motorcycles, technology, music, business

This week, my family and I went to Southern California for Christmas and one of my gifts was a day of riding a rented Triumph Daytona 675 motorcycle.

We rented the 2009 Triumph Daytona 675 (Red) from Racy Rentals and after a brief signing of documents and go over of the bike we were off. With my step-dad on his BMW F800GS and I on the Triumph Daytona 675 we headed east from Melrose Ave to Highway 2.

I took it easy on the first third of the Angeles Crest Highway (ACH) to get used to the bike and make sure the tires were warm. After that I started pushing (while staying within my and the bike’s limits). It was a lot of fun and man can that bike handle a corner. It has enough power high up in the rev range that caused me to really hold on because it slid me back in the seat.

I found these roads and this bike allowed me to focus on my weak points because the bike does what you expect it to 99% of the time. I discovered that I was much more comfortable turning right than left. Since I had just watched Twist of the Wrist II, I was armed with enough knowledge to make me dangerous. After paying attention to this I realized two things: I wasn’t locking in my lower body on left turns, like I do on right turns, and I was pulling with my right hand instead of pushing with my left to turn left.

Locking in my lower body made the greatest difference but focusing on both really improved my comfort and consistency on both left and right hand turns.

The ACH is a great mix of technical and fast paced turns. We went all the way to the closure of the road at the Highway 39 junction after 4 miles of snow and ice on the road. On the way down we took the Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Road which was a very fast newly paved road which would be perfect for a liter bike.

We crossed over on the Angeles Forest Highway back to the ACH. We then made our way to Highway 39 which was the most technical of them all, especially at the top. An unfortunate miscommunication between me and my riding buddy caused us to miss out on some more roads but that would have sent me over the 200 mile limit anyway.

So back down the 39 we went and back to Racy Rentals with only 3 miles to spare on the 200 mile limit.

If any thing outside of my family makes me want to move back to California its California’s awesome motorcycle roads that are the best in the country.

Image Gallery:

YouTube Video from my iPhone:

Google Map Route:

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YouTube Video PLAYLIST from my step-dad:

I am a member of the Boston Sport Bike Meetup.com Group. I have only been able to go on two rides so far but they have both been fun.

I have been “planning” on doing a New Hampshire trip on my own this summer. I even have the route all mapped out and loaded in my GPS. But I wasn’t getting out the door. I was unsure of whether to do it in one day or two and I wasn’t sure how much money it would cost and so on. It would have also been my longest ride to date and I may have been intimidated by the miles in my route.

One day I see a scheduled meetup to do a slightly shorter version of my planned trip. I decided that since I wasn’t able to motivate myself to go on my own, I would make myself go on this ride.

We met in the morning, north of the city. It took a bit of getting used to for me to adjust my timing to allow for many riders, up to 15 at one point. I normally ride solo, and as we all know traveling in groups can be a bit of a hurry up and wait situation. There was a bit more futzing around than I would have liked and lunch was much longer than I would have liked but I enjoyed riding with the group and therefore the slight inconveniences were worth it.

I used my Garmin 60CSx to map my route. At Lincoln, NH several of us decided to head home while the rest continued on a bit more.

My Route:

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For a graphic showing the approximate speed and elevation of the ride go to me Garmin Connect activity page.

The Kancamagus is a lot of fun. It is almost as good as so many roads in Northern California. If it weren’t for the cars it would be a fantastic road. I put together a shorter video of some of the twisties. Recorded using a U-bolt camera mount and a Flip Mino. The bike you see most of is Tim’s Ducati 848. I, of course, am on my 2006 Yamaha FZ1.

I hope to get up there on another ride this summer. Hopefully following the route I have mapped out. I would be more than happy to do a smaller group ride of maybe 4 to 6 people. It seams that the best size for motorcycle trips is also the best size for project teams.

Thanks for reading and happy riding.

I’ve been thinking about why Harley-Davidson had a significant negative Net Income for the year of 2009. My thinking led me to look at the number of models that H-D has. They seem to have very few engines and very many models per engine. This seemed like a slow moving and high cost product strategy.

From that initial idea I decided to look at the number of models offered by the various motorcycle brands. Since H-D is a cruiser only company I tried to break up the motorcycle market into ‘cruiser’ and non-cruiser or ‘sport’. I took the number of families the company groups its bikes into, plus the number of different engines it offers, plus the total number of models it touts. The families are the least important of the three, since families are largely a marketing decision and therefore slightly arbitrary.

What I was left with was a general idea of product complexity per brand.

As I expected H-D is the most complex of the cruiser brands, yet I was surprised to see Star so close behind. The problem with the complexity of H-D products is the narrow band of its appeal. Star is very complex as well, however, Yamaha Motors, Star’s parent company, is a much more diversified company than H-D, especially after the closing of Buell. If large displacement cruisers fall out of favor, as they did in 2009, H-D is really far up the creek without a paddle and with a hole in their boat.
Victory, H-D’s main competitor, is much more focused in it’s product offering. Indian is a competitor but not a strong one due to their market position, however, we can see their ultra-focused product line: One family, one engine, seven models.

Complexity in the ‘sport’ market, as it is here defined, is less troublesome since it includes many different riding styles and applications. As I have defined it, the ‘sport’ market includes any two wheeled vehicle that is not a cruiser/retro style bike. This includes, super-sport, sport, touring, motocross, scooters, and so on. Since there are many sub-markets to the sport market risk is spread out over many different types of consumers.

I started this idea thinking about H-D, so that is how I will end it as well. H-D is introducing too many models that are very similar. I suggest cutting out several models. For example the Nightster and the Forty-Eight are so similar, why not have a base model of something similar to the NIghtster then having customers opt in to having it modified to the Forty-Eight.

Since, in general, H-D owners are so quick to customize their rides, the strategy I am explaining is a hybrid of what already takes place. Currently, consumers purchase an H-D then use after market parts to make it “their own”. This strategy would be similar only there would be fewer base models to choose from initially, yet with a few changes of parts, performed locally at the dealer, the consumer can have the base model modified to one of several base+ models.

This won’t be an easy transition for the company nor for the public, however, with such a high level of complexity H-D stand to have drastic lows like it did in 2009. By example, producing a Nightster plus some Forty-Eight parts, tank, mirror…., is a lot cheaper than producing and stocking inventory of both the Nightster and the Forty-Eight.

I wish Harley-Davidson then best of luck in coming years. With proper leadership the company should be fine.

Thanks for reading and happy riding.

I really like this GSX-R inspired paint scheme.

I didn’t have my camera crew (my wife) with me so the only picture I got was one on my iPhone.

My helmet goes so well with the paint scheme they should have just given me the bike.

Conclusion: The K1300S is an awesome bike if you can afford it and want to be pampered with electronic gadgetry.