Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Mon, 05 Dec 2005

To continue on my Motorcycle Show thoughts....

I liked what I saw of the Ninja 650. The seating position was even more sit-up-n-beg than the Ninja 250, which is a pretty upright bike. Upon reflection, I'd likely want to change that a little bit, although I'd have to ride it first to know for sure.

Based on what I know about the bike on paper, it may be as close to my "dream bike" as anyone is making at the moment. Sitting on one helped that impression along. Among many other things, the speedometer is actually legible.

I'm quite interested to try one, particularly being more trained for the razor-sharp Z750s as I am now.

I sat on a 2006 Goldwing at the show, which was interesting to me mostly for the integrated GPS with large color screen. It was a fair distance for the eyes to drop to the GPS screen, making it a dangerous distraction if only for the amount of time you have to spend getting your eyes shifted down to look at it. Still, it looked like a cool enough gadget to have. They had a display Goldwing on a rotating stand with its airbag deployed. That was pretty interesting to see. I suppose the Goldwing is actually heavy enough that it wouldn't just flip up underneath you in a front-end collision. Kudos to Honda for coming out with the system.

I also sat on an SV650 and SV650S at the show, but didn't have an overwhelming impression from either bike. I'd like to ride both to see what they're like, since everything I hear is about the stiffness of the frame, and the great engine. Sitting on one in a showroom doesn't really convey any of that. I like the current SV's instrument cluster, it looks like you could actually read it while riding.

There were quite a number of supermotard bikes that I noticed at the show (basically dirt bikes which have been gussied up with street parts -- ideal commuter bikes, except for the lack of any weather protection). There was a Husqvarna, which comes in a 450cc model -- my ideal size, or at least close to it. It looked like a great bike, but I overheard someone ask about the price: $7300! That's way too much for a bike which represents a significant compromise for what I want.

I also noticed an Aprilia supermotard, which looked even cooler (being a 450 twin cylinder), but was $1000 more. Yow! Who's buying these things?

I also saw that Aaron's offroad CBR600 sidecar rig made it into the show. He and Jay put together quite a piece of work with that hack. I don't know if it's running or not, but I'm sure I'll get to see it again, and possibly even drive it around a little.

When I found the Shoei display, I was happy to see that they had a representative sample of each size in each model. I made a beeline for the extra large X-11, but was surprised to find it too large. The large, however, seemed to fit just right. It felt exactly like my current Arai, except a little tighter (which is good). It hit my head everywhere, not just in a few places, like the RF-1000 (the cheaper model) does. It was very gratifying to put that helmet on for a few minutes, and realize that I'd found a perfectly fitting helmet. It only took me a few minutes to come to the decision to spend the money to get one -- Seattle Cycle Center had a special on for the duration of the show only, $100 off any helmet. That's too good to pass up. My new helmet should be here around the end of the week.

I was dissappointed to see that BMW didn't have the new F800 at the show. Apparently it was supposed to be there (they had a space cleared for it, even), but was held up in shipping. At least, that was the story. No clue if that's true or not, but the bike wasn't at the show. I was chatting with my friend Dave today, and he said that the current speculation is that the bike will likely cost $11-12,000, which is way too much for that bike. We both agreed that if they can keep it below $10k, it'll have a chance, but if it's over that, it will not be a good seller.

I was surprised to find that after it was all over, I had actually enjoyed the show this year. The other two times I've gone, I didn't really like it, rather having endured it. I'm not sure I'd enjoy it next year. I suspect that because I had enough new bikes I wanted to see (and was pleased to see, like the supermotards), it kept my interest up.

Posted at 22:50 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.