso, where humans and nature are as one.” That’s how Honda literature describes the Kumamoto factory, the largest motorcycle manufacturing facility in the world.

By any measure, Kumamoto is impressive. Covering almost 1.7-million square meters, the Kumamoto plant blankets as much area as 36 baseball stadiums. It employs 3,300 “associates,” who work together to build 87 motorcycle models and 53 different engines. More than 1,800 motorcycle and scooters roll off Kumamoto’s assembly lines each day—that’s one every 90 seconds. It’s the most prolific motorcycle production facility by a factor of many, but to hear the General Manager, Watanabe-san, describe it, you might think that clean water and fresh air—not motorcycles—are the most important end product.

Kumamoto’s mechanical facilities are impressive enough. Every element of motorcycle manufacturing, from die-casting aluminum engine cases to painting to final assembly, is handled on-site. More impressive, however, are the extensive environmental controls built into this amazing facility. Harkening back to company founder Soichiro Honda’s belief that Honda should never “build boundaries between ourselves and the local environment,” Watanabe explained in detail how the Kumamoto facility has been outfitted to protect the local Mount Aso environment.

An on-site, closed-loop wastewater treatment plant, big enough to serve a small city, treats and reuses all of the plant’s waste water without dumping any off-site. A high-tech rainwater usage facility contributes to freshwater demands. Renewable electricity from wind turbines on the slopes of nearby Mount Aso provide power to the plant, supplemented by 1,008 individual solar panels (manufactured by Honda Soltec) mounted to the roof of the Kumamoto building. The air conditioning is eco-friendly as well, recirculating cool air that has been captured from cavities deep underground. Even the area surrounding the Kumamoto facility is eco-correct, having been recently replanted with native forest species to create a green belt to supports indigenous wildlife.

It’s interesting to see a manufacturing concern as dedicated to greening its facilities as it is in greening up its end-products. Especially in the realm of recreational motorcycling—criticized by some as a frivolous and conspicuous consumption of natural resources (moto-communters obviously excepted)—it’s good to know that Honda is making a real and meaningful contributions to improving the well-being of the world we ride in.

Architectural Digest subscribers call Bologna La Rossa because of the red tile roofs around the Piazza Maggiore. Political scientists say the color comes from 50-something years of left-leaning government. But most motorheads know two things. Ferrari is right up the road in Maranello, but the bikes from Via Cavalieri Ducati 3 paint this town red. Really doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been. Walking up to the house that Ing. Fabio Taglioni built feels like a bigger deal than anywhere else motorcycles are made.

We were invited over for a quick spin on the 2010 Hypermotard 796: a more accessible take on the `08 1100. So? It’s lighter than big brother, sitting closer to the pavement thanks to a lower seat – no less cornering clearance – on price-point suspension that does a decent job for anyone under 180 lbs. Shaving that seat height down to 825mm is a better deal for shorter people than tall ones, but the 1100 seat fits if you need it. As tight-road weapon of the first order, most of the new 803cc twin’s muscle lives in the midrange. Revs build more enthusiastically than the average stock Desmodue twin, but you won’t need a whole lot of `em. Just surf the 6250-rpm torque peak and grab another gear 500 revs later. Regardless, it’s a whole lot stronger than the Monster 696 mill, but significantly less steamy than the 1100. Like I said: pretty much what you’d expect.

I’ll sort out my notes and tell you more after the jet lag/culture shock wears off, but aside from gearing that's too tall for the tight bits - especially when a torrential downpour puts a damper on your cornering speed - there isn't a whole lot to complain about here. Let’s just say the APTC slipper-clutch saved my prosciutto more than once. Any motorcycle that can deliver a grin or three in the sort of weather that keeps most local bikes in the garage is a bargain at less than $10,000. When I can roll through those hallowed factory gates all damp and happy after a day like this? It's priceless.

Before we left the salt flats on Friday we pulled the fairing and tail off the Lightning prototype. I was having high-speed stability issues we thought might have been related to aerodynamics. Removing the bodywork and running naked removed the aero variable, and would tell is if the changes we made to the chassis were moving us in the right direction.

By the time I reached the first mile marker on Saturday morning I knew our stability issues were solved. The bike tracked dead-nuts straight, even through the loamy mess at the two-mile mark where the big cars had torn up the salt. Finally confident, I wound the throttle to the stop and whirred up to 151 mph before the motor unceremoniously shut down, 100 yards shy of the three-mile timing light. I coasted through the trap at 148 mph then rolled over to the return road to wait for the chase truck. We lugged the bike back to the starting line, where a quick diagnostic scan pointed toward a safety override on the digital controller that faulted and shut power down.

