Random shots. A faster Flying Banana.

A few days R&R out of town.

Decided that I needed to get away for a few days, and also wanted to pop across to Singapore for some tattoo touch-ups, so I rode down on the freshly serviced Flying Banana at speeds that we won’t mention - KL to JB in 2 1/2 hours *cough - and stayed at the Sofitel golfing resort that I mentioned in an earlier post.

So relaxing in fact that I ended up extending and staying 5 days, just chilling and watching inept golfers swinging clubs and hitting balls into trees.

Nice place, recommended for a peaceful well run hotel/resort, and reasonably priced, especially if you book through Expedia (which I use for booking everything, worldwide - simply the best and most convenient service on the web IMHO) and a damn sight cheaper than staying anywhere in Singapore itself.

Relaxing view whilst chilling with the morning paper

Nice, spacious rooms

Looking for the balls, LOL!

Suzi being worked on, whilst owner drools over…

Naza showroom today. Suzi getting an annual service, and a little tweaking.

Owner getting wallet itch and machine envy.

I love orange, even though not really into retro, I could give this a go:

 

 

 

 
Ready for last minute cockpit check: Largactil 5mg, Valium 10mg, Haloperidol 5mg, glass of water:

These are called brakes, and with suspension to match

Next year, next year, I promise - me, if no-one else! *Dreams.

We don’t need no stinkin’ helmets

After my, regrettably brief, trip to JB recently - lots of activities closed due to weather, nature rules all unfortunately - I got back to KL after a blistering ride (hope I didn’t leave you TOO far behind, M - and after disrobing (OK, painfully peeling off the layers of body armour and wetgear, not nice) I realised that my primary motorcycle helmet was, shall we say politely, less than entirely fresh inside.

Fortunately it has a removable lining, so what I usually do is remove all the “coolmax” padding, and wash in the machine. However, this morning, I decided to be more extreme, and wrapped the whole helmet in it’s neat carrying bag and stuck the whole thing into the washing machine. Cue horrors from Mrs. S. - “Are you sure that’s wise, won’t it scratch, break or get damaged?” - Fah, I replied, worth taking the risk. Set the machine to gentle Eco cycle anyway (same as I use for her bras which are equally sensitive to extreme washes, LOL) - and came back 30 minutes later to find a perfectly polished helmet (stop laughing in the back there, please!) with a fresh, and freshly conditioned, interior, all ready for my next road trip which will be in a few weeks, I hope.

Technology = wonderful sometimes.

Wonder if I can sell the slogan to Samsung - “Doesn’t just freshen your clothes, polishes your helmet to a gleaming finish at the same time?”

Perhaps not. But saves me doing it manually in the future.

How I almost killed my wife…..

Subtitled: How not to fall off a motorcycle.

Possibly very boring for non-motorcyclists

OK, melodramatic title, but that doesn’t diminish the consequences of what almost happened.

A couple of weeks ago, before I got really ill, I woke up in the small hours of the morning, and after a little thought, decided to wake Yasmin up and take her for a long promised ride up “the Hill” to Genting. It’s a great road, and has been well covered in my brother biker’s blog, and is a favourite for the “canyon strafers” - a subset of motorcycling lunatics that are fun to watch flying up the hill, but, at 43, I am too old to play that game any more.

So, still dark, I wakened a slumbering better half, and said “don’t even think about it - just get up, get geared up and let’s go.” After a few minutes demurring, she remembered how much she had wanted to do it, and, still half-conscious, got into the protective gear than anyone riding a fast bike should always wear. There is no “cool” factor in potentially sliding down the road in a T-shirt. I’ve seen the results and canned tomatoes spring to mind….

So, still dark, with a fully fuelled up bike, we gradually made our way to the starting point where the fun really begins. Along the way we passed gas stations beginning to fill up with some very seriously fast motorcycles and riders, but I wanted to get up the hill early to avoid the crazy road train of faster bikes that I knew would soon follow. Heh, a trick I also learnt from my friend.

