Via Fark, the Daily Telegraph reports on a true hardcore biker:

A JAPANESE biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for 2km, leaving a friend to pick up the limb.

The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, yesterday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction, the paper quoted local police as saying.

The man and his leg were taken to hospital, but the limb had been crushed in the collision, the paper said.

That's why you should always use your rear brake, not just the front brake: So you know if your right leg is missing.

The New York Times reports on the first recorded instance of a rider being saved by Honda's airbag-equipped Goldwing (which I blogged about here):

Returning to the office from lunch on his 2007 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle one day this spring, Lou O’Connell got a glimpse into the future, if only by two seconds or so. A car pulled out of a shopping center in Weston, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale, and into his path. He could see that he was going to hit the car.

Mr. O’Connell said that although he did not expect to be killed in the impending crash — becoming one of the 5,000 or so motorcycle riders who will die on American roads this year if recent trends continue — he knew that at the very least he was about to go flying over the handlebars.

But then there was a bang and a cloud of powder in front of him. Though the front of his bike had slammed the passenger side of a black Nissan 350Z, Mr. O’Connell found himself nearly uninjured — intact enough to lay down the bike and stride over with some well-chosen words for the car’s driver.

That's good news. But the Times spends the rest of the article wondering what could possibly be causing a rise in fatal motorcycle crashes:

Riding a motorcycle is becoming riskier. Deaths last year increased by 5.4 percent over 2005, according to preliminary estimates of the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System, and are up for the ninth consecutive year. Deaths have increased 125 percent over 10 years, a period in which registrations rose more than 50 percent.

Even when adjusted for more bikes covering more miles, the picture is grim. While the death rate for people in vehicles fell by about 17 percent for each mile traveled over that period, the rate for motorcycle riders more than doubled, according to the report.

That timeline coincides with factors including a rising average age of riders, more powerful engines and the repeal of state laws requiring universal helmet use, in part a result of pressure applied by lobby groups that persuaded legislators to “let the rider decide.”

So, what is causing all these crashes? Older riders? More powerful bikes? Helmet law repeals? I suspect the answer is "none of the above." Look at the very example that leads off the Times article itself: A car pulled out of a shopping center in Weston, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale, and into his path. Maybe, just maybe, the increasing number of bike crashes is due to the increasing number of careless, unskilled, and distracted car drivers on America's roads.

It's one of the great motorcycle music videos of all time: Amazing, by Aerosmith:


As this time capsule of a video makes clear, teenage boys back in the early 90's would often fire up their PC's, pop on their virtual reality helmets, and realize their ultimate dream of zooming through the desert on a crotch rocket while getting it on with Alicia Silverstone. And hey, dig those crazy 3-D computer graphics!

Recently, I mentioned how some souped-up X-4's here in Japan get around 150 horsepower, versus a normal level of 100. Red Motor, a tuning shop here in Tokyo, says its X-4's get up to 166. Not bad.

But leave it to the Germans to make things go faster. Here, from German shop Motor-Partner, is the X-4 Turbo, which pumps out a whopping 235 horsepower:


And the price for turbocharging your X4? Just 6,899 Euro, or about $8900 — about as much as the bike itself.

This is why I don't do wheelies.

Hey, my fiancee and I could have our wedding at Twin Ring Motegi!


The name "Twin Ring" refers to the two racetracks they have there, not wedding rings. Their special "Circuit Wedding" plan lets you do a "Wedding Run" lap around the racetrack in a Honda S2000 convertible. I wonder if they let you use your own motorcycle instead...

Why don't I just take the subway to work? Because I can't be sure Wesley Autrey will be around if I fall on the tracks. The New York Times reports:

Mr. Autrey was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.

Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help, he said. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled to the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.

The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said.

So he made one, and leapt.

Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.

Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here,” he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.” He heard cries of wonder, and applause.

Here's Wesley on the Late Show with David Letterman:


Check out the computer simulation of the rescue at the end, with the train cars whizzing by a mere inch or two above Wesley's head. Amazing.

Via Fark, the BBC reports:

A campaign to cut over-crowding has been launched by frustrated rail commuters in the west of England.

...Simon Carpenter, Frome resident and campaign co-ordinator, said: "The overcrowding of trains is scandalous.

"It is becoming increasingly common place for passengers to be left standing at stations because trains are already at bursting point."

The Fark comments thread on this story is chock full of train-hatin' from commuters who are mad as hell and aren't going to take it any more.

The BBC also reports that this stellar level of train service is now costing commuters even more, with rail fares on the rise across the country.

The Mainichi Shimbun reports:

Two trains came to an abrupt halt early on Wednesday after running over rocks left on the tracks, police said.

The driver of a Keihan Electric Railway Co. train applied the emergency brake after hearing an unusual noise as the train passed a railway crossing in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, at about 5:10 a.m.

...About 1 kilometer south, another Keihan train made an emergency stop after its driver also heard an unusual sound.

Police think the rocks were left on the tracks deliberately. No word on how long the trains were delayed by this sabotage.

