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My good riding pal Hal just got a Shark RSR2. Here are his initial impressions. More to come . . .
Got my new Shark RSR2 helmet the other day and have been wearing it around the house a bit. Here are my impressions so far, though I have yet to take a ride with it.
- The build quality is as good or better than I have ever seen in a helmet. Outstanding finish quality.
- The visors are 3mm thick. From now on everything else will seem flimsy.
- The mirrored visor on the Shark is noticeably more tinted than the Shoei.
- Removal and installation of the visor is simple enough. Not quite as easy as a Shoei, but almost.
- There are no detents that hold the visor open. Instead, you adjust the tension on a little lever device on each side of the helmet. This means that you can open the visor just a tiny crack if you want. I hope this turns out to work well.
- The visors have a small round hole on the bottom right side that fits over a rounded metal post attached to the helmet. This ensures that the visor stays down. When you want to lift the visor there is an indentation in the helmet below the metal post where you can work a gloved finger in to pull out slightly on the visor to lift it. Seems like it will work pretty well.
- There are two vents in the front. The top vent has a big opening. Looks like it will let in a lot of air. Maybe lots of bugs too. The chin vent looks like it will work well. There is an exhaust vent at the top of the helmet that is integrated into the rear spoiler. All the vents can be operated with a gloved hand. The Shoei X11 has two top vents in the front. One just above the visor, and one on the crown. I’ve liked this arrangement. It will be interesting to see if I am happy with the Shark’s vents.
- The RSR2 is noticeably lighter than the Shoei X11 when you are holding them in your hands. When they are on your head it is tough to tell the difference. However, it may be a difference that shows up after a long day of riding.
- The helmet is slightly taller and wider than the Shoei. It simply looks bigger, though not necessarily in a bad way.
- The fit: Feels a lot like my X11 except around the ears. Shoei has a nice cupped area for the ears. Frenchmen must have really small ears, because the Shark is very shallow in the ear pocket. I’ll either have to modify the padding, get another set of cheek pads, or hope like hell it breaks in without a lot of discomfort. Right now I have no idea how I am going to get my Scala Rider ear pocket speakers into the helmet.
- All of the padding snaps out for easy cleaning. And the quality of the padding is first rate.
- It looks like it will be easier to keep the Shark clean of bugs on the front of the helmet. The X11 has a bunch of places where bug guts seem to collect around the vents.
- Underneath the inside padding the foam liner has ridges that are designed to crush and/or deform on impact. The Shoei has no such ridges, just a relatively smooth foam liner. This is probably one of the reasons the helmet is slightly larger than the Shoei. Does it work to lessen the impact to the head? Seems like it should.
- The helmet came with tearoffs, and the visors come with the mounting posts for the tearoffs. I’m sure I’ll never use them, but the feature has a kind of coolness factor.
Tags: SharkRSR2, Shoei X11, Motorcycle Helmet Review, Midliferider
Every ride report, however brief, needs to start with pictures of the bikes, in this case, a BMW K1200GT and a K1200S, as fine a pair of long distance sports touring rigs as you’ll find (it’s my ride report, so no dissenting views required).
The S rider, Hal, and I have put in some good miles together, both on road and track, but this was the first long distance strafing run for this particular set of bikes.
Like so many good rides, this one began with only a wisp of a plan: get up, ride over the Northern Cascade Highway towards, to, and through Winthrop and then figure it out from there.
The weather on the western side of the Cascades wasn’t hugely cooperative, but then, this is the Pacific northwest after all. Spitting rain, grubby mist, and a county mounty who was kind enough to merely warn us set an early tone. Happily, the route over the big spine was mostly unmolested by four wheel traffic and Mr. Valentine kept us out of further mischief for the fun that followed. Continue reading Loop Around Washington
I started wandering in and out of Ride West, the Seattle BWM dealer long before I bought one of their bikes. The truth is that I wander in and out of a lot of bike shops, but there was and is something different about Ride West. Everyone is just that much friendlier. The place is that much better merchandised. It’s all the little stuff.
Along the way I bought a lot of gear there and then late last year, I “drank the koolaide” and bought one of the mighty K-Bikes.
I’ve known Dave Swezey, the manager, casually for the last year of so. Ride West is a very involved sponsor of two track days that I teach through Puget Sound Safety so we’ve met and talked along the way. Without taking anything from Dave, he’s like a lot of people I’ve met in the business: Passionate about motorbikes and the people who ride them. It’s one of the best parts about any enthusiasm — it’s just different walking into a bike shop vs. walking into a Home Depot.
