Fighting back against Ralph Nader’s influence on your shifter

Before the early 70’s, motorcycle controls varied from model to model. Indians had left foot clutches, British bikes had shifters on the right hand side gears, and until the 50’s some Harleys had suicide shifters, with a left-foot clutch and a hand-operated shift lever by the tank.

Motorcycle controls were standardized in the early 70’s, when a law Ralph Nader pushed through congress mandated that motorcycle controls follow a standard arrangement. Nader opined that controls scattered according to manufacturers’ whims might not make for safe motorcycling.

And so it was that motorcycles got the controls we have today. Now everything from Harleys to the Desmosedici are federally mandated to have standard controls, with a left-side foot shifter and a right-side foot brake for the rear wheel.

Now that’s changing slowly. In the past few years, a few bikes have come with automatic transmissions, like Honda’s wacky DN-01, and Aprilia’s CVT Mana 850 (top pic), which can be shifted with a foot lever, buttons on the handlebars, or left in full-automatic mode.

Dirtbikes are even stranger. Rekluse has been making autoclutches for a few years. Autoclutches let you ride a bike without operating the clutch—it acts as a centrifugal clutch in every gear. You can’t stall it since it’s a centrifugal clutch, and any throttle with make the clutch bite.

It is so effective that it’s even possible to remove the clutch lever entirely and run both brake levers on the bars, mountain-bike style. Nader would flip out.

An autoclutch probably the fastest setup going for most riders, though Metzeler ride Taddy Blazusiak still kicks it old school with a traditional clutch and lever, even during his Erzberg and Enduro X wins. He’s that good.

The New York Times covers motorcycles (playing Polo in Rwanda)

It’s a story you couldn’t make up.  A guy from South Carolina and a guy from Texas wind up doing business in Rwanda (in solar power and coffee, respectively) wind up hiring a motorcycle taxi in Rwanda and came up with the idea of playing polo on motorcycles, and four years later motopolo—the sport they invented—winds up in the New York Times.

There aren’t many horses in Rwanda, so motopolo has caught on, at least a little bit.  The only real rules are that you can’t kick the banana-leaf ball with your feet, and you can’t stick your mallet into other riders’ wheels.  Besides that, there isn’t much regulation.  Five-a-side, goals at either end, and 15-minute quarters, and beer breaks between each one. It sounds like a riot.

The sport is refreshingly low-key.  Records of game results aren’t kept, and Rwandans typically ride the motorcycles while expats ride on the back.  Riders can make $20 a game, which far exceeds the average Rwandan salary of $3 per day.

Chameleon Ngirimana, who is one of the best motopolo pilots, said “I don’t know how I can tell you, but this game is so fun.  First, we came for the money; now we just like it.”  We kinda wish there was a motopolo scene in NYC.

Pictures and story from the New York Times

2012 Honda CBR 250R Review: Part 1

We got a bit of seat time on a 2012 Honda CBR250 last week.  When we first stepped astride it, it felt tiny and a sluggish (especially since it’s still in the break-in period–we didn’t want to rev it over 7k).  After getting a few miles under our belts, we’ve come to appreciate the light weight, conservative riding position, and the great brakes.

While some of these will end up as race bikes, the majority will be for  commuting or first motorcycles for new riders.  When you think of the bike in that context, it excels.

There are nice details like pretty, easy-to-read gauges.  The turn signals are incandescent and they “breathe” like classic turn signals, rather than clicking on and off brutally like LED lights.

The suspension is compliant and has sufficient damping to cope with big shocks.  On the bumpiest cobble-stone street on our route, the suspension performed admirably, and never dealt a gut-punch that caused us to wince.  The bike just rolled on down the street.

The mirrors compliment the bike’s maneuverability, and likely help make the ride experience comforting for a new riser.  For us, however, the mirrors felt like big antennae that wanted to give every car a kiss.  Splitting lanes gets nervewracking when you’re stuck behind the  two wide mirrors, and the articulation on the mirror stalks doesn’t allow much in the way of repositioning.