“We’ll just turn that safety precaution off and run again,” bike owner Richard Hatfield said. Just what an experimental-vehicle test rider wants to hear…

With the “prophylactic off” (another memorable Hatfield-ism), we looked forward to our first honest, wide-open run. I didn’t waste any time bringing it up to speed, entering the timed mile at 159.460 and exiting at 160.408 mph, using every bit of available power.

With the handling was resolved, and a baseline speed measurement in-hand, Hatfield turned the current up and dialed in 30% more power for the next run. Just one problem: my plane was leaving Salt Lake City (110 miles away) in just three hours. The World Finals were originally scheduled to conclude on Saturday, but were extended to Sunday after rain cancelled the first day’s racing earlier in the week. I was unable to rebook my flight, which left Hatfield to find a replacement rider for the final day.

Race Tech’s Paul Thede, who helped us so much with chassis set-up the day before, volunteered to take over on the Lighting between stints on his own record-holding Honda CBR600RR. Thede took advantage of the extra power on his first run, pushing the naked Lightning to a neck-straining 164.608 mph. Then Hatfield and crew reinstalled the Ducati 1098R fairing, which allowed Thede to achieve a gear-limited 166.338 mph—the fastest the Lightning prototype has gone to-date.

That’s impressive speed for an essentially untested electric prototype—well ahead of the 161-mph figure posted by Mission Motors’ all-electric Mission One at Bonneville this past August, and within 10 mph of Kent Riches’ APS-omega record of 176.434 mph. That makes the Lightning the second-fastest electric motorcycle on the salt—or, if you prefer, the fastest production-intent electric motorcycle in the world. Lightning is gearing up for series production right now. Hatfield hopes to have the first five production units, based on the prototype Thede and I rode at Bonneville, available for retail sale in 2010.

Though we fell short of our goal of breaking Riches’ outright speed record, we went away impressed by Lightning’s debut performance. We have little doubt that with additional aerodynamic development and optimized gearing, the ultimate speed record is within reach. Hatfield still wants that record, and has already invited us back to try again next year. We’ll be there.

OK, so the Ducati fairing/whale tail combo isn't working as well as we hoped. Time to try something completely different:

Now, if the car guys can quit spinning out and causing huge delays (you have no idea how long it takes to clean up windshield bits, when they're spread across a mile of salt...), we might get more than one run tomorrow, and start making some real progress.

It's difficult to describe the how bizarre it feels speeding along the Bonneville Salt Flats.  The flat, utterly featureless landscape, the imperceptible horizon, and the blinding monochrome sameness deaden all of your senses, making 150 mph feel as serene as a negotiating a school zone.

This sensory deprivation is only heightened on an electric bike, where there's no mechanical feedback and no sound beyond the wind rushing over your shoulders. You almost forget you're riding a motorcycle, until you notice the line of cones that mark the margin of the racecourse rapidly approaching on your left. Serenity changes to sheer terror when you realize that traction is as ephemeral on the salt as any other sensory input. A firm steering input might change the angle of your handlebars, but it does nothing to alter your forward trajectory, as your front tire blissfully skates across so many millions of salt crystals like ball bearings. The only way to regain control is to roll out of the throttle and just like that, your run is ruined.

It got just one run on the Lightning today, my first. Word is out that the salt is good, and the place is filling up fast. More last-last-minute preparations meant that we weren’t ready to ride until 11 am, and by that time the staging line was already a half-mile long. We were forced to wait five hours before the starter finally gave us the nod. The Lightning launches with all the drama of a GSX-R1000 stuck in sixth gear, but once you’re over 50 mph the acceleration is robust. We opted to run the short, three-mile course for this first shakedown run. I spent the first mile familiarizing myself with the bike, and the second mile building speed in preparation for the mile-long speed trap located between mile markers two and three. I entered the trap at 149 mph and it was all down hill from there—as soon as I tucked in, the bike began to drift left. Unable to steer, I had to roll out of the throttle to regain course, killing my momentum and exiting the back door at 141 mph.

The bike is already in the lineup for tomorrow, and we hope to make a second run soon after the Speedway opens for the day. We think we’ve got a handle on our handling ills, too. Race Tech’s Paul Thede spent a few minutes un-messing the suspension at both ends, and suggested some aerodynamic tweaks that might correct the wind-vaning effect, so hopefully the bike will now accelerate straight and true. Even at 149 mph, I wasn’t anywhere near full-throttle. The Lightning has lots of energy left. Tomorrow will be a good, fast day.

You learn things writing about the motorcycles that once lived in people's garages. Lyle Lovett is meticulous, with a photographic memory for all the details. Joe Gresch jarred a few screws loose with a motorized Schwinn against the Family Truckster back in the day. Maybe you know I exhumed my `75 Yamaha RD350 after nine years of suspended animation for a feature in the November `09 issue. Now I can’t leave it alone. Old motorcycles are like old bourbon. Pulling the cork is a whole lot easier than putting it back. There’s always something, which usually leads to something else. Especially on a two-stroke.

