Motodisiac

Crazy? Yes. Sexy? Yes. Trek across America

motodisiac — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:40:04 +0000

So while Sideout was looking for ugly and boring but functional V Strom, I was occupied with the idea that I need new bike. It has been almost a tradition for be to update my stable once a year, and my last bike purchase was done approximately 12 months ago. Combine it with the fact that my wife got nice Tiffany ring for our wedding and I settled for $40 special, I knew I was able to to get something special.

Last week Sideout sent me an e-mail: check out this dealer, he is selling out all his bikes. Of course it contained a link. The second I clicked on it, I knew this was the bike I wanted. Not needed, but wanted. Logic doesn’t prevail in this case. Sometimes you just have to say: “fuck it!”

So it’s sexy. It’s beautiful. It’s charming. It sounds great. It’s Italian. It’s pretty unique, I haven’t seen one on the street yet, and I just came back from Laguna Seca Moto GP weekend with about 50K bikes attending. I will not spoil the surprise but everything you need to know is in the title.

We are flying to Memphis in less than 10 days to pick up 3 of these beauties. That is right, we are riding 3 exotic hand built Italian bikes across the USA on Route 66. Three friends living the dream and not listening to common sense. I think it’s a nice way to break in new engines and bond our friendship. So what are the bikes?

KTM of Santa Monica - Terrible and Absolutely Unacceptable Service

sideout — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:56:28 +0000

This is going to be a really long and very detail oriented post about an ordeal I just went to with the KTM dealer in Santa Monica, California. So please brace yourself if you want to share my pain. Otherwise please move along. No hard feelings.

My KTM 950 Supermoto was coming up to a big 10K mile service also known as the 15K kilometer or every 2 year service according to the owner’s manual. This is a major service that pretty much includes anything and everything. Namely an oil change, new spark plugs, change brake fluid, valve clearance check and adjustment, bleed fork legs and the whole bunch of assorted checks. After conferring with my rider friends we made a collaborative decision that it would be best if an authorized KTM dealer performed this big service. I did not feel like doing all this work in my parking garage with limited to no tools. Neither one of my rider friends is a mechanic skilled enough to perform the valve clearance check and adjustment. Also the owner’s manual suggests that “all service work on your KTM should be performed by a qualified KTM dealer”.

I made some research and found two KTM dealers in my area – KTM of Santa Monica and KTM of Thousand Oaks. After spending some time on the phone with both, getting price quotes for the service and posting on advrider about which of the two my fellow ADV riders would recommend the choice has been made – KTM of Santa Monica.

The person from their service department I was talking to reassured me that everything and anything that the 10K mile service entails would be taken care of. The price quote for this big service was 640 dollars in labor (8 hours of labor at $80/hr) and approximately $100 in parts. I was sort of surprised that the labor part had a fixed price independent of whether the valve clearance should be adjusted or not. Basically if you see that the valves require no adjustment the time spent working on a bike is way less than 8 hours. Oh well … I was told that they do not necessarily need to charge me for all parts as they might use something like brake fluid that they already have in their shop. That later turned out to be an outright lie. By the time I had to drop it off my KTM had developed an acute case of a clutch slave cylinder failure. I had also asked them to take care of that and replace it with the new Evoluzione clutch slave cylinder. That added another half hour of labor ($40) plus the cost of the part itself, roughly $200.

The stage had been set. I dropped the bike off last Saturday, 8 days ago. What happened next was something I would never expect from an authorized KTM dealer performing an almost 1000 dollar service.

I dropped the bike off on Saturday, 8 days ago and got a call the following Sunday. My service adviser told me that the big 10K service had been done. And all they need now is to order the clutch slave cylinder. However they could not proceed until I pay for it. That sounded slightly ridiculous to me. It wasn’t like I randomly called them and asked them to order a part for me. My motorcycle was sitting at their shop already. They just performed an $800 service that I would have to pay for. Yet they wanted me to prepay another 200 something dollars “just to be sure” I won’t back out of this deal. I asked my service adviser if it was absolutely necessary for me to come in person and pay for it. He promised to talk to his service manager and call me back. Never happened.

After waiting the rest of Sunday, Monday and half of Tuesday I decided to take matters into my own hands and called them. As before it had been confirmed now by the service manager that I did need to come in and pay. I promptly showed up at their front gate with my Visa out of its holster. I got presented with two invoices totaling almost $1100 – one for the 10K service, another for the clutch slave cylinder and half an hour of labor to get it installed. I paid everything in full and took off.

