Hotshots
HOTSHOTS
Epiphany at Indy
I want to let everyone know what a great time we had at the Indianapolis MotoGP (see Race Watch, this issue). Having been to Daytona 11 times, including this year, and more than 100 other AMA roadraces, as well as dozens of auto events, I thought this would be another typical race weekend. Well, if they had held the race on the moon, I could not have been more wrong!
Thirty miles north of Indianapolis, electronic signs started telling race fans what exits to take. When we arrived, we saw vendors on the roadside everywhere. We bought tickets from one of them for, get this, face value!
The track workers were fantastic. We had a carry bag with three sets of raingear and sweatshirts, and I was sure when we got to the gate we’d have to take it back to the car. Instead, a lady took our tickets and said, “Welcome to the Brickyard,” then asked if we knew how to get to our seats! This sure wasn’t Daytona! When we were shown to our seats by an usher, we thought surely something must be wrong; racetracks don’t have nice employees. What’s the gimmick?
Once in our seats, we discovered that in addition to having a roof-which came in handy later-we also could see Rossi and Stoner’s pit garages, the starter’s stand, & the complete grid, the entire garage row and about a third of the track. What parts of the track we could not see, we were able to watch on big-screen TVs the size of drive-in theater screens.
Food? A Brickyard Burger was equal to about four McDonald’s burgers in size, and more like a Fuddruckers’ in taste and quality.
After morning warm-ups, we visited the infield vendor area, which was open, easy to get around in and had a lot of nice display areas. I particularly liked the Yamaha tent, with the new R1 and the VMax, and free visors for everyone.
During the 125cc Red Bull Rookies Cup, you could stand about four feet from the track on the infield and watch the bikes screaming bygreat viewing in the infield areas. By the way, the infield “kink,” where the bikes are really slow, was actually put there so that fans could take magazine-quality photos of all their favorite racers from about 20 feet away!
Leaving the track after the announcement was made that the 250cc race had been cancelled could not have been easier. From the time we left our seats, until the time we hit Highway 65 headed north to Chicago, it took, get this, 25 minutes! I guess that Indy has done this race thing a time or two in the past.
All in all, it was the best racing experience I’ve ever had. Indianapolis was great, the speedway is unbelievable, the organization of the event was the most professional that I have ever seen, the track workers were so nice it was spooky, and the vendors, both inside and outside the track, were not out to make a living from the sale of a single T-shirt.
Laguna Seca and Daytona Beacharea hotel staffs and vendors-as well as Daytona track personnel-all need to visit Indy and learn some fast lessons on how to treat their customers, because both the city and the Brickyard have set the standards so high that I’ve permanently crossed Laguna off my list of places to go for racing, and Daytona is in serious danger of making that list, as well.
So, to the city of Indianapolis, the Brickyard and the MotoGP organizers, thank you for making us feel like you appreciated us coming to your wonderful city to visit the greatest track I have ever been to for a day of fantastic racing. Mark Lewellen
Ozark, Missouri
Battlin’ Baggers
1Just finished reading the bagger shootout (“Battle of the Baggers,” CW, October). It moved me to compare my ride, a 10year-old Honda Valkyrie Tourer with the present offerings. I will attempt to follow the same format as used in your summary of each model:
Price (used, in 2002)..................................$7850
Weight (wet, courtesy of the local
grain elevator).........................................812 lb.
Wheelbase (by tape measure)..................67.5 in.
Seat height (same deal)............................27.5 in.
Fuel mileage (at legal speeds, hard
to do for 100 miles).......................39.7 mpg
0-60 mph (wife with stopwatch, honked horn when I hit 60,
probably not too accurate)..............4.8 sec.
1/4 mile (Thursday night test-n-tune at local
strip.....................12.68 sec. @ 104.22 mph
Horsepower (dyno
run at bike rally)..........96.7 hp @ 6200 rpm
Torque (same run).....94.7 ft.-lb. @ 4400 rpm
Top speed (indicated, one day when I got crazy on I-70 in western Kansas, may have done more, chickened out)......................125 mph
Just my opinion, but I think it’s a winner. I’ll never forgive Honda for discontinuing these fine bikes. I’ll keep it. Oh, and one more thing, if it ain’t got hard bags, it ain’t no bagger! John Lord
Auburn, Kansas
After a 350-mile ride on my Yamaha Roadliner, I arrived home, excited to see “Kings of the Road” headlined on your October cover.
But what the...? How in the world did you end up with a Road Star Silverado S stacked up against an 1800cc Suzuki Bou> levard, a Honda VTX, that giant Triumph and the rest? Sure it was the cheapest, but the Road Star was out of its class. Why not a Stratoliner? Paul Sachse
Lake Worth, Florida
Because Yamaha/Star has multiple bikes in the touring-cruiser class, we let the company decide which model would participate in the comparison. The Road Star Silverado S, with hard bags and new-for’08 fuel-injection, was their pick.
Nice article about the ride of the “Death Mongers M/C” across the great American Southwest. I found it a very enjoyable read, informative, humorous, wellwritten, a real pleasure. I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of praise lauded upon the Harley Road King. I know that Mr. Egan happens to be a long-time FLH fan, but it seems that pretty much everybody else was in agreement about this bike.
Stan Smith Shaker Heights, Ohio
As a Honda VTX 1800 rider for the last seven years, I wasn’t surprised to see that your “Battle of the Baggers” comparison test, as usual, had a Harley-Davidson bias showing through.
Let’s see, you wrote of the VTX: “exceptional fit and finish,” “all-rounder,” “uncannily smooth,” “effortlessly quick,” “spot-on fuel-injection,” “strong, linear acceleration,” “straight-line stability” and “several (editors) picked the Honda as the best bike overall, or as the bike they would be most likely to jump on for a transcontinental odyssey.”