Despite all that time under the cover that once protected my `78 Honda Civic at Cal State Chico, the RD fired after a new battery fresh tank of unleaded and four prods on the kick-starter. Somebody ping the Vatican. We have a miracle. This much you know from the last RD-related post:  friends in the oil business told me the years were not so kind to what was in the Autolube tank. Injector oil carries solvents to ease its progress through the small bore lines that carry it to and from sensitive engine bits. Those solvents can evaporate from the oil over time, impeding its progress through said lines, subsequently stops the pistons from going up and down.

Out with the old oil. In with the new. It's all good, right? Not exactly.  Rolling out of the garage, a moan from the front of the bike tells me the front brake caliper’s lone piston is sticking. Getting it unstuck goes directly to the top of the to-do list. Ahead of replacing those cracked carburetor boots, tracking down that rattle in the headlight bucket and finding something to swap for a pleated paper air filter element that appears to have been manufactured during the reign of Amenhotep III. It’s like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. You’re never really done. But you know what? I like that. Unlike the other motorcycles in my garage, this one really does me.

Talk about cutting it close: technical inspection closed at 5 pm today, and the lead scrutineer signed off on our last bit of wayward safety wire at 4:58 pm. We have our blessed tech approval sticker in-hand and are now cleared for takeoff.

Instead of starting tomorrow at the end of the tech line, we’re ready to begin running as soon as the Bonneville Speedway opens for business.

I arrived at the salt flats around noon and found the Lightning prototype in an advanced state of undress. Richard, ZZ and Jeff were scrambling to complete last minute preparations, “minor” details like drilling and mounting the fairings, safety wiring lots of bolts, fabricating steering stops, and—oh, yeah—making numbers from tape, since proper vinyl numbers were left in California. To be fair, it wasn’t all their fault—they found out just that morning that the dustbin fairing they intended to run was illegal, necessitating a switch to back-up Ducati bodywork. Welcome to racing! We stayed busy—we even put my father to work, exploiting his construction experience to ventilate the tailsection with a hole saw—but we finished with minutes to spare, leaving a bevy of satisfied tech inspectors in our wake.

We’ve still got plenty to do tomorrow—sponsor graphics need to be applied, and since I’ve never raced at Bonneville before, I need to complete my rookie orientation and make my orientation runs. But the first major hurdle—getting an all-new and untested vehicle approved for competition—has been cleared. If all goes according to plan, we should be running in anger by tomorrow afternoon, slowly turning up the volts in search of more speed. The salt is on our side—veterans here are calling it the best in years—and the weather forecast is favorable, clear with calm winds.

But first there are more pressing concerns, namely dinner. We’re headed for the AYCE “Rainforest Buffet,” located inside the Technicolor nightmare that is West Wendover’s Rainbow Casino. Multiple people have told us it’s the best food option available, which has me worried since we’ve got 3 more days here…

Honda probably thinks it’s too weird for Americans, and maybe it is. But I, for the record, don’t have a problem with weird. Maybe American Honda will surprise all of us and stick the CBR1000R into its 2010 Redbook. Stranger things have happened. The `09 DN-01, for instance. But for now at least, the only new Honda motorcycle yours truly is ready, willing and able to lay down cash money for is a European refugee.

What’s not to like? Those who’ve actually ridden one – the guys at Bike magazine in the U.K. for instance – say the `08 debuted stronger than a CBR1000RR between 3000 and 6000 rpm. Beyond that, it allegedly cracks 140 mph on top. Fuel mileage is decent with an average in the mid-40s. The package is agile enough, steers accurately through the twisty bits and accelerates more enthusiastically than naked European benchmarks such as Aprilia’s Tuono and Triumph’s Speed Triple. And unlike Honda’s eminently capable yet totally underwhelming 919, this one proves naked isn’t necessarily synonymous with stripped…or boring.

If European price comparisons are any indication, it wouldn’t have to break the bank either. Honda’s American product planners weren’t afraid to swing for the fences with the Fury chopper and the DN-01 automatic. The nicely priced NT700V sport tourer – known as the Deauville/Dullville to riders in the E.U. – is coming this way. Kawasaki’s 2010 Z1000 proves somebody in Japan thinks we’re willing to buy the sort of naked enthusiasm faint-hearted types will see as weird. Why not breathe a little affordable excitement into Honda showrooms on this side of the Atlantic? Assuming a U.S.-spec CBR1000R would be reasonably affordable, I can’t come up with a reason. So? How about it, Honda?

I’m in Salt Lake City tonight, working my way slowly toward the town of Wendover, on the Nevada/Utah border. Home to Wendover Air Force Base, where the B-29 Superfortress the Enola Gay was housed during World War II, Wendover is also the nearest civilized outpost to the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats.

