MotoBrief

I had a discussion with a brand snob recently and apparently one of my motorcycles isn’t “real.” I was reminded of this exchange today when I saw an article on the AMA website about the 2008 Buell 1125R.

It appears that Buell, a subsidiary of Harley-Davidson, was allowed to look elsewhere for a powerplant for its newest sportbike. The bike uses a liquid-cooled V-twin designed by Rotax and looks very interesting. In addition to the excellent write-up on the bike, AMA has a great interview with Erik Buell about the bike’s development.

I doubt that this bike will spark any great controversy, given that people have wondered for years when Buell would get around to building a sportbike that’s not powered by an air-cooled XL Sportster engine. So while it’s a big step for Buell, I expect this bike to be a beloved addition to the family.

Not so my BMW F650GS, also powered by a Rotax engine, which was recently scorned by some fellow as not being a “real” BMW. “BMW never made a 650,” he sneered.

So what makes a motorcycle a true example of the marque? Does every part need to roll off a company assembly line? BMW doesn’t make my tires, either — does that matter?

There’s no argument that the engine is the heart of a motorcycle but does it have to be built in-house? Do Aprilia Mille or KTM owners have to put up with this?

I recognize that there will be some motorcycles that will never be considered genuine. Would anyone consider the short-lived revival of Excelsior-Henderson related in any way to the classic American motorcycle introduced by William and Tom Henderson in 1911? It was just a pricey cruiser that didn’t offer anything particularly special, and it’s not an Excelsior-Henderson no matter what the badge said.

But the BMW F650? This bike has been sold by BMW for more than a decade and built by BMW since 2000. It appeared on the BMW factory team in the Dakar Rally. It’s not some orphaned model thrown together to make a quick buck — it’s been revised over the years and has led to the new G series of BMW 650s.

I guess this is more about bike snobbery than about motorcycles. Some people would like to forget BMW made anything after the airhead twin. I imagine every brand has built a motorcycle than someone, somewhere, deems unworthy to be considered “real.”

I don’t think I’m going to worry about those people. I love my fake BMW.

I’ve wanted a GPS for a long time. The BMW GS mailing list discusses various models of Garmins all the time and they’ve created some serious lust in my heart.

Now Engadget reports that TomTom has released the motorcycle-specific Rider 2nd Edition. Sadly, the TomTom website is pretty bad — there’s no feature comparison between the TomTom Rider and Rider 2, they don’t clearly explain what I get for my extra $100, and the screenshots and gallery sections don’t appear to work in Mac OS X or Windows XP.

Going back and forth between pages, it looks like you get an improved Bluetooth headset (albeit with shorter talk time) and the 2nd Edition is listed as waterproof rather than merely water-resistant. And it supports TomTom’s bizarre voices feature so your Rider can sound like Mr. T, Gary Busey, Dennis Hopper or other, ever more wierd, options. I think I’d prefer Genuine People Personalities.

Sports Illustrated reports that the folks from Geneva visited Indianapolis last week to check out the construction of the brand new, 2.6 mile course that will host MotoGP race on September 14, 2008.

The officials were reported to be happy with the progress and the work is expected to be completed on schedule. This is really exciting news and I’m definitely planning a trip home to the Midwest to catch this race. Of course, it’s typical that this happens after I leave Chicago.

It’s been a busy week for me and I’m just now catching up on reports from last weekend. This forum thread has lots of pictures and discussion of the flooding that wiped out the Moto Guzzi national rally in SE Minnesota. No one at the rally was injured although word is that the entire Guzzi demo fleet went under.

FEMA teams arrived yesterday to assess the disaster. Let’s all hope that government agencies and the insurance companies move swiftly to help those in need.

The Track Diesel Motorcycle looks interesting. The website is absolutely terrible — poorly designed with very limited information, referring you to a Dutch version of the site just to see the price of the bike — so it’s hard to say what the status is. Gizmag.com reported that the bike was commercially available last year but it appears none had shipped at that time.

I hope that this is legit, but I’ll believe it when I see one on the road. The CEO of EVA Products, creator of the Track, said in the Gizmag.com article:

“This week we sold 15 bikes and production is on its way for the first 250 to 500 units that will be sold within the next 2 years. Unfortunately, requests on this bike will probably exceed the production level for some time to come as we have received more than 2000 purchase requests already. For now we will only target the EU market, but we have already appointed a U.S. distributor which will be announced in 2007.”

Now, more than nine months later, the Track website is still talking about needing to sell 50 units before expanding beyond the Netherlands. And no mention of a U.S. distributor — in fact, the site doesn’t maintain any kind of press release archive at all.

So what’s up? Has anyone actually seen one of these in action? I hope that EVA gets its act together and gets these on the streets. EVA seems to have some other projects keeping them busy, like, um, antigravity, so I’m not holding my breath until it ships.

I do wish them the very best of luck, however, and will wistfully imagine the day I can tool around town on my Track Diesel, leaving the smell of french fries in my biodiesel wake.

While it seems far more common that elected officials take a swing at motorcycling, yesterday Governor Mitch Daniels led an ABATE of Indiana ride to promote motorcycle awareness.

It’s awesome to see support like this, especially in light of people like Washington state senator Adam “I would be happy to ban the use of the internal combustion engine off-road by anyone” Kline. Kline is the guy who has decided that being outside is “a place to go for quiet and solitude and self-exploration,” and is tired of, well, all the other humans who get in the way of his zen quiet time.

Kline’s ultra-restrictive legislation would prohibit the use of any off-highway vehicle, even on private property, if the noise could be heard at the property line. You can check out the fight against this and other motorcycle-related legislation at the AMA’s Response Center.

In some absolutely terrible news, reports have appeared on several motorcycling forums that Chris Blais was injured Sunday in a crash while preparing for the Vegas to Reno desert race.

The story is that he caught a sharp bump in some silt that kicked the bike up onto the front wheel. He tried to ride it out for 50 feet before going over the handlebars, breaking his collarbone and crushing the T7 vertebra. He had surgery yesterday to fuse the vertebra and insert a couple rods. He didn’t have any feeling in his legs but apparently they’ll have to wait for some swelling to go down before they really know what they’re dealing with in terms of spinal cord injury.

It’s a sad day. Chris was an incredible racer and, by all accounts, a wonderful guy. Very best wishes for a speedy and full recovery, Chris.

How’d I miss this?!

Steve Jobs has long touted the iPod’s integration with a wide range of cars. Now the new Victory Vision will support the iPod. Scott Bourne of The Apple Phone Show is reporting that the Victory Vision Street he just ordered includes an iPod connector that lets you tuck it away safely in a compartment on the fairing. The iPod is operated with handlebar-mounted controls and displays on an LCD on the motorcycle’s gas tank.

I always ride with my iPod and this would be a really nice thing to have. Scott has promised to post more when he takes delivery of the bike.