Noel's Closet

Moto Lust

2009-06-29T22:59:00.001-04:00

I've been infected with a bad case of moto lust again. I've had my Ducati Monster S4RS Tricolore for about a year now, and I still really like it, but I have to confess that I miss owning a hard-core, full-on sport bike. They are still my first and greatest love, but I haven't owned a Ducati Superbike since selling my 1098S last year. The thing is, I don't want another liter+ sized bike for

Thoughts on Riding

2009-06-22T19:35:00.002-04:00

After quite a while where either the presence or threat of rain has kept me cage-bound I finally got a chance to ride my motorcycle to work today. It was a beautiful, relatively cool, clear, and not-too-humid morning and as always, my ride to work left me walking into the office in a great mood. I had a decent day at work and on the way home I was again enjoying a comparatively nice afternoon for

AMA Superbike, 2009 Style

2009-06-18T23:57:00.001-04:00

I'm saddened by the state of the AMA Superbike Championship, circa 2009. I don't know where it's going from here, but I really don't have any confidence it'll be anywhere I want to follow. I've discussed the takeover of the series by the Daytona Motorsports Group in exhaustive detail in previous posts so I'm not going to go into much into detail talking about it more here. What I will say is

Stay Tuned

2009-06-17T23:13:00.002-04:00

After some time away I have started feeling the urge to write again. Better late than never, I suppose, and very late I am. I've got a few things going on these days that I want to write about so expect some posts to start showing up again. Stay tuned to this station.

AMA 2009: The Weirdness Continues

2008-11-23T16:21:00.001-05:00

After being prompted to do so by a couple of other things I read on the net I went and looked at the 2009 AMA Pro Racing Official Rule Book and discovered something strange. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, given that the DMG has been proposing this all along, but the homologated motorcycles for the new Daytona Sportbike class is strange to say the very least. I guess I kind of thought

AMA/DMG Official Rules Released. Finally.

2008-11-21T00:11:00.000-05:00

The Daytona Motorsports Group, operating as AMA Pro Racing, finally released an official rule book today. It's taken nine months of arguing, negotiating, threats, personal attacks in the media, and who knows what else to get here, but they finally made it. I haven't perused the 115-page document yet so I really don't know much about the details. I do know that there are three primary classes:

The Open Source Musician, Part Two

2008-11-20T23:41:00.000-05:00

In this installment of my "The Open Source Musician" series I'll talk about the trails and tribulations of getting my Linux-based home studio computer up and running and starting my first recording projects. Look here for the first part of the series.The SoftwareAs mentioned in the previous article, home recording in the UNIX/Linux world is a bit different than doing the same thing in the

The Open Source Musician, Part One

2008-11-15T13:28:00.000-05:00

Over the last couple of weeks I've been slowly assembling a small home recording studio based around the Linux operating system. I've been playing guitar and piano for many years and I've always liked writing and recording music. I've also had home studios of various kinds over the years. When I suddenly found myself with a spare computer that was semi-modern at a time when I'm also playing a

Ben Spies in Portugal

2008-11-05T08:41:00.000-05:00

Ben Spies has made his official World Superbike Debut with the Yamaha Motor Italia WSBK squad. Ben rode the both the outgoing 2008 Yamaha R1 as well as the new 2009 "Long Bang" bike. He managed to turn in times within a couple of tenths of Haga's race pace and less than half a second off Bayliss'. Pretty impressive for a guy riding new track on tires he's never ridden, with a new team, and a

Back to the Mountains, or The Last Ride of the Year

2008-11-02T13:02:00.001-05:00

Very suddenly last Saturday night I found myself slated to leave the following Sunday morning for a group ride up to Tuggles Gap, in Floyd County, VA. Tuggles Gap is the site of a tasty restaurant that is situated adjacent to the Blue Ridge Parkway, is a destination for motorcyclists, and, of course, is surrounded by twisty mountain roads.This was to be the last real ride of the year for the

Test Ride: Ducati Hypermotard

2008-09-06T17:47:00.001-04:00

Although there was a lot to be disappointed about with regard to my most recent attendance of the AMA Superbike Big Kahuna Nationals at Virginia International Raceway, there were some definite high points as well. One of the highest of the high points was getting the opportunity to spend about 40 minutes aboard a 2008 Ducati Hypermotard 1100S.I arrived at the test truck early on Saturday morning

Where Will American Riders Go?

2008-08-13T12:46:00.001-04:00

I mentioned a while back that I was of the opinion that the Daytona Motorsports Group's plans for the AMA Superbike series would have an impact on the ability of American racing fans to see the hottest young American riders competing in our national series. I gleaned at least the beginnings of this idea, if not the idea in it's entirety, from the host of the ever-insightful and entertaining

AMA Races at V.I.R: Anticipation

2008-08-12T12:46:00.001-04:00

We're in the final rundown to the AMA Superbike Series Suzuki Big Kahuna Nationals at Virginia International Raceway round. The fun starts this coming Friday, August 15th. The food (and beer) have been purchased, the toy hauler has been cleaned and mostly prepped, schedules have been finalized, and now we're just waiting for Thursday when I'll hook the toy hauler to the truck and haul it up to

Craig Jones: R.I.P.

