The General Motorbikers Discussion Thread

Crazyjeeper said:
You could also get something so heavy four guys are unable to lift it. GL1500s should be in your price range :p
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This also works, I don't remember hearing about the "men in a van" scheme ever successfully making off with a big tourer through the "toss it in the back and run" technique. Others such as picking the lock or pretending to be a tow operator worked out better for those. :p Though that was very uncommon as it required more investment and a lot more risk on the part of the thief or thieves, so it wasn't the common MO in the area.
 
Blind_Io said:
Or buy a V-Strom, no one steals V-Stroms.
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QFT

I remember hearing not too long ago that the number of V-stroms stolen in the U.S. was zero.

I don't think it's gone up much since.

EDIT: found one
 
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My guess is it was stolen not because it was a motorcycle but because it was something belonging to someone else that would make a splash in the nearby river, that's all. They'll find it when they dredge it up in a decade or so.
 
Spectre said:
Dead middle of the winter is the classic time to get the best deal, i.e., right before Christmas when people are looking to get money for gifts - at least here in the US. Another good time is when the credit card bills from the holiday season roll around. Remember, the higher the snow, the better the deals on a bike. Buying it just before the riding season starts is not a good idea because all the fair-weather types are thinking of getting a bike for the upcoming season. End of the season not so much too as people are thinking they'll just mothball it and come back to it in the spring.

Show up with a truck/van and some cash in the middle of the seemingly endless winter when the owner's despairing of ever seeing spring and has forgotten what riding's like can net some good deals - see how CrazyJeeper and I got him a steal of a deal on his mini-Interceptor.
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Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, especially because people can get desperate for money and have absolutely no visibility on riding again thanks to the seemingly endless winter. But, wouldn't a problem be a limited supply? I mean people might almost completely forget that they own a bike and that they might want to sell it. That problem probably will be more pronounced over here, where arguably the whole second hand market is smaller as it is a country with only 10 mil people. One problem might be that I have my eyes on a Monster 796, which is a very new bike, only one second hand 796 is currently for sale in the entire country :(. I'll probably have to make a trip to Italy during the winter to get a good deal :D.

That being said, I'll definitely start gearing up during the winter, get myself a new jacket, pants, gloves and boots with protection. I don't have any of that for my scooter, besides a full racing helmet from my go-kart racing days.
 
pepitko said:
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense, especially because people can get desperate for money and have absolutely no visibility on riding again thanks to the seemingly endless winter. But, wouldn't a problem be a limited supply? I mean people might almost completely forget that they own a bike and that they might want to sell it. That problem probably will be more pronounced over here, where arguably the whole second hand market is smaller as it is a country with only 10 mil people. One problem might be that I have my eyes on a Monster 796, which is a very new bike, only one second hand 796 is currently for sale in the entire country :(. I'll probably have to make a trip to Italy during the winter to get a good deal :D.

That being said, I'll definitely start gearing up during the winter, get myself a new jacket, pants, gloves and boots with protection. I don't have any of that for my scooter, besides a full racing helmet from my go-kart racing days.
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No, when people get desperate for money they'll dig the bikes out of the garage. Alternately, the wife will bug them about the 'old bike in the garage' that 'you're never going to ride again' about Christmas time and how 'if you sell it we can get better presents for the kids'. The supply decreases during the winter, but not too badly and the prices drop precipitously - at least in the US. When I was looking around for my 919, there was some guy up in Michigan selling his for $1500 in the middle of their winter and there was nothing wrong with it, for example.
 
That depends where you are. Up here in the snow belt (something almost completely alien to Texas that usually results in the gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands) the supply of bikes nearly dries up over the long winter. Most people know that the prices go up in the spring so they let the bike winter in the garage until the weather forecast calls for warm sunny days, then they drag it out, wash it off and list it for sale. Fall is another time you get an influx of bikes to the market as people sell it at the end of the season with plans to upgrade in the spring.

When bikes hit the market is very much dependent upon where you are. In the Bay Area there was no lull to sales, but there was a glut of wrecked sports bikes in the spring as squids either bought new bikes and hit sand and gravel-covered roads or pulled their bikes out after the rainy season without doing any maintenance checks first.
 
Yeah, snow is so completely alien to Texas that it comes annually. Wait, what?

However, strong cold fronts known as "Blue Northers" sometimes pass through the Dallas region, plummeting nightly lows below 25 ?F (?4 ?C) for up to a few days at a time and keeping daytime highs in a struggle to surpass 40 ?F (4 ?C). Snow accumulation is usually seen in the city at least once every winter, and snowfall generally occurs 2?3 days out of the year for an annual average of 2.5 inches (6.4 cm). Some areas in the region, however, receive more than that, while other areas receive negligible snowfall or none at all.[23] A couple of times each winter in Dallas, warm and humid air from the south will override cold, dry air, resulting in freezing rain or ice and causing disruptions in the city if the roads and highways become slick.
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While I'm not going to pretend that we get winter on the scale of Snowtah as that would be ridiculous, it's not exactly alien to Texas. It gets colder in the Panhandle of Texas than in some parts of Michigan during the winter, for example.

Aside from the snow days, though, we pretty much have year-round riding that doesn't involve the use of snowmobiles, unlike Snowtah. :p
 
Woah! Look out! Texas winter is here with a whopping 2 days and 2 whole inches of snow!

Call me when you measure it in months and feet. On average we get over 60 inches of snow a year and that's down at the airport, not on the ski slopes. Up there you can see between 150 inches and 300 inches depending on year and the resort.

Sorry Spectre, but on this one you are just embarrassing yourself with the "Texas > * " schtick.
 
