p6x

The perfect annular view was only possible from San Antonio TX.... The photo below shows the sun rays shadowed by the moon as they reflect on the ground. Really amazing!

In all fairness, I don't think any of the newer model motorcycles can beat the feeling of riding an older one. Hence, the reason why some manufacturers are producing modern motorcycles based on the older looking ones. The Kawasaki 900 being one example. IMHO, the 1200 Stelvio has more appeal than the V85TT...

This is the second time that I read about the heated grips not being "hot enough" even on the higher setting. I would probably not be able to judge since I have never had a motorcycle with heated grips. Mind you, here in Texas, they are not completely necessary, save for the few days when we have below 0/32 degrees, and not even every year. To me, the windscreen is almost essential because of the gusty winds you often find in west Texas. While you can wear earplugs to alleviate the noise, depending on wind direction, it may be physically tiring on the neck muscles. I know that being able to tuck myself behind the Le Mans fairing really alleviate the problem. I have now seen many Stelvio with the stock screen replaced by a California Scientific, which offers a better protection for those of us taller.

These "junk fees" are not usually seen on car sales. It is a way for companies to hide the true cost of their services. I am sure you have heard about the so-called "resort" fee that hotels are charging. It initiated in Las Vegas, but has now spread to many other hotels. Basically, if you are looking at booking a room, you will be presented with a room price, but at check out time, after you have spent time to compile the compulsory information they now want you to enter, then, and only then, they show you the additional fees. It makes it hard for you to be able to make an educated choice, because they don't tell you what the final cost will be until the very last moment in the transaction. They are very creative with the labeling of these fees; in Las Vegas, the "resort fee" includes access to the hotel amenities, even if you are not using them or if they should be included in the room price. Then the convenience fees, handling fees such as when you pay for parking in Houston, using your phone. Paying with your phone incurs a "convenience" fee, even if the Parking company does not offer any other way to pay so you have no choice. Anyway, the worse are the "tips" which have completely gotten out of control since "SQUARE" has replaced the cash registers.

Thank god, motorcycles will never be able to reach the same level of nonsense as cars!!!! Although I heard that BMW has abandoned the accessories that are subscription activated, such as the heated seats, I think many cars have features that require monthly installments to become available. The feeding frenzy has no limit. That and the junk"fees" everywhere. I don't know if you have them in Europe, I don't think you do, or if you have, not as much as here.

My V11 Le Mans is also "red". Not certain it is 10% faster than non red ones????

I really like the livrée of this V85 TT; possibly the next best thing to a 1200 Stelvio; what I don't get, is why it can't be had in the new "Travel" version which is exclusively sold in "grey"? I suppose you can purchase the accessories separately.

Something came to mind.... Adult movies were soft named "X" movies to avoid making it to obvious. This theater specialized in "X" films. But in Amsterdam the "X" zone was named the "red" district. Probably because of the way the windows were red lit. So the X almost covers everything. My "sobriquet", P6x also has an "X" since my last name is difficult to pronounce I guess...

The "X" branding seems to be on the rise nowadays... Ducati DesertX, Moto Morini X-cape, Honda had already used the X before in many of their models such as XL, Yamaha with XT, we also have X pro motorcycles. I don't get it; what does X means in marketing recently? (not talking about the social media formerly named Twitter, not talking about replacing the "X" sound such as Xite for "Exciting", but the X moniker in model names that feels like a new norm.

True! The Griso est "grisante!"

Anyone else noticed that with Marquez move to Gresini Ducati, the best and most notorious riders of the modern MotoGP era will have ridden on a Ducati? Casey Stoner, Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and now Marc Marquez.... The corollary is true too: Honda: Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez, Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo.... When it comes to win a world title on two different brands, then only two: Rossi and Stoner. So maybe Marc Marquez will join them in 2024.

This is soon going to become a necessity if Dorna wants to keep the show going. It seems to me the traditional MotoGP followers are guys who were born a long time ago. They can probably tank Marquez for that unexpected move to Ducati in 2024. It is certain that it is going to bring a renewed attention. From what I saw, the "new" countries have a much younger public. I am watching the 2023 World Rugby Championship, and the crowds are young and enthusiast from all over the world.

