Motorcycle Nation Podcast

My two year old granddaughter loves to play with my shoes, whether my tennis shoes, dress shoes, or riding boots. The riding boots are the best because she throws her legs in those boots and tries to waddle and drag those boots all over the house. She also has another habit when it comes to my shoes. She loves to leave me little surprises. So many times in the past I have picked up a pair of my shoes and either hear something rattle around or feel something blocking my way. The other morning was no exception.

I got up for work and showered and dressed. I made my way downstairs and went through the morning routine and started getting on my gear for the ride. I pulled my left boot on and zipped it up and secured the velcro flap. By the way, I am still wearing my three year old Tourmaster Solution boots and they still provide me with a waterproof ride every time. Anyway, As I pulled my right boot on I got my foot almost all the way in. Normally if there is anything in there I will find it before I get my foot too far in but not today. Right at the very end my toes felt very uncomfortable so I pulled my foot back out a little ways and tried again. Same feeling. I pulled the boot off and stuck my hand into the boot and fished it all the way down to the toe and pulled out these:

Starting the day laughing made the whole day more enjoyable.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This episode discusses the challenges of riding in the spring after the car operators have not seen us for many months. We discuss awareness, sand, and the potholes created from the winter freeze. If you live in certain states I provide you with information on how to get those potholes fixed so you don’t hit them later. We also talk about what a motorcycle safety class will do for you. Whether you have ridden for many years or you have the desire to step over the saddle for the very first time, there are things that you will learn by taking a course. Below you will find out how to find the closest Motorcycle Safety Foundation class to you. We also covered two recalls and you will find the numbers to the manufacturers listed below.

Links
Recalls
Kawasaki 1-866-802-9381
Aprilia 1-212-380-4431

Motorcycle Safety Foundation

http://msf-usa.org

Road Hazard Reporting

http://roadhazard.org

ABATE of Indiana

http://abateonline.org

1-800-23ABATE

MotoCaribe Motorcycle Tours – Motorcycle tours in the Dominican Republic

http://motocaribe.com

1-877MOTOFUN ext 100

Right-Click Here To Download

Last Sunday we laid to rest a father, friend, motorcyclist, and American Hero. Bruce Hall, a friend to me and father to my friend Marty “Scrounge” Hall, a fellow safety instructor, passed away quietly March 2, 2010. This was a very unexpected loss.

Bruce served this great country for 31 years with the US Army retiring as a Brigadier General. We can thank him for preserving our freedom. As a motorcyclist you would see Bruce at a few charity rides working to help the cause. He served as Treasurer on the Dallas & Reid’s Ride, a ride to raise money to find the cure for juvenile diabetes. He had a vested interest in this ride as it was partially named after his grandson Dallas. It was this ride, if my memory serves me correctly, that he earned his nickname “Moneyman”.

Bruce was honored at his service by friends, motorcyclists, and other American Heroes. Many of the riders that rode as agroup to the ride served with Bruce on charity committees while the rest were sporting Rolling Thunder patches. It was a beautiful day to pay tribute to this man. He deserved to be memorialized and will be truly missed.

The picture of the HD Ultra Classic Electra Glide that accompanies this post was Bruces. Bruce’s wife recently gave this motorcycle to grandson Dallas. Bruce would have wanted it this way for sure.

The popular Rider’s Edge® (RE) motorcycle safety program offered by the Motor Company® has been at the heart of many discussions lately after it was announced that Buell production would end. The big question that has popped up is what is the future of RE without the use of the Buell Blast?

I have long thought that the Blast was a less than suitable training motorcycle. This is my opinion only, although if you asked the question to many of my colleagues you would get that same answer. There are two main reasons that I feel this way. The first lies in the single cylinder 492cc powerplant. This is too much power to put in the hands of a beginner who does not have the concept of throttle control and friction zone yet. The first reaction that a novice has when a motorcycle gets away from them is to apply a death grip to the handle bars. As we all know, in our right hand is the throttle which a death grip tends to roll on causing even more power transfer. This spells a bad day. A 125cc or 250cc motorcycle, while definitely still dangerous, is much less forgiving in the same situation.

The second reason I do not agree with the Blast as a trainer lies in the brakes. This motorcycle was produced, as best I can tell, with an entry level sportbike rider in mind. It is small because its secondary target market is made up of females. Again, my opinion. Because it is directed at the sport bike crowd it has extremely aggressive brakes. No other motorcycle class on the market can compare with the brakes on sportbikes. Low motorcycle weight paired with excellent brakes make sportbikes some of the quickest stopping bikes on the market. New riders tend to “attack” the brakes instead of reaching and squeezing the front brake lever. They also tend to stomp on the rear brake pedal instead of applying steady, even pressure. Doing either one of these can cause serious consequences, many times reason one. Panic hits, the deathgrip is applied, and we are in trouble again.

Those are my reasons. Now, back to the original question. With the demise of Buell, what will the future training bike of Rider’s Edge be? I discussed this with a RE provider and the answer I got is this. The government requires that manufacturers who cease production on a product continue to provide repair parts for a period of seven years. The RE program was also granted permission to use used motorcycles that they take in on trade provided they fully inspect them. This was prohibited in the original rules of the program. So, RE will continue to use Buell Blasts in the near future. The most surprising piece of information that I was able to get was that the Motor Company® has told the providers that they will have a new training unit available within five years. Whether this means that HD themselves will build it or that they will contract it out remains to be answered. Whatever route they take, I hope that they address the two problems that I have noted here for the sake of their students.