Uh, no, not using the Texas > * thing here, especially as you started it. Just pointing out that snow isn't a 'completely alien' event for Texas, as it clearly isn't. Do we get buried in snow? No. But it isn't like Hawaii or Florida where the kids can graduate from high school having never seen snow in their lives, either.

However, as I said, the fact that we get so much less snow here in Texas (as well as the rest of the Old South) does mean we have a nearly year-round riding season for those willing to tolerate the cold, so think about that as you shovel out your driveway for the umpteenth time this December. :evil:

Edit: The visiting Canadian says that neither you nor I know what a real winter is, BTW.
 
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Yeah, I've had a year round riding season back when I lived in the Bay Area. On the down side that part of the state has no seasons. Every day just the same old gray fog, the only thing that changes is how long it lasts. In the "summer" it burns off around breakfast, in the "winter" maybe sometime around 3 PM or so.

While it might be technically possible to ride year round, I would much rather have the cold than the 110+ degree temperatures because I can't ride in that weather anyway. Also, winter here means snow, and snow tends to keep the state from burning down as often.

I've driven through a good chunk of Texas, including the so-called "hill country" and I have yet to find a road there that is worth riding. I like being able to go carve up any of a hundred canyons within an hour of my house too much to move somewhere almost completely flat just so I can sweat my ballsack off for most the year.
 
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Snow doesn't slow New Englanders down either. :p :mrgreen:

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Dammit, now I am looking online at the BMW 1150 GS again.
 
Think I found something worth selling my Zuma 125 for.
madass125-011.jpg

The German-built (correction: German engineered, built in China) Sachs MadAss 125. Real four-speed transmission with clutch is what sells me. Might sell my Zuma this fall, and then pick up one of these over the winter to start riding next spring.

God mode begins at 30 seconds in.
 
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Nissan ad show CGI Juke crashing into motorcycles.

Nissan ad show CGI Juke crashing into motorcycles.

http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/news/nissan-responds-juke-commercial-controversy/

Apparently Nissan's mail server caught fire from all the hate mail and the ad was pulled. Still it leaves me wondering what the fuck they were thinking in the first place?

Fortunately, someone saved the ad and re-uploaded it for your viewing displeasure.


After an outpouring of criticism of its Nissan Juke commercial, it looks like someone at the Japanese company has yanked its videos of the motorcycle-eating CUV from the internet. With the videos on YouTube and Vimeo now set to ?private? and requiring a password to watch, it would seem that Nissan wisely doesn?t want you to see one of its latest promotions of the Juke, where a computer animated version of the Nissan Juke turns the tables on the ?predatory? motorcycles, and hunts them down by running-over the motorcyclists. The pi?ce de r?sistance to this motorcyclist massacre is that the Juke?s motorcycle-inspired center console is in fact a trophy from one of the CUV?s many kills from the video. We seriously couldn?t make this up if we tried, and yet that very storyboard somehow made its way through an ad agency pitch.

Getting a proper roasting here at Asphalt & Rubber, we can only imagine that the frustration vented by motorcyclists in our comments showed a glimpse into the emails that Nissan recieved from the advertisement. Luckily one of our readers here at A&R shared with us the response they got from Nissan Canada, the branch responsible for the online Nissan Juke campaign in question. The reply confirms that the videos are in the process of being removed, though we?re not sure the duration of the campaign, nor its ?super-natural? fell has much relevancy to the situation, and it certainly does not ease the fact that Nissan is showing an automobile maliciously run-over motorcyclists.

Considering that many of the members of the motorcycle community can share a common story about how a negligent or road-raged driver has nearly run them of the road (or worse, succeeded in that endeavor), we stand behind our position that Nissan probably could have picked a better way to make references to motorcycling-inspired design elements than what the company produced in this ?trophy? storyline. A copy Nissan Canada?s response, with redacted names, is after the jump.

Dear ***********:
Thank you for comments regarding the advertising clip for the Nissan JUKE you recently viewed on ?YouTube?.
The advert you have made reference to in your recent email has been run by Nissan in Canada for the past 12 months as part of a fantasy-inspired promotional campaign.

We at Nissan Canada wish to advise you that the advertising campaign featuring fantasy-inspired digital videos was created exclusively for online audiences, to showcase the unique design and performance of the Nissan Juke, including the motorcycle-inspired design elements of the car.

The clips were purposefully created in a supernatural setting so as not to draw on the reality of reckless driving and its consequences, which Nissan would in no way wish to promote.

Please accept my apologies on behalf of Nissan for any distress that this advertising campaign may have caused you. I can confirm that the advert is being removed by Nissan Canada from its ?YouTube Channel? .

We appreciate you taking time to get in touch with us to share your concerns, and would like to assure you of our commitment to road safety for both drivers of our vehicles, and other road users and that Nissan do not condone or promote carless driving under any circumstances.

Sincerely yours,
*****************
Consumer Relations Representative
Nissan Canada Inc.
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shad_68 said:
Sorry to disappoint, but those are built in China.
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I'll have to look into this, my understanding was that the MadAss was Sachs-engineered and built. Time to do some more research.

Edit: Correct, engineered by Sachs and built in China. However, their popularity here and great reviews does regain some enthusiasm.
 
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Don't do it... They suck... keep the zuma. Or hell, I'll but a lifan 140cc and give you my passport for the zuma..LOL
 
zookiemike said:
Don't do it... They suck... keep the zuma. Or hell, I'll but a lifan 140cc and give you my passport for the zuma..LOL
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What have you seen happen with them? Not trying to argue your opinion, but rather acquire knowledge.

My primary purpose of buying the bike would be because I like the idea of scooter gas mileage and lightness with a manual transmission. Something like one of the older "Honda Trail" machines.
 
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