A Yankee Gixxer in Cruiserland: My cross-country ride

I ran into quite a few fellow american bikers on my cross country tour, and most seemed in awe that anyone would chose a Suzuki GSXR 1000 K7 as the cross-country riding weapon of choice.

Further research indicates there are few, if any, internet accounts of brave (or idiotic) sportbike tourers. In fact, many Craigslist and Ebay superbikes - especially in the litrebike category - rarely if ever have more than 3000 miles on them, after 4 years. My gsxr1000 now has a proud 6,500 after 3 weeks of ownership. I think that makes me a first. It certainly makes me stand out a little from other sportbike owners.

Since there seem to be a lot of avid UK sportbikers, I thought I would offer this comparison: my trip was like driving the circumference of the island of England every day for a week :)

I also ran into quite a few cruisers on my ride, and so I thought I would offer another way to relate: it's like driving back and forth between Sturgis, SD and Daytona, FL 3 times in one week :)

Enough boasting already... what's the punchline?

It really wasn't that bad! The gsxr1000's riding position is actually downright tolerable, and only after about 400 miles did I start to have to shift my weight around from side to side to reduce numbness. But that's true of almost any bike. The vibration was significantly less than my old Buell - in fact the ride was downright smooth! The suspension let me vault over cracks in all types of road surfaces, and the quiet engine tolerated 80-90 mph highways speeds perfectly with no complaints. In fact, it almost seemed bored at that speed, whereas my old Buell would have complained the whole way.

If I had to do it all again, I wouldn't pick any other bike. No other bike would balance the handling I needed to get through the Rockies, Mohave, Adirondacks, and Smokeys with the speed to get through the plains and Utah in record time, with 200 miles to the tank, wind fairing for wind and rain.

Take only memories, leave nothing but rubber

It took 8 days. 650 or so miles per day on average, with a couple of legs around 750. I stopped for gas, ate while refueling, and took pictures from my bike. I was accompanied by my best friend, who drove the whole time I rode.

Through the adirondacks, across the plains of kansas, over the rockies, through the barren wasteland of utah, through las vegas and across the mohave desert in california, down around the forests and desert of arizona and new mexico, across texas, through new orleans and up through the mouth of the mississippi across the bible belt, and finally back home.

Here's the link to my trip

For the most part, the stops represent nights where I slept, except for the markers in Denver, Co and in California (in both of those cases, I took a different route than the Google optimum route).

It was insane. I'm still remembering sights, sounds, feelings from the trip. And because it happened so fast, I'm sure it will take me weeks yet to fully digest. And yes, I did it all on my 2007 Suzuki GSXR 1000 K7 (with the gel seat). All of my belongings were stashed in a backpack that I wore the whole time.

Highlights: Utah, Arizona, Kansas, The Mohave Desert. The most serene moments of enjoying scenery, nature, and enjoying the power of technology-enabled independence. Somehow, riding the peak of modern technology in motorcycle form while enjoying the rawness of north american geography was deeply satisfying.

Lowlights: The rockies (it rained, there were high winds, rocks on the road, deer crossing, switchbacks, and dotted traffic lines that meant SUV's constantly swerved into my lane). It was hell on earth, and I repeatedly thought I was going to die. Also, I had the opportunity to ride through a number of great midwestern and southern cities, but none were as dangerous as Dallas. I feel perfectly comfortable riding in Manhattan, but have never felt more exposed and vulnerable as I did in Dallas. In NYC, everyone drives a constant speed: fast. In Dallas, some people drive slow, others drives fast, and some crawl - in every lane. Dallas highway driving was a constant chore to avoid getting swiped by a massive tinted-windowed SUV piloted by a cell-phone holding soccer! Finally, for some reason the plains of Texas develop some nasty crosswinds on the highway. I've never before felt like my bike was actually going to lose traction because of the wind (previous bikes were all naked, while the gsxr1000 is fully faired), and this was quite scary. However, I found that I could avoid the winds by riding in the wake of large trucks, who sliced the wind, and left behind a calm zone 20 feet around their trailers.

I took a few pictures, and even some videos from my seat. But none were as nice as the artistic ones you can find on fliky or google images. Apparently it was Chief Seattle who said, "take only memories, leave nothing but footprints." I'd like to propose a blatant / cheesy modernized biker ripoff:

Take only memories, leave nothing but rubber...

Time for some changes

So after a full summer of incredibly great riding, and almost no time to write, I'm back on the web filled with incredible experiences and hopefully helpful insights for other current or aspiring NYC riders. Where to start?

How about starting at the top :)

I have a new bike.

I just rode cross-country on it.

I have my old bike, but will be selling it soon.

And I'm now officially an entirely different profile of rider, which is a mixed blessing.

It's time for some exciting posts!

Suzuki GSXR 1000 K7 vs. Buell Xb12Ss 2006

I'm so excited to write this review, because I know an entire community of Buell riders out there dying to finally know what the real difference is between an XB12 engine and the best of the litrebikes, the Suzuki GXSR 1000cc.

What a world of difference! I've tried to mirror the sections of my previous Buell vs. BMW K1200R review, for objectivity sake. I've also added a few sections that are specifically relevant to this litrebike category.

First impressions of the Suzuki GSXR1000 K7
I will never leave 1st gear, ever. Wow. Actually, the only reason to leave 1st is to save gas on the highway. In the city, I'll never leave 1st. That makes gear shifts entirely a thing of the past. Goodbye cruel world of shifting. The bike actually feels freakishly similar to the Buell in many respects.

Engine revving
This engine is meant to be revved very very very high. I lied in my first impression comment. There are actually 3 meaningful gears on this bike: 1st for aggressive city riding through the financial district, 3rd for laid back city riding through central park on a weekday, and 6th for the highway. Oh yeah - it has 6 gears instead of the 5 on the Buell, but I don't really notice. The one big difference that I haven't gotten used to yet is the throttle position. On the Buell, I used to really crank the throttle to accelerate, and that gave me the impression of really pulling out all the stops and accelerating like mad. On the GSXR1000, that same level of power can be found within a quarter inch, making full open throttle whacks either a thing of the past, or downright dangerous.

Off the line and low speed riding
The Buell is definitely punchier off the line. There's no getting around it's higher torque at lower revs. But the Suzuki has the same amount of punch if the engine is revved slightly before letting out the clutch. The one weird thing about the gsxr1000 is that the clutch friction zone is TINY compared to the Buell. On the Buell, I would frequently ride the clutch, in order to hit speeds around 35-50 miles. I frequently found myself clutching an acceleration on the Buell. On the gsxr1000, the off-the-line ride is completely different. You essentially clutch to get into 1st gear until about 10 mph, and then you're done. I have yet to find a need to ride the clutch. Instead, all of my speed control is done with my right hand. To summarize, with my clutching Buell habits, I still haven't mastered the art of releasing the clutch from start on the gsxr1000, but as soon as I do I can pull away as fast as the Buell in almost every way. One last thing I'll note is that the Buell somehow gave me the "feeling" of accelerating quite hard, while the Suzuki feels like I'm accelerating less hard, but gauging from the speedometer and the appearance of cars behind me, I'm actually accelerating much faster than a Buell. I've figured out why: the Buell's upright seating position meant that as I accelerated, my body leaned backwards, and so I had to hold onto the handgrips to stay on the bike - the result was an out-of-this-world holding-on-for-dear-life feeling of acceleration. The gsxr1000's seating is bent down more, and so as I accelerate, I feel my weight naturally transfer through my legs to my feet. I feel the acceleration less, but I'm accelerating faster than ever. It's weird and counter-intuitive.

Cruising speeds
The gsxr1000 gets 45-50 miles to the gallon, and because of it's HUGE 5.2 gallon tank, that means about 200 miles in between fill-ups. The Buell got 50-60 miles to the gallon, but only had a 3 gallon tank, which meant I filled up regularly at about 150 miles to the tank. Oddly, in a strange alternate universe sort of way, this ironically makes the gsxr1000 a better road cruising bike than the xb12ss. I still find that odd to say.

High speeds
As I said before, I really don't know why you'd need to shift on this bike. I stay in first all the time, and that means I can theoretically go as fast as 100 mph just in first. That's just an unnecessary display of power, but needless to say, when I shift to 6th gear, I've found I still have so much power I can accelerate out of any scary situation. The Buell always started to choke up around 85 mph, which tended to be my highway cruising speed up and down I-87 (where the rest of traffic tends to go 85-90mph in the left lane). On the gsxr1000, it's more more comfortable touring for long distances at 85mph, and doesn't feel stressed at all at 90mph. In fact, I needed to avoid a Jersey driver on the highway, and simply got out of his way with a quick flick of my wrist. Over and done with. Whereas on the Buell, getting out of the way would have been a concerted effort. So it's clear to me now that the Buell is a bike built for sub-60, while the gsxr1000 is a bike built for over-30.