Well, if we are going to talk about it, I started to work in the oilfield in 1980. Back then, there were no easy way to have personal communications from offshore or onshore rigs; if you were in between jobs at the base, international phone calls were cost prohibitive, even in Europe. So we wrote; whoever was going on days off would mail letters received from strangers. That was the unwritten rule. So you'd have your family receiving letters mailed from around the world. In some countries, the number of consecutive days you could spend on a given offshore installation were limited. However, my company had found a loop hole. You would do your legal time on rig A, then they would switch you to rig B, and because it was a different installation, the day counter would be reset to zero; and so on and so forth. But when you work 12 hours a day, every day, you do not have time to miss anything. Sony had just introduced the Betamax system. The first offshore rig where I did three months nonstop received two new films per month... writing was a better way to satisfy your angst if you had any. VR46, MM93 never really had to leave their respective forgiving environment when they were grinding their teeth in their own national championships. It is a plus. There is also the financial part of it. Unless you have a deep pocketed sponsor to support you when you are abroad, or come from a wealthy family such as Tito Rabat, you start at a disadvantage. But the new generations seem to be less resilient than we were. Once I had moved on from being a grunt, running the show, we started to have a lot of defections. Guys that simply could not stay away and breaking down on their first jobs; sometimes, a family emergency would make you feel helpless as you would be stuck miles away from home with no means to get back fast. It happened to me three times. I know how it feels to receive an emergency message while in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes, perfect strangers would help you beyond what you even thought could be possible. But you could never count on it. As Rudyard Kipling put it: you had to be a man. In any case, the newer generations do not want, do not need to make the sacrifices that older ones had to. Both my grand-father and father were drafted. There was no choice; you had to go and leave everything behind with no clear idea if and when you would return. I expect that we are probably going to see racers coming from Thailand, India, Malaysia; countries with more motivation perhaps? Dorna seems to be wanting to diversify as much as possible as it is clear that only two nations dominate the Motorcycle GP rosters at present, and there is possibly some lassitude there.

The major issue to get a US competitive pilot in MotoGP starts with the need to move to Europe to learn the tracks, which already put them at a disadvantage. Both Beaubier and Petrucci described the difficulty to live away from home and family. Therefore, until a young US talent does what Casey Stoner did in his time, basically transferring to Europe, I don't think we will see anybody doing a Hayden anytime soon. Unless someone joins VR46 rider academy, which still implies moving to Italy.

Dorna is only watching their bottom line, and the return on investment; since the introduction of the short Saturday's races, the audience has grown 20%, according to GPMag, a French media that is one of the few that has obtained Dorna's official accreditation. As for the 2015 feud between MM and VR, I agree with you on the principle while understanding that VR46 made the mistake of giving the only factual evidence to be penalized by kicking. If he had not, then Marquez's poor sportsmanship would have come under review, maybe. Let us always remember that Dorna's top management is Spanish.

Details are trickling in about Marquez' decision to leave Honda; First, Repsol will continue to fulfill their contract with Honda until it expires at the end of the 2024 season. Second, and that is probably what may affect Marc Marquez the most as he may not be able to keep his all time crew chief Santi Hernandez with him at his next post. This needs to be confirmed though, as I am sure Marc is trying hard to get the best support he can. Same goes for most of his actual team. This is said to be coming from Ducati's top management. They know that Marc's move to Gresini with a one year contract is only a stopgap measure. The rumor being that his final destination will probably happen in 2025, at KTM. Thus, Ducati does not want to educate anyone around Marc that will only be at Gresini for an interim job. Speaking of KTM, decision came, and Pol Espargaro will leave his GasGas KTM to Pedro Acosta in 2024, and be demoted to wild cards and substitute in case of main pilot injury. Some pundits looking at 2025 are seeing KTM Factory team with Brad Binder and Marc Marquez as it is expected that Jack Miller will possibly retire. Anyway, we have still not read any official announcement from Ducati Gresini so far. Probably because of the Marquez entourage situation. Jorge Lorenzo said that Marc will be competitive to win the World Champion title in 2024 without a doubt. Considering that Marc is driven by his VR46 obsession, I would say that I would not be surprised if he did, even considering the quality of the other pilots. Last but not least, remains for Honda to find a suitable replacement to Marc Marquez. Zarco being the de facto choice, but they are looking around as Fabio DiGiannantonio could easily move to Zarco's spot in LCR if Zarco was to be upgraded to factory team.