Bonneville is well known as the preferred venue for the very fastest vehicles on earth, and this weekend it hosts the Southern California Timing Association’s annual Land Speed Racing World Finals. I’m attending this year at the invitation of Lightning Motors, an upstart electric vehicle manufacturer from Northern California that hopes to enhance its virtually unknown reputation by breaking the outright speed record for electric motorcycles. Lightning has asked me to ride their motorcycle, giving me the rare opportunity to attempt a world speed record and perhaps make a bit of electric motorcycle history in the process. Who could say no to that?

The current outright electric motorcycle speed record stands at 176.434 mph, set at Bonneville this past August during the Speed Week by Kent Riches aboard the Airtech-eRacebike motorcycle. Lightning Motors owner/inventor Richard Hatfield believes his prototype is capable of speeds in excess of Riches’ number, helped along by a massive, A123 lithium-nanophosphate battery pack and one key piece of unobtanium hardware: a high-horsepower electric motor salvaged from the supposedly non-existent General Motors EV1 electric car.

Hatfield’s Project Lightning is not just a one-off, land-speed project. The prototype I’ll ride at Bonneville is basis for what Hatfield hopes will soon become a street legal electric sportbike. Underneath that enormous, Bonneville-only dustbin fairing is a tube chassis with conventional sportbike geometry. Hatfield expects to create an all-electric motorcycle capable of performance that equals the best ICE (internal combustion-engined) sportbikes, and he considers this record attempt his first proof-of-concept.

I’ll see the machine for the first time tomorrow morning, during technical inspection. The World Finals racing program has already been delayed by one day due to rain this past weekend, but the sun is out and we’re told the salt will be dry and ready for racing as soon as Thursday morning. From there it’s up to me to find the courage to tuck in, twist the grip and see if we can’t be the first electric motorcycle to break the elusive 200-mph barrier.

Wish us luck and keep watching this space—I’ll be posting daily updates here.

If you live anywhere near Asheville, North Carolina and have any inclination toward barbeque, 12 Bones Smokehouse is already on speed-dial: 828.253.4499. Even if you’re a few states away, this one is worth burning a few frequent flier miles. There may be better blueberry chipotle baby back ribs somewhere else on this planet. But when the racks that come out of Tom Montgomery’s smoker are this good, who cares? His pulled pork, beef brisket, smoked turkey and chicken are right up there too. There’s also mac and cheese, jalapeno cheese grits, damn good corn puddin, smoked potato salad, sweet vinegar coleslaw, mashed sweet potato, collar greens and watermelon salad for desert for desert if you’re lucky.

And since barbeque can make you thirsty, 12 Bones pours a selection of local microbrews. Glitzy it’s not. River Road  would make a nice backdrop for somebody's last supper with Tony Soprano. The building looks like a place you’d top off with unleaded, a bag of ice and some night crawlers. Fear not. Once you get a whiff of what’s coming from the kitchen, you’ll know you’re in the right place.

12 Bones Smokehouse

5 Riverside Road

Ashville, NC 28801

www.12bones.com

828.253.4999

I’ve staked out the Comfy Chair in the Starbucks across from my gate at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Headed home after two days on Pirelli’s brand new Angel ST sport touring tire—successor to the Diablo Strada—in Asheville, North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Mountains are green, which means the roads winding through them are mostly wet this time of year. The locals don’t mind. Me? I’m not so sure. If you’re not so keen on carving corners in the rain – everybody who leaned to go fast on a Yamaha RD 400 wearing PZ2-compound Michelins raise your hand – the new Angels are a minor miracle. Speaking of miracles, do not miss the blueberry chipotle ribs at 12 Bones Smokehouse at 5 Riverside Drive in Asheville. Take my word for it.

Confronted with everything from heavy rain and road construction on the Blue Ridge Parkway to some more technical twisty pavement near Bat Cave NC out in Henderson County, the Angels refused to flinch. Maybe a little fidgeting cranked over in a few of the soggiest corners. But still grippy enough to put a sliver of daylight under the rear if you’re smooth…and brave.

The Editorial Jury hasn’t had sufficient time to deliberate, but any tire than can keep fifteen bike press types upright on these roads in this weather deserves a longer look. Especially if you still think the pointy end of motorcycle tire technology is only aimed at the track. A whole lot of Pirelli’s research and development budget is going into sport touring tires. This one comes with new carcass construction, a new rubber compound and an all-new tread pattern that blends form and function: an optimized contact patch puts more rubber on the road from corner entrance to exit.

Nobody’s passing judgment until we test a set back in Los Angeles, but initial impressions are all good. Steering is neutral, feedback is accurate and abundant, and wet grip is fantastic. Stay tuned for more details. Especially if there’s some wet weather sport touring coming up on your calendar.