Handling / steering
Perfection in every sense. People complain that the Buell is scary at high speeds, but I never found that to be the case - perhaps because I had the XB12ss. The gsxr1000 feels just like the XB12ss at turns. The width of the gsxr1000 makes it slightly harder to lane split, which is fine since that's illegal anyway :) Also, the turning radius of the gsxr1000 is about 2 feet wider than the xb12ss. While I could comfortably do a circle on a street with cars parked on both sides with plenty of room to spare, the gsxr1000 makes it 75% of the way, and then needs a k-turn. I think I'll get better at this, but for the time being, I'm less efficient at u-turns on the gsxr1000 because of the bike's increased apparent width, and somehow the weight feels higher off the ground. By comparison, the Buell's weight felt like it was 2" off the ground (vs. about 1 foot for the gsxr1000), and about half as wide (even with the buell side pucks installed). Bottom line: the buell felt like a smaller bike, because it *was* a smaller bike.

Braking
Buell wins, hands down. It's stopping is far more stable. On the gsxr1000, I need to squeeze the brakes more, and more gradually. I also need to be more carefully balanced over the center of the bike when I decelerate, or the front will start to wobble slightly. And by slightly, I mean that the gsxr1000 is moving micrometers, so this is a very small downside. But somehow, the Buell decelerated in perfect stability. Score one for Erik Buell's crazy front brake. I'll surely be looking into how I can increase the braking stability on my gsxr1000 to match the Buell. In conclusion, the Buell as of right now is a slightly safer city traffic bike because of it's smaller size and razor sharp brakes - and consequently, I've ridden the gsxr1000 with a larger cushion around me than I did with the buell.

Nit picks
The buell had me trained to like the gauges and display anchored to the front steering. The suzuki's display is part of the body, which means that when I turn the front wheel, the display kind of juts out at a weird angle. I'm still not used to that. The buell had me trained to actually using the clutch. If the gsxr1000 had a centrifugal clutch (like the ones found on gokarts), I'm confident that I would never use the clutch again. However, the gsxr1000 still has a clutch, and I haven't yet mastered the tiny friction zone on it. This means that in every sense, the gsxr1000 is an expert's bike. It's more challenging to control on the the left hand and on the the right throttle (tiny movements translate to large amounts of power - so much so that when I readjust my right hand on the throttle to a more comfortable grip on the highway, I have to be very careful not to blip the throttle too much and almost wheelie!). I've added the gel seat option to the gsxr1000, which makes a world of difference, and actually results in quite a comfortable ride. It took me all of two days to develop the back muscles and wrist muscles to adapt to the gsxr1000's difference ergo/posture, which meant one sore day. But after that, it's been perfect.

Ultimately, the gsxr1000 is like ten different bikes in one. If I keep the bike in 1st gear always and always ride sitting straight up, it's like my old Buell all over again. If I always ride in 3rd gear, it's like every BMW K series I ever tested. If I ride in 5th on the highway, it feels like the Ducati 999 I test drove, and if I put it into 6th, it's like the sportiest touring bike I've ever ridden. Then, if I change the riding modes from A (full power) to C (600cc power), I have my own 600cc or triumph speed triple. And believe it or not, every single one of these bikes wrapped into one is incredibly fun, very predictable, and an awful lot of fun. I'm thrilled with my purchase, but also grateful for having taken the time to grow into this bike. I can echo the generations of others before me passing advice down to new riders: take your time growing into a litrebike. But when you do, you'll be glad you waited, and you'll be thrilled with your new bike. I am.

It's official: I have joined the Squid ranks

I am now a squid.

Wow, that hurt to say. My other posts have blatantly made fun of, name called, and generally disrespected owners of absurdly powerful 1000cc Japanese race bikes. After all, how impractically fast, unnecessarily torqued, ridiculously light these machines are known to be.

But let me step back a bit.

I went in to the dealership knowing I was going to scrutinize the GSXR 1000. I wanted one in yellow, for visibility sake. And I wanted one stock with no squid mods like tinted visors, removed rear view mirrors, exhausts, gold chains, or chrome (choke). And they had one, so I sat on it and "tried out the ergos."

I was impressed. At 5'11", I'm pretty much average if not slightly taller than the average rider, and I found the bike perfect for my fit. Sure, the lean was more intense than the Buell, but the magazines were dead-on; the Suzuki is by far the most comfortable of the sportbikes I've ever tried. After an extremely scientific comparison of every single major literbike and 600cc in the store's inventory, I can definitively say that sportbike comfort comes down entirely to knee-bend angle. The R1 had a ridiculous angle of bend, the Honda put my butt further back and so my knees were higher than normal, but the Suzuki was perfect. Though my entire body was generally rotated forward, my knees were bent at the same angle as on the Buell - A+. Also, I didn't have to sit crouched over all the time, and in fact given my arm length, I felt perfectly comfortable turning my head freely.

So I bought it. On the spot. And 3 hours later, I rode it away... into the sunlight.

Thought process review: Suzuki "Litre" bike

Can I honestly consider myself a Squid? That'll be pretty hard to swallow. But every magazine and comparison review I read consistently puts the Suzuki GSXR 1000 at the top of the list. Supposedly it's power is intoxicating, and you never want for more.


Toughness: Great
Japanese bikes are notoriously abused. They never get oiled, they get dropped, stunted (aka "stun'd" on Craigslist), run through rain and snow, and generally neglected. Yet they still run like mad and get raced down the FDR and 9A at midnight and generally stand up (until they get run into a divider by a young squid who never learned to counter-steer).

Handling: Great
It's a sportbike, and every review I've read says "it holds lines well" which I presume is racer lingo for "it corners well and is stable". On the street, I like to say, "my bike avoids cabs". Maybe it's not as nimble as the Daytona 675, but the GSXR 1000 wheel base is comparable to the Buell XB12ss, so I'll be familiar with it.

Coolness: Ok-Great
Ok - so I could say I own the fastest production vehicle you can buy. I could go 0-60 faster than the fastest Ferrari's, Porsches, or whatever that other banker spent to drive next in the Hamptons. But something inside will die a little bit everytime I have to tell a co-worker, client, or colleague that I ride a "racing sportbike". I'll need to work on another term. For instance, I like how they call them "litrebikes" or "superbikes" in the UK.

Comfort: Ok
I just learned that the Suzuki has "the best ergos of the litrebikes". That's a good thing, but I doubt anything will top the Buell or a BMW. I'm going to have to try this out to be sure. My primary concern is that I retain complete freedom and neck movement. I'll need to "check my 6" every 3 milliseconds, and I don't want to have to look down my back every time. I need to be able to swing my head around freely, and I'm quite concerned about this point.


Summary: Ergos and the squid image are my primary concerns. But otherwise, I've always been curious about the legendary litre superbikes "they" always talk about. I just have to be careful to balance safety against the obvious other points above.

Thought process review: Ducati

Whatever bike I'm going to get, it has to be more powerful than my current Buell Xb12Ss. That's not going to be easy. I've test driven some of the Ducati Monsters, and find them tremendously under powered. I guess that leaves me with (unfortunately) (sarcasm) just one option: the 1098

Toughness: Poor
The antithesis of a BMW, these things need to be serviced every 500 miles. Pieces break, parts snap, valves re-seat, cluthes don't slip, oil resevoirs bleed ... it goes on and on and on. I'm about to drive cross country on whatever bike I buy. Something tells me a 1098 isn't going to run through the rain / wind / dirt of the rockies / plains / deserts I plan to ride through.

Handling: Great
It's a racing bike, so it's made to handle. I've seen quite a few around NYC, so it must not be horrible to drive. Also, cabs will notice it and will stop and stare, rather than hit me, and that's a good thing.

Coolness: Ok-Great
It would be soooo cool to have a Ducati. Sort of. Somehow, after you purchase a Ducati, you become a toolish snob. It happens to everyone - I've seen the best become the worst. A Ducati does something to the human brain, which makes it clogged with pretentiousness and selfishness. This doesn't necessarily make a better rider in NYC. An anal-retentive rider can be a safe driver in some cases, but you can never love the bike so much that you wouldn't jump off it or put it between you and a charging cab / Jersey driver :)

Comfort: Poor
Google the words: "Ducati" "torture" "rack". Enough said.


Summary: As cool as it would be, I also know that Ducati's are expensive to maintain. And they break. Neither of those are great selling points. Ok, so their current marketing slogan is: 50% less maintenance. Ok, great, so 500 mile checkups only cost $1000, instead of $2000? Not for me. I don't think.

Thought process review: BMW

Maybe it's finally time for me to make the jump and own a K1200 of some sort, perhaps an S or R? But from my last review and test drive, I can still remember what a boat those bikes are. And I would ideally like something with some semblance of handling. But it needs to be tougher than wrought iron.

Toughness: Great
BMW's have perhaps the greatest reputation for lasting for hundreds of thousands of miles, in hot weather and cold. They can be dropped, and are built like tanks with steel frames, titanium bolts (just kidding).

Handling: Poor
See my previous post comparing BMW K1200R to the Buell. It was mind blowingly depressing. This makes me incredibly concerned about city riding.

