Quote :

" He swerved left to go around the car ahead of him turning right"

Makes me think she didn't really have a chance to see him given his speed and swerving right at the light.

Quote :

"She was in the intersection when the light turned red"

Not necessarily an indication of guilt IMO, but I'm no lawyer. All about breaking the plane right?

Do you think the motorcycle made the light "legally?"

10/28/2014 8:39:47 PM

Bike absolutely didn't make the light and she had little to no chance of seeing him at the speed he was closing in. He only had time to lock his front tire and left maybe an eight foot skid before impact.

While I understand her culpability to some degree, it's still unnerving that some idiot can run a red a red light at double the speed limit, kill himself on my fender and I'd be charged. She was likely freaked out and copped to the whole thing assuming that it was her fault and the cops charged her with the misdemeanor as a result.

10/28/2014 8:53:40 PM

Quote :

"Not necessarily an indication of guilt IMO, but I'm no lawyer. All about breaking the plane right? "

Though we all do it, I believe it is ilegal to enter an intersection and park/stop, or drive through an interesection you are unable to move out of. You are only allowed to drive through an interestion. There's a legal clause somewhere, but i can see why she's at partial fault for the accident for obstructing the intersection. I don't think she should have manslaughter on her plate though. That was the motorcyclist's own doing.


Today, I happened to see the guy who taught my BRC riding on his green harley (one of a kind with "Rrribit" vanity plate). We stopped at a light and I thanked him for his instruction. I believe I've been riding over 2.5 years now and have nearly 26,000 miles logged on my bike. Man I love motorcycles.

[Edited on October 28, 2014 at 9:26 PM. Reason : .]

10/28/2014 9:25:54 PM

Quote :

"I believe it is ilegal to enter an intersection and park/stop, or drive through an interesection you are unable to move out of."

Do you have a North Carolina General Statute to back that up? I'm often wrong, but I've always thought it's about breaking the plane when it comes to running a red light.

10/28/2014 10:08:45 PM

Quote :

"§ 20-142.5. Stop when traffic obstructed. No driver shall enter an intersection or a marked crosswalk or drive onto any railroad grade crossing unless there is sufficient space on the other side of the intersection, crosswalk, or railroad grade crossing to accommodate the vehicle he is operating without obstructing the passage of other vehicles, pedestrians, or railroad trains, notwithstanding the indication of any traffic control signal to proceed. Any person who violates any provision of this section shall be guilty of an infraction and punished in accordance with G.S. 20-176."

So even if the signal is GREEN, you are not allowed to just pull out into an intersection unless you are going to safely travel through the intersection and to the other side without imposing right of way to other vehicles/pedestrians/trains. If your position in the intersection blocks any of the legal paths of travel from any of the other lanes, then you are in violation.



[Edited on October 29, 2014 at 12:39 AM. Reason : .]

10/29/2014 12:34:33 AM

Between that technicality and her likely telling the cops "I didn't even see him" at least once they were probably due to charge her with at least the smallest crime possible.

10/29/2014 12:40:26 AM

I suppose that's true. Everyone loses.

10/29/2014 12:42:34 AM

Damn you BMW.

My r1200r fuel strip/level sensor went out.

Again.

I think this is the 5th one that's gone bad in this bike. It's under warranty, so no sweat off my back. I go by the odometer anyways, so really just the light in the cluster is all that bothers me. I'll get it fixed soon.

This might apply to you Duke, but I figured I'd share with the public:

http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-news--general-news/over-50000-bmws-to-be-recalled/24288.html

Quote :

" BMW IS recalling R and K series motorcycles produced between January 2004 and April 2011 over a possible fuel leak. A fuel pump flange on the models can crack, causing petrol to escape. Customers will be notified and the flanges modified and replaced as necessary. One owner told the NHTSA: “I started the motorcycle engine – a few seconds after it started, gasoline started to gush from the front of the bike onto the engine. The reports says cracks can develop at a rate of 0.31% after three years, and improvements include reducing torque settings or adding a metal support ring. "

My bike is 6 years old with nearly 52,000 miles on it. Seems fine so far. Might as well get it checked out while I'm at the dealership. My biggest complaints are the fuel strip sensor going out frequently, the canbus system being ultra picky about voltage levels, expensive aftermarket, and all the flats I keep getting. Okay the last one is more bad luck and my fault than the bike's, but still, I've been very happy with my purchase. What bike doesn't have qwerks. I love this R and can't see myself on any other bike while on the street, except maybe an S1000RR for purely ego.
[Edited on October 29, 2014 at 3:23 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on October 29, 2014 at 3:27 AM. Reason : .]

