For the Smart Money Cookie

Camping on a motorcycle can present a real challenge, because you can’t carry much weight or volume, and there are few places to store your equipment on a motor bike.

Most motor cycle riders use bags or panniers at the back of their machines to hold the camping gear. These have to be tough and waterproof - a bit like their owners - to keep the camping equipment safe from the weather. And you don’t want anything coming loose and flying off either. It might cause an accident and you could be held liable for damages - or worse.

With a truck or an automobile, you can put your camping gear on the inside. But with a motorcycle, it’s got to be fitted pretty much on the outside of your machine. Some fancy fairings (wind breaks) have small pockets, but they don’t hold much camping gear at all.

You can usually fit a large cube-shaped bag on the rear luggage rack or pillion seat, and maybe a tank bag on the motorcycle petrol tank, and that’s it.

Some bikes may have a couple of large panniers at the back, like the leather saddlebags you see on some Harleys, or the stylish ‘fat briefcase’ types you see on a German BMW tourer. (I’ve always wanted one of those.)

All your camping gear has got to fit inside that limited space, so camping on a motorcycles gives you the same kind of storage constraints as a backpacker, except you can travel a lot faster than on foot.

Depending on whether you’re riding the bike solo or two-up, you’ll want a small tent, sleeping bag (or bags), sleeping pad(s) between you and the ground, a small camp stove, cook kit, plastic mugs, bowls, spoons and maybe knives & forks as well.

Have tea or coffee-making supplies, including powdered milk in an airtight container or sweetened condensed milk. (Anything else leaks or spoils too easy in my experience.) As for myself, I love to sleep in a Hennessey Hammock it’s perfect in the warmer weather and keeps the mosquitos away from you, so you get a good night’s sleep.

Just carry enough food (and water) to make a couple of hasty meals for when you’re tired, cold and hungry and miles from a diner or a McDonald’s.

Then include a change of clothing and extra socks and underwear. Toilet kit - toothbrush, toothpaste or powder, half a bar of soap (or a small cake or soap from a hotel), a small towel, comb, a few band aids, some asprin or Tylenol pain killers, and any feminine hygiene stuff or prescription medicines needed.

Out in the country or on the interstate highways, the larger gas stations that cater to truckers will have hot showers as well. That can really refresh you if you’ve been camping away from the comforts of home for a few days. Buy a meal there as well, to pay for the shower.

For camp lighting carry a small flashlight and / or a candle. Some will take a mechanic’s ‘trouble light’ which has a long cord and runs of the motorcycle’s 12 volt battery. If you’re going to be in a campground with mains electricity, by all means carry a mains-powered ‘trouble light’.

These are the things a mechanic uses when crawling under your auto to inspect it at the garage.

Your motorcycle should already have it’s own small tool kit, but it could be wise to carry a spare inner-tube and a pump. In case you get a flat tire 50 miles from nowhere. Here’s where membership of an auto club would be a good idea, just as carrying a cell phone (mobile phone) would also be cheap insurance.

The only other thing you need when camping on a motorcycle is a sense of humor and a large helping of common sense. You also need to show courtesy for other road users. Why? Because just about everything out there is bigger than you are! Ride your motor bike carefully, and stay safe and in one piece!

The author, David Harvey, has been camping since he was a boy and riding motorbikes since 1967. He now lives in Australia where he still enjoys camping and motor cycling. David has picked up a tip or two during those 40 years that he’s happy to share with you here and on his camping website http://www.All-Camping-Supplies.com.

Since I bought my 2000 K12, I have been scouring the pages of the BMW LT riders website for all the information I can glean from them. I’ve done that for every bike I’ve owned since the internet was invented — find a discussion group, get on board, and learn what I can about the bike before I manage to accomplish harm due to ignorance. The BMW group is great, full of information and experience, just what I need to get the most out of what I am already convinced is one incredible motorcycle.

But I must tell you, it hasn’t all been joyful. Although I do express my sincere appreciation to the owners and maintainers of the site, and to all the contributors who have shown me what to look for and how to fix things, you should also realize that you’ve made me a nervous wreck. You’ve made my life a living hell — a hell on wheels, so to speak.

