Your Sport Touring Motorbike Fix
Waiting in the eye of a hurricane work week, on that day off that just screams “boss gonna needja”, a motorcycle dry bag sits idle. It’s hidden well enough to forget about, but with the right amount of adrenaline … you won’t.
In it lies everything necessary for a great motorcycle trip.
Morning arrives. The alarm goes off. Your smartphone gets itchin’ to spell out “Do Not Answer!” while some musAc version of Darth Vader’s theme bellows from it’s tin can speaker.
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It’s a bit more than that. A retractable motorcycle helmet lock recently stole my “KISS” (keep it simple, stupid) prize for some duration, offering enough cable length to secure my ATGATT riding jacket as well. Smaller than a bar of soap, the product I’m growing savvy to gets easily overlooked for all of the right reasons.
Years back, my first helmet cost me just shy of a hundred bucks. While today I’m not hemorrhaging disposable dollars for whatever Schuberth aims to rake, I do enjoy the quiet, comfortable protection offered by higher shelf brands like Shoei and Arai. With bigger price tags than entry-level noggin’ cradles, I prefer said investment not walk off in someone else’s hands.
That’s why I ordered something that can secure all of my riding gear to the bike at once. I figure it’s better to tick multiple boxes with one purchase where possible. Many go the “lock helmet to motorcycle seat” route (D-ring to mechanism). I’m now able to secure my riding attire using a motorcycle helmet lock that, well … wasn’t intended for motorcycle helmets.
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New and transitioning motorcyclists might ask themselves “which motorcycle type is best for me?” … a question that can both inspire and intimidate anyone in the market for a two-wheeled purchase. New riders are rarely familiar with what’s out there while seasoned enthusiasts collect a towering array of prospects to contend with. Many different types of motorcycles could be the right tool for the job but modern-marketing-word-salad has blurred the well defined lines of yesteryear.
A while back, we eased our staunch opinion on what constitutes a sport touring bike to include our ADV cousins. The overall point of that article is to explain a 50/50 split between ride and rider. That’s 50% of the genre stemming from a given bike’s ST designation (or lack thereof) and the remaining 50% falling on whoever’s at the helm (assertive, spirited riders).
To define motorcycle type in a more generalized, kingdom-inclusive fashion, it’s better that we combine that 50/50 math into a singular “bike/rider” figure before knocking it down a notch, let’s say to 49% of the total equation. The remaining 51% belongs to posture, or to throw more ten-dollar vocabulary into the mix … ERGONOMICALISMICATIONS. I mean, um (ahem) ergonomics.
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Not many riders “hope” they’ll get to ride their motorcycle in the rain. Well, that is of course unless your goal is to review motorcycle rain gear. So I guess in that regard, today is my lucky day.
It rained some yesterday. It’s raining BIG now. My typical impatience with riding opportunities got the gears turning, so I decided it was time I write about my one piece motorcycle rain suit.
Long distance motorcycle tours can be quite the pleasurable vacation and with that, remote locations become twisty destinations. When inclement weather fronts appear to be seeking us out, we need to know which motorcycle rain gear is up to the task. For this reason, we’re focused on a great one piece motorcycle rain suit, namely the Bilt Tornado series.
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When it comes to sport touring motorcycle boots, Tourmaster is the brand to buy. There. Now it’s said. There’s no reason to continue reading. I mean, dropping a statement like that about riding boots will surely convince riders anywhere to make the purchase, unless dedicated to some other brand (‘Sup, Sidi).
… but if we disengage from all things marketing and instead look at logical reasons to purchase any pair of motorcycle boots, the prerequisites for what makes them worth buying become more complex under the guise of sport touring.
For this reason, I’m focused on mid-shelf priced, top-shelf quality boots offered by Tourmaster. Why? Because motorcycle boots are consumable (not to be confused with “ingestible”).
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There’s a solid and reputable motorcycle training course for every rider mindset. As miles find us, however … prerogatives can change. Seasoned motorcyclists will often compliment such change with new outlets that better suit their learning needs.
We stress the value of track days throughout this website. Continued learning, an enormous key to safety no matter the pastime, helps keep our minds fine tuned. When instructor Jason Herheim (lead MSF RiderCoach for Madison, Wisconsin) informed us that he was building a public-pace motorcycle training course for the track setting, our curiosity was immediately piqued.
The kind of advanced motorcycle training Jason’s conjured isn’t race oriented. Instead, his curriculum further builds a rider’s skill set so they might ride more safely and with greater confidence at real world speeds. It also buffers student safety margins in a contained, concentration-friendly environment, which is where MotoVid’s track accessibility comes into play.
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Everything. Well, “Everything B” to be exact. That’s the title of my brother’s book.
He wrote it while scaling the highest peaks and lowest valleys of the paranoid schizophrenic, manic depressive bipolar landscape.
… and that disorder took him from me.
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A lot of great Missouri motorcycle rides connect with eachother just south of Farmington. Clearwater Conservation Area offers one unanimous favorite: Missouri SR-34. This thoroughfare flashes an insignia all the way from Garwood to Jackson in a most elegant sport touring manner.
The section of road between SR-21 and Piedmont is our focus. This constantly sweeping stretch of extra smooth tarmac is a core ingredient to our (methodically under-promoted) annual rally. Efforts to develop new loops in the region often include a go at this grippy, lean-friendly riding route.
It’s a defining outlet for riders whereby contractual handshakes between our tires and the pavement arrive in signwave form (satellite). Skill sets can quickly become overdrawn in these parts. Here I am up ahead on my Bandit, footage courtesy of Rodney Foster and his Sprint ST …
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Full disclosure, whenever I see a big ride on my calendar that’s more than five hours away, I prepare our three-chock trailer to do its duty. Illinois being mostly flat, it’s an easy way to dodge unnecessary miles on the odometer while packing a few otherwise scaled down favorites. Better tools, camping gear, maybe a guitar shaped inflatable pool … whatever the item, placing it safely and securely in our tow vehicle before hauling our prize ride(s) is nothing if not convenient.
But what about when we’re ’round townin’ it? Those days when our “runs well but nowhere near tour-ready” machine induces a grin, beckoning us to bake its engine to a dry cook via ten miles of moderate but entertaining speeds? In a polar winter or equatorial blaze, any chance of such a joyride stranding us could trigger panic attacks. Remember, though that we’re motorcyclists. If any one of my friends (or enemies) called me on the phone with chattering teeth asking for their bike to be rescued from the roadside, I’d remove every one of my flock from the garage, roll out my pull-behind and ask them where I was headed … if this were my only trailer.
The smallest of the bunch, front-wheel tow chocks are an easy stow even in the tiniest of trunks. While that hot hatch or all wheel drive crossover likely stipulates a warranty violation for anything heavier than two bicycles, others have certainly gotten away with more. In a pinch, these plug-in receiver tools have proven useful in getting bikes back to that cozy garage (or ditch, whatever).
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Before writing for this website, I’ll sometimes race off to a remote location in an effort to become more inspired. Ten miles of twisties might become twenty, then forty, eighty, maybe a full ton of warm-up curve carving to get my head goin’. The result is always the same: fatigued in some indie cafe, an espresso drink in my hand, surfing social media while paying bills.
Why did I come here again? Eh, whatever.
A laptop can prove pretty handy while on any motorcycle trip but good tech doesn’t come cheap … or does it? There are various deal promotions on the web listing the “best laptops under 500” among others. I say that’s still too much money for something I’ll regularly overhand into my hard luggage before shaking it rigorously for as many as three hundred miles per day, occasionally punctuated with an assault on Deals Gap.
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