The motorbike thread, because who wants to talk about cars?
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I know there are at least a couple of other motorcyclists on here, and arguments about manual vs automatic cars get boring, so lets talk about the king of motorised transport.
My current bike is a Kawasaki ZZR600. It's quite a step up from the ER5 I had before, but after 4 months of commuting I'm getting the hang of it. Here are some pictures I took outside work.
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Automatic or manual motorcycles?
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I actually thought of that one first, but thought that a continuous excavator might not be the best fit for this group, so I went with the NASA crawler for more geek cred. ;)
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They're each cool in their own ways.
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Replying to myself: I'm hoping for fully automatic motorcycles
http://youtu.be/uWLjgs2CEyE?t=1m42s
Filed under: wow those cars are terrible
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My first motorcycle was some no-name 125cc Chinese dirt bike that was impossible to find parts for, and by the end of its life was literally held together by epoxy and bailing wire. I wish I'd taken pictures of the airbox, it was designed such that the air intake did NOT pull air through the air filter! I sold this bike for $20 to some random woman who knocked on our door wondering about the dirt bike out back that never moved anymore.
Then I got a 2009 Honda CRF230L. Decent bike in town, topped out around 60 mph on a good day so could be used for limited highway travel. Then I had an exhaust stud break off, tried to fix it myself, broke it more, tried to fix that myself, broke it more, and so on, until finally I had a shop fix everything for me which cost $1400! And then a few weeks later it was stolen.
But I used the insurance money to buy a 2014 Honda CRF250L. Now it's water-cooled and fuel-injected and has almost 10 HP more than the 230, but it's also 100 pounds heavier. The 230 was a dirt bike that could ride in the street, this is a street bike that can go off-road. It tops out around 70 mph, but I once hit 83 on a mountain interstate. Horrible horrible gas mileage (for a motorcycle, but still better than my pickup) at highway speeds but it has enough power to do it.
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continuous excavator might not be the best fit for this group, so I went with the NASA crawler for more geek cred
I could beat either of them in a drag raceAutomatic or manual motorcycles?
Everyone agrees automatics are a bit shit. They look like this (my first bike)
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Everyone agrees automatics are a bit shit.
I've heard great things about Honda's new dual-clutch automatics. Never used one myself though.
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Everyone agrees automatics are a bit shit. They look like this (my first bike)
Not all automatic bikes are like that. The Goldwing has an auto, along with quite a few others.
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You can also get Goldwings with stereo systems and airbags. Honda's approach with that bike is to see just how close they can get to a car without actually adding the extra wheels
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My first motorcycle was some no-name 125cc Chinese dirt bike
My first bike, IIRC, was a XR80 when I was a wee little fella.
Something like that. From there I moved on to an XR125, then an RM125, RM250. All fun dirt bikes. All of them destroyed my knees and back to various degrees. I mostly got out of bikes when I got my driver's license. I occasionally rode other's bikes, but never had my own. I knew I would injure myself pretty badly. ;)
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I can't quite place that. Looks a bit like a Blackbird?
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Honda's approach with that bike is to see just how close they can get to a car without actually adding the extra wheels
Hell, at this point all they need is a roof and it would be a car as far as I am concerned. They are like an easy chair with wheels.
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Hayabusa. 1397 big bore kit and blacked-out paint job.
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"When you absolutely, positively have to rape the planet as efficiently as possible"
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I knew I would injure myself pretty badly.
I don't ride very hard anymore, especially now that I have a 350-pound hog. If I lay it over once or twice on the trails I'm normally done for the day. I mostly stick to the woods, where it's low-speed and more about balance and obstacle negotiation than landing jumps and whipping around tight berms.
And no serious injuries yet, though I had two crashes where I really should have been hurt much more than I was.
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I knew I would injure myself pretty badly.
I've had two dislocated shoulders, a badly sprained wrist and a scraped to fuck knee in my riding career. Not enough to make me give it up :D
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Hayabusa
Ahh.
Fun story about that. The Blackbird was the fastest production bike in the world, so Suzuki decided to beat it with the Hayabusa. The name (はやぶさ in Japanese) is the Japanese name for the Peregrine Falcon, which eats blackbirds
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You can also get Goldwings with stereo systems and airbags. Honda's approach with that bike is to see just how close they can get to a car without actually adding the extra wheels
Pricey, too! My 3/4-ton pickup truck was cheaper than a Goldwing!
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It's not named after this guy?
[img]http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/111899-the-memory-card-45-the-birth-of-the-cutscene/Ninja Gaiden - Revenge-468x.jpg[/img]
@onyx and some other guys
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I mostly stick to the woods, where it's low-speed and more about balance and obstacle negotiation than landing jumps and whipping around tight berms.
I rode in woods also, but usually at the very limit. Capricious youth and all that. Plus, growing up with a father who owned mines, I also had wide open spaces and the machinery to build jumps, etc if I wanted. You can build a hell of a track in a hurry with one of these:
http://static.mascus.com/image/product/large/superiorparts/caterpillar-d10l,92139017.jpg
I also have one of those personality types that can never say "good enough". Biggest, best, fastest, etc. Now at 35 I have calmed down quite a bit, but in my early 20's it would not have been pretty.
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I did a bit of offroading with my Yamaha TW125
I had one with the knobbly back tyre and used to take it out on the farm I lived on. The tiny fuel tank (about a gallon) got me 60 miles, which was the distance between my parents' house and University, so I'd have to fill up at the first petrol station and as soon as I was going anywhere while back there.The bike had an unfortunate end when my brother was also on the insurance and both of us thought the other was taking responsibility for checking the oil (bad gasket meant it had a bit of a nasty leak). Coming home from work one day it had a massive top end seizure and never ran again. RIP little TW
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Well, I guess you can go ride on one to blow off some steam after playing that game...
Edit: Ironically, because you got pissed off by the birds (and sometimes bats).
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I rode a motorcycle on a sidewalk once. Though I'd never ridden at the time, had no idea what I was doing, and couldn't control it . Thankfully it was a dirt bike so the deep ditch that was between the road and the sidewalk I ended up on wasn't really an obstacle.
The first time I ever rode a motorbike I was about 8. A friend had brought his 50cc dirtbike and let me have a go. He told me that to slow down I should twist my right wrist back.
Predictably, my first ride took about 5 seconds before I barrelled into a hay bale and came flying off
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