Up the hill we went, as fast as I could manage with a passenger on my 650cc machine. Scratched round a few good corners, tyres hot and the road was drying out from the early morning damp.

Then, suddenly in my mirrors is something fast with 4 wheels - still not sure, Toyota Supra with all the kit maybe? - and I let him past. But as any motorcyclist would do, I thought “we could have a little sport here” and promptly forgot I had a passenger and opened the throttle. Everything was fine until we came to a very sharp corner in a small village, and, whereas I knew I would be able to take the corner albeit at full lean under normal circumstances, that was when I remembered, and felt, the additional weight on the back.

Few options are available under these circumstances, and this really is what separates the men from the boys, and I’m afraid to say sometimes the living from the dead. Being aware at all times of my surroundings, I knew there was no car coming on the opposite lane - remember this all split second stuff, no time to look around - and so went straight on through the corner, across some 20 feet of damp grass, another 10 feet of gravel, and then as soon as we hit tarmac next to a row of houses, I stopped the bike gracefully, and without fuss as if nothing untoward had happened. And took a deep breath. And got a smack in the ribs from the passenger along with a few choice words. LOL!

The lesson, and there is a very important one for those that haven’t spent the last 25 years riding, is twofold.

Firstly, always know what your options are, and you’d better make sure there is at least one if you can. And the other is sometimes you have to do what is entirely opposite to what your brain instinctively tells you! Don’t touch the brakes! You’ve already run out of tarmac, so panic braking is going to take you down as soon as you hit the grass. If you touch the brakes on the grass, you go down, and the same applies for the gravel. And at the speed we were going we would have gone down hard.

Same applies in corners - this one I learned the very hard and painful way - if you are already in a corner, totally committed, and think you are going to run too wide, your brain instinctively tells you to shut OFF the throttle and slow down. Wrong, you will sit up and go off the track/road. You have to increase, or at least maintain a neutral, throttle and try to shift as much weight inwards as possible. Almost invariably the bike can lean further than you think it can, unless you are a pro and are at 100% lean, and doing the very opposite to what seems logical is the correct course of action.

Sadly, in the case of some, this can be taught by doing track sessions, or by hard experience, but is not instinctive. Don’t always trust your instincts - try to think around them.

Sigh - end of lesson! Although I am still getting an ear-bashing from the missus, deservedly so, LOL!

RIP: Robert Craig “Evel” Knieval.

October 17th, 1938 - 30th November 2007.(Website in Flash, but worth the visit.)

A big part of the over-the-top pop culture sensationalism scene in the seventies and eighties, Robert Knieval (who always hated the nickname - because “I’m not an evil person,” but showbiz demands these cheesy, easy, nicknames) was one of the supreme entertainers, but also, more importantly to me, a strong advocate of rider’s rights, and a positive influence for responsible and ethical motorcycle riding. He hated the Hell’s Angels type bike gang culture with a passion, and once famously rode over to the stands after a big jump, and smashed a Hell’s Angel in the face for debasing the sport and image of motorcycling.

A hero to many, including me, he did the impossible on machinery that today wouldn’t pass a safety check. He trusted his skill and judgement, but was sometimes exploited, such as the infamous Snake Canyon jump, when he already admitted that he was prepared to meet his maker, because there was no way the rigged up “rocket bike” was going to make the jump.

He never considered himself anything other than a showman, a businessman and professional motorcyclist, and repeatedly dismissed tags such as “hero.” For a superstar, there was an underlining humility and humanity, and he contributed to many causes to improve the image of motorcycling worldwide. So long, Robbie Knieval. Thanks for the memories.

“No king or prince has lived a better life,” he said in a May 2006 interview with The Associated Press. “You’re looking at a guy who’s really done it all. And there are things I wish I had done better, not only for me but for the ones I loved.”

Sunday ride out.