I will not even go to the tale of the tape for horsepower, torque, 0-to-60 times, quarter-mile and top end. Give me a break, the Road King as your second-best choice? Get real! Bob Silliphant
Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada
Thank you for giving an unbiased opinion of these fine touring-cruisers. As I own a 2008 Road King, I found the article particularly interesting. So far I have 9000 miles on my RK, and found your descriptions accurate. Ron Busbea
Beebe, Arkansas
Honda VTX owners rejoice! The Gods have smiled! Our bikes have graduated from sounding “like an elephant farting under water,” (Paul Dean, “Seven for Sturgis,” CW, December ’04) to being uninspiring and blandly competent with no entertainment value. However, they do have exceptional fit and finish!
If you want aural entertainment, remove the muffler from your roto-tiller, strap a seat on that pup and hit your local freeway at rush hour. (Egan can use his snow-blower.) Myself, I will stick to my blandly competent yet refined motorcycle with its great straight-line stability and its long-range comfort!
Colby Payne Silverdale, Washington
So, the Triumph Rocket III Touring is the winning King of the Road, and despite being “too big and heavy,” it returned the second-best fuel mileage, 45 mpg, just 1 mpg behind the “sensiblesize” Moto Guzzi’s 46. Compared to the other (non-bagger) bikes reviewed in the October issue, the Rocket III even beat the Aprilia 750 Shiver’s 43 mpg and the Gold Wing’s 36 mpg. Triumph must be doing something right with this “battleship,” achieving 45 mpg from an 866pound, 2.3-liter bike. Greg Caparula Lancaster, California
Revenge of the Wee-Strom
I just finished reading “Battle of the (Big) Baggers” and I am wondering about our obsession with bigness in this country. Half the population is driving around in big SU Vs because they have become a status symbol, not because they need them. Now, monster cruisers for long-distance travel?
I started riding in 2001 just before I turned 52. It must have been a genetic defect that caused me to put it off so long, but better late than never, right?
Anyway, I now have the perfect motorcycle, a Suzuki V-Strom 650. For about $8000,1 have a full set of hard luggage, a centerstand and a gel seat. It is much more comfortable than a cruiser and doesn’t beat up my back. It has plenty of power and on my first two fill-ups, I have averaged about 60 mpg. And I don’t need a ground crew to back out of a parking space. Sometimes big is not necessary.
Bob Bixler Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Loved “Best Firsts” (CW, September, 2008). Now, how did the V-Strom 650 not make it in? I swear it’s the best bike people haven’t heard of; it gets so little press. Come on, show the Wee-Strom some love! (Yes, I own one, can you tell?)
Shawn Phillipps Chicago, Illinois
Where’s Roy’s?
I just have to know exactly where the Roy’s Café shot on pages 38-39 of the baggers shootout was taken. I have been on Route 66 a number of times for pleasure and picture-taking. On my next trip out I’d like to have the opportunity to duplicate that shot. Nice job on the magazine’s artistic blend with quality articles.
Clark Hooper Clearwater, Florida
Imagine my surprise when I opened my new issue of Cycle World and saw a twopage spread taken in front of the Roy’s sign in Amboy, California! I was stationed at the Marine base in Twentynine Palms periodically from 1988-92 and I remember driving through Amboy to get to Vegas, seeing signs advertising the entire town was for sale! So here it is 16 years later (August, 2008) and a friend from Hermosa Beach lets me take his 2006 Victory Hammer (I have an ’06 Kingpin) for a week while I’m in town. I knew that I had to go out to Amboy and take a picture of myself and the bike in front of the Roy’s sign.
I thought I had hydrated enough during the ride from > L.A. to the high desert, but I guess I hadn’t. On the ride back to Twentynine Palms from my photo shoot, I started feeling the effects of the heat and was lucky enough to make it to The Palms bar in Wonder Valley for some water before my condition became dangerous Of all of my motorcycle adventures, this one will always be one of my favorites! See the pic. If it makes it into the magazine, it will prove to all of my friends that I’m not quite as crazy as they think I am. Jason McGrath
Rochester, New York
Roy ’s, located along the National Trails Highway in Amboy, California, on old Route 66 in the eastern Mojave, was opened in 1938 and had its heyday in the 1950s as a bustling 24-hour café, motel, gas station and truck stop. It even had its own airstrip where spare parts for broken-down vehicles were flown in. When 1-40 went through to the north in 1972, the town, once home to 800 residents, went into decline. Not much more than a ghost town, its 690 acres were sold in 2005 for $425,000. The current owner has plans to revive Roy ’s, but when we stopped there on our bagger shootout, the only things for sale were gas, bottled water and T-shirts.
Whose helmet?
On pages 38-39 of the October issue, the rider is wearing a helmet that I cannot identify. Can you do so?
Dr. Michael B. Blankenship
Professor of Criminal Justice Boise State University, Boise, Idaho
What helmet is Associate Editor Mark Cernicky wearing in the “Death Mongers” article? I am a cruiser-tosportbike-to-cruiser convert and am trying to build back up my cruiser gear. The helmet hit me as a notseen-a-lot accessory.
Trying to stay out of the crowcf ya know.
Sgt. Jason Sibray
Lorton, Virginia
Cernicky’s one-off “Disaster” skid-lid, originally a 1950s Italian cop helmet, is the handiwork of his pal Roland Sands. Rumor has it that Sands may be working with a certain helmet-maker-the name, ahem, doesn't ring a bell right now-on an RSD line. □