Coolness: Ok
If not poor. I don't know anyone that gets excited about talking about their BMW. Instead, you end up getting excited about the riding experience itself. BMW riders don't talk about their bikes, they talk about their incredibly long rides through the wilderness and back. Eh.

Comfort: Great
What more can I say? I could fall asleep on a BMW. The seats are somehow 3 or 4 inches thicker than any other bike I've seen. I'm convinced a woman could deliver a baby on the seat of a BMW - it's that good.


Summary: Something about these bikes don't do it for me. They're just too boat-like ... and ... easy. They're like the automatic transmission / drive of motorcycles. I think I'm looking for a manual drive... to bring me closer to the road.

What bike?

And here I am again, a year after I purchased my Buell, asking the most exciting question known to mankind: what motorcycle will I purchase? (ok, maybe second to "Will you marry me?")

I've spent the entire day browsing, and dreaming about the bike. It's come down to three options:

-BMW
-Ducati
-Japanese liter bike

I've chosen to evaluate my options along four dimensions:

Toughness - will this bike stand up to the rate of about 15,000 miles per year, which is about how much I seem to put on my bike
Handling - is the bike going to stand up in the city? The bike will need to turn on a dime, stop on an oil slick, and accelerate like a pedestrian inline from a cab's hood
Coolness - does the bike give me the thrilling feeling of owning a motorcycle I'm proud of?
Comfort - I need 100% of my attention for safety, so I can't be concerned with knee cramps or a sore butt.

My bike is done :(

Not officially toast, but it won't be ready in time for my trip :)

And that can only mean one thing: I need to make a choice between prolonging / canceling my trip until next year (since it's starting to get cold), or I need a new bike somehow.

This is going to be a tough decision. Yet somehow it's extremely exciting.

Option 1: Prolong until next year
I'm planning to ride cross-country. I have the route planned, and my best friend will be accompanying me in his car while I ride. This has been months in the making, and if I bail now, the trip will have to wait a year. I've already booked the vacation at work, and made all the preparations. Mentally, I'm checked in to this trip so much that it would be absolutely devastating not to go now. As I type this message, I'm realizing more and more that this isn't even an option. Which means on to option 2:

Option 2: Get a bike
This has sub-options. I could Craigslist a bike, but I intend to drive at least 5000 miles in a week, and I'd be scared that any bike I buy used won't make it. I could pressure the HD guys to fix my bike faster, but they genuinely don't know what's wrong with it, and I've been there in person multiple times so I believe them somehow. I could buy another of the same bike I have and make the trip on it. Or I could buy a new, different bike, own two for a period of time and do side-by-side comparisons, then sell the old bike once it's been fixed.

I'm sold. I'm buying a new bike. :)

Harley Davidson New York City

I just got off the phone with HD on Northern Blvd in Queens. My bike is toast, and will take weeks to determine what went wrong.

Normally, I would be furious. But somehow, I'm moved to write a review of Harley Davidson NYC. I'll say it simply: they are amazing. None of the staff there give you that weirdo creep-you-out feeling that many other bikes stores give you (that feeling like you're getting ripped off every time they open their mouths). Perhaps it's something to do with the Harley staff knowing that everything they have to sell is already ridiculously over priced (fat margins) that they're just happy that anyone's in the store at all.

Anyway, on to the review:

Customer service
Fantastic. I'm greeted at the door every time I walk in, and they make an effort to know me. The salesmen aren't sleazy, and they really do give you pros / cons of their different models. I do wish the Buell section were bigger, but they always have a couple bikes on the floor for the odd folks like myself to stare at.

Parts ordering
They do require a credit card, and that you show up in person when placing an order. It almost makes you feel like they've been really screwed in the past with faulty credit card phone orders. Nevertheless, I've done a lot of ordering to upgrade my bike, and have gotten to a point where they have my orders on file and now feel comfortable selling me parts over the phone. Like many New Yorkers, this is a huge blessing because I never have time to spare to make a trip anywhere in person.

Service
Frank. What more can I say? He's the most diplomatic service desk man you could ask for. He says it straight, yet somehow always makes you feel good. "It's going to be a while, but we'll get to it." "We're real busy here, and we're moving bikes pretty quick. But I don't see yours on the stand yet. It'll be up there tomorrow for sure." I've dealt with guys in the past who actually forget what bike is yours, but not so with Frank - he actually looks out onto the floor to make sure, and sometimes even walks over to the bike to check the status of the ticket - all while you're on the phone. The actual techs are simply world class. I can't tell you how many times I've swung by after hours only to find them working on their own bikes, and happy to run a diagnostic on the bike, or check the wiring. For instance, I blew a voltage regulator last winter, and my bike kept stalling. I stopped in late at night when the tow truck dropped me off, and sure enough two guys were in the back room. Now that's passion. That alone makes it worthwhile owning a Buell or Harley in NYC.

Location
Can you say $8 cab from Manhattan? It's perfect. My only complaint is that the cab ride back from the dealership to midtown can be a drag, since there aren't too many cabs that drive through Queens. And even fewer who want to pick up a guy that looks like he's only going over the bridge.

Summary
Great place, and they absolutely make the Harley / Buell experience in NYC. Without them, owning a Buell or Harley would be a miserable experience. The staff are worldclass, and they always go out of their way to help me.

Great work, guys!

My trusty Buell is giving me some troubles

It was really hot today. Like 95 with peaks around 100 or so. Celsius. Just kidding.

I went out on a nice ride with some friends, and noticed a problem - my bike started misfiring when it had run for a while (while = ~2 hours). If I let the bike cool down, I could start it up again and ride for an hour with no problems, but sure enough about an hour and a half or 2 into the ride, it would start sputtering.

This is a horrible experience. My trusty companion is failing on me. I rode it all the way back on the highway from Bear mountain, and on route 87, in the middle of peak traffic, the engine died at idle, leaving me powerless in the middle of traffic - ah!

I took it to the dealership, but since it was Sunday, they couldn't look at it. They were nice enough, though, to let me drop the bike off at the dealership until someone came back on Monday.

This is very, very bad timing given my planned trip coming up in three weeks!

NYC Transformer Explosion

A huge transformer just exploded down the street, and traffic is totally blocked on midtown east. Avoid Lexington avenue if you can! The pictures below give you a sense of the blockage - there are people fleeing the billowing smoke everywhere.

Good luck!

Updates:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/buildings-evacuated-after-midtown-explosion/

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3391660


Here's a video I just uploaded...


Here's the discussion on Digg:

http://www.digg.com/world_news/Transformer_explosion_in_NYC_5_minutes_ago

You can zoom into the first picture - it's high resolution. If you download it, you can see all the firetrucks and smoke plumes.

Which GPS?

I've gotten a couple of emails about my recent GPS unit test on my bike (whereby I tested about 4 Garmin models, the TomTom, and a Magellan). My conclusion? The Garmin eTrex Vista Cx is by far the best motorcycle GPS unit available. Review below:


After a solid week of riding around with GPS units, I chose the Garmin eTrex Vista Cx. It's meant to be a hiker's handheld GPS unit, which makes it small enough to walk around with when it's off the bike, small enough to not obscure too much of the control panel on my bike, and it's backlight makes it bright enough in bright daylight. I looked at the tomtom, and the other models from garmin as well. They all tended to use custom batteries and chargers, and only gave something like 3 hours of use when the backlight was powered on fully. I didn't want to wire the thing into my bike, and it's been great just popping into the store when I get gas to also get AA batteries if I need them. The battery life on the Vista Cx is about 2 weeks on 1 pair of AA's - so I keep a spare set in my luggage.

Garmin beat out the other versions in my test because of the superior resolution maps you can buy (have to buy to make it worthwhile) - but it adds about $90 to the price of the device, since the built in maps aren't that great - they only show major interstates and large highways.

The only pros of the other versions were that they had larger screens and could speak out loud to you. That'll be the only thing that makes/breaks your decision I think. Otherwise, the vista cx also gives me turn-by-turn directions.

Next week I should be getting my motorcycle mount for it in the mail. In my opinion, it's the best GPS for bikes out there.

Hope this helps!

Lane splitting in terrible traffic

Today was a big day in NYC - there was a huge bike event, a fire / police parade, an Israeli parade, and a block party. Until about 4pm, huge stretches of the east and west sides were shut down and inaccessible to traffic.

In order to get anywhere, I found myself lane splitting between what amounted to a massive parking lot. I ran into a number of bikers - but not nearly as many as I saw yesterday (today was about 15 degrees colder) - who were also lane splitting, and so I wondered whether it was really legal or not.

Alas, it is illegal. A quick search on the AMA website: http://home.ama-cycle.org/amaccess/laws/result.asp?state=NY reveals that NY and CT have written laws forbidding lane splitting, while NJ has no reference, which means it's not specifically illegal. Here's a table form of the same data: http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/PrintLaws.html

Though I've never been ticketed or pulled over, and I've seen hundreds of bikers do it in the city, a quick internet search reveals that others have been ticketed - especially on the highways around the city. The BQE, 9A around midtown, and 495 (heading into the city, around the triborough ramp) are the most frequent highways where I lane split. Mostly, these stretches of road become parking lots, and I'll only lane split when the traffic is completely stopped. Any other time (even if traffic moves 10 mph), I'm religious about sneaking back into a lane and staying in a single lane.