Okay, it's not a new movie, so it's really the feel-good movie of 2004. But anyway, I rented Torque last night, and, boy, what a movie. Giddy, silly motorcycle fun. It only bogs down a little bit when the obligatory plot kicks in: something about drugs hidden in a bad guy's motorcycles, and the good guy being framed for murder, and the FBI trying to track him down. But make no mistake: This movie is about watching people do impossible stunts on bikes: It's like the Matrix of motorcycle movies.

Sure, Torque contains countless examples of MMM's. After all, it's impossible to jump your bike on top of a moving train, drop down into the passenger compartment of one of the cars, ride through the inside of the train, and scoot out onto the tracks. But it looks awesome.

Halfway through, I paused the DVD, jumped on my X-4, and did a lap around the Shuto expressway. It's that kind of movie. Two thumbs up.

I tested my X-4 on a dynamometer ("dyno") yesterday:


That's the pit mechanic doing the test, not me. Here's the results:


109.5ps (horsepower) at 7,000 rpm, and 12.3kg/m of torque at 5,500rpm. A bone-stock X-4 offers pretty much the same results for torque (12.3kg/m at 5,000 rpm), but puts out only 100ps at 6,500rpm. I'm running a bit above that, presumably because of my Striker exhaust system. But I've seen other X-4's, with customized engines, come close to 150ps. Clearly I have some work to do.

The Ohlins front forks on my X-4 are about 40mm shorter than stock, so I've been riding low for the past few months. But all that changed today with the completion of a bit of fork-extension work:


The Ohlins fork stops at the top of the lower L-shaped bracket. Everything above that is an extension tube from Spec Engineering, held in place by a custom top bridge from Soup-Up.

The Arab News reports:

MINA, 29 December 2006 — The increased security vigilance in the holy cities has been a headache for motorcycle drivers used to scooting around town without proper paperwork or helmets. This is also the first Haj where motorbikes have been banned from the holy areas of Makkah and Madinah.

As of yesterday, officials have already impounded about 350 motorbikes since heightened security operations began earlier this month, according to an officer who didn’t want to be named.

...At a press conference held in the tent city of Mina at the General Security Headquarters, Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, Interior Ministry spokesman, said he prefers not to call it a “ban”, but rather simply a way to make the traffic more organized and the safer. [sic]

Of course, just about every year during the Hajj pilgrimage, hundreds of people get trampled to death on foot. If safety is such a concern, perhaps it would be better to call the whole thing off.

More importantly, with this ban, Saudi Arabia now joins China and Nigeria on the list of countries banning motorcycles from certain areas. They are also three of the least-free countries on the planet, with three of the worst human rights records around. Call them the Axle of Evil.

I just got back from this year's Merry Run. Here's some pics:




I got stopped on my way back by some cops who checked to see if I'd been drinking. You know, just because I was dressed as Santa Claus riding a bike covered in tinsel and flashing lights is no reason for them to single me out.

FOLLOW-UP:
Big Ben's own Merry Run post is up over on his blog.

The Associated Press reports:

Prime-time television actors don't buckle up or use motorcycle helmets nearly as often as people do in real life, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Researchers studied 79 prime-time television programs on ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX over a four-week period for the study that was published in the journal Injury Sciences. The study found that characters used seat belts 62 percent of the time, motorcycle helmets 47 percent of the time and bike helmets 9 percent of the time.

...The study was conducted as a summer project that included two medical students, Alison Reiland and Stephen Tanner, who spent the first day alone in separate conference rooms watching shows such as "Dancing With the Stars" and "Without a Trace."

I spend a lot of time in law school watching TV, but I didn't get credit for it.

Shuu-san sent me a few issues of Big Comic Spirits, a weekly manga with several ongoing stories, including "Master of Sea Umishi". In that one, the main character, Rintarou Nanba, a diver in the Japan Coast Guard, rides a Honda X-4:


Sure beats Richard Gere's dinky little Bonneville from An Officer and a Gentleman.

Via High T3ch, here's a motorcycle powered by 24 chainsaw engines (each of which, apparently, must be started separately by hand):


It's called the Dolmette, made by the German chainsaw company Dolmar. You can see a video of it in action here. Personally, I think it would be more impressive to see a chainsaw powered by twenty-four motorcycle engines, but you can't have everything.

While Harley Davidson's latest overbearing, super-serious commercial touts the non-conformity of its riders (all of whom, it would seem, non-conform in exactly the same way), Big Dog Motorcycles decided to have a little more fun with its advertising:


Sure, it might be offensive to some people — but anyone who's offended by it probably isn't in the market for a Big Dog motorcycle anyway. (Found via Helmet Hair)

Via Bikes in the Fast Lane, check out this video of Harley-Davidson merchandise:


I first thought it was the work of a Harley hater, snarkily mocking H-D's excessive licensing of its brand. But no — watch to the end, and you'll see it's really a commercial for a Harley dealership.

When your actual marketing is indistinguishable from an attack on your brand, I'd say that's a problem.

Automotive Blogger blogs about the NSU Kettenkrad, a combination tank-motorcycle from WWII:


It would be pretty cool — if it hadn't been built by the Nazis.