As also detailed by The Snark, yesterday was an extremely entertaining ride out, through some of the more twisting and challenging roads in the area. There was a fair selection of machinery, and aptitudes on display, but a relaxed and friendly attitude which marks every decent ride, whether you know your peers or are meeting for the first time. Motorcycling is a common bond, which unites all that it embraces, unless you carry your ego along with your equipment - fortunately, there were no such riders on this trip! Everyone pacing out nicely, even if I did have to bugger off and leave The Snark scratching his undercarriage after a while - mate, I almost went up your rear at corners so many times we would have been arrested - and chased along with some decently bigger bikes, giving myself some much needed practice, and Suzi a good workout.

As I am spatially and directionally challenged, I cannot tell you where we went, or how to get there, and as usual I managed to get hopelessly lost after we had all split up and ended up in the very heart of KL, miles from my home! I do this *every time*, sometimes detouring around the whole city. Ah well, a few more years here and I might be able to find out where I live. But my tires were sticky and warm, and I made it home at highly illegal speeds just before the sky opened into a torrential downpour.

Advertising, and media whores.

As a cynical old bastard, who generally despises the advertising industry as leeches and whores, recent years have seen an almost stratospheric rise in manipulative marketing. The blatant “Brand Ambassador” phrase that started to be used around the year 2000 (ish, as I vaguely recollect) which is so horrifically mis-phrased that it should be an embarrassment to the sports/fashion/film etc. person that accepts the 30 pieces of silver to promote the product, as well as the muppet brained consumer that thinks that it constitutes an endorsement of a product by said “famous person” is just the apogee of marketing’s desperate attempts to make us buy more stuff that we don’t need, or even if we are truly honest, often want.

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of selling off the remainder of my watch collection, which I had accumulated over the years, and from when I used to trade in watches for fun and profit. It was, and always has been, one of the most despicably manipulatively advertised products. A 10 buck quartz watch tells the time more accurately than a $100,000 Audemars Piquet. And the advertising for brands such as Patek Philippe has descended into farce - “you never actually own a Patek Philippe, you only look after it for the next generation” Puke - and Audemars Piquet’s latest limited editions such as the Jay Z bling god alone knows what pig ugly over-priced tat. And Omega have become the biggest watch whores on the planet with their daily issued “special editions” and endorsements, so much so that they have opened their own shops around the world. They used to be a well respected, mid range value brand that made quietly efficient, tasteful, well made watches. Now they are just media whores with watches as an almost irrelevant product.
Phew - I haven’t finished ranting, far from it, but as I sit here typing with my Rolex on my wrist (it was a gift from my wife! Therefore I can never sell it, despite the association of Rolex with golf, a sport that I detest with a passion that is worth another post at another time…) I found this. As a motorcyclist, and a camera user, I despair at the whole sordid prostitution of brands which have fuck all connection, however tenuously they try to justify it. I am going to stop now, because my bile is rising, and this next item drove me over the edge. Don’t be sheep, people, try to buy independent or no-logo brands, however difficult it is, and maybe we can stop some of the madness. Just try reading the copy with a straight face, and imagine the advertising group that put this together. It’s fucking unreal.
SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition

PASSION FOR PEFORMANCE™
Full Throttle
Gentlemen: start your devices!

MILPITAS, CALIFORNIA, JULY 18, 2007 – Borrowing from the lightning-fast speeds, precision engineering and colorful style of international motorcycle racing, SanDisk® Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today launched a line of turbo-charged flash memory cards – the SanDisk Extreme® Ducati Edition CompactFlash® and the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition SD™ Plus. Both have the quickest read/write times of the SanDisk portfolio*1 and represent the company’s ultimate performance products for digital photographers.

The announcement was made during a press conference at SanDisk headquarters on the eve of the U.S. Grand Prix MotoGP race on July 22 at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California. Present for the launch were Casey Stoner of Australia, a Ducati competition rider who is currently ranked number one in the international MotoGP circuit, and teammate Loris Capirossi of Italy.

The SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition cards are the result of a sponsorship and marketing relationship between SanDisk and Ducati Corse, the racing arm of Italy’s famed Ducati motorcycle company. The line-up consists of 4- and 8-gigabyte*2 (GB) capacities for the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition CompactFlash card and 4GB for the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition SD Plus card. The latter features a snap-open connector that enables the card to be plugged in directly to the USB port of a personal computer without requiring a cable or reader. Distinctive bright red labels and packaging bear images of Ducati MotoGP racers and the Ducati Corse emblem.