In the city, it's a completely different story. I've lane split right up to police cars, and in front of traffic cops in order to get up to the front of a light, so that I can be in front of traffic when it turns green. For the thousands of times I've done it, I've never been pulled over, flagged, or questioned.

Ear Inn

I've heard so much about it over the past few months, that I just had to check it out for myself. Even though there was rain in the forecast tonight, I headed down to 326 Spring Street (between Greenwich and Washington) - down in Soho (thanks Aerostitch for the address). The easiest way for me to get there was to hop on the FDR, loop down around the island, and then head up 9a until I got off on Spring street. The bar is immediately on the right, before the end of the block.

I've heard that things pick up from 8pm, and usually go to 10pm. However, I arrived a little early, and so I suspect things probably start up around 7pm. (next time around, I'll try to get there a little earlier). I've been told this happens *every* Tuesday, which is incredible - I'm definitely looking forward to it.

I met a very nice couple who ride a Ducati 999. They're apparently regulars, and they mentioned how on good nights, there will be bikes lining the entire block. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

In terms of the types of bikes that showed up, there were lots of BMWs, Ducati's, and cafe racers. I asked around, and it seems this hang out is perfect for my type - lots of customs, odd-ball bikes, and all around non-Japanese makes.

My trip to Long Island

I recently purchased a GPS unit from Garmin, in an attempt to log my travels and also prevent myself from getting lost. I tried it out this past Sunday, and noticed that I felt much more comfortable taking different routes, knowing that I could always find my bearings and way home afterwards.

This is the log of the trip I took out to the Long Island beach lot, where all the cars and motorcycles head out every Sunday morning. The major roads are in yellow, and my route is highlighted in greenish blue. You can see that I took a different route out than I took going back, when I cut South/North across the island.

The software allows you to download logged track points of your trip onto the PC, and then to export those points to Google. I thought it was interesting that the level of detail was so high, you could see where I made loops around the beach circles.

I was intriguied by the cluster of dark blue in the picture to the left here, so I zoomed all the way in, and you can even see where I rode back and forth in the parking lot, admiring the different cars and bikes in the lot.

Next time I go up to the catskills, I'll take this with me to share the route I enjoy taking. Also, I'll have to figure out how to mount or velcro the device to the front panel of the bike, so that I can navigate while riding.

Can you control a high power bike?

Inspired by my ride a few days ago with the GSXR biker, I've been wondering - you read so many anecdotes and comments in online message boards about bikes being "too much, and you need to make sure you can control it." This was never satisfying to me, and I suspect to many others, who think it's a challenge, so take it on!

But here's the difference. Control can mean self control on a bike, and then it's a soft-skill, much akin to a philosophy or mindset. Control can otherwise mean right hand throttle angle-to-rev mapping. In other words, how much power do you unleash with a quarter turn of the throttle?

On a bike with 160+ hp, a quarter turn can practically mean adding 30 mph to your speed. On a bike with 100 hp, a quarter turn can mean adding 10 mph to your speed. Most bikers get into a knee-jerk reaction about more power being better, but consider this: 30mph / 90 degree turn = .33mph / degree. By comparison 10mph / 90 degree turn = .11mph / degree. One way to look at this is to say that the lower hp bike gives you more *precision* control over speed. You can vary the speed much more subtly. Don't get me wrong, on the lower hp bike, you can still always wrench a full 180 degrees of turn in urgent situations - but there's a practicaly upper limit on the road to how fast, and how quickly you want to accelerate. Accelerate too quick, and you lose your grip of the road - very bad.

The interesting thing is that Suzuki has picked up on this with their new bike, the GSXR1000 for 2007, and equipped it with a switch that allows the rider to decrease the power of the bike. In reviews and defense of such a button, people have mentioned that it is all about throttle positioning and hand position on the wheel. I would take this one step further and and assert that throttle position and granularity equate to safety as well.

So my simple advice to city riders is this: when evaluating a bike, make sure to consider a bike that gives you immediate, *precise* response and control over acceleration. This is the most practical, road-tested type of power out there, and the kind we need on the road.

Pushing the envelope of fuel consumption

The past two times out, I've ridden duruing peak rush hour, around 4pm. This was partly unintentional, and normally I would avoid rush hour at all costs, but I figured it might be a good way to sharpen my awareness skills.

As it turned out, I also learned what riding hard is all about. Accelerating around cars, and through traffic to avoid heavy zones meant hammering the throttle pretty hard at times. In fact, I pushed the rev limiter on a number of occassions to it's peak in each of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears (on the V-twin Buell, this is around 7500 rpm).

I also noticed that my miles per gallon fuel consumption dropped significantly. With about 3 gallons of gas, I can normally go around 150 miles - this doesn't include the reserve tank, which I believe would push me another 30 miles. This time, however, my 3 gallons only took my 70 miles total over two rides, or about 23 miles per gallon. This is what I used to get with my old Acura almost 10 years ago now - wow!

So I guess that means rush hour takes a bit more out of your gas mileage than your typical day in NYC.

5 great views of the city in less than an hour

I took a quick ride today after work, and only had an hour before sunset. So I put my mind on navigator-auto-pilot, and began wandering. Oddly enough, I instinctively went to all of my favorite road views of the city.

1) Head over the Brooklyn Bridge, exit to the right onto Old Fulton Street, ride to the end, and pull into the parking lot for magnificent views of the city

2) Park Ave at 81st Street heading south (at rush hour) for an incredible view of one of the most populated cab routes

3) South Point park on Roosevelt Island

4) E125th St on Randalls-Ward Island, continued to the dirt road that swings down to the south of the island

5) Head through the Holland Tunnel and turn off onto Hudson St in Jersey City for yet another view of the city

Buell XB12Ss vs. Ducati S2R and GSXR 750

Today was pretty unique. I got a chance to ride around the city with two fellow bikers, who also had no immediate plans. We wandered aimlessly around for some time up and down the major avenues, and truly playing in traffic.

Riding with two other bikers provided a unique chance to see how city riding can be made much more safe with team work, but that's a topic for another day.

Today, I'll just make some observations on the different riding styles of my temporary companions for the day.

Ducati S2R
With a tendancy to rev quite high at the light, he could just about keep up with me off the line. I could hear him revving high and downshifting quite often when it came to passing taxis, which was a potentially bad habit - perhaps inspired by the Ducati engine? In any case, I also got the sense that his turning radius was much larger than mine, and he had a more difficult time lane splitting then the GSXR and me.

GSXR 750
I'm pretty sure it was a 750, but then again can you really tell unless you're laying it out on the highway? Probably not. First, this guy looked miserable. He glanced around a lot less than the Ducati rider and me, which I can't imagine is a safe habit. This is most likely due to his riding position - which almost made it seem like he'd raised the footpegs. I guess I just never appreciated how awkward the posture is on a GSXR. The bike had great acceleration down Park Ave and Broadway, but the rider had a tendancy to open the throttle a bit too much and hit 60mph+. I'd say a safe riding speed around the city is around 40-50mph, so this bike was perhaps a bit unsafe for the city. But this brings me to a philosophical question:

Does the rider make the bike, or does the bike make the ride?

In almost every magazine review of the GSXR, you read about how quickly the bike opens to top speed, and how there's massive amounts of power on hand. But what good is this in the city? In fact, I'll wager it's a detriment, and possibly downrigt unsafe after spending an hour behind one. As for the Ducati - if you're lazy about turns because the bike is slightly sluggish, does this make you a less responsive rider?

Stopping at the line

By observing other riders, I've seen many different techniques for stopping at intersections and red lights. Since I believe the safest rider is the one equipped with the most options, here's a review of a few of them:

-Lane split down the center of an avenue or street, then reve the engine to announce your presence
-Lane split down the center dotted white line, but slow to a stop gradually beyond the white stop line, and allow yourself to ride into the crosswalk. Then let the cars and cabs fill into their lanes to the right or left of you, and then gradually walk the bike backwards into position, behind the white stop line
-If you're the first one at the intersection, it can help to take up as much space as possible in your lane. Allow a car to stop to your left, for instance, and then come to a stop to in the right third of your lane.
-If you're the first one at the intersection, as a car comes up in back of you, rev the engine and gradually advance forward a few feet. Then walk backwards when the car in back of you has stopped completely

Are there any others I've missed that you use on a regular basis?

A winter ride through the Catskills

Today I went on a crazy trip up to the Catskills. I'd already gone up to the general area around Catskill Park back about a month and a half ago, when it was about 14F outside, and my Widder gloves decided to short out just as I was approaching Big Indian, NY. Not fun.