10/29/2014 3:20:50 AM

Quote :

"So even if the signal is GREEN, you are not allowed to just pull out into an intersection unless you are going to safely travel through the intersection and to the other side without imposing right of way to other vehicles/pedestrians/trains. If your position in the intersection blocks any of the legal paths of travel from any of the other lanes, then you are in violation. "

I interpret that as not concerning pulling into an intersection to wait for a break in traffic to turn left, but not to pull into an intersection where traffic is backing up, such that the light turns red and you're stuck in the middle of the intersection with nowhere to go, blocking everyone in every direction.

If it references the former, then fuck it. I'd ignore it, because that's fucking stupid.

Quote :

"This might apply to you Duke, but I figured I'd share with the public:"

haha, mine's an '83.

10/29/2014 10:48:22 AM

There are a couple more old BMWs from my granddad's shop that might come up for sale. I need to get employed again first, so no hurry, but one of them is a /5 "toaster tank". The other is an R90. I want to build a cafe-style bike out of one of them. Something like this:





Or this:

I'll link the whole page. Holy shit this is cool.

http://www.bikeexif.com/bmw-r100

10/29/2014 11:04:29 AM

I thought your dad had an R1200RT? Or are only the old beemers allowed in the family?

10/29/2014 3:12:47 PM

I think his is a '12, but I'll let him know. Thanks.

(and no I love the new ones, too. If I didn't have an R100RT, I'd love to have an R1200RT or R1200GS. The new RS looks cool, too, and even an R1200R with luggage and a little windscreen would be a sweet ride.

[Edited on October 29, 2014 at 6:30 PM. Reason : R1200RT is a great ride. If scaled down about 10%, it would be perfect. That motherfucker is big.]

and I wish they'd come out with an S600RR, and/or make the R1200RS more of a serious, focused, lighter performance bike...with a place to hang bags if you wanted.

[Edited on October 29, 2014 at 6:34 PM. Reason : they make some really serious performance stuff, but it all has way too much motor for too much $]

10/29/2014 6:24:45 PM

Current fascination with building expensive cafe racer bikes is almost as bad as the OCC chopper craze a few years back. Worse yet, manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon with "vintage reissues". It's like grown people playing dress-up or something. Instead of building something that is actually fast, they try to build something that looks like something that wanted to be fast three or four decades ago. Please explain to me the logic of that.

If someone has a personal connection with one of these bikes, i.e. your dad rode one, I can understand people buying one, restoring them and keeping them as vintage bikes. But I owned a Ural knockoff before, and no way in hell I would try to make that POS into "cafe racer" out of nostalgia.

Also, most people that say they "built" a cafe racer really mean they took off the side covers, air box, instrumentation panel, front fender, and then swapped the stock bars for clip-ons. Maybe added a brat seat or a seat cover, in the best case scenario. That shit doesn't make their bike go any faster or corner any better.

I understand that you don't have to have 100+hp to enjoy a motorcycle, and I don't think everyone should own the latest sport bike. But I will no understand people who spend time and money on buying a generic POS from 70s, and then reworking it into something "faster" instead of just riding the damn thing.

10/30/2014 7:54:32 AM

I think cafe racers look cool but wouldn't own a bike with an agressive riding stance. I ride on roads not race tracks

10/30/2014 10:14:43 AM

^^does the triumph thruxton fall into that category?

i personally thought it was a fine bike for $9k.

10/30/2014 10:21:50 AM

100% agree with Igor, never got the fascination of fixing up old cars either. i'd rather drive a new camry than an old 70s muscle car

10/30/2014 11:42:59 AM

Old cars are easier to work on because they have less sensors to go bad/replace. Also, no state inspection on cars from the 70's, taxes are super cheap, and insurance cost is really low. Plus, why drive something that you see all the time? Save your money. Go oldschool.

back on topic. MMMmmm. This looks fantastic. R1200RS. Shame it's watercooled

R1200RS


http://www.cycleworld.com/2014/09/30/2015-bmw-r1200rs-first-look-sport-touring-motorcycle-review-photos-at-intermot-2014/



Even this R1200R is giving me a hardon


[Edited on October 30, 2014 at 3:16 PM. Reason : ,]

[Edited on October 30, 2014 at 3:18 PM. Reason : .]

10/30/2014 3:15:43 PM

why is water cooled bad again? makes more hp

10/30/2014 6:24:12 PM

The water cooled R12R's are about 12lbs heavier at 500lbs on the dot)when you compare wet weights (including full tank of gas, oil, etc). But you get 15hp/10ft-lbs more as well. But it's not that. There's something about the airhead that I like. It's a great looking bike. I love that it has more power, that it's more refined. I'm sure it's reliable and works well and servicing the water pump and coolant yearly or every other year isn't too much trouble either. So I don't know, i can't find the words to describe it. Nostalgic? Classic? Pure? I don't know. There's something about having something air/oil cooled rather than water; i know that can sound a bit absurd.

