MotoBrief

The Think! Take Longer to Look for Bikes campaign from the UK has landed in the US with an Americanized version of the public service announcement.

You can see the original UK version here. Be forewarned, the UK version is a bit more graphic.

I see GlobeRiders has another DVD on adventure touring and on-the-road maintenance, this time for the R1200GS and R1200GS Adventure. GlobeRiders has done a great job with these videos — I have the F650GS video myself — and think that they’re a good introduction to gear and basic maintenance.

There’s more than 4 hours of info here. As usual, it’s hosted by Helge Pedersen, GlobeRiders founder, photographer and world traveler.

If you’re not familiar with the guy, you should probably check out his awesome book, 10 Years on 2 Wheels [affiliate link] if you can find it. It’s out of print and the copies on Amazon can get pricey. You might also try eBay, where it shows up occasionally. GlobeRiders has said they hope to reprint the book sometime this year.

So I won’t get any Dakar this year — but a number of places have pointed out that the theme music used in the rally is available on the iTunes Store. I guess that’s something.

The music is by a Senegalese band called Wock and the song featured in Dakar promos and coverage is Sama Amie [affiliate link]. It’s really beautiful music and I’m glad I’ve found it.

Unfortunately, Wock appears to be on the BMG France label. BMG is one of those record labels trying to convince everyone that Apple’s actually the enemy and that the record label would have been happy to let you have reasonably-priced music downloads long ago if Apple hadn’t stood in the way.

This is the same Sony BMG that attempted to secretly install rootkits on customers’ PCs so they could restrict them from ripping CDs to digital format, but they’d prefer you forgot about that. So as far as I can tell, there’s no DRM-free version of Wock’s music available for purchase; BMG has declined to offer DRM-free downloads in the iTunes Store.

I bought the album anyway despite the DRM. It’s great music that evokes images of past Dakars while I wait for 2009.

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.

The word’s out that 1993 MotoGP champion Kevin Schwantz wants back in the game. In a statement, Schwantz confirmed that he’s exploring management opportunities with the Suzuki team.

Schwantz racked up 25 wins during his Grand Prix career and currently runs the Kevin Schwantz Suzuki School at Road Atlanta. He was featured prominently in the 2003 documentary Faster, which can be found at Amazon.

BMW appears to be giving away free Stuntwars DVDs at part of a promotion of the F800S. The DVD features Chris Pfeiffer, who currently rides the F800S in street freestyle competitions.

The Long Way Down team has arrived in Africa and the challenges have started. In this latest update Russ Malkin describes some of the problems they had with Customs in Tunisia.

Heads up for Mac users — the BBC video isn’t very Mac-friendly. I can’t watch it in Firefox or Safari, despite having the Flip4Mac Windows Media plugin. Grrrr.

It’s official. The Long Way Down site has replaced its longstanding “Coming Soon” page with some new stuff. The site is Flash-based, I think — is that why it took so long?

They have some great information, including details of the Touratech bits they’ve added to their R1200GS motorcycles and some of the other equipment they’re using. There are still no videos or photos, so the best bet remains the BBC site if you’re hoping to follow along as they go.

The BBC has a Long Way Down site with video, photos and journals from the trip. The journals aren’t current — right now, they contain one entry each from May 5 — but I’m hoping that they get updated soon and we can all follow along on the way to Cape Town. Their proposed route is shown and looks pretty exciting. I wish them luck.

A UK Honda Trail Bike forum thread says that Charlie and Ewan have started their new motorcycle adventure, The Long Way Down. Following up on their round the world trip chronicled in The Long Way Round television series and book, this time they’re riding from John O’Groats, Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa.

I loved the Long Way Round and have mentioned Boorman’s Race to Dakar series in the past. I can’t wait for this show to air.