Maxton is a sleepy nowheresville in a dry county along the North and South Carolina border, on a broad coastal plain that stretches to the Atlantic ocean 60 miles away.

It’s an unremarkable place, except for an abandoned, World War II-era airstrip secluded in a stand of pines just outside town. That’s the Maxton Monster Mile, now home to the East Coast Timing Association’s speed trials, and ground zero for some of the fastest motorcycles on earth.

I’ve been to Maxton once before, in 2006, when I went 207 mph on a turbocharged Suzuki Hayabusa. I won’t go as fast this visit, but I do hope to set a land-speed record on a very rare and special motorcycle, a 1949 Vincent built by Louisville, Kentucky’s “Big Sid” Biberman. Big Sid is a legend in the vintage bike world, one of the most feared drag bike tuners of the fifties and sixties, and still today one of the nation’s foremost authorities on Vincent motorcycles—specifically, very fast Vincent racing motorcycles.

A few years ago, Big Sid suffered a serious heart attack that took away much of his enthusiasm for life. To snap him out of an enduring funk, his son Matthew made an insane proposition—the two of them, who never got along well (especially not in the garage) would build one last bike. It wouldn’t be any garden-variety restoration, however. It would be a “Vincati.” This was the mythical hybrid of two of Sid’s favorite bikes—the Vincent Black Shadow and the Ducati 750 GT—and a machine that had animated Big Sid’s imagination for decades. The project, which healed the broken relationship between father and son and saved Sid’s life at the same time, is chronicled in Matthew Biberman’s most-excellent memoir entitled “Big Sid’s Vincati” (available here: http://www.bigsid.com).

After Project Vincati was wrapped up, there was still some unfinished business. The donor Vincati motor came from a Vincent Rapide that was given to Sid by his old friend Lex, who was dying from cancer. When they went to retrieve the Rapide, Matthew made a promise to Lex: “We’ll use this chassis, too. After the Vincati is done, I am going to buy a Vincent single engine and build that bike up to take to the track.”

This bike, nicknamed “Overtime Tina,” is the resolution of that promise, and this quest for a speed record is the final postscript to the Vincati story. I’m honored to be a part of the story, and I’m hoping I help to write a perfect, fairy-tale ending at Maxton this weekend.

Click here for a video of “Overtime Tina” firing up for the first time: http://www.redroom.com/video/overtime-tina-motorcyclistbig-sid-project-bike

As soon as I can dig up enough information to write something about a 2010 model we can’t tell you about yet, I’m heading off into the Mojave Desert to a set of GPS coordinates you’ll probably never use. You shouldn’t, really. These are very nice people. Consummate professionals even. But they have a lot of work to do and don’t really appreciate unexpected guests poking around the property.

Not that you could see anything from the sandy little ranch road that runs in front of the place anyway. More people fly over it in airliners than drive by hopelessly lost in a dusty rental car, or the indigenous `63 Chevy pickup with serious body rust and an Australian Shepherd riding shotgun. That’s the beauty of such places, at least for those of us with eyes to see it. A few rugged individualists, solitarians and social misanthropes have built fences around the long driveways that lead to their various forms of shelter. Otherwise, there’s a whole lot of nothing. Those lucky enough not to be subjected to such things can take my word or this much. After a week of rattling around Los Angeles County with 9,862,049 other carbon-based life forms, all this nothing looks better than just about anything else I can think of at the moment. Except maybe the In-N-Out double-double with fries and a vanilla shake waiting for me 54 miles south of here.

It’s 102 degrees in the high desert. The Station Fire has burned it’s way through 148,258 acres and it’s only 42% contained. Various logistical wrinkles are threatening to derail my cover story, I have a Category One sinus headache and summer is officially on the way out. At this stage of the game, I’d rather be behind an R1200GS windscreen on the Denali Highway instead of this iMac. But, as a wise stoic once said, it is what it is. I’ll have to make due with this picture I took of my friend Bruce Smithhammer awhile back, a short blast through the high desert on an `09 ZX-14 and three of Aleve.

As it turns out, that’s just enough. Something short of optimal, but sufficient to reset the mental circuitry, restore perspective and let those the naproxen sodium do it’s job. Motorcycles, as those of us who spend an inordinate time with them know, are good like that. But when they’re also you’re job, it’s easy to loose track of such a foundational fact in between crumbling logistics, unhealthy air and the sort of heat that would let you sear a tri-tip on the sidewalk. So I’ll say a little prayer, have a glass of water, finish up a few things around this office and make some sort of reasonable graceful segue into a long weekend. Thank God for long weekends. I remember this stretch of long-forgotten pavement certain people used to use for top-speed testing once upon a time. The sun doesn’t go down `till 7:15 this evening: plenty of time for another little proficiency run while the rest of the world is slow-cooking in Labor Day weekend traffic. Other than being located on the third rock from the sun, my Undisclosed High-Desert Testing Location has absolutely nothing in common with the Denali. But if I can restore some frontal lobe functionality and be home by dinnertime, it’ll do. Meanwhile, Alaska isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

The look on the mechanic’s face in the first picture says it all: “If anything goes wrong out there, you better pray to God you don’t survive the crash.”