It's like the Porsches. I love the 993, despite the 996 being superior in power and weight... The 993 is the last of the air cooled, and it's resale values reflect it's desireability. I just saw a 53,000k mile R1200R sell for $5k. This makes me a little sad, especially since mine is at 52,250. I don't see my R1200R as an investment, but it's the last generation air cooled R for BMW. The Rs are already a niche market and there's just a "band of brothers" sense of unity with being a hexhead air cooled guy.

10/31/2014 12:21:28 AM

^i feel yeah. i, too, own a dinosaur bike and love it

10/31/2014 6:49:57 AM

Quote :

"There's something about the airhead that I like."

In common BMW parlance, you actually ride a "hexhead" (which is arguably a subset of the "oilhead" family. Hexhead is kind of a "super" oilhead).

I ride an "airhead". They were produced up into the mid-90s, culminating in the R100-series. The R1100-series introduced the oilheads, followed by the R1150 bikes. With the exception of the R1200 cruiser (which if I remember correctly, is just a bigger legacy oilhead), the R1200 bikes introduced the hexheads.

10/31/2014 3:33:49 PM

^ You are correct, and nailed it on the head for the non-bmw guys who don't know much about the boxer lineage.

I misused "airhead" to envelope the entire air/oil cooled community, which consists of the airheads, oilheads, camheads, and hexheads. Even though the engine designs and displacements varied, we all had that air/oil cooled boxer motor connection. I have to check, but I think even some of the first bmw boxers in the 30's were cooled by oil in addition to air.

if that's the case then, i'd say there's a common heritage between the first bmw boxers in the 20's/30's all the way up to 2014 before the universal use of air/water cooling:



[Edited on October 31, 2014 at 7:51 PM. Reason : /]

10/31/2014 7:31:11 PM

Need to move "airhead" out of the air/oil circle. I think they're simply air-cooled. I mean, I guess there is some cooking due to oil, but not in the sense that it's circulated like in the oilheads.

I'm not even familiar with camheads. Are you referring to the new, water-cooled, true cam-in-head engines? Like, the ones in the water-cooled circle?

Aren't the water cooled models also considered hexheads (just a later generation?)

[Edited on October 31, 2014 at 9:52 PM. Reason : ]

10/31/2014 9:50:52 PM

Well.. It can be broken down even more.

The only airhead (i believe) that was air and oil cooled through the head were liter bikes. The smaller engines I guess were air cooled then. God there so much to learn about here.

Waterheads aren't the same as hexheads anymore. For example, the Hexheads use a single plate dry clutch where the waterheads utilize a slipper clutch. Waterheads are single spark and hexheads are dual spark. There's enough differences to call waterheads their own, just as the hexheads differentiated themselves from the oil heads with the r1200 after the r1150.

[Edited on October 31, 2014 at 10:07 PM. Reason : .]

10/31/2014 10:06:00 PM

S 1000 R

i kinda want the new neckid bmw i4 liter bike with handlebars

fairly confident i would lose my license in less than a year though



[Edited on November 1, 2014 at 7:41 AM. Reason : giving it away at $13,260 too]

11/1/2014 7:38:51 AM

I kinda want it, too.

Or maybe an R1200RS depending on how sporty it proves to be.

Or a Street Triple R.

Or maybe some sort of Ducati, like an 848 Streetfighter.


Or I might just cheap out and get a few years old CBR600RR or something.


...but what I need to get first is a job, haha.

11/2/2014 8:05:42 PM

Quote :

"100% agree with Igor, never got the fascination of fixing up old cars either. i'd rather drive a new camry than an old 70s muscle car"

Wrong analogy. Café racers builds today are more similar to taking a Ford Pinto and putting hood pins, giant hood scoop, huge drag radials on the rear axle, and a Hearst shifter, but leaving the engine stock.

Or, in the best case scenario, it’s like taking an 80’s CRX and paying a shop $20k to put a period-correct unpainted 80’s bodykit and period-correct performance parts from the era. Then showing up at a local coffee shop with it, wearing 80’s neon green jumpsuit and Velcro sneakers and pretending you were fast and furious before there was "Fast and Furious" (even though you weren’t even of a legal age to drive when the CRX came out).

This has nothing to do with taking classic bikes (especially the iconic ones) and restoring them, or simply buying an older bike just to fix up ride. This is about people that pay too much money to play dress-up and live out someone else's antiquated dream instead of living their own.

11/4/2014 12:05:10 PM

man, the more i look, the less i can make up my mind...

BMW S1000R?
Aprilia Tuono V4R? (local dealer has TWO leftover '13s that they're ready to nearly give away, they say)
Triumph Street Triple R?
Ducati Hypermotard/Hyperstrada, or Streetfighter 848?
MV Agusta Brutale/Brutale Dragster?

or a few year old japanese 600cc reply-racer for half the price or less, even if it's uncomfortable, less versatile, and utterly ubiquitous?