“With the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition cards, we have reached a new threshold of speed – 45 megabytes per second for the CompactFlash cards and 20MB/sec*1 for the SD Plus card,” said Tanya Chuang, director of worldwide retail product marketing for the high performance imaging market at SanDisk. “These speeds allow for fast transfers of images from the cards, and are especially useful for professional photographers in their work-flow environments.”

The SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition CompactFlash card is twice as fast as the SanDisk Extreme III card and is 5MB faster than the new SanDisk Extreme IV card, she added.

SanDisk’s relationship with Ducati Corse, which was launched in January, “takes the marketing of our memory products into a new dimension,” said Wes Brewer, vice president of SanDisk’s Cards and Accessories Division. “Ducati is on the leading edge of motorcycle design and performance, and SanDisk is the world leader in flash memory cards. Both companies share a passion for speed and for pushing the envelope of technology. We feel that SanDisk’s new products will resonate not only with photographers but also with the millions of Ducati and MotoGP fans around the world,” he added.

SanDisk is currently rolling out a worldwide merchandising and marketing campaign that leverages the Ducati MotoGP sponsorship.

Initial distribution is planned for August in North America and Europe, with the cards available through photo specialty stores, high-end niche retailers, high-end department stores, Ducati network shops and other outlets, including on-line. Suggested retail prices are $164.99 for the 4GB CompactFlash card, $314.99 for the 8GB CompactFlash card and $129.99 for the 4GB SD Plus card. They will also be available for pre-order on the SanDisk website at www.sandisk.com/Ducati.

Alessandro Cicognani, marketing and licensing manager of Ducati Corse, noted that SanDisk is one of only a handful of Ducati licensing partners. “This combination of performance, cutting-edge technology and design is a perfect fit for both companies,” he said.

The SanDisk Extreme brand, introduced in 2003, has received awards and accolades worldwide. Apart from faster speeds, SanDisk Extreme cards also are highly durable and can resist extremes of temperature, from well below freezing (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 25 degrees Celsius) to near boiling (185 F/85C)*3. Both of the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition cards come with RescuePROas ® Deluxe recovery software CD, enabling users to retrieve accidentally deleted images or files.

Because SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash cards are faster than the transfer rate supported by traditional card readers, SanDisk offers the optional SanDisk Extreme FireWire Reader, which supports FireWire 400 and 800 connectivity on recent versions of both the Windows and Mac operating systems.

Along with the memory cards, SanDisk today also announced the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition USB Flash Drive, a 4GB device that has a read/write speed of 20MB/sec*1 and embodies the styling of a Ducati motorcycle. (See separate press release).

Ducati, founded in 1926, is one of the world’s best-known names in performance motorcycles. Emphasizing unique engine features, innovative design, advanced engineering and overall technical excellence, Ducati motorcycles have won 14 of the last 16 World Superbike Championship titles – more individual victories than the competition put together. Since 2003, Ducati also has been a leader in the MotoGP World Championship circuit.

SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the world’s largest supplier of flash data storage card products, using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas, California and has operations worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the U.S.

*1 Based on SanDisk internal testing; performance may be lower depending upon host device. 1 megabyte (MB) = 1 million bytes.
*2 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes.
*3 Based on SanDisk internal testing.

How to ride pillion on a motorcycle.

A friend of mine recently asked me for a few tips on riding pillion on a motorcycle. It caught my attention because it isn’t something that I have thought about for a long time. Mrs S. is the perfect pillion passenger, despite the fact that she thinks we are going too slow when we are already way past the speed limit, and I rarely carry anyone else around nowadays, so I had to think for a few minutes. I hope and trust that my young correspondent does not mind me repeating what I came up with after brief ruminations.

