“It’s finally here, your dream ride.”  The words flashed across a banner on a favorite motorcycle site of mine.  Another Honda ad, this time promoting its new 2008 line up.  Over the past few years such an ad would only have bothered me in that it would get my hopes up, only to be dashed by another lackluster update of the same old machines.  But this ad offends me.  This ad sums up the arrogance of a once great company, relegated to a has-been, but intent on squeezing out of its reputation every last drop of income.

 It is the way in which Honda stakes their claim, that my “dream ride” has arrived.  As if, by the virtue of being Honda, they dictate what a dream bike is, or should be.  Why do I take particular offense at that? (Read More…)

Where have I been?  Just my favorite place in the world.  The garage.

 When last I posted I was weighing the, for me, monumental expense of a new Ducati Hypermotard.  I had exhausted all of my usual preventative go-to’s: my wife, the bank, etc.  It was hard to imagine then that I wouldn’t go down and scoop up the next available Duc.  Perhaps some of you might have even presumed that my absence was driven by just such an event, that either I was having the time of my life riding it and too busy to post, or, thankfully not, I had laid it, and myself, down somewhere out on the road.

Well, I am happy, yes, actually happy, to announce that I eventually decided against the purchase.  Time having passed since letting the loan offer expire, I am satisfied with my decision.  More than satisfied, actually.  Because the decision forced me into an action that I am now, in retrospect, very pleased with.

To preface, you should know that I own a first year SV650, and that some time ago I set about converting it to a upside-down fork front end system.  This was accomplished through the purchase of a 2001 GSXR front end, with a custom lower bearing race to accommodate the roller-pin type bearing.  All items were purchased through an apparently now defunct operation named Motomorphic here in California.  While the setup provided an excellent upgrade to the poor-performing stock suspension, it did/ does have some drawbacks.  First, the GSXR uses an offset locking mechanism, rendering it useless as a fork lock on the SV.  Second, and most importantly, through either a poorly cut bearing race, or simply the difference in length of the SV’s and GSXR’s stem, there was insufficient thread exposed on the stem to secure a second lock-nut.  Over time, this has led to the assembly working its way loose on more than one occasion.

So, the decision to not get the Hypermotard was a defacto decision to keep the SV, and since I had used the stem issue as part of my reasoning and justification to get a new bike, I was forced to address this issue once and for all.  Fortunately, my garage is finally reaching the stage where this was possible.  Over the years I have added a welder, drill/mill, and various other tools and implements of destruction (thank you Arlo), and I dedicated myself to my most ambitious project to date, creating a set of triple clamps to incorporate the SV stem and bearing assembly and the forks of the GSXR.

I’m going to save for the details of the project, and maybe even some pictures, for a (near?) future post, but I am pleased to announce that the end is in sight.  The stem is pressed in to the lower clamp, and everything but the upper is installed on the SV.  The current upper, the second one (another story) is in the final hours of being completed.

So, for what it is worth, that is my excuse for my absence here.  Every available hour not dedicated to family and work (in that order) has been spent out in the garage, toiling away, a labor of love.

I’ve put off writing this post in hopes that the situation I face would have resolved itself by now.  Alas, it has not.

 In my last post I wrote about how I was looking for some suggestions as to a good bike for my wife, and when Markus wrote about the Ducati 620, I paid attention.  Markus has his own motorcycling blog, PittedChrome.com, which I visit often, and given the parallels between his experience and mine, I was pleased to take his suggestion under consideration.

Being blessed with a Ducati dealership a mere mile from my home, and even closer to my work, one evening shortly after Markus suggested the Ducati I headed over to the dealership after work to check things out for myself.  Now, given that I was coming from work, and overdressed by my usual standards, someone there must have looked at me and saw dollar signs, because I was customer number one.  Not my usual experience at this dealership, unfortunately.  (Read More…)

I often hear or read about men who love to ride, and most even enjoy taking their significant other along for a ride (now and then), but the prevailing emotion expressed when said woman decides she wants a motorcycle of her own is, “No Way!”  I get that.  (Read More…)