x

Archive for April, 2006

Dirt bike, motorcross, off road motorcycle manufacturers

Is there really a Nami brand as mentioned in Supercross, The Movie?

Never heard of it.
But beside Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki (mentioned by Nami’s president in the movie), there are indeed some other dirt bike brands.

I could think of KTM, Gas Gas and Husqvarna.

Our motorcycle manufacturer tour will next visit them in turns.

Popularity: 21%

Motorcycle Movie: Supercross

After the last movie post, which produces more than expected results, I was hesitant to do another motorcycle movie post.

But can you, a motorcycle buff, give Supercross a miss? I couldn’t.

Supercross

One well-known secret of living in China is the abundance of bootleg movies. For 4RMB (that’s US$0.50) you can pick your favourite movie.

Is Supercross worth that? Yes! But you wouldn’t want to catch it in the theatre.

The story is thin, almost non-existent. But which motorcycle buffs really watch the movie for the story?

I’m not a motorcross fan but the actions are enough to get me excited. If I’m younger , I might just try them.

The final sequence is a real thriller.

As the bad guy skid his rear wheel to try and trip KC Carlyle (the guy in black in the cover, orange below), he did a standing stop brake-jam. The bad guy misses and went off track. KC of course went on to win.

I watched this sequence a couple of times. Entertaining.
a great break jam by Carlyle

Popularity: 6%

Motorcycle Maker: Kawasaki

The only thing I can recall about Kawasaki is their green. While many bikes are black and red, green really stands out (orange is also another color that stands out).

Nevertheless I will not be caught dead on a green motorcycle.

Kawasaki again is a Japanese motorcycle company that is involved in many industry beside motorcycle. It’s official name is Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. which gives an idea of what else they build - ships, industrial plants, trains, robots, aerospace equipment.

The KLR650 is in the list of bikes that I would like to ride.

Kawasaki (kawasaki.com)

Kawasaki

Popularity: 4%

Motorcycle Maker: Yamaha

Many people know Yamaha as producing musical instruments. For us motorcycle aficionado the engine is often music to the ears, especially when coming from a new bike.
Yamaha has a special place in my motorcycle biography because my very first motorcycle was the Yamaha RXS115.

Yamaha Motor is the world’s second largest producer of motorcycle, after Honda.

Yamaha Motor (www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/global/)

Yamaha

Popularity: 24%

Bike I had ridden: Honda Shadow 400

The Honda Shadow 400 was the last bike I had ridden before I sold it to a friend and left for China.

The Shadow was brought used from the same shop that I brought the Marauder. I basically traded in the Marauder and got the Shadow.

Having ride 2 smaller motorcycles, the Shadow gave me a taste of want power “pull” is like. Of course compared to motorcycles of similar capacity, the Shadow is really heavy and slow.

I remembered my first time on the Shadow, the handle bar was so wide and low and it to ok a while to get use.

Nice and stable, I had no accident with it except once I slipped while waiting at the red light. Boy, was it heavy to right the Shadow. I learnt never to ride with a flat soled business shoe.

Honda Shadow 400
(My Shadow was with a red-black color scheme)

Popularity: 17%

How do you like this new layout?

The last site design was sort of half done and I never found the time to complete it. It was hanging there and frankly quite an eyesore.

Over the weekend, I spent some time to work on a new design based on K2 and rolled out to a few of my sites.

How do you like it?

The Old

The old design

The New

New design based on K2

Popularity: 4%