When I got home and looked at the invoices things stopped making any sense to me. First of all despite the fact that there is no sales tax on labor in the state of California the invoice for the clutch slave cylinder had sales tax added on labor as well as on the cost of the part. “Honest mistake”, - I thought. And then I looked closely at the 10K mile invoice and noticed something strange. The invoice listed oil, oil filter, some small items like 2 o-rings for like a dollar each. However some items that should have been present like a new air filter or brake fluid were missing. And I had a charge for … 8 spark plugs in there. Also there was no reference to whether shims were used or not to adjust the valve clearance. I became really suspicious. Just by looking at the invoice it pretty much seemed like I got a $640 dollar oil change. I refused to believe what I saw.

I was back at the dealership the next (Wednesday) morning. I wanted clarification of what had been done to my motorcycle under the 10K mile service as well as understanding why my bike needed 8 spark plugs. After a very few apologies I had received a $62 refund (6 spark plugs plus tax on labor). Then I got a chance to talk to the mechanic that worked on my bike. He told me that he had looked at the air filter and it looked clean enough. So no replacement was needed. Pretty strange given that my motorcycle endured a 1K mile trip to Baja and a 1K mile trip to Death Valley. He also told me that he looked at the brake fluid and it looked alright to him. Therefore he did not feel it had to be changed. Well, the KTM owner’s manual begs to differ. It clearly states that the brake fluid needs to be changed during this service. Both the mechanic and the service manager reluctantly agreed with my previous statement and told me that they’d do that as well if I WANTED TO.

I left the dealership that morning with mixed feelings. On one hand it seemed like things that happened were just honest mistakes. On the other hand they looked like a complete lack of professionalism. I was inclined to think it was the latter. If it’s in the book it has to be done. If you call yourself an authorized KTM dealer first thing you do is look in the book to see what is it you have to do in a given maintenance procedure.

I got a call few days later. Everything was completed and the bike was ready for me. I went to pick it up yesterday, Saturday morning. Upon my arrival I was presented with yet another invoice. This time it was for the brake fluid. I can’t say I was pleased. Just a few days ago I was essentially schooling these very employees of this very KTM dealer about the ways of the 10K mile maintenance and what that maintenance includes. I was expecting that I would not have to be charged for something they had forgotten to do. Especially in light of the mistakes they made the other day. Well, I was wrong. I began to slowly boil up. The tipping point came when I went to pay the invoice. The cashier told me that the service manager made a mistake yet again. The total for the brake fluid should have been slightly less than what the invoice showed. That was the precise moment I decided I was going to be very meticulous and pedantic with them.

My motorcycle was already rolled out of the service area when I got back with the paid invoice. My service adviser causally handed me the keys and began to wander off. As previously stated I had just turned into a meticulous and pedantic bastard. So I began checking every little bit of the motorcycle. What I noticed immediately was that both of the front orange fairings were really dirty. Also I spotted a scratch a few inches long on the rear orange fairing. And to top things off the tire pressure in the rear tire was 7 psi under what it should have been. That’s despite them telling me prior that they had checked everything and anything INCLUDING the tire pressure.

I kept my cool on the outside. However on the inside I was fuming. I brought all these three things to their attention. The mechanic rolled my bike back into the service area. Some 10 minutes later he had told me and shown me that I had a tiny cut on a rear tire. I could not legitimately say that the cut wasn’t originally there when I brought the bike in a week ago. So I decided to let that go. However I was not going to do the same with the scratch situation. We went back to the service manager. A few vague statements later I had him say that they will replace the part. He just had to look into the cost and availability. I am unsure why at that point he would want to look into anything other than making me happy. Whatever the cost is they have to be ordering it pronto and keep apologizing profusely for their terrible service. The service manager promised to call me as soon as he had any information. As of today, Sunday’s morning I haven’t received a call.

I am not going to let it slide though. I am really pissed off. And will keep the pressure on. Almost forgot one detail. As I was walking out the service manager said this: “Of course we are going to replace the scratched part. We are not a pop-and-mom shop; we are an authorized KTM dealer”. I did not feel like starting a pissing match. However the irony of the situation was that they did everything that would qualify them as nothing but a pop-and-mom shop.