In fact, he had just said so in not as many words. So did A&A Racing’s Ray Abrams, and pretty much everyone else attached to Kenny Roberts’ legendary TZ750 flat-tracker at the Indiana State Fairgrounds last Saturday night. I’ve ridden plenty of outrageously expensive motorcycles, even a few that were irreplaceable, and I’ve never seen handlers worry so much before I set out on a bike.

Maybe they knew I had no business riding this particular motorcycle. They didn’t ask—and I didn’t exactly tell—but this was my first time ever on a dirt track. I hadn’t so much as lapped a backyard oval on an XR100 before, and I was about to make my dirt-track debut on what was almost universally regarded as the most unrideable race bike ever built.

Or maybe they just saw the fear in my eyes. This was a four-cylinder, two-stroke with a light-switch powerband, a 150-mph top speed and no front brake. The bike that famously inspired King Kenny, one of the most fearless racers ever, to quip, “they don’t pay me enough to ride that thing.” A bike that was banned after just three races, because officials were afraid it would kill someone. My head was filled with visions of me high siding headfirst over the Turn One wall, or looping the bike on the front straight. This can’t turn out well.

Saddling up in front of a few hundred spectators did nothing to calm my nerves—especially since I immediately followed former AMA dirt-track, Supersport and Superbike national champion Ben Bostrom, the only other “journalist” allowed to ride the bike (he was a ringer sent by Cycle News). There was no pre-ride briefing at all—just sit down, bump start, and go. I didn’t know if the bike was standard or race shift pattern, or how many gears there were! Thank goodness I didn’t have to remember which way the track went, too.

It took until the second of two laps before I figured out the controls and surface enough to at least somewhat pay attention to the screaming machine underneath me. Of course, it wasn’t half as terrifying as I anticipated—how could it be? Granted, I wasn’t sideways in the cushion spraying a 120-mph roost, but at my don’t-f*ck-it-up pace the TZ750 just felt like a perfectly tuned race bike. Throttle response was crisp (if a little rich), the suspension was surprisingly compliant and the bike even hooked up on the groove, thanks to much better rubber than anything Roberts rode back in the day. Even when I cracked the throttle along the back straight it didn’t snap or stand up. It just lit up and stepped out as smoothly as a traction-controlled Superbike. No doubt it’s a different animal on its side and on the pipe, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to find out.

I was beyond relived to return the bike to Abrams intact—if not a little humiliated, especially after Bostrom’s shrieking, suitably aggressive laps. “Were you even riding that thing?” my never-gracious buddy Ronnie Z asked as I pulled my helmet off. “Because I could hardly hear anything when you were out there.” My publisher later said he overheard someone in the crowd say, “man, you could have timed that guy with a calendar out there.”

I was just happy to bring this priceless relic back in one piece, and stay upright for my brief time on one of racing’s most glorious bikes. But I wasn’t off the hook just yet. Walking across the paddock to return Grand National contender JR Schnabel his steel shoe I had borrowed, I fell flat on my back after I stepped steel shoe-first on a wet wooden pallet bridging a flooded ditch. Ben’s brother Eric Bostrom was right beside me: “Dude, that was a full-on Charlie Brown! Your feet were all the way over your head!”

At least I saved my fall until after I was finished riding King Kenny’s bike.

Awaken a 34-year-old Yamaha RD350 after nearly a decade of suspended animation; I’ve learned a few things. First, some parts are in better shape than I thought they’d be. Others weren’t so good. All things considered, it’s a fairly happy animal. No shriveled crankcase seals or hopelessly gummed-up carbs. Draining the float bowls and adding a little fuel stabilizer, as it turns out, is a very good idea.

Despite the fact that injector oil seems to be injecting itself into the works well enough, I’m not so keen about trusting sensitive internal bits to any 10-year-old lube: out with the old stuff and in with a fresh tank of Motul 7100. And as soon as the fresh Yuasa 12N5.5-3B comes off the charger, I’ll have another go to see how that shift shaft seal is holding up. All things considered, it’s a whole lot happier after that long nap than either of us had any right to expect. What’s next? Film at 11:00…

Strip away the speed, horsepower and expensive support from The Long Way Down and you get Gaurav Jani, riding an 18-horsepower Enfield Bullet from Mumbai to the Changthang Plateau — that’s northern plateau in Tibetan — 3100 miles north on the Tibetan border. That’s like getting from Los Angeles to New Bedford, Massachusetts on a Honda Trail 90, only harder. Roads are rarely recognizable as such. Average altitude is 15,000 feet, on a Bullet packing 220 pounds of gear and 9 gallons of fuel: enough to cover 560 mi. at a crack. Except when there’s not enough oxygen for internal combustion, and Jani has to push. Next time the Sunday ride gets a little tough, remember. Tough, as it turns out, is a relative term.