Motorbike dealers come in for a full range of commentary. I know there are some great dealers out there and there are some less than great. Everyone I know has both kinds of stories. I’ve mostly had good stories and one of my best leads back to Dave.
A couple of weeks ago I was getting ready to teach one of those track days I just mentioned. Two days later I was going to go on 2500 mile tour. The day before all this was to happen I went to the garage to get on my bike to ride to an appointment and nothing. Wouldn’t start. Something to do with the key antennae. Whatever. Still wouldn’t start.
One of the great things about owning a BMW is that there’s an 800 number you call followed by a flatbed showing up less than 90 minutes later. No charge. Somewhere in there Dave heard about my problem. His response was, “We’ll either have your bike ready to go or we’ll put you on a 2009 K-1300 S.” And they did. Drats. I was looking forward to taking that orange beast out on the track.
Which leads me to a conversation I had with Dave just the other day. Continue reading Conversation with Dave Swezey, General Manager of Ride West
Anyone who has ever ridden a new generation BMW K1200GT has tales of wonder and regard for nearly everything other than the saddle . . . which is truly awful, one of the worst in all of motorcycledom, and absolutely the worst in the class.
In the past I’ve gone immediately to having a custom saddle made, but for a bunch of reasons (I don’t feel like spending the money just now; it offends me to spend this much money on a bike and have such a rotten saddle) I decided to try some lower cost solutions.
First step was an Alaskan Leather sheepskin left over from a previous bike. That helped, but not by much.
Next step was the Taxi Driver’s best friend, a bunch of wooden beads. The best solution for motorbikes is made by Bead Rider (the other choice is to hack your own). The company offers two basic solutions, the old standby made of wood, and a newer version made of dead dinosaurs. I chose the former.
The product itself is very nicely made wraps nicely around the edges of the seat. Installation is challenging only if you can’t figure out how to get your seat off your bike. The basic idea as I understand it is twofold: relieve all those nasty pressure points and 2) get some airflow under your butt (means more in hot weather). I’m not sure I can explain all the technical reasons why the first is true, but I can tell you after putting about 500 miles on the rider, that it’s a vast improvement.
Riding around town isn’t enough of a test so I literally took it to the track where I taught the excellent ASS program offered by Puget Sound Safety. I move around on my saddle and hang off the bike a fair bit. I’m sure someone will find the thought of this horrifying, but I found the beads were a terrific seating surface for this kind of riding, allowing me to slide across the saddle in quick transitions slick as could be. The beads completely eliminate any up/down motion by the rider.
Finally, it was time to go long. I saddled up the BMW and rode first to Baker City Oregon via a combination of highways and bi-ways with the same good results: Significantly less butt-ache and fewer pressure points. From there, on to Winnemucca where I switched to a sheepskin pad backed by temperdic foam, the subject of another review.
So all in, I’ve put about 700 miles on the Rider and can say without a doubt it is a vast, vast improvement over the stock K-bike saddle. There is no downside to owning the Bead Rider than I can see. For the price, it’s an outstanding value and well worth trying.
Tags: BeadRider, Iron Butt, K1200GT, Puget Sound Safety
Some photos from a recent ride that went like this . . .
Kevin left from Seattle and rode to Baker City, Oregon. Ron left from Salt Lake City with the same destination in mind but got turned back by a rain storm of biblical proportions.
Not to be deterred, we tried again the next day, this time with Winnemucca, NV. Success!
From there we motored west to South Lake Tahoe where we laid over at Harveys. Up the next day we rolled up to Truckee for breakfast (yum) and then kept on north on 89 across Mt. Lassen to Mt. Shasta, there to sup and drink at Billy Goat’s Tavern, watch a little league game, and take in the riotously funny movie, Hangover.
Up the next day we rolled up to Ashland for breakfast at Evo’s and from there a long slog straight up five to Seattle.
Tags: BakerCity, Geiser Grand Hotel, Winnemucca, South Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Mt Shasta, Ashland, Billy Goat’s Tavern, Evo’s
This is almost embarrassing to write. I’ve owned my 2007 K1200GT since Thanksgiving, so that’s nearly five months, and I’ve managed to log a grand total of about 1200 miles on the mighty mile muncher from Munich (ouch). I’ll plead crappy weather and leave it at that. It is a pitiful, desultory performance. The good news is that I have a longish ride coming up in a couple of weeks with riding pal Ron which should add 3000 or so miles to the clocks.