Here is the bottom line to this story. I am utterly shocked that something like that could happen at an authorized KTM dealer. The whole reason I decided to to go to a dealer was to make sure all the little things and tweaks that this service entails would be properly done. I paid $680 in labor and my total was well over $1000 including parts. It is a lot of money to pay for a service. And when you pay that much money for a service you are not expected to double check what the dealer is doing to your vehicle. At this point I am absolutely unsure of what exactly was done to my motorcycle. Probably what they did do was just the oil change, the valve clearance check with no adjustment (the mechanic said I did not need one, however understandably I have to take anything those guys say with a grain of salt), clutch slave cylinder, clutch and brake fluid change and chain maintenance. The last two items though got included in the service only because I had explicitly requested them. And all of these things do not require 8,5 hours of labor.

At this point I am contemplating contacting KTM of North America and filing a complaint. This was a terrible brand representation on the KTM of Santa Monica’s behalf. This would not reflect on my love for the brand though. I still love my KTM Supermoto and still think KTM makes terrific motorcycles.

Fellow riders be warned – stay away from Honda, Kawasaki and KTM of Santa Monica.

Suzuki V-Strom DL650 and Wind Buffeting

sideout — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:30:06 +0000

It has been precisely 4 weeks since I had purchased the Wee. This would be my first in the series of review-like posts on various things my Wee has or does not have to offer. This particular post would be about the dreaded wind buffeting.

While I was doing my pre-purchase research I did notice that almost all of the current Wee owners listed wind buffeting as one of the biggest problems. Nonsense, I thought. Some people are just too sensitive and picky. Some people just don’t know what to do with the money they saved when they opted for a Wee instead of a more expensive BMW or a KTM Adventure. Those were the admittedly judgmental things that were running through my mind as I was reading those complaints. Up until I bought my V-Strom and rode it back home. The wind buffeting was next to unbearable. When there is smoke there in fact is always fire. The wind noise was not a matter of someone’s wild imagination.

Luckily one of my fellow rider friends is a V-Strom owner. His Wee is outfitted with an aftermarket windshield bracket and an aftermarket windshield. He also happens to own a so called Suzuki factory tall windshield. It is a few inches taller than the stock one. All that called for the proper testing of different combinations of stock and aftermarket brackets and winshields. I made a bold decision to park my sport-commuter KTM and ride the V-Strom for a few weeks of testing. It is not that easy to understand why the decision to park the KTM for a few weeks did not come easy. Only people who’s ever ridden the KTM 950 Supermoto especially in a lane splitting situation can understand that. The Supermoto is in a complete different universe as far as the fun and grin factors go. Oh well. I did what I had to do. And just like that the proper testing began a few weeks ago.

So courtesy my Strom riding friend here is what I had at my disposal.

Windshields:

Suzuki stock windshield
Suzuki factory tall windshield
Givi D260ST windscreen

Windshield mounting brackets:

Suzuki stock windshield bracket
MadStad adjustable windshield mount

The advantage of the aftermarket mount is that it enables your windshield to be adjusted for 25 degrees of tilt angle as well as 3″ (76mm) of height. And you can do that without any special tools while you are seated on your motorcycle. Another big benefit of this bracket is that it allows the air to flow under the windshield as well as over it.

Over the course of the last few weeks I have tried all possible combinations of the 3 windshields and 2 brackets. I also tried riding without any windshield. I even tried a home made solution where two spacer had to be placed under the lower screws to make the windshield tilt more on the stock bracket.

I can probably go into specifics of each combination. However I will just skip the mundane details and jump to the very conclusion. What worked for me was either the no windshield at all option or any of the windshields with the adjustable bracket. It just does not seem like the stock bracket is good enough regardless of the windshield. I did not feel much difference with a taller Suzuki screen or the even taller Givi screen when mounted on the MadStad aftermarket bracket. Understandably that depends on a given rider’s height. I think if I was a shorter rider (I am 6′ tall) then it is not entirely impossible that a taller windscreen on a stock bracket would also work for me.

What I chose to do for myself was just to get a new aftermarket bracket. The right tilt angle would work just fine on my stock screen. I left it at that, went online and placed an order on one of my favorite websites - twistedthrottle.com. My new MadStad bracket is on the way.