Though it’s not as flashy as watching Ewan and Charlie take the long way, Riding Solo makes up for stripped-down production values with 94 minutes of honesty and pure heart. The 31-year-old Jani is no Spielberg, but if you’d like to see what it takes to ride motorcycling’s answer to a black powder musket to places most people don’t have the grit to reach at all – much less film – this one is well worth the $21.95 price of admission.

www.DirtTrackProductions.com

You’ve heard of the “dog days” of summer—those hot, sultry August afternoons when Sirius, the Dog Star, hovers close to the sun. We’re looking forward to our own variation, called the “Duc days.”

The weather won’t be the only thing hot and sultry. Those adjectives will describe the lust-inducing Italian superbikes hovering close to us, instead. On Monday, August 31—just one day after the 2009 Red Bull Indianapolis GP—we’ll be at nearby Putnam Park Road Course in Mount Meridian, Indiana, taking part a Ducati-themed track day sponsored by Ducati Indianapolis and organized by our friends at Sportbike Track Time. Catterson and I crashed Ducati Indy’s all-Desmo party last year to prepare our big-bucks 1098 R/Desmosedici shootout, and it was such a good time that we’re coming back for more. This year I’ll be testing three more special Ducati Superbikes—the 2010 1098 R Troy Bayliss Limited Edition and the Nicky Hayden-Edition 848, as well as Larry Pegram’s factory-supported 1098 R AMA race bike! There’s still open space available to join us—either as a rider or spectator—and everyone there can take advantage of Ducati hospitality provided by Ducati North America’s Hyper Truck, which will also be on the scene. Contact www.indyducati.com or www.sportbiketracktime.com for more details and sign-up information.

It’s the bike that inspired Kenny Roberts, one of the most fearless motorcycle racers that ever lived, to utter these immortal words: “They don’t pay me enough to ride that thing!”  

Desperate to compete with the dominant Harley-Davidson XR750s in the 1975 AMA Grand National championship, tuner Kel Carruthers shoe-horned the two-stroke four-cylinder from King Kenny’s TZ750 roadracer into a Champion flat track frame and set him loose at the 1975 Indy Mile. Roberts won that race from a near-last-place start, cementing his name forever in flat track history. The TZ750 flat tracker made 125 horsepower, had a light-switch powerband, a 150-plus mph top speed and no front brake. It was so fast, and so difficult to control, that the AMA banned it from competition after just three races—before someone got killed. Now the very same bike has been restored to riding condition, and Editor-in-Chief Catterson wants me to ride it for your entertainment. Is this his sick and twisted idea of an “early retirement” program, or what?

Of course, I said yes. How often do you get the opportunity to ride one of the most infamous machines in motorcycle racing history? In the company of Roberts himself? With none other than Kel Carruthers spinning the wrenches? On the very same swatch of dirt where Roberts earned his legendary win 34 years earlier? Never mind the fact that I’ve literally never—ever—ridden on a dirt track before, and that I’d be making my debut on a bike that, at one time or another, has been described by every last synonym of the word “unrideable?” Story opportunities like this don’t come along every day.

Best of all, you’re invited to watch—the ride is happening this coming Saturday night, August 29th, immediately following the Lucas Oil Indy Mile AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National event at the Indianapolis State Fairgrounds. I’ll be riding the bike shortly after the main event. Hopefully the groove will be good and blue—I’m going to need every bit of traction that I can get. I have little doubt this will be the ride of my life.  

They already have the Alps, Guinness Extra Stout—celebrating its 250th birthday on September 24th—McLaren, Misano and Yamaha’s MT-01. Now this: The MT-01 SP.

 Essentially nicely tarted-up version of the 1670cc post-modern sumo-sport that’s been stomping around various countries other than this one for the last four years, complete with Öhlins suspension and Pirelli Diablo Rosso radials at either end.Okay, so it’s expensive at £12,999: $21,498 at today’s exchange rate. But, as opposed to the endless variations on half-century-old ideas lined up in our showrooms, at least it shows proves the big-inch V-twin can power something more functional than another 800-lb. chrome and billet tugboat.

There won’t be many of the SP versions. Yamaha will sell more of the proletarian MT-01 in Europe for about $3300 less and they still won’t sell many of those by American standards. Especially in this economy. Still, it’d be nice to have a few more interesting, less predictable options out there?. Don’t you think?