Ride Safe

Hello everyone! I am working on trying to make some upgrades to the site and I would like to find a new logo for the podcast. I have given thought in the past to staging a photo but pulling all the bikes together at one time and in one place has proven to be a major undertaking. So, I am looking to all of you to see if you can come up with a new logo for the show. Let me give you my vision. What I want the logo to portray is the Motorcycle Nation. In other words, I would like for it to represent all motorcycles. The photo I was wanting to stage would have included about five or six motorcycles of all different manufacturers and types (cruiser, bagger, sport, adventure, etc). I was looking for a school that had a painting of the earth on the asphalt where I could park the motorcycles in a semi circle with the front tires pointing into the center of the earth. This would represent the fact that the podcast is for all motorcyclists regardless of your choice of ride.

Now that was the vision and you can probably see why I have not found what I was looking for. But, there are other pics that would represent the same thing without having the earth on the ground. If you have a good pic that represents many manufacturers and many types of bikes please email it to me at steve@mcnationpodcast.com for consideration. You will receive full credit if yours is the one that is picked.

This just in from our friends at SideStand Up! Grand Junction BMW has a group purchase offer from Arai helmets. Deep discounts are available on helmets but you must act fast. Place your order between now and Feb 26th. Call Sam Kloberdanz at 1-800-523-0594 Extension 11 to order your helmet. Don’t miss out!

Don’t Fix It. I have heard this so many times over my years yet there is something in the back of my mind that will not let me heed the advice. I must like the adventure of it all. Before I get any farther, this is the second rendition of this post. You will understand a little better shortly. You see, the blog was running fine but behind the scenes in the admin panel where you create your posts there was a message. This message was like a beacon to me as it screamed out, “Click Me…Click Me”. The message said that version 2.9.2 of Wordpress was out. Well I was on 2.7.1 so I felt that I “needed” to have the latest version so I got suckered in.

I installed an automatic upgrade plugin and clicked the button. The first 5 steps were progressing very well and then it happened. The dreaded fail message saying that the upgrade could not complete because it needed a newer version of mySQL. OK, no problem, leave me on 2.7.1 until I figure out how to upgrade mySQL through my host. Now, where do I click to get me out of here? The screen was stuck on the fail message with no way to return. So, I closed the window and attempted to log back in. No go. I was stuck with no way to update anything on my site.

That was Sunday evening. I labored through support forums and phone calls for the past few days trying to remedy the situation. I finally saw that there was a new Wordpress app for Android and I downloaded it to my phone last night and wrote the first version of this post. Later on I figured out how to upgrade mySQL and used FTP to enter into the files for the first time. It was all a frustrating but educational experience and today we are able to write again. I made the joke in the original post that I was going to have pretzel fingers from typing the post on the phone.

But, in the end all is well. Did I learn my lesson? Probably not. The only thing I can tell you is that when I feel that I “need” to change something on my bike that “ain’t broke” kick me. Really hard. In an unmentionable place.

Ride Safe

In an earlier post here on the Motorcycle Nation Podcast I talked about how the public had found out that motorcyclists will look for reasons to ride and many times will try to mix their need to ride with helping out a cause. They will scour their local motorcycle rags or get online and search for local rides. On any given weekend most areas have more than three or four rides in the local area to choose from. The amount of rides can be attributable to the fact that the general public, some that can’t even spell motorcycle, are bringing charity to the biking community because they know there are big hearts and deep pockets there.

Recently, I have been hammered with requests to attend charity events, not related to motorcycling, but more on the level of being a Dad. Each morning when I get to work I take the five or ten minutes prior to my official start time to check my email and Facebook to see if there is anything that I need to handle quickly. What I have been finding are requests to attend Texas Hold’em tournaments. I have had at least 7 in the past week and that blows my mind. Tournaments for kid’s ball teams. Tournaments for cheerleading. Tournaments to send athletes to football camp. You name it, there is a tournament coming up for it.

It is interesting to me how people find ways to raise money for their particular cause. But, I can tell you, motorcyclists have the biggest hearts around. If you are reading this, thanks for sharing your heart with those legit organizations that put on a ride. You make yourself look good and you also make our two wheel community look good. Keep it up Motorcycle Nation. Let’s kill the stereotype.

Ride Safe

The VTwin Expo is going on right now in Cincinnati, OH and as you can probably tell I am not there. I had my media credentials along with the recording equipment and camera ready to go only to wake up this morning to blowing snow. Yesterday we received a little over five inches and even more overnight. The roads here in central Indiana are passable at a slow rate but some of the counties that I would have to pass through to get to the Duke Energy Center have travel advisories and the state police are asking motorists to stay home.

So, the show is on hold for me until 2011. I could actually attempt the trip on Sunday but being the Indianapolis Colts fan that I am, how can I be gone during the Super Bowl? I was really looking forward to this show as it would be my first opportunity to cover a major show and the biggest names in the VTwin market are exhibiting there. I am very curious to see what new, innovative ideas the manufacturers have managed to come up with during their winter hibernation period. I guess if I can’t bring the show to you first hand we will have to get the information from our favorite magazines that cover this market segment. I will be looking through IronWorks Magazine, a friend of the podcast, to get any information that I can. We will be attempting to bring you some of the new product information straight from the mouths of the creators themselves. Time for me to start the research. Happy Super Bowl weekend and if you are able to ride this weekend then I am jealous. Be safe.

The Motorcycle Nation Podcast will be one of the featured guests this evening, Tuesday February 2nd, on Sidestand Up – The World’s Only Motorcycle Radio Roadshow. The show is from 7 to 9 pm Eastern on Talkshoe. You can join in the chatroom there and chat with other motorcyclists while you listen to the amazing guests that host Tom Lowdermilk and crew bring to the show week after week. If you can’t make it for the live show it is available on the SideStand Up website where you can also download via RSS. If you are an iTunes subscriber you can find the show there as well. Hope to see you there this evening.