But this time around, I posted an email on the friendly nycmoto mailing list (located at: http://www.magpie.com/mailman/listinfo/nycmoto05) and a very kind gentleman replied with the map you see to the left (if you're reading this and want credit, just let me know - I usually err on the side of anonymity just in case but I'm happy to give you all the credit!).

Now the funny thing about the route to the left is that it actually does bring you right back to Big Indian, via route 47 - just like the first time I tried to head up there! The big catch was that this time around, the temperature was a decent 48 in upstate NY, and 60 in NYC. In fact, it was nice enough that I didn't even need my heated vest - though I wore it just in case.

So... what did I think? It was beautiful. No really. I am now solidly convinced that Route 47 is the most scenic, serene ride this side of the Mississippi. Though there was still a little snow on the ground, the roads were as clean as possible from an obviously generous application of dirt to the roads in weeks preceding my trip... which was about the only downside. The winding Rt 47 road definitely needed keen attention to avoid slipping on the dirt, and I was careful to keep off the front brake during the entire ride. But that didn't detract from the ride beyond the usual road hazards (in fact, coming from NYC road hazards, it was a breeze).

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I started my ride with a slight deviation from the map shown above - specifically, I wanted to get to the mountains as quickly as possible, so I just hopped on I87N and rode it all the way up to the Kingston exit. I then took Rt28 West, which dumped me right into the park. Incidentally, the great thing about I87 is that there's a rest stop about 20 miles from Kingston, with a very helpful guy who'll give you free maps of the park for a 3 minutes conversation (he was very helpful). From there, I continued on 28 until I goto to Phoenecia. Phoenecia is a quaint little town with a couple really nice cafes on the left side of the road as you ride, and some decent coffee for refreshment. But the real hole-in-the-wall is Big Indian, NY. This "town" is really a general store and a closed gas station, with a few houses dotting the side of the road. Before turning left and heading through the mountain pass of Rt47, you'll probably want to overshoot the Big Indian by 5 miles and hit the gas station on the right - the only one for about 50 miles. I did, and in the two times I've been there, I've been in awe at the cool knives and pellet guns they have on display as well. On my previous trip in the dead of winter, I was able to pick up a few heating pads here as well, which were a life saver for my feet.

Rt 47 is spectacular. The road is windy, and steadily rises for what seems like hundreds of feet. You can literally feel yourself climbing with each turn. Be careful of oncoming traffic though, as this road seems to be frequented by large pickup trucks that think nothing of swinging wide in turns. This is the heart of the ride, so take it slow. If you pop open Google maps, you'll notice that there are a few hunting trails that snake off to the sides of the road - I explored one of them, and found it dumped me literally in the middle of nowhere fast. But it was fun nonetheless. I ate lunch at the end/top of one of those trails (I think it was Black Bear Rd).

As you reach the end of Rt47, the road will come to a small bridge to your left. If you take it, you'll come to Rt 157 which will take you south to Rt19 South, then to Rt55 East, 209 South, 52 East and then right back to I87 South back home.

I highly recommend it!

Buell XB12Ss vs. BMW K1200R

I had an interesting opportunity today, thanks to the great folks over at the Manhattan BMW dealership. They were kind enough to let me test ride one of their BMW K1200R naked bikes. Of course I rode over my trusty Buell XB12Ss, and thus began my in-depth side-by-side comparison of the two machines.

Now just to set the record straight before I start - I'm biased, I really like my Buell, and it would take a real masterpiece to uproot my opinion of my bike (I'm sure it will happen eventually though). But at the same time, back when I was shopping for bikes, the K12R was the top competition, and I truly felt that I was going to buy one.


First impressions of the BMW K1200R
The bike is big. It's certainly a lot longer than the Buell, but not necessarily any wider. The handlebars seem perhaps a bit bigger, and the grips are definitely a lot skinnier/slimmer on the BMW. The bike is also downright ugly, but I like my bikes that way... after all, the Buell is a love-it or hate-it kind of look. So too the K12R. Now this is where the magazine editors usually go on for paragraphs about how the bike looks, yadda yadda but I'm a real person and I just care about how the bike *rides*.

Engine revving
The K12R engine, when revved, sounds a lot like a high pitched bumble bee. It's not unlike a lot of inline 4 engines from the Japanese, but the engine never really reaches the high-pitched whining we all know and hate in a Japanese liter bike. Now from the start, the engine revs say a lot to me about the nature of the bike. This bike is not going to get you heard in New York City. In fact, despite my craziest attempts to rev the enginge on the K12R, I could never get it loud enough to make the casual passerby glance over. That's a lie. When the engine was almost red lining, it made this nasty garbling sound, and someone looked to make sure I wasn't going to explode. This is a huge downside for me, since I count on my Buell's loud engine to act as an immediate on-command horn to disperse would-be jaywalkers, and to announce my presence to straying cabbies.

Off the line and low speed riding
Buell officially has me spoiled with it's torque. I don't care how many horsepower more the BMW has than my Buell - the fact is plain and simple: the BMW is a weaker bike (the K12R has something like 160hp while the Buell has around 100hp). This is odd, since BMW markets the heck out of the K12R, stating it as the world's most powerful naked bike. From a numbers perspective, that may be true - but here's my problem with it: for day to day riding around the city - or anything besides a race track - the BMW doesn't really come into it's own until you're racing the engine up in the 8000-10000 rpms. This is simply unrealistic to expect for every single street light and stop sign in Manhattan. There's no way I'm going to sit there revving the engine for a constant 9000 rpms until the light turns green. Furthermore, it's unrealistic to think I'm going to spend all day riding in 1st gear. Imagine this: you're riding along in 1st gear at 40 mph and a cab starts to cut you off. You squeeze the clutch and hit the front brakes. The cab changes its mind and veres away again, but there's a grocery truck bearing down your tail. What do you do? Now you have to rev the engine back to 8000-10000 rpms, ease the clutch back out and pray you've got the right rpms for 1st or 2nd gear. Otherwise, you'll be jerking all over the place - not too safe. That's my gripe with the K12R's power - it's located up on the upper rev registers so high it's nearly impractical for all but straight line and constant speeds of 80-100mph. Off the line, the K12R is sluggish like most other bikes - a symptom of its low torque line/curve and rather heavy weight no doubt. I had a chance to test myself on a number of stoplights, with the same effect each time. Starting from idle was a slow, painful start, while revving first-then easing out the clutch resulted in a jerky, uncontrollable jolt. All in all, not impressed with the low-rev power.

Cruising speeds
Cruising in the city is technically limited to something like 30mph, but I've found that to keep out of trouble and remain in control, you tend to oscillate speeds somewhere between 25 and 45 with bursts that bring you up to around 55mph. This is precisely where the Buell's engine is optimized around 2nd gear for real gut-wrenching emergency-room type acceleration and 3rd gear for average-soul riding. And it's precisely where the BMW is just blah. Here, the BMW rides much like almost every other bike I've ridden - Ducati Monster to Speed Triple to Honda CBR: there's nothing spectacular going on. When you hammer the throttle, you tend to get a relatively whimperish response until the rpms climb into the high register sweet zone (notice a theme here?). This means that for average city riding, you're riding crippled. When an emergency comes, you're dealing with eye-to-mind-to-hand reaction time plus engine reaction time as it coils up to its power zone. I've never experienced this on my Buell. On the XB12, when I twist the throttle at crusing speeds, there's immediate power. In fact, the entire engine is there behind me, in it's sweet spot / power band /whatever you want to call it. The Buell feels like a serious power tool.

High speeds
What high speeds? This is New York City. Ok, so the BMW dealership let me take the BMW out onto the West side highway from the 50's to the 92nd street exit. I finally got to experience the BMW's engine as it was built... somewhere around 4th gear or 5th gear and 80mph. There, it felt a bit more powerful. In practical terms, I felt it was directly comparable to the power band of the Buell at the same speed. In fact, I couldn't tell the difference, except that at that speed the XB12 would be blowing out my ears and letting cars around me know to move away. The BMW was silent as death, and I felt like I snuck up on drivers - again not too safe. But really, no complaints here at these speeds. I have to say that I felt conflicted: it was like the engine was just starting warm up, yet it was screaming and dare I say a bit hesitant to climb higher. I definitely wasn't willing to go faster, since hitting a pothole on 9A would be a guarenteed wipe out, and yet I didn't feel comfortable going faster since the engine felt a little reluctant. Again, I'm used to a very forgiving and responsive Buell V-twin.

Handling / steering
Miserable miserable miserable. I had read a lot about this, so let me just clear it up: it's all true. I'm not going to blame the long wheel base like most people. There's something more - maybe it's the vertical center of balance being still too high or too far behind the driver. For some reason, the bike's "center/middle" feels like it's about two feet behind you. When you turn, it's like turning a pick pick-up truck into a parking spot - you need to be aware of the truck bed behind you and make sure you don't clip the cars parked next to you. To be fair, this is something that can be learned and adapted to, but when I ride the XB12, the center is directly underneath me, and so I steer the bike, and move myself, with one flowing motion - I literally (cheesy, I know) feel "one" with the Buell - and it all has something to do with the center of gravity / length / wheel based / turning radius / je ne sais qua. I guess the practical translation of my observations here really is that lane splitting is impossible with the K12R. I tried it several times, but found myself pulling back and stopping, because I was uncomfortable with the rate at which I could turn to avoid a stray car, opening door, or narrowing channel between a bus and neighboring cars.

