Category Archive

OK – this isn’t really going to tell you much about what the Kramer is like to ride and/or own, but I can’t help myself. I was on the fence for a while about what I would do with the Kramer from a cosmetic standpoint. That question answered itself when I was at Circuit of the Americas.

I did a separate post about my experience at Circuit of the Americas with Aprilia Racers Days but that was focused on the event, not my bike of choice. I highly recommend you check out the above post (and I also highly recommend that you join me at CotA next year), but here’s what I have to share about the …

My first bike was a 2008 Kawasaki Ninja 250, and while it was a pleasant enough way to get started in the world of motorcycling, it was also a sign of how depressing the 250cc sportbike market was in the US for years. Nowadays you can get all kinds of 250-400cc entry level sportbikes here, but throughout the 90s and …

Back when I was a much younger and better man, I used to ride Baja at least twice a year. Life has gotten in the way and the last time I was down there was six years ago with my buddy Spurgeon Dunbar from RevZilla – we rode a couple of BMW R1200GSes from Los Angeles down to Cabo on …

The Suzuki GSX-S1000GT+ has been on the market for almost a year now, but I haven’t had a reason to borrow one for a test until now. Vy and I are off to San Diego for the weekend and we’re heading down on Suzuki’s newest sport-tourer. You’ve likely already seen some reviews on this bike, but if there’s anything you’ve …

In a couple of weeks I’m finally going to the Barber Vintage Festival for the first time! One of the highlights of the weekend is Barber’s sold annual fundraiser – they call it Motorcycles by Moonlight and it’s on Friday, October 6th. No pressure, but that’s my birthday…so I hope you’ll be there!

On Wednesday the 20th, SPEED IS EXPENSIVE (a documentary about Philip Vincent and his legendary creations) will be premiering at the Laemmle Monica Film Center. I’ll be there – will you?

Now that the Kramer was in my life, it was finally time to use it! My first outing with it was a 2-day track event at Chuckwalla, a track that I’ve always found to be little-bike friendly. I had another trackday scheduled at Circuit of the Americas a month later so I had to make sure I broke in the …

Now that we’ve discussed the quirks, let’s get back to the good stuff!

I absolutely love my Tesi 3D, but I’m not going to pretend that the ownership experience has been perfect. Often times when I hear stories from people that spent a lot of money on a bike, it feels to me like they are trying to make the bike sound better than it is so that it doesn’t look like they …

My shakedown run was a success in that it found some weak spots that had to be fixed. The plan was to fix those problem spots and then do a little more testing/figure out how far I wanted to modify the bike, but the plan has changed and now it’s going up for sale. But don’t worry…I’ve already replaced it!

This one’s probably more for you East Coasters (where I’m currently posted up) – after 40 years of service, Roger Lyle of Motorcycle Xcitement is retiring and selling his road racing school/track day organization/pretty cool way to write off motorcycle expenses.

After years of scheduling conflicts, I’m finally going to the Barber Vintage Festival this October! More on that later…for now I wanted to make you aware of a track day that Nate Kern is hosting on 10/9, as I suspect it will be filling up soon.

UDPATE: Here’s my review! Last week I was in Boise, Idaho for the press launch of the new Yamaha Tracer 9 GT + (that’s a bit of a mouthful). I’ve had the pleasure of attending the launches for the last couple of generations of this bike, and one thing has been consistent: I have adored the combination of fun and …

I needed to establish a baseline of what my little future racebike was going to need, so I figured I should take it out for the usual Iconic Sunday Ride out to the Rock Store (roughly 60 miles). The morning started off wonderfully and things were glorious…until they weren’t.