ABS may seem like a strange inclusion on a 250, but it’s a welcome one.  The single front disk is strong enough to stand the bike on its nose, and the eventual ABS intrusion just feels like the headset bearing is clicking, rather than a jittery reaction that upsets the bike.

The bike is a doddle to ride around town—the only letdown is the lack of a manic engine—keep in mind that the original CBR 250RR was an inline four with a redline of 19.5k RPM.  That’d be more our style.

How important is the sound a motorcycle makes?

Power, braking, riding position, looks, and handling. These things are discussed nearly every time a motorcycle is mentioned. But what about sound? After watching yesterday’s Dominos video, we saw this new T-Mobile video—it featured a Ducati superbike to spice up their image. The sound at the end alternated between a V-Twin and an inline four. We found it distracting and it ruined the commercial for us. Then again, we’ve made purchase decisions before based on how a bike sounds. Both our 900SS and old Honda Interceptor came into our stable thanks to their great sounds.

Here are some of our favorites (videos chosen for sound quality, please excuse the video quality).

Honda CR500 – Honda doesn’t even make a 2-stroke dirtbike of any size anymore. Used to be that thousands of woodland animals would be deafened every time a man kicked his CR500 over. They came stock with nearly 60 bhp and Robbie Knievel used his to jump five billion dollars cash at an ING bank event. Legend.

Harley Knucklehead – Harley’s pushrod twin of the 30’s and 40’s employed overhead valves, always looks like a pain to start, and emits a great noise.

Honda CBX – In our opinion, the CBX produces the best sound of any street motorcycle in history. Inline sixes always sound good, but the CBX’s shriek is unforgettable.

Ducati 916 – The tambourine dry-clutch sounds morphs into a volcanic growl as these bikes roar away. There’s something very soulful about these motors, and they are more fun to ride leisurely than their inline-four competitors.

Yamaha R6 – The R6 engine was a sensation when it debut. 15.5k rpm and nigh on 200 bhp per liter at the crank. It offers an F1-like wail as its spinning to infinity.

Aprilia RSV4 Factory – This V-four makes a great roar, even with stock pipes.

The answer for us is that a motorcycle’s sound and engine character is incredibly, unassailably important.

On Being Rescued: Hijinks on the FDR

Last Friday, the Cub ran out of gas on FDR drive in Manhattan (it was on reserve, but we didn’t believe the Cub could run out of gas).  Not 5 minutes later a gentleman on a KLR stopped and offered us a lift north to Houston St. for some gas. The manager of the gas station wanted $20 for a gas can, so we bought and emptied a bottle of grapefruit juice instead.  The manager flipped out, and noted that it is illegal to fill an unapproved gas container.

Little did he know that the Cub will go about a mile on an ounce of gas—we pulled a hose off the KLR’s carb and drained eight ounces into the bottle before heading off to replenish the Cub.As were riding back across Houston, the KLR guy said “oh, did you have your bike on reserve and forget to turn it back when you filled it?” The answer was “no, we turn the gas on and off each time we ride, in the hopes that it will help get us accustomed to being very methodical.”  He thinks for a second and says “that’s great, but you still ran out of gas.  How methodical is that?”  Still, when things go well—as they did here—it can be fun to run out of gas. You never know who you’ll get to meet.

When nobody stops to help, however, it can be a nightmare, especially in the rain, in the countryside, or at night.  It got us thinking about how we respond when we see stranded bikers on the side of the road.  Unless we’re in a rush, we stop to offer help.  The generosity of the KLR rider, however, convinced us to leave a little earlier on our trips, just in case we do spot someone in need of help.  It is such a relief to see a friendly face pull out from an endless flow of traffic—we can’t wait to give that experience to someone else.

We made it this far on the 8oz of gas, from the FDR to a friends BBQ…

And then onward, before sputtering to a stop at this BP Gas pump which, luckily, hadn’t run out of gas.