Strom Trooper

sideout — Fri, 22 May 2009 07:45:33 +0000

To wee or not to wee, that was the question. And here is the answer. For the last few weeks I have been semi-frantically looking for a good deal on a used Wee-Strom. I have found a couple of really good offers neither of which was within a 600 mile radius from my house. I was totally open to a fly and ride option, i.e. fly into a city, pick up a new bike from its owner and ride it back home. Motodisiac has done it a few times.

While I was looking for a good deal I kept reading various information sources on the bike. Advrider.com and stromtrooper.com were the best resources. The more I read the more I became infatuated with the Wee. Tons of farkles, ease of maintanence and versatility made it a great bang for a buck. I was dead set on the purchase.

Last night I went out to look at this one Wee-Strom some 20 miles away from my house. The ad said it was a silver 2007 non-ABS model with 1400 miles on it. The bike was all stock except for the added handguards from the DL1000. The original owner had purchased it because a couple of his neighbors owned motorcycles and wanted him to ride with them. The mileage shows that this idea did not really come to life. The bike was in an absolute showroom condition and the owner was very much open to part ways with it right then. We made a deal and I rode it back home. This is how I have become a one happy strom trooper.

I decided to take it for a spin today to see what this machine is like. As already proven in my trial run of my friend’s Wee the bike feels solid and well built. It did not feel foreign while I was lane splitting on my morning commute. The engine comes alive at around 6000 rpm. In other words you will not feel a decent acceleration unless you rev the engine a bit. No problem there as it redlines at 11000 rpms. As mentioned in my earlier post the brakes are so so. So is the suspension in comparison to my other bikes. The stock exhaust is really quite which made me suspect I was absolutely invisible to the cagers. I did not have any close calls though. Just from my experience an aftermarket exhaust would enable cagers to hear you coming a bit earlier. Note to self - order a Yoshimura slip-on.

All in all this bike reminded me of a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla. Can’t really say too many bad things about it. At the same time far from being spectacular. Just a well built good bang for a buck kind of machine.

The only thing that was pretty annoying was the wind noise. I believe I get less wind noise on my KTM that does not have a windshield at all. No wonder virtually every used V-Strom that was for sale had some sort of an aftermarket windshield. The factory windshield is adjustable and per owners manual “can be adjusted in 3 positions”. I am yet to try that though I am suspecting a purchase of an aftermarket solution is imminent.

I am really excited as I am about to venture myself into the world on adventure riding on a proper machine. My adventure motorcycle project has started. And if you thought that my semi-frantic online searches were done you would be horribly mistaken. My Wee is pretty much rigged the way it came out of the factory. Translation - nowhere near ready for an adventure trip. An adventure motorcycle is the one loaded with various farkles - crash bars, skid plate, luggage, GPS mounts etc. Luckily there are plenty of aftermarket solutions for a Wee-Strom. I hope I don’t max out my credit card in the next few months to come.

Battle of the Bulge

sideout — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:35:59 +0000

Despite my enormous interest in all military and history related I am not going to discuss the actual battle known as the bloodiest in the history of the US per Wikipedia. Nor will I reflect on the whole Ardennes offensive alltogether.

Instead I will bring up a somewhat mundane subject - my health. I have been an athlete pretty much all my life. Going from one sport to the next I ended up falling in love with beach volleyball. Hence the nickname (Sideout). Lately however I have been experiencing some intermittent lower back pains. They were getting pretty annoying as they would resurface pretty much after every other weekend of volleyball. So finally I decided to get more insight into the matter and went to an MRI facility next to my house. A week later the verdict was delivered to me in a form of a phone call from my doctor - I had a disk bulge in my lower back.

If you ever been competitive in any kind of sport you would know that injuries are unavoidable and imminent. My collection of injuries includes but is definitely not limited to a fractured nose, cracked teeth, rolled ankles, fractured fingers, multiple cuts and endless number of bruises. However anytime I would get injured it would sort of rub off of me pretty quickly. And I would get back into formation like nothing ever happened. This current injury seemed to have stuck around longer than I had wanted it to making me utterly frustrated. I am no longer in my twenties. Don’t believe that thirties are the new twenties no matter how many times you hear it on national television. And this was a harsh reminder.

I was in the doctor’s office the next morning. Apparently the word concern was written all over my face. So he quickly pacified me by saying that this was in no way a “career ending injury”. I do not have a career as a professional athlete mind you. However I do live a very active lifestyle. And would hate to see it slip away like that. Well, I would not have to. My bulge is very little - 3mm in size. That constitutes a small bulge as opposed to a severe bulge which would be over 7mm. And apparently had I not been an active bastard I probably would not have even noticed it ever existed. However I am an active bastard. Therefore measure should be taken.

