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Rant Archive - January 2007

January 31, 2007 - WHERE'S GLOBAL WARMING WHEN YOU NEED IT?

I made a commitment to myself a long time ago that I would not make this website political so I won't go into my views on the subject but... holy crap man, where is global warming when you need it! It is nasty cold in Middle Tennessee this week and bikes are few and far between on the salt and brine coated roads. This morning however, I did spot a guy on an Electra Glide despite the well below freezing temperature. I'm sure he was cold but his "screw you winter" attitude was inspiring. I decided right then and there that at some point this week, I will go for a ride. Even if it's only a few miles I gotta do it just to shake my fist in the face of old man winter!

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January 29, 2007 - HARLEY-DAVIDSON NIGHTSTER... IT'S WAY COOL!

In case you haven't heard yet, Harley-Davidson is coming out with a new Sportster in the next few weeks. It's called an XL1200N Sportster 1200 Nightster and in my opinion is one of the coolest looking bikes the Motor Company has come up with in a long time. The Nightster features chopped front and rear fenders, a side mount license plate, fork boots, cool black rims, bare bones graphics and like the other 2007 Sportsters, Electronic Sequential Port Fuel Injection. It's way cool! (Photos courtesy of Harley-Davidson.com)

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January 27, 2007 - WHAT THE HECK IS A HARE SCRAMBLE?

The sun was shining bright this morning so I thought I'd get some intentional lens flare in this shot.

I was talking to a guy I work with the other day about my revived passion for off-road riding. I mentioned that I was really having fun getting back into it and that I hoped to get good enough to enter a few motocross and/or hare-scramble races later this year. He looked at me kind of funny and said, "what the heck is a hare-scramble?" For those of you who don't know, a hare-scramble is an off road race, but not on a motocross track. These races are run on trails that follow the natural lay of the land with some parts well groomed and other parts more narly than you can imagine. The tracks are usually about an 8 to 10 mile loop and the objective is to complete as many laps as you can in the allotted time. I like the concept because you are more racing the clock than the guy next to you.

Anyway, the bottom line for me getting to a race is practice, practice and more practice so this morning I headed out to get a little more seat time... and another step closer to racing. It was beautiful when I was loading up but the sky soon turned overcast and the temperature started to drop. I still got a good three hours of riding time in before the expected rain hit. Oh, and I also got a few pics which are posted here.

This is a tame section of the hare scramble course. Note how they mark the trees so you know where to go.

It doesn't look like it in the pic but this hill is a bear. It's about 30 feet high and straight up!

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January 19, 2007 - INDOOR MOTOCROSS, I LEARNED TWO THINGS

About an hour south of Nashville is the town of Shelbyville, Tennessee. You may have heard of it because it is known worldwide as the Tennessee Walking Horse capitol. Every year people come from all over the world to show their horses and to accommodate the huge event, the town has a pretty decent sized arena not far from the town square. Of course the facility is also well suited for other events and once or twice each year is host to indoor motocross races. I'd been looking forward to the one scheduled tonight for some time and after work I headed out for an evening of racing. I had a great time and saw some good competition in a lot of different classes including a couple of 4-wheeler races that went down to the wire. But, besides having a good time, I also learned two things:

1) Motorsports photography indoors with low-light conditions is next to impossible! I have a pretty fast lense and still had a heck of a time drawing good focus... plus,  I confirmed that my panning technique pretty much sucks! Man, how frustrating! Gives me a whole new respect for guys like Garth Milan of Transworld Motocross that pull it off.

2) I think I may be closer to racing than I thought. I watched the 40+ class closely tonight and honestly, I think I could have hung with them and held my own... which is encouraging. By mid summer I want to have my first race under my belt and after seeing my first 40+ race first hand tonight, I think I can reach that goal. A lot of it is going to be cardio conditioning though... gotta hit the jogging trail harder and more often for sure.

As usual, I took a camera with me tonight so if you're interested CLICK HERE to check out some pics of the indoor motocross racing in Shelbyville.

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January 17, 2007 - MADKAW FEATURED IN FEBRUARY THUNDER ROADS MAGAZINE

Thunder Roads Tennessee will be featuring the Madkaw in their February 2007 issue which will be on the stands next week. It's basically a quick over-view of the bike and an itemised list of what the bike cost me to create. If you're not familiar with the MadKaw CLICK HERE to check it out. It's a bike that my dad and I customized last winter on a shoe-string budget and to my surprise, has drawn a lot of attention since then. It was featured in RoadBike Magazine (see my RANT from October 30, 2006) took first place in it's class at last years North Alabama Bike Show (See my RANT from June 03, 2006) and has been featured on several websites, including one based in the UK. Below is one of the shots that Thunder Roads is using. It's from the first photo shoot I did of the bike last March.

For all you camera geeks out there, here are the specifics on the shot above. Canon EOS 20D,  1/60 sec, f5.0, 16.0mm focal length, natural lighting.

If you're in Tennessee, be sure and pick up your copy of Thunder Roads at your local shop... or if you are out of state, check them out on-line at www.ThunderRoadsTennessee.com.

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January 14, 2007 - MUSIC CITY MOTORCYCLE SHOW & EXPO

The Music City Motorcycle Show & Expo took place this weekend here in Nashville so I made my way downtown today to check it out. Municipal Auditorium was full of custom bikes as well as a ton of vendors selling everything from leather to custom parts... and of course, I took a camera along to get a few pics. CLICK HERE NOW to see some of my pics from the show.

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January 5, 2007 - SUPERCROSS BEGINS! SOME RELIEF FROM THE DARK MONTHS…

So far we've had a pretty mild winter (knock on wood) here in the Mid-South but I still have experienced many of the riding withdrawal symptoms that I typically fight during the "Dark Months".

Now, for those of you in SoCal, Texas and Florida who don't know the meaning of the term "Dark Months", it is the unofficial title I have given to November, December, January and February here in Tennessee when the riding conditions are mostly poor resulting in me becoming irritable, grumpy and restless… oh, wait a minute, I'm always like that!

Well, it gets even worse during the "Dark Months" and one of the things that helps me survive the lack of riding time and maintain a little two-wheeled sanity is the kick off of the AMA Supercross season, which takes place the first weekend in January.

If you haven't checked out Supercross yet, I encourage you to do so this year. In fact, you can start this Saturday night at 9:00pm (central) by flipping over to SPEED channel to watch LIVE coverage of Round 1 from Anaheim. Even if you have no real interest in off-road riding, I promise that if you watch, and you are a "Certified Bike Nut" like me, you'll soon be hooked.

Supercross is the stadium version of Motocross and features some of the fastest, most talented young motorcycle racers in the world. Last years series saw an intense battle that went down to the wire before Ricky Carmichael locked up the Championship at the final race in Vegas. The competition was so riveting that it was a key factor in peeking my own off-rode riding re-interest and spurring on my eventual return to the dirt later in the spring. You could be next… so check it out!

Here's a little cheat sheet for you rookies. Watch for these guys to make an impact in 2007:

A couple of other riders that I like and you should watch:

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