I mean, how can I start up and ride my beautiful new K1200LT? I will only ride in fear. So many things to worry about…

I fear a mysterious haze will cloud my windshield, resulting in my instrument lights blanking out, my speedometer being too slow, and my radio playing static. I’m afraid I might get confused and put 880’s in the crankcase, Dot 4 in the tires, and 15W50 in the clutch reservoir. Or worse, that I will inadvertently ask the question aloud to the group, “What’s the best oil to use?” and find myself engaged eternally on a battlefield from which no warrior returns unscathed, and in which so many have died.

I’m afraid my brake fluid will become contaminated, causing my front wheel to wobble at low and/or high speeds, thus infecting my on-board computer with a virus and causing my highway pegs (J-Pegs) to turn to GIFS. I have grave concerns that the increased output from an amplifier upgrade will almost certainly cause my mirrors to fall off, and that in the process of turning around to pick them up off the roadway, I might kick my shift lever too hard in its ball joints. That is certain to make its rear brake screech loudly, I just know it.

I’m already convinced I have more options than money, and I know I can never afford to pay 600 bucks for a 200 dollar pair of armrests. But my more immediate concern is that my bike won’t like its new battery and will start vibrating strangely at 4,236 RPM’s. Or worse, flip itself off it’s kickstand in a spiteful snit.

I worry and worry about what a MoDITec is, and I fear I may never find out. I fear I might not have one on my bike, and then I turn around and fear that perhaps I do. And I lost sleep last night playing with my own autocomm, and now I’m afraid I might be going blind, else my headlights are surely too dim.

These things are stressing me greatly — so terribly, in fact, that I think I just need to get on and ride this beautiful bike, and abandon my fears. But I’m still waiting for the UPS man to bring my oil change kit.

Oh God…what if he doesn’t get here…?

Ted Thompson

Ted Thompson is a freelance writer living in Harrison, Arkansas. More of his work can be seen at his website http://www.phfft.com or he can be contacted by email at invinoveritas@alltel.net

A bicycle is a human supercharged vehicle that has a frame affiliated with two wheels and that is
driven by a pedal. Bicycles were first introduced in the 19th century and it is demanded that presently there are approximately about
one billion bicycles worldwide, outnumbering cars 2 to 1. Bicycles being the main method of carry in many corners of the earth, the bicycle is also majorly used for other recreational activities and for the purpose of fitness and even in the case of law enforcement actions such as petrolling an area.

Bicycles and Its Story

Ever since the chain driven model was presented to the market, the key
pattern of the bicycle had remained unchanged up to day. But, other advances such as using computers to pattern
and check the stability have been made to the bicycle from its inventing process. Some bicycles are particularly
manufactured to adhee to standards of racing, cyclicling on mountains and even for law enforcement. In addition, many of the parts that played a
major role in the development of motorcars for instance, ball bearings, pneumatic tires and spoke tensioned wheels were initially intended for
the bicycle.

Things to Look in a Bicycle

Dynamics
of the bicycle is something that should be mentioned to first. Bicycle needs its centre of gravity in order to be in its space. So it achieves this by moving forward
using the steering which allows some balance to the rider. Additionally, in order to navigate successfully the body of the rider must balance out the dynamics,
especially at turns. A technique referred to as counter-steering is used to attain this task by directly turning the handlebars with the hands
or indirectly leaning or slanting the bicycle.

Bicycle can be classified as an highly
competent machine looked at in both biological and mechanical view point. Energy needed from the rider for the bicycle to execute its
wonders are high on the list but given the distance that a bicycle can take you through without fuel, it becomes a
notable journey at the end. The bicycle wheels carry nearly 99% of the energy because the rider exerts energy to pedals. But in
bicycles that have gear mechanics, the energy needed will be reduced Nonetheless the air drag faced by the rider will
always remain a problem. At higher speeds, significantly greater power outputs are needed to overcome the air drag. When a rider is sitting in an upright position, the
body of the rider accounts for nearly 75% of the total drag experienced by the bicycle and rider combined. The only way to reduce the air drag is to significantly reduce the position to supine or prone that is in line with aerodynamics.

