MotoBrief

Some members of the BMW-GS mailing list recently spoke highly of the Oregon Scientific ATC 2K Action Cam Flash Memory Camcorder. I may try one of these myself, since it seems an inexpensive alternative to the well-armored cameras from HelmetCamera.com. The ATC 2K quality doesn’t seem to be as good but it’s hard to draw any conclusions from highly compressed web video. Oregon Scientific has a site for the camera where you can check out some video yourself. I think it’s worth looking into for a self-contained unit costing less than $100.

Last Saturday the man responsible for the most famous motorcycle stunt in movie history died. Bud Ekins was an off-road racer turned Hollywood stuntman who doubled for Steve McQueen in the climactic motorcycle jump in “The Great Escape.”

Ekins was a legend and will be missed. But he’ll never be forgotten — I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels that the first 2 1/2 hours of “The Great Escape” is just an elaborate prologue to a movie about a guy trying to jump a motorcycle into Switzerland.

Bud Ekins was 77.

What do you get when you hack together pieces of an old airplane engine, giant (really giant!) custom tires and a seat? The answer is obvious — a 6,278 cc motorcycle that looks like it might have been built for a giant.

Check out the excellent article over at the Kneeslider.

I mentioned this a month and a half ago on the podcast. Now Boing Boing Gadgets has posted about it and it made me want to mention it all over again. Triumph has a brilliant, hilarious company video on how they manufacture the mammoth 2300cc Rocket III.

Most of the time, when companies try to be funny they fail miserably. Maybe the British are just better at this than companies over here.