Motorcycle Nation Podcast

Fall is a beautiful time of year to ride and one of my favorites. The air is crisp and cool and the colors are changing making for an all new experience on roads you travel every day. It is much like spring when the green begins to return to the grass and trees and it makes me feel alive again. After many months of leafless trees and gray skies color returns to the landscape and enhances the riding experience.

Speaking of leafless trees, fall brings us a special hazard. The season tends to be wet and the trees begin to shed their leaves after their beautiful change of color. As leaves fall to the ground and are saturated with the rain or dew, they become a great danger to a motorcyclist. Leaves on the road, once wet, become like a sheet of ice. Some motorcyclists that live in certain areas of the country have never had to experience this but we should all know what to do if we find ourself rounding a curve and see leaves covering the ground.

The way to handle this is the same way to handle almost any potential hazard that could be slick. First off, try to slow before reaching the hazard. Your speed should be slow enough that you can reduce or eliminate any lean angle required to continue on the path of travel. If going in a straight line all you need to do is scrub off some speed of course as you will not require lean angle anyway. Now that you have slowed and you are using very little or no lean angle, you should squeeze in your clutch and coast across the leaves. With the rear wheel not under power you have less of a chance of the wheel sliding out from under you. Once you have safely made it across the leaves ease the clutch out through the friction zone until you are back under full power. You don’t want to be quick on the clutch release as you do not know how much of that goo transferred to your tire. When the clutch is fully out, pick up your speed slowly and enjoy the rest of the ride.

Everybody ride safe out there and don’t forget that this is a good time of the year to experience deer and other animals. Keep your eyes open and Search, Evaluate, and Execute.

Steve

**UPDATE**
Episode 13 is now working in iTunes for all of you iPodders. I made a stupid mistake and forgot to click one button which caused the episode to not update. I have to thank my friend and fellow podcaster (not to mention he is a podcast consultant, wordpress wizard, and recording/podcast equipment salesman) Cliff Ravenscraft for finding my mistake for me. Thanks Cliff. If you are a podcaster or would like to give it a shot check Cliff out at PodcastAnswerMan.com.

Hey everybody,

I am not sure what is going on with iTunes but the show is not showing up in there. I am working to remedy this problem and thank you for your patience. I hope to be able to update you later today and say that you can go back to iTunes and get the show. As an alternative, you can still listen directly from the last post right here on the blog. Have a great day.

Steve

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In this episode we discuss some quick news. We mention the Vegas Bikefest and let you know that Jay Leno is auctioning off his 200hp V-Max to help a friend. We joke about Sen. Lautenberg from NJ helping to push a helmet law in Uganda (purely a joke). Motorcycle sales are down and we let you know just how bad the outlook is and we mention a study by the Freedonia Group that says that internationally, motorcycle sales are expected to rise 8% per year over the next 5 years.

The return of Casey Stoner to MotoGP this weekend and the trade off from World Superbike to MotoGP and vice versa of James Toseland and Ben Spies is mentioned as well. The majority of this episode involves the alarming trend over the past years of returning war vets losing their lives on motorcycles and what the Department of Defense has done in an attempt to stop these tragedies.

We close it out by mentioning friend of the show Adrian Blake, creator of the motorcycle show Ride! over on BlogTalkRadio. I urge you to go give Adrian a listen at Ride! Finally we close out the show by mentioning some interviews that we have in the works. Dwayne from Cycle Outfitters here in Indy will be joining us soon to talk about cold weather riding gear. Dwain DeVille, author of “The Biker’s Guide to Business” will promote the book on the Motorcycle Nation Podcast. This is a unique look at the world of business through the eyes of a biker. And we are in the process of setting up an interview with Jensen Beeler, Editor-in-Chief of Asphalt and Rubber, a website providing the latest motorcycle industry and racing news to the web. You won’t want to miss anything that is coming up!

Finally, we send you out with the song Ride by Adrenaline Factor. You can find this song and additional band information at MusicAlley.

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