My last time at a motorcycle expo was in 2011... My experience was very positive, even if some of the motorcycles were not accessible to the public. But the vast majority of them were. Today, all the technical data are available on the Internet, so going to a show is to only get the possibility to see the bikes from close and personal. Here in Houston, the palette of motorcycles on display at dealerships is not as complete as what you get in major cities in Europe. Also, I am interested in all the accessories and riding gear from the companies that you seldom hear about. EICMA is one of the major shows, and you get the possibility to have all the eggs in the same basket. Some of the bikes are displayed in special liveries and with additional accessories. A lot of the people around the bikes are "extras", with hand outs and long hair and short skirts and smiling. I don't remember any poseurs. But since I will be in Paris, I will have access to a lot of different motorcycles anyway.

Anyone going? I am going to be in France during EICMA, I could take a fast train but I am not completely convinced I should. With all the YouTube videos, it is almost not worth the time. We can expect to see the new Moto Guzzi Stelvio and possibly some new variations of the V100?

I do remember the old one, when I was doing land jobs in Nigeria. It had a tractor kind of diesel engine, max speed 70 or 80 km/h, no air conditioning, no power steering... after a day of driving in the bush during the rainy season, you had forearms like Schwarzy, and a back side full of blisters. But they were virtually indestructible and very reliable. Then Toyota came up with the Land Cruiser.

Land Rover had a Defender if I remember well.... so perhaps....

Well, not only Moto Guzzi.... We also have the Ducasu KD400 https://www.moto.it/news/ducasu-dk400-dalla-cina-senza-vergogna.html

Marc will obviously face some fierce competition; I don't know who is going to win this year's championship, but it is pretty much going to be a Ducati. Bagnaia, Martin, Bezzecchi, Bastianini are still going to be around next year. Not withstanding Luca Marini, Alex Marquez and of course Morbidelli joining the pack too. Difficult to guess what is going to happen. I would have preferred Marc to move to KTM rather than Ducati. Maybe the confirmed Marquez move will help KTM to add one more team in 2024, something Dorna has so far denied them to do.

Yes. That Alex did pretty well on the Ducati straight out of Honda is a clear indication of the expected Marc potential on that Ducati.

There are talks about Miguel Oliveira moving to the HRC spot left free; Zarco is the obvious choice with Iker Lecuona substituting him at LCR. Now, remember that Fabio DiGiannantonio is also available. How will Marc Marquez do? remember that each and every HRC RSV were developed around Marc Marquez preferences; not me saying it, but Dani Pedrosa after he left the HRC. Obviously, the Ducati is more "one size fits all". Given Marquez natural talent, I have no doubt he will be up there with the best. In any case, Marc's motivation is no secret. He wants to win at least one more world champion title to equal Rossi's. What we don't know, is who is leaving Honda to relocate with Marc... the Marquez' team is a tight knit group for whom Marc obtained top salaries at Honda. Those people will not get the same money at a private team. I have another question; Repsol main HRC sponsor is the national Spanish oil and gas company. Are they going to stay at Honda, or leave with Marc?

It is now official; The HRC has announced that Marc Marquez will be leaving at the end of the 2023 season. Remains now to get Ducati and Gresini's declaration confirming his arrival for 2024. This finally ends the rumors that have been going on for the last few months. Now there are many more new gossip in the making: Honda may have contacted Maverick Viñales to replace Marc Marquez at the HRC, when Maverick is still under contract with Aprilia. To put some more spices, some are also seeing Quartararo leaving Yamaha to replace Maverick, if..... Let's see what happens next. Jake Gagné will come to MotoGP?