2008-08-05T07:22:00.001-04:00

Sad news to for British roadracing fans and indeed for motorcycle roadracing fans in general. Up-and-coming British rider Craig Jones has passed away following a crash at last weekend's Brands Hatch round of the World Supersport Championship. Jonesy lost the rear end in Clark Curve, went down, and was struck by Andrew Pitt. Jonesy passed away later that night. Jones was only 23 years old and at

Computer Burnout

2008-07-23T17:40:00.001-04:00

I love computers but it seems like I'm spending all my time in front of them here lately. I've been working on a freelance side project using a Open Source content management system called Joomla! for the last few days, to the point where I feel like it's about all I've done. I'm not really complaining. It's interesting work and I'm being well compensated for my time. I'm just feeling a bit

Official Rules for 2009 AMA/DMG Superbike Series Announced. Sort of.

2008-07-19T13:46:00.001-04:00

The Daytona Motorsports Group has released a press release concerning the final rules package for the 2009 AMA/DMG Superbike Series. This press release comes about a week after the final approvals for the DMG takeover were given by the AMA board.The press release doesn't go into much detail, merely lays out the general class structure. Thankfully they appear to have backed off from the

The Motorcycle Shuffle

2008-07-17T23:19:00.001-04:00

Way back in January I was writing about the possibility of selling my 1098S. I was very conflicted about it at the time and I waffled back and forth quite a bit before tentatively deciding not to sell it. I think I'd finally decided that I had the right mix of bikes: the Multistrada, a great workhorse and distance bike, good for day-to-day riding, and the 1098S that was, well, a 1098S.Well, the

Traction Control Discussion

2008-07-16T13:23:00.001-04:00

David Emmet, the author of the Kropotkin Thinks blog at http://www.motogpmatters.com, has posting a very interesting discussion about rule changes, traction control, spec ECU's and close racing in MotoGP. As always, he's a very insightful fellow and pointed out a couple of things that I hadn't really considered as clearly as I probably should have with regard to the not-very-close racing in

National Ride To Work Day Today

2008-07-16T06:30:00.001-04:00

Remember that today is the AMA's annual Ride To Work day in the United States. If you have a bike by all means pull it out of the garage, get the right safety gear on, and swing a leg over for the commute to work. I'll be heading out to fire up the big Monster in just a few minutes for my own (now blessedly short) commute in. But please folks, I beg you: wear the right gear. I was a believer in

Crash, Part II

2008-07-14T11:51:00.002-04:00

I know this is becoming something of a (bad) habit, but let me take a moment to apologize yet again for a complete lack of posts for the last several weeks. I can only say that between the crash, trying to recover from the crash, my fiancee's medical issues, selling my house, packing all of our stuff (while I was minimally ambulatory and my fiancee was still recovering from surgery), and moving

Crash

2008-05-09T17:00:00.002-04:00

I apologize again to any regular readers about the lack of posting lately. I'm sorry to have to report that I'm just getting out of the hospital after crash on the Multistrada. The bike's completely destroyed. I'm better off than I have any right to be but still pretty battered. I'll go into the details of the crash, the bike (probably including pics), and my condition in a later post. For

Someone Has Finally Said It: New Racing Series?

2008-04-24T23:23:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to belabor this too much tonight but there are a couple of interesting articles over at Superbike Planet that have been posted over the last two days. As an astute reader might have guessed it's more information concerning the Daytona Motorsports Group and their takeover of AMA Racing and subsequent proposed debasement and brutalization of the series. Or possibly "emasculation" is

BlackBerry 8820, A Few Weeks Later

2008-04-23T21:52:00.002-04:00

I've had the BlackBerry 8820 for a few weeks now. I've even managed to subject it to what is, for me at least, the ultimate test of a mobile device's utility: business travel. Several times, in fact. The conclusion at this point? I've seen a few microscopic cracks develop, metaphorically speaking, but all in all the unit's held up my initial opinion of it well and proven to be a very good fit

More Thoughts on AMA Superbike

2008-04-22T18:21:00.003-04:00

I was listening to the always excellent Rumblestrip Radio motorcycle road racing podcast this morning on the way to work and one of the topics of discussion was the new proposed class structure for AMA Superbike starting in 2009. I've thought about this and thought about the things the host of Rumblestrip Radio, The Duke, had to say about it all. I have to confess that the more I think about it

The Future of US Superbike Racing

2008-04-20T21:14:00.003-04:00

The roar for the last week or so in US road racing has been the subject of the Daytona Motorsports Group's (the new owners of the AMA road racing) proposed changes to the series for 2009. There have been stories upon stories about different aspects of it in the various road racing news outlets and it was apparently the major topic of conversation in the pits at this weekend's Barber Motorsports