Braking
This category should come first, since it's almost more important than acceleration in many instances. Most people would agree. Most people would also never complain about the K12R's brakes - but then they haven't ridden the XB12's massive front brake. Here, the two bikes are probably most similar - both brakes can be controlled comfortably with one finger, leaving the other 4 to manipulate the throttle for more advanced clutch-throttle-brake interactions. Yet somehow, on every BMW I've ever ridden, the brakes always grab too hard initially. There's a huge difference in my opinion between strong brakes and grabbing brakes. Strong brakes reliably apply an increasing amount of stopping power to the wheel with constant increments of pressure (the Buell has these). Gripping brakes, on the other hand, are strong very early in the squeeze, and then only slowly apply more pressure beyond the initial surge (the K12R has these). In practical Manhattan terms, this means you're more likely on the K12R to slow down faster than the cab in back of you. On the Buell, deceleration is an art; a balancing act between you and the cab in front of you and the bus in back of you.


Nit picks
I know a lot of bikes do this, but it's a thing about the BMW that annoyed me the instant I got on - the control dashboard and dials are stationary / attached to the body of the bike. On the Buell, the dashboard is connected to the front fork, so that when you turn the front wheel, the dashboard turns as well. This works great for navigating traffic at slow speeds (where you anti-counter steer, or steer normally), since you turn your head in the direction of the turn, and can easily look down. On the K12R, I found myself glancing into a turn, wanting to confirm my revs and speed, and having to cock my head back to a now artificial center line. Though minor, this feature on the Buell is one less thing to do, and more time focused on the road.

I didn't experience this directly, but I know since I researched extensively before buying my bike: the BMW electrical system is *not* user friendly whatsoever. This means that the life-saving rear brake LED flashers I've installed on my Buell would be impossible on the K12R (because of something about the finnickiness of the BMW's resistance-sensing system - if it detects above average resistance on the circuitry, it shuts down or fails to start). I would never, and will never ride a motorcycle for extended periods of time through NYC without additional LED bar flashers connected to the brake light circuit. I've been told on many occassions (by friendly cabbies) that these lights on my XB12 are the only thing that prevented a rear end collision.

Finally, those handlebars I mentioned earlier definitely start to irritate me - I know the theory likely has something to do with the finessed touch and controls, but trust me when I say nothing about the K12R handling have anything to do with finesse. By comparison, the stocky grips on the Buell are legitimate, and hard to miss. I've never slipped grip ever on the Buell, and yet because of my large hands, I found myself over gripping the BMW constantly.

Bridge review: Tappan Zee Bridge

I've been riding to upstate New York more recently these days, and I find the easiest route to take is via I87 / 287. Of course, this means I've been spending more time than ever crossing the Tappan Zee bridge, and so I felt it necessary and appropriate to add this to my list of bridge reviews.

Tappan Zee Bridge: *** 3 stars
The Tappan Zee suffers from one major flaw: there's no view of NYC anywhere to be had. But where it lacks in cityscape, it makes up in a great, lengthy stretch of river that seems to go for miles... 2 miles, to be exact. This gives you plenty of time to stretch your legs, and peer over the sides up and down the Hudson. Maybe you'll wonder as I did how people can reach those homes that seem to be nested up on the sides of hills - far beyond what sane people should be willing to drive to?

So all in all, it's a decent view, and a nice stretch - but it's nothing to go out of your way to see. Plus it tends to be frequented by an odd type of NY commuting cagers that a only a few notches below Jersey.

Beware of late night and early morning traffic

It's no secret that cab drivers can be crazy and erratic. But they're at their worst during the hours of 1am and 7am every morning. During this time, they're most likely to run a red light, turn left or right against the signal, or worst yet - cross the center divide on Park avenue and other split lane roads when they're supposed to be stopped.

I learned this the hard way a few mornings ago, when I decided to go out early for a quick ride. I started going down Park, but noticed down the road that cabs were cutting straight across the divide without hesitation. I decided not to risk it a single block more, and turned off onto Lexington to continue my journey.

Lession of the day: avoid two laned, divided roads in Manhattan (Park and upper west side Broadway), and in general expect cabs stopped at intersections to run them during the early morning / late late night hours.

Bridge review update: Queensboro Bridge

I mentioned in an earlier post (http://nycmoto.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-eve-bridges-ride-and-review.html) that the Queensboro upper roadway always seemed closed. Secretly, I thought that the Queensboro deservered at least another star if that section ever re-opened for a long enough period of time to be considered reliable. And so it happened - it seems the winter construction is over, and the bridge is now easily accessible from 57th street between 1st and 2nd (the best way to reach it is to drive north up 1st ave, then turn left onto 57th - that way, you'll avoid getting caught making an uncomfortable left hand turn with traffic to your back).



Queensboro Bridge: **** stars
At long last, the top level is reliably open, providing a great midtown view of the river, and a great west-bound view of Roosevelt Island. It's still a little tricky to navigate once you cross the river, as the top level of the bridge seems to devolve into a series winding, narrow concrete channels as soon as you hit Queens. But otherwise, it's a great, easy to find bridge that is motocycle friendly on all but the windiest days (but they're the most fun anyway).

Feigned insanity

I got a great idea today, inspired by the little gray toyota I saw out on I495 yesterday. Here's the concept:

Drivers already get nervous enough whenever a motorcyclist drives anywhere near them. The idea is to capitalize off this nervousness, and magnify it. By swerving around the lane more than normal, cars around you will interpret this as insane driving, and actively avoid you, so they don't hit you and get manslaughter charges.

Aside from the obvious downside of having to be extra careful in your manoeuvres not to lose traction or hit a road trap, I think this is just another trick to carry around.

Brain freeze

Yesterday wasn't so bad temperature wise, but sustained highway winds made driving longer than 15 minutes at a time painful... until...

I went to Kohl's and bought two velcro neck bandanas - the kind that go around your neck, snap in the back, and reach up and cover your mouth as well. I also bought a thin wool hat - the kind that hugs your head, not the kind that folds up with a lip at the bottom. All of this was to complement my existing head wrap, which wasn't up to the task of constant 75mph wind buffetting.

The solution worked perfectly. I wrapped one bandana right up to my mouth, so my breath could disperse, instead of fogging my sheild. The second bandana I wrapped around my neck, and bunche it up to reduce the wind chill on my neck, but more importantly to reduce the wind that crept up and circulated in my helmet. Finally, I put the hat on my head *on top of* my thin head wrap. Though it made the fit in my helmet a little snug, the added warmth was a tradeoff I was willing to make. All in all, I've now found yet another way to keep riding through the winter. And in case you forgot, I'm doing this all on a naked bike, so your results on any other type of bike should be even better.

Trail braking - a fact of life

Many country riders will debate the merits and risks of trail braking, but for city riders, it's a constant fact of life. For the layman, trail braking is the act of braking before the turn, and slowly releasing the brake through the turn. This differs from what most formal riding courses teach beginners; that the ideal is to brake, release completely, and then turn.

In theory, avoiding the front brakes into the turn is ideal, since excessive pressure can force a lockup, or make the front lose traction. However, a controlled release on the front brake can actually give you more control, since the weight of the bike remains on the front tire.

Most racing courses will teach that 90 degree turns require trail braking for as much as 25 percent of the turn. Of course, all city intersections are right angles, so this means that a controlled turn means releasing the front brake for a quarter of the turn. In most cases, this translates into braking all the way up to the side street turn, and then releasing the brake slowly until the front tire is a few meters from the white pedestrian line. Incidentally, this also frees up the most traction as you approach the white paint, which is a well-known grip killer.

Personal winter riding record!

This past week saw the coldest day of the year so far... 20F degrees with high winds. Highway riding likely brought this down to the low teens, maybe even 10F degrees.

But I was warm and toasty with my new winter gear. For the first time, I tried my new Widder heated gloves. Combined with my wind-stopper glove liners, and heated hand grip wraps, my hands have never been warmer. The greatest part about the gloves is that they heat the outside of my hands, effectively cancelling out the windchill effect, and leaving my hands feeling like they would on a warm summer day. I once considered my hands the weakest link in my ability to ride through the winters, but now I'm pleased to announce my feet have gained the title.

Combined with my heated Widder vest, my upper body is quite warm, and able to generate enough heat to circulate around to the rest of my body. Previously, I tried on a number of occassions to ride out of the city, on I95 up to CT or down to NJ, but could never get farther than about 10 miles before my pinky and ring fingers would be frozen stiff (they were so cold, I had to pull over to the road to shake the circulation back into them, and then ride with my wrists bent over completely to sheild my fingers from the wind).