The next couple of months I would have to be doing a lot of physical therapy and therapeutic exercises like back stretches and swimming. Now the last one creates somewhat of an issue - I passionately hate swimming. I have never been good at endurance sports. Explosive sports were my forte. Swimming much like running and cross country skiing is a tedious sport according to my book. If I were to run a marathon or a triathlon I would probably die of boredom before exerting myself into oblivion. However amends should be made. I told myself to suck it up and dove into the pool. I am swimming 2-3 times per week now while grinding my teeth in hate.

My doctor told me that in a few months of all this the MRI should not even show my bulge. This is the kind of thinking that should get me through the miles of swimming, hours of stretching and absolutely tasteless healthy food meals that I would endure in the next couple of months. I shall prevail in the battle of the bulge.

Lane Splitters Worst Enemy

sideout — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:59:08 +0000

As you all know California happens to be the place where lane splitting, I mean lane sharing is legal. While the jury is still out on whether it is more dangerous to split lanes than not the reality is that most of us California riders are taking advantage of this daily.

Motorcycle riding is inherently dangerous. However lane splitting presents a brand new set of dangers. There is a really good discussion thread on advrider about lane splitting. It is very detail oriented and provides plenty of insight on the matter. And even though it does provide abundance of information about lane splitting I believe it still leaves one thing unclear. What is the worst enemy of a lane splitter.

I was riding to the office the other day. I saw a rider coming up behind me. I let him pass. Casual thank you wave and off he went. He took off pretty fast. My competitive nature woke up. What if I tried to keep up. So I did. I kept up for the major part of my commute until we had to part ways at a major freeway intersection. I had to merge to another freeway. “The leader” continued on.

I came into the office thinking that I did a good job keeping up with a fast rider. And right then I realized that essentially I faced my worst enemy as a daily lane splitting commuter - my competitive nature. Admittedly I did not do anything more dangerous than I usually do on my daily commutes. Though this statement is questionable as I was going faster than usual. A huge part of motorcycle riding is about finding one’s comfort zone and sticking to it. For instance a couple of my friends are much better canyon riders than I am. So clearly I stick to my comfort zone and go at my own pace when we are out in the canyons. If I let my competitive nature win and try pushing my limits even though my skill set is not yet up to par then I could endanger myself and possibly other riders or drivers on the road. Exactly the same concept should be applied to lane splitting.

I learned my lesson that day. At certain times competitiveness is good and healthy. But I have to be able to tame it while I am out there riding my bikes. This is of course just my humble opinion. And I am sure there are plenty of other riders out there who might not necessarily think of their competitiveness as their absolute worst enemy. Well, everyone is entitled to having their own opinion. I am not trying to impose mine …

Is V-Strom Really an Adventure Motorcycle?

sideout — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:10:01 +0000

As my previous post suggests I am strongly considering buying a used 650cc V-Strom. Probably I will never do really tough off-road excursions. But it is always nice to know what your noble steed is capable of. Today I found this video on youtube that provides proof that a V-Strom could easily go amphibious. A quality definitely worthy of being called an adventure motorcycle, don’t you think?

To Wee or Not to Wee

sideout — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:36:23 +0000

Yes my first off-roading experience was not pleasant. My second time was last October when we took a trip to Baja California. Our attempt to conquer the road from San Felipe to Gonzaga Bay failed largely due to my nagging and my fear of dropping my bike. I was riding the KTM SuperMoto which is clearly not an adventure motorcycle. I was afraid to damage it. Besides it was only my second time doing an off-road excursion. Well, among other things the road was tough. Anyway my third time came around last weekend when we took an adventure trip to Death Valley. I rode the KTM again. For whatever reason I felt more confident and fearless on off-road stretches. I could not do certain things as again I was afraid to damage my Orange Beast’s tires and suspension and did not feel like dropping it on loose gravel. Surprisingly though I did enjoy the off-road experience we had during our Death Valley run. And this is when I felt that maybe adventure riding should not be thrown out of the equation for me. The question was - what kind of motorcycle would I be doing that on?