The main
features of a bicycle are frame, steering mechanics, seating, drivetrain, suspension, wheels and brakes. Certain bicycles may include optional
mechanics such as gearing which uses distinct sizes of gears to obtain a mechanical advantage from the bicycle. Using gears a rider can produce a higher power output with a relatively low
power input and thus, crescendo the efficiency of the bicycle.

So you buy your first pocket bike, or maybe you buy your first major upgrade. It’s a great looking bike, you go to show it off and realize there are two other people who have the exact same bike. That takes the wind out of the sails a bit, but the good news is that it does not have to stay that way. One of the nice things about pocket bikes is that you don’t have to buy a customized bike to have one! You can change your pocket bike’s appearance, upgrade its performance, and transform your machine into a custom pocket rocket you can be proud of. You’ll find all the tools, parts, and accessories you’ll need at pocket bike chop shops.

Turn your normal stock pocket bike into your personal custom pocket rocket! If you’re not sure where to find the parts you need, a good place to start is at one of the numerous mini bike forums or that have recently rolled into action on the Internet. There you’ll find an enthusiasts’ community with unsolicited testimonials (because have you ever seen a company’s website with a bad testimonial?) from members other bikers, who’ll tell you where they’ve found the best deals, and even more importantly, they’ll tell you where and what to avoid at all costs!

You may also want to check with your mini-bike dealer. Because of the mushrooming popularity of minimoto and custom pocket bikes, many dealers who originally didn’t sell spare pocket bike parts have recently added both parts and accessories to their inventories to meet an increased interest and demand in both. Along with individual parts, you’ll see that many chop shop owners and pocket bike dealers also sell performance-enhancing kits that are even complete with instructions that will tell you how to touch up everything. These are very helpful if you’re new to the mechanics of custom pocket bikes.

You don’t have to look the same as everyone else. Make your custom pocket bike look as good as it rides. Between the Internet and chop shops you will have a wide choice of accessories to make you custom bike stand out from the rest of the group with accessory designs, saddles and saddlebags, trunks, tanks and tank pouches, headlights, horns, chromed wheels, decal kits, etc. If you’ve seen something done to a pocket bike, you can probably either get it or do it to your own!

Dave is the owner of big-pocket-bikes.info a website that provides information on pocket bikes and mini moto racing.

“If you are going to do something, be the best”
Ginichi Kawakami, Yamaha Motor Company First President.

Yamaha Motorcycles, under this motto, employing all its creativity, and with a very strong spirit of challenge, became what it is now: one of the biggest players in the worldwide motorcycling scene.

But Yamaha’s history doesn’t start with motorcycles…

It is back in 1877 that Torakusu Yamaha started with the Nippon Gakki Company that later would become Yamaha Corporation: an important manufacturer of fine musical instruments.

As the company grew, they explored several fields of opportunity in the textile industry and others.

During the World War II, the company set up a factory to produce airplane propellers. This plant played an important role in Yamaha’s entry to the motorcycle industry as you will see.

After the war, Yamaha Corporation had to find new ways to use the tooling and experience that had been accumulated during their times in the airplane industry, and it was then when Yamaha Motor Corporation was founded.

It’s important to mention that even though this new company was just another branch of Yamaha Corporation, it was placed under an independent management. In this case, under the guidance of Ginichi Kawakami; which turned out to be a brilliant move.

Before producing their first motorcycle, Ginichi Kawakami traveled a lot establishing what would be very useful relationships. He also sent out his engineers to Europe and had them learn how to build motorcycles, particularly from DKW; whom with they kept an underground and unofficial long lasting relationship.

One proof of this is that nowadays, the only two manufacturers in the world of mass-produced five side-valve engines are Yamaha an Audi (DKW - Auto Union).

One of the most important legacies from this international relationships were all the skills learnt by Yamaha’s engineers on two stroke engines know-how. Other manufacturers as Suzuki would not reach the same level of development in this area till seven years later.

Not to wonder why the first bike from Yamaha Motorcycles the 125 YA-1 was fairly a faithful copy of the 1949 DKW RT 12. The only two important differences were the four speed gearbox instead of the original three speed gearbox, and a gear transmission replacing the primary chain drive.