My new dilemma, however, is my feet. I currently wear white summer race boots with perforations. Although I wear wool socks and a wind liner over them, enough air gets in to make my feet feel cold. I've found a temporary solution in pointing my toes closer to the body of the bike, near the exhaust, but it's only a temporary solution. I've been meaning to get a second pair of boots, so I think I'll grab a nice set of white race boots soon...

Riding hazards series: Sharing the road with cabs

I don't have to tell anyone who's ridden more than a day in NYC about how to drive around cab drivers. But for the uninitiated, here are a few tips and rules:

-Above all, look out for cabs with their center light lit on their roof - they're looking for pedestrians, and will cut over to the side of the road at any intersection. To play it safe, always ride outside a cab looking for passengers (ride closer to the middle lane if a cab is driving either to the right or left side of the street). If an available cab is driving down the middle lane, *get out of the way*!

-Cabs with all lights off on top are carrying passengers. Beware around intersections. These cabs will often rapidly decelerate to drop off near an intersection. If you see brake lights, expect a full stop is coming. Furthermore, be careful as they approach intersections, since they may be asked by their passengers to drop on the extreme opposite side of the road. If that's the case, they'll drive straight across, often swerving at the last minute.

-Look out for long lines of cabs, especially in waiting lines near hotels or train stations. Often, cabs toward the back of the line will give up on the wait, and quickly dart out of the line, back into traffic.

-Cabs stuck in stop and go traffic will quickly dart to the left or right as traffic starts to move, so avoid lane splitting anywhere near them. They're not unpredictable - in fact, they're very predictable... just assume they'll always dart randomly.

-Be as aware as cab drivers are... look out for groups of people clustered around corners and intersections. Even if they don't have their hands waved, cab drivers know they might raise when they see a cab with its light on. Look out for cabs swerving over, or cut out from behind another car into your lane

NYC Javits Center Motorcycle Convention

For all those thinking about attending, there's plenty of motorcycle parking on the far right side of the Javits center - easily 50 other riders were parked there when I showed up at about 3pm.

So I rode over to the Javit's center, and walked around all the exhibits to sit on the other motorcycles. On the far right, there were all the choppers, in the back the stunters and squid bikes, and down the middle the Italian and English bikes... every stereotype rider got his own section.

But I learned something about myself today. I hate sport bikes. Their leaned over seat position makes it incredibly painful to sustain a view of the road ahead. In fact, every single sportbike I tried gave me cramps in my neck while trying to look at a height that I'm used to on my Buell XB12Ss. In fact, the only bikes that came close to the same comfort (with acceptable styling) were the BMW K1200R, and the Ducati Sport, which says a lot about my preferences in bikes. The problem, though, is the size and poor handling of the BMW and the jumpiness, lower power, and high maitenance required of the Ducati. Until I move out of NYC, I don't expect to change my bike any time soon.

I didn't buy much today - in fact, though I was tempted by the LED light bars they sold, I only bought anti-fog lens fluid. The problem was that most of the vendors were only giving a maximum discount of 10% on their merchandise - which is downright skimpy compared to your average discount or deal you can find online. But it was fun checking out those lights, and I'm convinced now about buying wireless brake-light activated LED kits... which I'll review on the site shortly.

I got quite a few compliments about my Axio hard bag with reflective tape, and a number of people told me my white leather jacket made me visible from half-way across the Javits floor. All of these comments were music to my ears, and a confirmation that I'm visible on the streets.

How you know it's no good to ride

I was walking home from the office today, and I noticed it had just started to drizzle out. Last night and this morning were below freezing, so the surface of the ground was clearly frozen. My typical tell - water puddles at intersection corners - indicated it was a risky day to begin with. But what really put the icing on the cake (almost literally) was the slightly warmer atmosphere, light rain cover, *and* frozen ground.

In fact, just to test things out, I tried scuffing the soles of my shoes in the middle of the street, while crossing at the crosswalk. Normally there's enough resistance to make me feel uncomfortable about ruining my shoes, but today the ground was as slick as ice. There was no grip whatsoever. Meanwhile, the sidewalks were still coarse enough to grip - I suspect this is because of the more porous concrete used on sidewalks throughout Manhattan. But I don't think I'll be riding around, sidewalk hopping any time soon.

Of course, the weather turned for the "worse" and the drizzle turned to rain in the late afternoon. After about an hour of rain, around 7pm, I tried my test again. The rain had thawed the ground surface enough to make scuffing possible - despite the rain. Lesson learned:

If it's warm enough to rain, and
It's been raining for at least an hour, and
The temperature is on its way up, ...

...then it's safe to ride in NYC.

The universe is about to end...

Today, I saw one of the most terrifying sights. A Vespa... with a custom racing stripe down the middle of its body and seat. Now what on earth is that supposed to imply? I mean really. I've gotten a couple of emails from Vespa riders... you know who you are, so I'm not going to join the standard Vespa-knocking that goes on these days. But is it really going to do any good trying to regain your masculinity with a racing stripe, when your vehicle is already 100% chic? I don't think so.

While we're on the topic of scooters, the city is clearly overrun with them. I think that's great, but I fear for their safety. I see far too many scooters flying around in all-black attire, or riders wearing only dress slacks and a button-down shirt. In fact, I saw one of the most disturbing sights last Friday. I man was riding a woman he clearly picked up at a bar. She was riding in back, straddling him, with... only... fishnet stockings. Let's step back for one second, and imagine what she was thinking. Clearly, nothing coherent. Did she think her fishnets would protect her from the NYC pavement for 1 inch or 2? Or did she think it would look sexy to have charred fishnet lace burned into her flesh, only to be picked out by scalpel in the ER later? Either way, I cringed when I saw it. Not cool. Not chic. And definitely not hot.

Riding hazards series: Sunken manhole covers

You see them everywhere - manhole covers in the middle of the street, usually on the avenues. The problem comes on those avenues that have had multiple layers of paving, without the full prerequisite stripping of the original road layers. Examples of this are midtown Lexington and 7th avenue. For some reason, there are tons of covers that are at least 3 or 4 inches deep, which are as bad as the worst potholes you'll find anywhere.

The trick to avoiding these is to ride on the sides of the avenues - never right up the middle. This is a good idea anyway, since you'll avoid being fodder for riders cutting you off from both sides.

NYC's most dangerous intersections

I was browsing around the blog entitled New York Hack when I stumbled upon a list of the most dangerous intersections. Although the list is published for cab drivers, it's a great list to know for any motorcyclist to know.

Without further ado, here's the list, in order decreasing from most accident injuries to fewest:

1. E 33rd St and Park Ave
2. 34th St and 7th Ave
3. Essex and Delancy St
4. W 14 st and Ave of the Americas
5. 145th St and 7th Ave
6. W 42nd St and 8th Ave
7. E 42nd St and 3rd Ave
8. w34th and 8th Ave
9. E 14th St and 3rd Ave
10. E 14th St and 1st Ave

I took this morning to visit each one, just so you don't have to - though I honestly don't know that I'd recommend *that* to anyone as a tour of Manhattan. Here's another interpretation of the list above that's easier to remember to avoid / beware while riding:

-The entrance to the Park Avenue tunnel, heading north (drivers are always deciding to cut in at the last minute)
-Anywhere around Penn Station (cabs darting everywhere)
-A block west of Times Square (there's always tons of Jersey traffic here, and lots of illegal U-turners)
-Wherever you see tons of white stripe paint checkered across the intersection (e.g. 42nd & 3rd)
-Whenever you find yourself on a two-way street with no physical divider (e.g. all of 14th street, 7th Avenue above the Central Park, and Delancey Street right off the Williamsburg bridge)

I hate weather.com

This morning was supposed to be like yesterday. Weather.com's hour-by-hour forecast said rain for each hour this morning. So I ditched my plan to explore the far end of Fire Island, out in Long Island. However, I woke up to see an overcast, but dry day. Again, I checked weather.com, and they said yes, it was overcast and foggy, but it would begin raining in the next hour. This happened for each of 5 hours, until I finally gave up and got dressed for a ride around 1pm. Believe it or not, I got a full hour of riding in before the intense fog around midtown got me thinking the rain must be coming soon. But for the past hour, nothing. In fact, I got so frustrated that I clicked on the 300-mile doppler map to see where the precipitation was. Apparently, it's nowhere near the city yet, and it probably won't come for another two hours.

Lesson learned? weather.com's hour by hour is useless, and I can do a better job estimating ride-time from the raw map. This will never happen again - ugh. I could have had a full morning /day or riding!

Island review: Randalls-Wards Island

The best part about Randalls-Wards island - at least in the Winter time - is that there's no one there. The south side of the island has a great set of small paved paths that wind around, and make for great solitary touring, not to mention amazing views of the East Side, Harlem, and Astoria.