Not that it really matters, but I’ve come by those miles . . .
- Toddling around town.
- Running up along the Hood canal
- Two different rides along what I call the Skagit loop (Seattle to Arlington, Up Hwy 9 to Sedro Woolley, and from there along the Skagit and Sauk and back to Arlington via Darrington). It’s DH-56 for Destination Highway fans.
- Wandering around the countryside, mostly west of Olympia, WA.
Brian Bosworth. 2002, Spiral-bound, 536 pages,
The most recent (January) Skagit run was instructive as the best part of it, the part where there is nearly no traffic and good twisties, runs between trees and a mountains and is in the shade nearly the entire day. For the record, riding a $20,000 600 lb bike on black ice is less than fun.
While it’s still too soon to have definitive impressions, here’s what I think so far. Keep in mind that my most recent relevant point of reference is my old and loved FJR.
Power: There are measurable differences in power and performance between the K, the FJR, and the Concours. None of this matters. They are all capable of hyper speeds and can out accelerate anything you need to. The power delivery is different bike to bike, but again, who cares? You get used to what you have under your throttle and ride accordingly. And yes, the K delivers in buckets.
Handling: Moto-scribes famously winge about the so-called lack of feeling in the BMW front end. I guess I don’t have the first clue what the problem is. If the issue is that they’re used to front fork dive, then yes, it’s not there (and I agree front fork dive can be put to good use by riders who know how to work with changing rake and trail on the fly). I would describe myself as a better than average street rider, and I don’t find myself leaned over wondering if the front end has decided to step out for coffee or chat with a close friend. Quite the contrary, I find the bike hugely stable and composed at all angles. And importantly for the average rider, it won’t stand up if you decide to grab for some brakes in mid turn. In that same way, trailing the brakes to the apex is a breeze.
Controls: Another favorite peeve of the scribbling-set. Whatever. You get used to anything and I quite like the two-handed turn-toggles. And I wouldn’t necessarily miss them if they weren’t there.
Saddle: I’m still undecided on this one. It’s a different shape than the FJR, and much different than the custom job I had. Ask me again in 3000 miles.
The Little Things: None of these things matter in the great arc or “real men kick start their bikes” sort of thing, but the K-bike majors in details. I still reach for the throttle lock that isn’t there (was on my FJR), but the cruise control that is, is aces. Having a fully sorted place to put the GPS is nice indeed. Heated grips are well integrated and well done. Heated seat is silly, but whatever. Love the Xenon light. The fit and finish all around is stunning.
ESA: A great idea, but hopeless in execution. I can’t discern a useful difference in any of the damping settings. Comfort is too harsh. The balance between front and rear rebound damping was worked out by an iquana. I had Hyperpro on my FJR and it was leagues better. I will get Ohlins at some point.
So yes, a great ride. I’m telling myself I won’t buy another bike for a hundred years. Or course that’s not true, but right now, it seems a really flash ride.
Tags: DestinationHighways, BMW K1200GT, ESA, Hyperpro
As I write this it looks like the MotoGP at Qatar may be called due to rain (as if it were American baseball!). Go read for yourself all the reasons why. In the meantime, drool over Scott Jones’ stunning images from practice. That red stripe you see on Val’s front rotor is not bling. Check out his right hand for the explanation.
Tags: ScottJones, MotoGP matters, Qatar, Valentino Rossi
I find these lists entertaining. Keeping in mind that Esquire was Cosmo for Men before there was a Cosmo, here are some amusing lists.
31 Things A Man Should Own
I’d love to interview the guy who put this list together. It’s not mine. Some entries . . .
- An iron skillet (have one/I guess)
- A valid passport (agree/have one)
- A multi-purpose tool (agree/have one)
- A good corkscrew (agree/have one)
- An ax (I guess that depends)
- WD-40 (you mean everyone doesn’t have this? Disqualified for being too obvious)
- Cordless Drill (see previous)
- Weekend Shoulder Bag (This deserves a chapter in a book if not an entire book. I couldn’t count all the shoulder bags, computer bags, briefcases, camera bags, motorcycle bags, etc. that I’ve bought. The search never ends!) Continue reading 57 Things A Guy Should Own
What more can you say?
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