Down Shift – Ducati Motorcycles have a parking problem. By now it would difficult not to know that a HUGE ship tried to parallel park in the Suez Canal. Intentional or not that parking incident has caused a huge backlog in the world of international shipping.
Ducati is one of the many companies caught in the hold up at the canal. A Ducati spokesperson reported “We have goods in transit that probably will not respect the estimated delivery time due to the Suez accident, but to date, we have no news of an impact on the production lines”.
Ducati is one of the many companies caught in the hold up at the canal. A Ducati spokesperson reported “We have goods in transit that probably will not respect the estimated delivery time due to the Suez accident, but to date, we have no news of an impact on the production lines”.
My Take – Looks like Ducati folks maybe waiting for parts and bikes a little bit longer. It is not Covid it is something else missing with our riding! I hoped 2021 would be better!
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Hitting Neutral – 20 Year Old FEMALE Influencer is A 50 Year Old Man! If you have been following 20-year-old motorcycle influencer (@azusagakuyuki) because she is knowledgeable and pretty. SURPRISE she is a 50-year-old man named Zonggu.
Zonggu has been using editing tools to “morph” his appearance into that of a younger woman, because “nobody would be interested in what an old uncle had to say online”. The Japanese man was outed due to his lack of detail in editing. While he worked on his face, people started noticing hairy arms and other small details.
My Take – Well he is not wrong! The “influencer” gig is dominated by young, pretty women, even in motorcycling. While I do not condone what he did, I applaud the fact that he was able to get over 18K followers.
Full disclosure —- I am not a young, female influencer! 😊
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Up Shift – BMW wants to be spotted on Radar! Every new car model year more and more drivers become even more reliant on “safety” systems. One of the driving technologies driving those systems is radar.
Car use radar to spot the traffic around them and then perform tasks like maintaining lane position. However, motorcycles are often not seen or even misinterpreted by the computer running the safety system, either of which could cause issues in traffic.
BMW is attempting to patent reflectors to increase the radar reflection capacity of motorcycles in an attempt to make the bike more visible to the computer. Their solution mounts the reflectors on the end of the handlebars or on the axles to get maximum reflection.
My Take – Suzuki is also doing something similar to improve radar reflection of motorcycles. This is something that must come from the motorcycle industry as the automotive guys just don’t think of motorcycles and the Vision Zero folks want to get rid of us. Let us hope that something comes of this effort that will save lives.
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Ride on, Ride Safe
only negative was that they had so much content that some will think it is a bit too long at 2 hours. Now don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of fun to watch and it will be on my winter 2020 motorcycle movie list! I like the interviews and discussion around why people are doing the things they are doing. I really loved seeing myself or someone I know in nearly every person they talked with.
As things worked out, due to the change of promoters, the Timonium Motorcycle Show ended up on the same weekend as another major bike show was in the area. Not the best of worlds for either. As it was obvious to me that they cut into each other’s attendance.
I JUST WANT 2 RIDE!! 