Below are the news items, in no rank order that had the most interest to me in 2014. They run the gamut from touring, racing, safety to just stuff I liked. Why 9, because everyone does 10 and 11 is too many. Hope you find them interesting as well.
Interactive map of American Byways
America’s Byways Website: A website the federal government got right!!! I wrote about this site back in March in this post. America’s Byways is an interactive, map based, website that will provide you a listing of each of the 150 different roads. Those roads are comprised of the National Scenic Byways and All-American Roads. You can select the road from a national or state map to see basic information on the road (length, average time to travel the road and historical background) as well as route maps, directions and photos.
Electric Iron Butt Ride: 1000 miles in 24 hours on a motorcycle can be hard on a normal bike. Terry Hershner completed the endurance ride on a heavily modified 2012 Zero S electric motorcycle. You can read about his ride and see pictures of the bike at this link.
Project Live Wire: Speaking of electric motorcycles everyone has to take notice when Harley Davidson rolls out their prototypes on a nationwide tour. I got to ride one of the bikes a few months back and I was impressed how well they performed/looked for prototype machines. We even had John Wheeler from Harley Davidson Project Live Wire as a guest on The DawgHouse Motorcycle Radio Show #291.
Safercar.gov: Another website done right by the government… how quaint. Although saffercar.gov has been around for a while, this year they added the ability to look up your bikes VIN to determine if it has a recall applied. Check that feature out here.
Sons of Anarchy: The final season. I liked the entire series but that last episode seemed like it was more of “let’s get this done as fast as possible” instead of well thought out end to a classic show.
MotoAmerica: I am not a huge motorcycle racing fan but after hosting The DawgHouse Motorcycle Radio with Ken and Phil I have learned a lot. One of the things I have learned is that there is a lot of excitement for the new AMA sanctioned racing series. Daytona Motor Group was replaced by MotoAmerica, lead my former champion Wayne Rainy. The series is coming to Virginia this year and I plan on attending. We interviewed Wayne on the Dawghouse a few months ago, you can hear the interview here.
BMW R1200RT Do Not Ride Recall: That a BMW has a recall is no big deal. That “Bike of the Year R1200RT” has had a recall that lasted 4 months is a big deal. Multiple magazines and websites declared a bike, which owners could not ride for a large part of the year, the best bike of the year, what crap. Now don’t get me wrong, I do not think this is a BMW issue, they have went out of their way to support owners of the bike. This is a big deal to me because industry media leaders fell all over themselves for a bike that did not deserve the accolades. Was this advertising dollars at work?
Marc Marquez – Again, I do not follow racing that closely but WOW. A dominant performance from the defending champion to win the MotoGP championship for a second straight year. He set the record for the most races won in a season with 13. Take a look at the link to see all the records he has broken and he is still a very young guy at 21.
Lane Splitting – Apparently it is a lot safer then we all thought. A study by University California, Berkeley for the California Highway Patrol found, for example:
> The practice of riding in between marked lanes to filter through slow-moving or stopped traffic, is just as safe for riders as traveling in normal lanes
> Riders who split lanes are less prone to getting rear-ended; however, the likelihood of a rider rear-ending a car is greater.
> Danger level does increase for riders who are splitting at speeds of 10mph or faster than the surrounding traffic.
> They found that lane splitters were splitting at lower speeds and in slower moving traffic than they had been previously.
You can read the whole study here and my earlier post on the issue here.
On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter: It is not too often that we get feature presentation style movies dedicated to motorcycling. This movie paid homage to the original 1970s movie (as a son would a father which in this case is accurate as the son of the original movie directed the Next Chapter). I saw this movie on the big screen and it was just great. Hopefully this will get some good karma for our industry and lifestyle
I JUST WANT 2 RIDE!! 