I kinda like the idea of traction control on the new bikes. I stuffed a GSX-R 750 into the mountain at Deal's Gap one time with a relatively moderate lean angle/throttle application (I think maybe I got a tire on the painted line). I bet TC would have prevented it.

all of this is a moot point, of course, until i'm employed again, or at least have a definite job & start date lined up. Obviously I'll test ride them too, and that'll help, but I don't know if I could even decide then. I'm not sure I know what I want, let alone which one of those bikes would best satisfy it.

11/12/2014 8:38:07 PM

http://jalopnik.com/the-ten-weirdest-motorcycles-ever-made-1657844404

11/13/2014 7:39:28 PM

^^

Clearly, you should get the new Super Duke

Its 180HP of naked glory

It's a v-twin

It's German

It has traction control that can be turned off

And it's called Super Duke


A guy across the street from traded his Monster for one of these, and it looks even better in person

11/14/2014 4:26:12 PM

^makes solid points

11/14/2014 4:49:47 PM

Isn't the new super duke the first KTM to integrate a lot of new electronics?

11/14/2014 7:39:27 PM

If KTM made something halfway between the Duke 690 and the SuperDuke R...

11/14/2014 7:49:11 PM

Now you are just splitting heirs

11/16/2014 12:32:28 PM

Met up with another R1200R rider today. He took usdown 42 towards Pittsboro. Ton of fun! Had to cut the ride short on the way back since forcast unexpectedly changed to a drizzle. 2 Hours of riding, twas awesome.

11/16/2014 7:34:44 PM

Did you get to drag the cylinder heads?

11/17/2014 9:35:03 AM

I did when I was at VIR (well the Motech Crash Bars, not the heads themselves)

11/18/2014 1:26:36 PM

^^^ they made a duke 990 a few years back. similar power and weight to an rc51

11/18/2014 2:40:34 PM

but much less booty

11/18/2014 5:39:41 PM

Brutale Dragster 800.

11/18/2014 8:56:41 PM

i think its odd that a honda cbx is on that top ten list (weirdest motorcycles)

i loved mine; one of the best sounding engines ever

11/18/2014 9:33:20 PM

^^ weird choice of a name. With a name like that it should have an extended swingarm, rider forward position, and double the displacement. Probably a fairing, too. Unless they called it after the other drag, I.e. Lady dressed like a dude, in which case it makes perfect sense

11/18/2014 11:19:02 PM

yeah, it does a 200-series rear tire, which kinda threw me off, making me think the regular Brutale might be superior...but apparently it is very light/agile/aggressive in the handling department.

11/19/2014 12:36:19 AM

Early October, I took a dive on my Electra Glide going 15mph. Took a curve too fast turning left, locked the tire up slid, put the bike down, with a little road rash.

Left shoulder has a bit of inflammation still...but is still getting better it seems.
One day I didn't wear my jacket. I do usually ride in full gear. My steel toe boots did save my foot, as it had a nice big hole stopped by the metal.

Bike has a 2 inch scratch on the left hard bag, front and rear crash bars saved the bike. New kick stand, and adjustments costs $50 at the harley shop.

Ridden once since, but going to practice much more in parking lots, turning, and stopping.

11/25/2014 9:56:47 AM

buy a honda xr100/crf100 for like $600 and put some flat track tires on it. beat the shit out of that in a parking lot til you're backing it in and dragging knees (or inner foot super moto style).

you'll have a TON of fun and be a 10x better rider

11/26/2014 11:53:26 AM

Quote :

"buy a honda xr100/crf100 old schoolbus for like $600 and put some flat track tires handlebars on it. beat the shit out of that in a parking lot til you're backing it in and dragging knees (or inner foot super moto style). you'll have a TON of fun and be a 10x better rider"

Probably will be more transferrable to his Electra Glide

11/26/2014 1:24:42 PM

This bike has a low reserve of $4,500. Quality aftermarket parts here guys, there's is a lot of bike for the money. I'd buy it if I didn't have one already myself...

http://tinyurl.com/otha7vg

12/1/2014 9:28:48 PM

[Edited on January 20, 2015 at 12:27 AM. Reason : .]

1/20/2015 12:27:32 AM

Quote :

"buy a honda xr100/crf100 for like $600 and put some flat track tires on it. beat the shit out of that in a parking lot til you're backing it in and dragging knees (or inner foot super moto style). you'll have a TON of fun and be a 10x better rider"

Rode an XR80 and an XR100 for the first time this past weekend.

Holy jeez, they're loads of fun for only a few hundred bucks a pop.

1/20/2015 7:21:45 AM

It's officially hipster heaven with Ducati and even Husky are jumping on board of the retrowagon. Get your beard wax and your selvedge denim vest ready.

2/2/2015 3:45:58 AM