IMPORTANT MODEL FROM YAMAHA MOTORCYCLES

>>> Yamaha YA-1

Even though the Yamaha YA-1 - baptized “Acatombo” (Red dragonfly) by its fans - had “nothing in special” and was more expensive than its competitors, it almost immediately became a great success.

It was reliable: before putting it into the market, the prototypes were tested along 10,000 miles of rough rides . Even the big boss himself, Ginichi Kawakami, rode the bike without any incident from Hamamatsu to Tokyo.

It was beautiful: with this model Yamaha was the first manufacturer to put special attention to the decoration of the motorcycle. This task was given to GK Design in Tokyo. It’s worth mentioning that this firm has designed the “look” of most Yamaha motorcycles to date.

It was fast: the YA-1 obtained excellent overall results in the most important local races of that time: Mount Fuji (third place) and Mount Asama (first place).

In fact it was this aggressive attitude in the sporting world that helped Yamaha Motorcycles gain fast acceptance even though they made a late start in the motorcycle scene (in comparison to Honda and Suzuki).

In other words: Yamaha Motorcycles showed the world they had arrived to be considered good and fierce competitors from the beginning. Particularly to Honda and Suzuki.

Other important models from that time were:

>>> The Yamaha YD-1 (the competition for the Suzuki TP of that time)

Some technical specifications:

Yamaha YD-1

15 hp
70 mph.
185,000 yen

in comparison to:

Suzuki TP

18 hp
80 mph.
195,000 yen

>>> The Yamaha YDS-1

The dream bike of all young Japanese between 1959-1960.

Some technical specifications:

20 hp
333 lbs.
85 mph.

Direct rival of the Honda CB72

Since then, the history of models and victories goes on and on…

Today, Yamaha Motorcycles is one of the major players in the worldwide motorcycling scene.

Just to give you an idea of how important Yamaha Motorcycles have become:

- The 2004 Moto GP was won by excellent rider Valentino Rossi on a Yamaha motorcycle.

I could go an and on writing about Yamaha Motorcycles, victories, challenges and models but I would need a whole book…

So to learn more about Yamaha Motorcycles, I invite you to visit this page:
http://www.yamaha-motor.com/products/mcy/epic/epic_home.html
You will find a pictorial history of Yamaha Motorcycles from 1955 to 2001.

Enjoy the ride!

Daniel Levy

Daniel Levy is the owner and contributing writer of http://www.Japanese-Motorcycles-Only.com . He loves motorcycles and Web development. For more great info visit http://www.japanese-motorcycles-only.com

Buying a motorbike can be very hard at times. One probable reason for this is the numerous brands that all promise to sell the best bike model. At present, two of these leading motorbike manufacturers are Suzuki and Yamaha. The products of both companies have been tried and tested by a lot of people because they have dependable and high-quality machines.

With the Suzuki brand, one of its leading brands is the 2006 Suzuki GSX-R1000. This is not surprising since this bike boasts of having a powerful engine and torque. As such, the buyer can be assured that it will have an incredible acceleration or speed. Due to its lighter weight and easy to understand functions, the bike is easy to handle. Another change with the Suzuki GSX-R1000 is the 4.8 gallon fuel capacity. As such, there is no more need to make frequent stops at gasoline stations.

At an affordable price of 10,999 dollars, the buyer can buy it in the color combinations blue and white, silver and gray, as well as red and black. He can purchase the bike online or in Suzuki stores near his or her house. No matter where he buys the bike, he is still guaranteed to receive the one-year warranty with an unlimited mileage. No doubt about it, every penny he spends on this bike will be worth it.

As one of the leading bike producers of today, the model that Yamaha is proud to have created is the 2006 Yamaha YZF-R1. The bike model’s interior engine and exterior look have been perfected by Yamaha with its 50 years of experience in racing. During this time, the creators have made the bike faster by creating its advanced engine firepower. Like the Suzuki model, the Yamaha YZF-R1 also weighs lighter than most motor bikes in the market.

It seems like the two bikes have only a few things in common. Aside from their powerful engine and light weight, both bikes are also easy to handle. As such, riding these bikes will be such a breeze.

Roger Stone has over 15 years experience in the motorsports industry as both a MotoGP racer and as a spectator. Roger has since joined www.ridersdiscount.com as an editor where he shares his expertise about motorcycle safety equipment.