No this isn't me, it is my fantasy of what I'll be doing this year.

The rider is Steve, the picture was taken in 2004.

Last month, nearly 4,000 people viewed my site (3,984 to be exact). Looking at the statistics, it appears that many of you are working your way through my journal. Some of you are jumping around, some are reading the entries in chronological order. In 2005 my site's monthly average was around 3,000 visitors per month. What else can I conclude other than the pictures of naked guys and gals on motorcycles created enough interest for you to tell nearly 1,000 of your friends that this journal was worth their time?

Thank you - I do enjoy seeing the increase in numbers of the web site statistics. And thank you to the people who have sent me an email with comments or questions, or asked to be put on the "notification of an update" list. I realize it may be a bit frustrating trying to figure out how to contact me, but I have to count on human intelligence to figure out the "Lurking" link in the left column (now you have to substitute in the "at" sign) in order to thwart spammers.

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I haven't given the writing muse much to work with the past couple of weeks, I can't get rhapsodic about riding to work and back. The tarmac surface temperature is cold enough in the mornings that I'm not on the bike long enough for the tires to even warm up. I'm not complaining - it is cold, but there's neither snow nor ice - I am counting my blessings.

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I am looking forward to seeing the newly released film, "The World's Fastest Indian", the life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle -- a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967. Check out the trailer.

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Staying on the "good advertising" theme for a little while longer, check out this unusual ad for the new Honda Civic. The rehearsal is in three sections. The ad itself is short, the rehearsal sequences are worth taking the time to watch in their entirety. The only thing I have seen in terms of human-voice-as-instrument to convey the spirit of the motorcycle is this fellow's rendition of Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, and Harley Davidson (thank you, Mike Werner). I wonder what BMW Motorrad could deliver if they were to commission Mozart's ghost to write a canon for five GS Dakars, or a prelude for a K1200S?

Just a note, these video and sound clips assume that you have a broadband connection to the Internet, I doubt that dial-up connection speeds will yield good results.

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The Triumph 675 has appeared at CalMoto, my local Triumph dealership (also the home of CalBMW). Here's an excerpt of first comments from Jim:

"The new Triumph showed up (albeit late) at CAL BMW yesterday. There were approximately 30 people waiting to witness the new machine from Great Britain.

First impressions were very strong. Skinny. Lightweight. Sounded great, even with stock muffler. The only thing that sounds sexier than a triple is a single with a straight through, reverse megaphone pipe.

Several observers thought the rear suspension was too soft. This was a similar "first" complaint for the 2006 ZX-10R and CBR1000RR series. However, at speed the suspension was found to be simply . . . awesome.

Price? $8990.--

This is a narrowly focused bike and will be selling against the Japanese CBR 600RR, the R6, the GSXR 600, and the 636. This market is the most competitive, sharply focused motorcycle market in the world. Sales should be good at first, but time will tell.

The quality of construction appears to be first rate."

There has been such a fuss over the release of this bike - I'm going to test ride it this week, just for grins. (big grin).

Turns out that there won't be a demo Triumph 675 at the dealership until March. The bike that was there at the beginning of the month was a teaser bike making the rounds of the northern California dealerships. Good thing I didn't play hooky from work.

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I have three gifts for my readers, two from a friend who wishes to remain anonymous, and one from Cariad in Tasmania. Yes, these are links to motorcycle-related pictures of women, heavens, Jerry, did you need to ask?

You gotta hand it to Haga Noriyuki's marketing folks - check out this picture.

In last month's entry, I mused out loud about what sort of picture I would like to see in a calendar of motorcycle-related female nudes. Cariad sent this link to a picture that is just missing the bike in the background.

These last two pictures please me immensely. I love seeing this generation of young women growing up in a world where there is such a thing as a women's European championship race, and the winner is a 17 year old.

Here's the news article about Samuela De Nardi, who has the first ever title of female European Champion in the 1000cc category riding the Aprilia RSV 1000. If you read Italian, I wouldn't bother trying to make sense with the valiant effort to provide text in English.

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Product Review: SportVue™ Heads Up Display

My weekly Saturday morning ride to Berkeley is the only time during the week that I'm sure to be able to feel the wind in my sails. Ever mindful of John Law, I keep an eye on my speedo, which means I'm taking my eyes off the road frequently. I'm highly motivated to keep my speed just under 80 mph - we're just about to see our insurance rate return to normal after the cop in Death Valley didn't believe Peter when he said he was out there for the wild flowers.

One of my readers, David I., suggested to the folks at Motion Research who design the SportVue heads up display that I would be a good candidate to test their unit. The SportVue comes in two flavors, one that shows your speed, rpm, and gear, and one that also interfaces to a radar detector.

Have you ever been out in the hills, sunlight filtering through the tall trees? As the trees become more dense you start kicking yourself for not taking off your sunglasses at the last stop sign, miles and miles back. You're cruising, swinging the bike through the twisties and yikes! You've come up a little too quickly on a sign for a 15 mph hairpin turn. You glance down at your gauges to figure out how much speed you have to scrub off but you can't read the gauges because of the angle of the filtered sunlight. What if you could see a digital display of your speed, gear and rpm at eye-level?