Currently I own two motorcycles - 2003 Aprilia Futura for my sport-touring needs and 2006 KTM 950 SuperMoto for my sport-commuting needs. Motodisiac implied that I should sell the Futura and buy a Caponord. I rode his Caponord a couple of times and was impressed by its handing and versatility. The only problem - I thought and still think it is really ugly. I love the way the Futura looks and feels. My girlfriend also loves the Futura and told me not to sell it no matter what. And on top of those arguments the seat comfort of the Futura is far superior to anything I have ever sat on let alone ridden :). So at this point the Futura is here to stay. The KTM is the ultimate commuter as well as the soon to be my race track bike. So can’t sell that one either. Clearly at this point I am in need of an adventure aka enduro aka dual-sport motorcycle. Enter Suzuki V-Strom DL650.

Our Death Valley trip group consisted of 4 riders - Motodisiac and one more rider had Aprilia Caponords, yours truly rode the KTM and the 4th rider had a Wee-Strom (pictured below). Wee-Strom is a nickname for the 650cc Suzuki V-Strom. As opposed to the 1000cc version that has a nickname Vee-Strom the little brother is obviously a Wee. Anyway I took my friend’s Wee for a run. The Wee has the same engine as my first bike - the SV650S. It feels potent for a 650cc engine. It redlines at 11 thousand RPMs. And while you can travel along at 3-4 thousand RPMs you can rev it up and get a fairly nice acceleration out of it. The bike corners pretty well too. The brakes are so-so. However this isn’t a race track motorcycle either. So that should not be a show stopper. The bike can easily go 250 miles on one tank of gas. Something of a high importance on adventure trips. There are tons of aftermarket farkles for it - crash bars, travel cases etc. And the best thing - the bike is inexpensive and easy to maintain. Perfect. I would not be too scared to drop it if I hit a sand patch or something.

I have been checking craiglist and advrider motorcycle for sale sections ever since I got back from our trip. I found a really good deal in San Diego that I was a bit late to. There are plenty of offers out there. However I am in no immediate rush to buy one. From my own experience I know that good deals do happen and it is not a once in a lifetime occurrence. At this point I am looking around. I am still considering - to wee or not to wee. I am leaning towards the first one.

REV’IT Cayenne Pro Jacket and Pants - Venting in Desert Weather

sideout — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:18:31 +0000

I just came back from a motorcycle adventure trip to Death Valley. As a true adventure rider I was equipped with some adventure riding gear. Among those - the Cayenne Pro jacket and pants.

For those of you who don’t know what Death Valley is and the name did not give you any hints I will say that it is a desert located on the border of California and Nevada. And deserts are known for huge temperature fluctuations. I was quite interested how the Cayenne Pro combo would perform under those conditions.

We hit all kinds of temperatures on our 4 day excursion. As all motorcyclists know the biggest pain in the ass is to stop and layer up when you get cold or layer down when you are hot. You would much rather keep rolling. The terrain and roads in Death Valley are such that they go up and down the local mountains. So one minute you are hot, the next one you are cold. We saw temperatures ranging from 65F(16C) to 85F(26C) within 30 mile stretches. And this is when the design of the Cayenne Pro jacket and pants proved to be far superior than any other motorcycle gear I have ever worn.

The pants have vents going along the sides of your thighs. The zippers are conviniently located and are very easy to operate when you are seated on a bike as well as when you are standing up. Unlike the same kind of zippers on my previous REVIT! riding pants I was operating those with ease. And would close and open these vents multiple times during our trip.

The jacket’s vents system is far more complex. It features two zippered vents on each of the sleeves. Then it has the chest vents that close up on velcro and stay open with the clip buttons and the zippered vents in the back. Clearly you can’t unzip the back zippers unless you either ask you friend or take your jacket off. However the chest vents and the sleeve vents are operated easily even while you are riding. Two big thumbs up for that. And yet another interesting way to add more airflow is to release the velcro-ed cuff of the sleeves and make the cuffs really loose. It would draw a lot of air in your sleeves thus creating more airflow.

These venting features came really handy on our trip. All 3 of us wore the same jacket-pants combination. And neither one of us could say enough compliments to the quality of the Cayenne Pro jacket and pants as well as the utilitarian nature of the gear. The combo works amazingly well for the needs of an adventure rider. Highly recommend!

Girl Fight - Bajaj Motorcycle Commercial

sideout — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:44:15 +0000

Bajaj has been always pretty tasteful and creative in their motorcycle commercials.