 Our September 2009 issue included a short piece lamenting Buell’s entry-level Blast, and its general failure to convert the non-riding public into Buell-blooded bikers.

 It turns out we weren't the only ones questioning the littlest Buell’s relevance. When Buell revealed its 2010 lineup just days later, it announced the beleaguered “Be Last” would be discontinued. Without putting too fine a point on it, Buell posted a tongue-in-cheek page on its Web site showing a two-by-two cube of scrap metal where the non-existent “2010 Blast” should have appeared. The same page included two videos showing none other than Erik Buell himself joyfully lowering a perfectly good Blast into the crusher.

“The Buell Blast was a cute little motorcycle,” the site reads, “It just never made much of a sportbike. There’s nothing cute about racing or riding a sportbike the way it was meant to be ridden.”

We get it. Buell is a serious sportbike manufacturer, and it will no longer be distracted building pedestrian people movers for noobs who don’t know their ass from an apex. It’s a bold statement on Erik Buell’s part, right in line with the company’s “Ruthless Engineering” rebranding strategy spearheaded by its new ad agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Messages like this, along with cubic dollars pumped into AMA Pro Racing and other high-profile performance-oriented endeavors, show that Buell is dead serious (or seriously desperate) about repositioning itself as a core performance brand.

It’s a risky strategy, however, and one that could easily backfire. Erik Buell’s act of filicide-by-crusher will likely only alienate or outrage current Blast owners. No matter how compromised the final product, the Blast still carried Buell’s name on the tank, and sold for real money to real customers—most of whom, regardless of experience or expectations, remain loyal and enthusiastic about their chosen machine. How will these owners respond to being publicly mocked by the bike’s creator via viral video? For a company like Buell that was carried through so many tough times (remember those endless product recalls?) largely on customer loyalty, turning its back on its own buyers could be a risky strategy indeed.
 

Motorcyclist goes behind the scenes at Zero Gravity's Camarillo, CA facility.

Motorcyclist recently received an invitation to tour Zero Gravity’s headquarters in Camarillo, California. Zero Gravity has been in the windscreen business for over 20 years, and in that time they’ve become the world’s largest and most respected windscreen brand. Professional racers like Mat Mladin, Ben Spies, Tommy Hayden, and the Bostrom brothers have all ridden and won using Zero Gravity screens.

Our tour started in the front offices, where a tricked-out Triumph Daytona 675 sits on display. Tearing our eyes away from the custom paint, polished wheels, and other custom bits wasn’t easy, but our tour guide, Sales Manager Sergio Garcia, insured us there would be other, equally interesting items further along.

To give us a view into the personality behind ZG, we were shown company owner Glenn Cook’s personal workshop and storage space. Aside from motorcycles and road racing, Glenn has a passion for classic Italian cars – Maserati’s in particular – as well as a love for music. An entire wing of the Zero Gravity facility is dedicated to Glenn’s musical passion, and houses his collection of pianos and harpsichords.

Unfortunately, due to the proprietary technology involved in Zero Gravity’s screen production, we weren’t allowed to photograph the most interesting parts of the tour. We did get to see the process pretty much from start to finish, and the manufacturing procedure is a lot more specialized, meticulous, and precise than we would have imagined.

Creating a perfect windscreen begins with basic plastic stock, which Zero Gravity has in abundance. Huge stacks of the stuff line the walls, extending up towards the ceiling. The excellent optical clarity of Zero Gravity’s screens it the result of a careful manufacturing process. Their proprietary blow-molding procedure starts with a 4 x 3 foot sheet of raw material. The sheet is placed into a mold and pressurized to create the required shape. All this takes place under the watchful, well-trained eye of the blow-molding operator, who controls the air pressure to create another perfect screen.

Because of the shape and size of the molds, all screens are produced two at a time. From the blow-mold they are moved to the cutting room, where the two screens are separated and trimmed. Rather than mechanically cutting the screen, which can leave a rough, uneven edge, Zero Gravity uses a proprietary procedure that makes a uniform, accurate cut, insuring a perfect fit and finish. The cut screen is then moved to the finishing room, where the edges are hand “flamed” on polishing wheels, leaving them smoothly beveled.

The Camarillo facility keeps the top 350 screen models in stock. All screens are made in house, and if you happen to order one of the few screens they don’t currently have, they will make it to order.

ZG’s dedicated design team has a tough job. Their task is to create the molds and proofs that will be used to produce Zero Gravity’s Stock Replacement, Double Bubble, Sport Touring, and Corsa screens. ZG’s close relationship with professional racers and aftermarket bodywork manufacturers insures they are always the first to get bodywork from which to work. The process starts by reproducing the stock screen, after which the tooling and procedures for the other screen models begins.