If I were still a track junkie, I would have tested the unit myself. It seemed more appropriate to have Peter test the unit because if it worked as advertised it would give him some warning about radar when he's out there on those wonderful long deserted stretches of two-lane highway and give him a safer way to check his speed when he riding twisties in the mountains.

We had the local Honda dealership install the MC2 unit on Peter's 2002 VFR (Interceptor). I found a "used once" Escort Passport 8500 X50 Radar Detector on Craig's List for about half list price. (SportVue interfaces with several brands of radar detector - check their website.) I ordered the wiring harness to connect the SportVue unit to the radar detector and bought an assortment of battery connector leads so we could get everything to fit on the battery posts.

Peter took off for a few days and did a 1250 mile loop from the San Francisco bay area to Lone Pine, Death Valley, Reno NV, then home. Here is Peter's review, edited by yours truly.

The SportVue did a great job of showing my speed in the twisties on the road headed into Death Valley on Highway 190, on Highway 80 looping down the Sierra mountains toward Auburn, and on Highways 49 and 88. The numbers were bright and easy to read, and helped me prepare for some of the corners.

[The next few paragraphs have more to do with the radar unit than the SportVue.]

One CHP officer out on I-5 must have been giving "idiot" tickets because his (her?) car was parked in the center median before an overpass. Only an idiot wouldn't have seen the car for miles ahead. The first time the unit's display flashed the word "radar" was when I was immediately parallel to the CHP car. The late alert must have been due to the direction of the radar gun. By the way, when the radar alert is flashing, the other data (speed, rpm, and gear) aren't visible.

My battery had been having problems so every time I stopped for gas, I turned off the radar unit. In Buttonwillow, when I powered on the unit, it did its normal "I'm initiating..." flashing sequence, but it wouldn't stop flashing, so I started turning down the unit's "volume". That's when I noticed I was right under a radar tower. No wonder the unit was trying to alert me! In general, there's a learning process for these detectors, you have to learn how to adjust the volume properly to avoid false positive alerts.

I got another radar alert in Death Valley just past Stovepipe Wells. I did not see a CHP but I have been stopped close to this point in the past, so I assumed that a CHP car was hiding there. This situation is exactly what Cecilie was concerned about. The combination of the SportVue and radar detector gave me the warning I needed to avoid getting stopped by the CHP again.

Around Big Pine (south of Bishop, CA) I was heading north on highway 395 at about 82 mph when the radar alert illuminated. I slowed and looked around. There was a side road where a CHP could have hidden, but I didn't see anybody. Moments later the source of the radar was obvious, a CHP cruiser appeared coming from the opposite direction. A minute later I saw a car pulled over on the opposite side of the road. Poor fellow. This is area is a perfect speed trap - good thing I had a radar detection system.

I was really happy with the SportVue unit - I trust the accuracy of the SportVue unit over the bike's speedo which various VFR / Interceptor blogs estimate to be about 5% optimistic. The SportVue showed my speed to be consistently a few percentage points below my speedometer reading. I liked not having to look down at my gauge all the time.

Here are the 20-20 hindsight comments, or "know before you go"...

• Read the SportVue user manual before you do anything. The manual is pretty good. Reading it will save you grief. Trust me on this.

• If you decide to have a mechanic install the unit on your bike, be sure that the person has previous experience with the SportVue MC units. The folks at Motion Research say that it should take 1-2 hours to install the sensor on the rear wheel of the bike and run wires to the box that houses the signal sending unit.

• Placing the visor-mounted display device in exactly the right place takes some time and effort. The first time, it took us a lot of trial and error and adjustment with the tools in the kit. It takes two people to do the placement and you do need to read the manual. We got the display in the right place in about an hour. You don't need the mechanic's help to do this part, at least, not when he is on the clock. Just be aware that the first time, the placement will take some time and effort.

• We had some difficulties programming the gear monitor. Peter put the bike up on the center stand and worked through the gears. Running the bike in high-end gears caused the bike to shake, which bothered us a lot. Motion Research says that you shouldn't have to run at more than 35-40% of max in the higher gears. We were not able to get the unit to "learn" about 4th, 5th, or 6th gear but we only tried it once. Other reviewers haven't had a problem, so we'll try again.

• Keep spare batteries for the SportVue MC unit in your tank bag. If you experience fade out or power up problems, the source of the problem is likely low batteries.

All in all Peter liked the SportVue M2 unit, he liked the ease of monitoring speed, rpm, and gear with a heads up display. If you stick to the track, the MC1 model is all you need. If you're a street rider who has been on the receiving end of a radar gun, it might be worth getting the MC2 unit and one of radar detection units that integrates with the MC2. The MC2/radar detector combo isn't a guarantee that you won't get anymore speeding tickets, but you'll have more information and maybe more luck.

Finally, the folks at Motion Research were friendly and patient, and responded quickly to our questions so I have no hesitation recommending that you check it out.