Firstly, a disclaimer: Although I have been riding for 25 years or so, I have never, ever, been a pillion passenger on a motorcycle! Therefore I have absolutely no idea what it feels like

I am too much of a controlling personality to allow someone else to take my life in their hands - which is one reason I hate flying - and would find it difficult to trust someone else’s skills enough to feel comfortable on what can be simply a guided missile, in the case of modern superbikes. Even those riders that I respect, like The Snark, would have a hard time convincing me to get on the back of their bike, although having seen him ride he would be one of the very few people that I would at least have enough faith in their riding skills to try it. But only if he gets a proper, comfortable bike!

So, basically random thoughts, but at least a few of them are very serious, and can make the difference between comfort, or even life and death when riding. Additional tips in the comments section very welcome!

1. Never sit side saddle. LOL.
2. Always plant your feet firmly on the rear footpegs.
3. Do not put your feet down when the rider stops at, for example, traffic lights. Feet on pegs at all times.
4. For women, tight skirts don’t help.
5. Wear some protective gear. Easy in cold climates, a real pain in tropical ones, but at least jeans, a jacket, proper shoes/boots and gloves. Road rash really, really hurts! Imagine acid being poured onto your bare skin - it’s like that. And if you do come off, the first thing you will do is put your hands out to protect yourself, it’s instinctive. Hence gloves, because I prefer having skin on my palms! And you can’t walk without ankles or toes, so no flip-flops or sandals.
6. Helmet, always fastened securely, and try to wear one that fits snugly. That is more important than most people realise. And try not to wear one that looks like it’s previous owner used it for target practice. Best of course is to have your own.
7. Talk to the rider beforehand and agree a few signals, such as if you hit the rider on the right shoulder = Slow Down!! Equally, if the rider is about to take off at full speed, he should tap you on the leg to warn you to hold on tight.
8. Decide if you are more comfortable holding the grip bar behind you, or holding the rider’s waist. Most people use the grip bar, after getting used to the acceleration. Some rider’s also don’t possess suitable waists. Do not attach yourself to the rider like a limpet, because they will not be able to steer correctly using their body weight, or to slide around in the seat for maneuvering.
9. Watch the road well ahead so that you can also see when the rider is going to need to lean. Lean with the rider into curves, trying as best as possible to follow his movements but not quite as dramatically. i.e. If he does a racing corner and hangs off the saddle, just lean at a comfortable degree less than that! You should aim to be at almost the same angle, ideally a tiny bit less.. But never more. And be ready to sit back upright after exiting the turn. Once you get into the swing of it, it is almost as much fun as riding yourself - or so I have been told!
10. And a note for the rider: This is quite important, and often under-estimated, even by an old rider like me. If I am sitting fairly upright, and traveling at say 100km/h and then decide to really accelerate, I will drop into a racing crouch behind the fairing. Thus leaving the previously protected passenger subject to a sudden 100km/h and increasing blast of wind. Seriously, it is the only time I have almost lost passengers!! It is not funny, and Mrs S. does still have to remind me, even now, how dramatic it can be if you are not paying attention and forget you have a passenger.

So those were my quick thoughts. Anything I’ve missed? Please let me know.

The Chicane at Donington Park

See the fear concentration in the eyes?

Chicane at Donington Park, originally uploaded by Grant S.

Now I freely admit that I do not have The Snark’s experience of serious track work, indeed, serious racing, but I used to spend my weekends in the 90’s learning to survive on the race track, in the company of some of Britain’s best pro motorcycle racers. Doing both race schools and track days. My maxed out speed was about 145mph/235kmh under the Dunlop bridge. Seems quite slow until you get to the next corner…

I swear I have a picture of Carl Fogarty (if you don’t know who that is - Google!) at exactly the same place, and he is not leaning over much more than I! Except his knee was almost on the tarmac, and I am adopting the classic police BMW riders upright stance! I am still trying to break that habit after 20 years London traffic dodging.

Perhaps, as The Snark will admit, I am getting closer though, and he will need more speed if we go riding again, because, mate, the SV650 is flying and drifting now! The tyre edges are getting blued. New, sticky, rubber required at next service, I think.