But there's a catch. The island's rather tricky to get to, and I always feel a little too uncomfortable trying to get there from the Triboroguh Bridge. The problem is that the traffic across the bridge is always extremely reckless, and the ramps to exit the bridge and spiral down to the island are from the extreme right lanes. That's normally not a problem if you're coming from Manhattan up the FDR, but if you try to get off the bridge going westbound, the exit is 50 meters after the toll booth, and route 278 merges and forces you to the far left of the toll plaza, which means that right after the toll, you have to zip across to the far right lane, cutting across 8-10 lanes of traffic. Not safe. Rider beware.

But let's assume you make it safely, perhaps because you came from the FDR. The first thing you notice upon winding down the spiral ramp is that the island is covered with ambiguous concrete buildings, often unlabeled, and always decripit. They're clearly municipal buildings and storage facilities, as you will often find cranes and road repairing equipment/vehicles strewn about the island (in fact, in the mid-south of the island is huge parking lot full of crows-nest cranes). As you wind around the north side of the island where you start, beware of the potholes - they're 6-9 inches deep in some areas!

As you make your way south, you'll pass the NYC Fire Department training facility, the mental hospital, and some auxilliary buildings - again, concrete, and ambiguous. Then, you'll come to Icann stadium, which isn't much to see from a biker's perspective, but can be fun to drive by once or twice just to say you saw it. Continuing south, you'll pass some more buildings, and then the island just opens up, the buildings disappear, and the only structure remaining is the massive, curving, elevated Triborough bridge ramp. Now we come to my favorite part of the island.

The southern-most tip of the island, called Ward's Island Park, is home to a number of baseball diamonds that stretch across the south-east shore. The east side of the island is slightly more elevated than the souther tip, and so there are a few fun, steep hills to climb. On the south-west shore, there is nothing. Just a mass of mauled earth from what looks to be an abandoned attempt to create a park, and a few bull dozers lying around. At this time of the year, the ground is just cold enough that you can ride without fear of sinking across the entire area. It's a lot like a miniature off-road adventure. But a really tame one that even a city-bred Buell can ride over. If you can make it out here in the middle of the day, you can easily occupy a couple of hours navigating the interesting terrain, and honing your slow-maneuvering off-road skills.

If you haven't been there yet, it's worth the ride once. Unfortunately, there's not much to do here, so aside from the serene south shore, there's limited reason to return. All in all, I give Randalls-Wards island a 3 star rating out of 5.

Randalls-Wards Islan: *** 3/5 stars

Winter limits?

First off, let me just say that contrary to widespread opinion, there's nothing better than riding in the middle of winter. On a typical summer day, wearing the appropriate protective gear means coming home a sweaty, nasty mess after a long day's ride. Not so in January! After a 3 hour trip today, I came home and felt perfectly comfortable - no sweat anywhere in site. My only check before riding was a quick scan around the street corners for puddles of water. Water pools can be found near many intersections, and seeing a few at different corners is a sure sign that the ground is above freezing. It helps, but doesn't guarentee against finding dreaded black ice.

I did, however, discover a (temporary) limit of riding on my new bike. In fact, on a few occassions today, my index and little fingers felt so cold it was hard to bend them, and I had to shake my hand to get the circulation going again. It was so cold, I had to turn back, and didn't get to complete my planned trip out to CT, to the Triumph dealership that supposedly has a great stock of riding apparel.

But I have a theory. Somehow, running the heated vest at full blast draws too much power, and the heated hand grips drop in temperature enough to make riding at 70 mph too cold. I suspect this will be easy to fix, however, since I've been riding without my leather jacket lining for some time now (figuring the heated vest would be sufficient). Next time, I'll zipper it back in, which should contain heat better and allow me to run the vest at a lower setting. That will allow the hand grips to get warmer, which is the critical threshold/weakest link to overcome at this point.

So what's the limit?

Well, today was 36 degree Farenheit, and I found myself unable to sustain speeds of 65-70 mph on I-95 for extended periods of time due to my frozen fingers. Including windchill, that meant the cold limit was around 18-20 degrees, or well below freezing. Interestingly, converting 18-20 degrees of highway windchill into city riding at lower speeds means a comparable rider experience when the weather forecast predicts between 25-28 degrees Farenheit. This is also below freezing, but the ground in NYC is usually several degrees warmer than the air, so there's a better chance of making it through the day without navigating black ice.

Long Island vs. Jersey Shore

This Sunday was a busy day. I rode out to my new-found spot out in Captree State Park first thing (though instead of the Belt, I just rode the mid-town tunnel and LIE 495 out to exit 53, then headed South until the road ran out - shaved my drive to 30 minutes). After a quick conversation, and pit stop, I tried my luck over in Fire Island - known by many to be a great getaway, and rumored to be an exclusive, hard to reach spot. Though I had used Google earth to zoom into the area, and saw that there was a road that ran up and down Fire Island, I didn't realize until I arrived there at 10 am that it was all National Park, and only inhabitants/permanent residents with special permits can ride past the Coast Guard watch gate. There was an oh-so-friendly sign indicating that it was a Federal crime to trespass with unauthorized vehicles, so I tried to play it nice and waited for another car to drive up to the gate before me (figuring I could use them as cover). I dismounted my bike around a hilly corner, and walked it up (engine off) to the gate. I was greeted by a not-so-friendly coast guard officer, who told me I couldn't go further, and that I was lucky I wasn't riding, since it would have been a crime. Wow. He was kind enough to let me ride it back out, though. How kind. I'll have to try coming at the island from the other causeway further east... maybe next weekend.

Anyway, I then headed back into the city, and cut through midtown, hopped on the Holland tunnel and took 95 to the Garden State, and then to the Jersey Shore (dun dun dun). I was greeted with two near accidents, half a dozen reckless BMW cagers, and a dozens more obnoxious 20-something Italian meatheads driving midrange autos in a way that would give squids a run for their money. The only thing worse was the ubiquitous minivans driven by middle aged mothers, with children in the sides and backs staring back at me, waving flashy, silvery, toys at me that reflected the sun right back into my eyes. It was a nightmare. I've never felt so scared for my life. I know I'm always greeted with shock and horror when I tell others I ride in NYC, but trust me on this one - it's far safer than rural Jersey.

But it got me thinking, especially since I had just come from what could have been considered a likewise, similar topology in Long Island. But why the drastic change in driver attitude? I can't say for sure, but I think it has something to do with the roadways in Long Island. It seems that every highway and street along the water is either a scenic, sparesly wooded highway, or a quaint beach-town 1.5-laner. Long Island's marshland and beaches are uninhabited, and so you often find yourself riding on highways in the middle of nowhere. Jersey, on the other hand, packs unplanned housing right up to the water front, and retro-actively tries to connect patches of communities together with roads that resemble industrial park back-roads. Don't get me wrong - you definitely get a view of the water - but it is punctuated with broken down bars, decrepit restaurants, and trashy, pot-holed roads. Ugly.

I suspect it takes a direct drive from one to the other to really appreciate the difference, but I can only hope this might save you the misery of experiencing the "trashy" Jersey shore. Me? I'll take the "quaint" Long Island shore over Jersey any day.

Ocean Parkway on the weekend

This weekend was abnormally warm, and I was pleasantly surprised to see tons of fellow riders out and about on Saturday and Sunday (moreso Saturday, when the temperature got to around 70, whereas Sunday was around 50).

I decided to make a trip out to one of the southern strips of beach on Long Island, down near Zachs Bay and Captree State Park. To be honest, I found the spot using Google maps, and it looked like a fine destination, with a long stretch of highway that runs parallel to the beach for miles.

So after 20 minutes of the belt parkway followed by 30 more minutes of rural back-route island hopping I arrived at Ocean Parkway, only to find... I wasn't alone. I've never seen so many motorcycles in this area before! There were hundreds of cruisers flying up and down the parkway, and at the far east end of the road, right at Captree State Park, is a restaurant, dock, and popular hangout on every weekend. I ran into some nice folks - mostly the beemer and Harley crowd - and learned that this is a popular destination every Sunday morning for hot-rodders and cruisers alike. It was quite fun to find such a lively group so close to home!

A little slice of FDR paradise

It doesn't last long, but it sure is nice while it lasts. There's a little stretch of the FDR highway right after the Brooklyn bridge crosses overhead that is always quite, and cager-free. And you get a great view of the financial district to your right, and water to your left right before diving into the tunnel that takes you around the southern tip and spits you back to 9A. Somehow, it never gets old, and you're always sure to find another rider in that area.

The secret about NYC winter riding

It's been three weeks now since most fellow bikers I know outside the city have packed their bikes for the long winter. We were definitely lucky this year, as global warmer turns out to be a motorcyclist's best friend... in a very twisted way.

Alas, you still see many a scooter and biker on the streets of Manhattan. Why? It's a little secret held close and dear to many a city biker: with tall buildings serving as wind shields, max of 40 mph speeds reducing windchill, and warm gases rising out of every corner, the average NYC day *appears* 5-10F degrees warmer than the weather channel says it is.

This means that if the weatherman says it'll be a chilly 35F, you can expect it to *feel* like 40-45F easily. And with the average maximum daily temperatures for Jan-Mar running around 38F, you can darn well expect yourself a 12month riding season!