One more goose

What was that with Jim Goose again ? Oh yeah the frenzy and all that. I've found another one and I wasn't even looking ... It's got to mean something.
Find out about this one on the White House website among other beauties.

Rare pipes

I bought this exhaust system last month for the R11S track bike project. At first I thought I'd go for a Staintune instead of the classic Laser system that you usually see on the Boxer Cup Replicas. But then, as I was wandering for a couple of hours on the Internet to find a good deal on an exhaust, I stopped on this one.

It is a BoxerCup Laser Daytona Race System. It is said to be the last in the world and was bought directly in the US from Foster Performance. While I'm mentioning his name and before letting him telling you this exhaust system's history, let me just say true simple words about the man. I would truly recommend doing business with Robert Foster from Foster Performance. He's really kind, arranging and knowledgeable. This level of service is pretty rare to come across with these days. Simply amazing.

Here's what Robert said about this Laser exhaust at the time of the buy :
"This is an official BMW BoxerCup Series Laser "Daytona" Race System - Last one left! Laser will recreate them but they will be production systems. These systems were made by hand by Don de Vink and his crew at Lasers Racing department. Don de Vink went on to be Akrapovic's top racing designer and now he is with his own company building some increadable systems for cars and motorcycles. So you have a piece of BMW history waiting for you. A Powerful piece!! - You will see! This system was developed when they added Daytona to the Boxwecup Series. The R1100Ss needed more power for the banks and straights of Daytona"

Not only this system looks promising, but it's also a real piece of art once assembled. There are still a couple of thingies to work with on the bike before fitting this beauty. Hopefuly, this will look good.

Lighten your ride ...

... but not your every day ride, as this hardware only aims at track bike applications.

Anyway, if you are looking for a simple way to reduce the rider/bike package overall weight, then you might be tempted to look at what Carbon Speed Racing has to offer.

Of course as always with racing products, this is a bit pricey for just a battery. But another cheap way to have access to this 4 to 5 kg gain on the rider/bike package overall weight is : a good diet. Performance is within easy reach, it's now up to you.

Clean calipers

One of the many things I said I would do on the track bike project is clean the brake calipers. As the bike hadn't moved for a while and given the look of the lower end of the forks, this was definitely to be done. Unfortunatly for my purse, I do not own the proper tools to push the pistons back inside the calipers. Once out and clean, there was no way for me to push them back straight with my bare hands. It prooved the sealing rubbers were fried.

So I had to head on to the BMW local dealer to ask them to do the job for me. It could have been a simple story, but as always with a BMW dealer in France, it turned to a nearly dramatic story ouching my wealth.

The calipers were brought to them on a Saturday. The new sealing kit was ordered the next Tuesday. They called on Thursday to say the kit that arrived did not fit the bike that is registered as mine in their computer. I had to explain that this bike had been sold a while ago and that the calipers were off a newer model, hence the difference. The guy at BMW sounded pissed already, because he could apparently not exchange the kit ordered for another one, so he'd probably stick with it unused.

Now with the correct VIN, I was pretty confident this story would end up very soon with them ordering the proper kit and finally fix the calipers. But I had another call last Tuesday. The new sealing kit had arrived, but again it would not fit the calipers. This time, an undoublty pissed BMW guy was asking me if the calipers were really off an R1100S, if the bike was bought second hand (with the possibility that the previous owner had swapped the calipers from another model) like I was playing with them on purpose. He finally said he would deal with it and let me know.

Finally last friday I missed a call from BMW. The message said the calipers were ready. I picked them up today and fortunately they are nicely cleaned and ready to be fitted back to the bike (with a little luck they won't leak and hold their fluid). Take a look by yourself.


Why can't a simple service request stay a simple service request ? It took 2 weeks and 3 unpleasant phone calls to just change brake calipers sealing rubbers ...

Coolest way to pick your daughter up

I recognize this as the coolest way to pick your daughter up after school.

If you're wondering where you've seen that bike before, then go back a couple of posts back and you'll find one about the last AMD championship edition. SE Service entered the competition with this bike named "Harrier" built on a R1200S base.

If you're craving to get one, please note that the Harrier is not for sale any more, but SE Service would build you one if you ask kindly.

Goose frenzy

Hey what's up with the recent Jim Goose frenzy ? I've spoted at least 3 blogs publishing an entry about the man and his machine in the last 2 months. I want my part of the cake, so let's begin with a little introduction to understand what makes Goose so ... interesting.

Jim Goose is Max's mate in the first Mad Max movie. It' hasn't been seen a lot around here, because the movie was a bit too harsh when it was ready to be broadcasted on TV. How times have changed since ... Nowadays any of the top 5 TV channel could schedule it prime time without raising a single complaint.
Anyway, back to Jim and his bike. Jim is a member of the MFP, a local Police force in the movie. He's riding a Kawasaki (a Kwaka if you read close on the tank) KZ1000 with a very strange fairing and is burning tire at every of his starts. A few sequences show him lone riding his nice bike pretty fast on desertic roads. This solely would be enough to make this movie a classic to any motorcycle enthusiast.

Having not seen this movie for a while, I thought I had forgotten how cool Jim looked on his bike chasing hooligans riding fast japs. I know why Jim Goose and his bike deserve to be discussed somehow, but how come this happens now ? Has Mad Max been broadcasted recently ? This would be a simple but well enough explaination : as soon as the movie credits started scrolling, I remember having jumped on Yahoo (it was a while from now) and typed any keywords related to Goose and his Kwaka to find out how difficult it was to build one myself. Talk about attraction ...

AMD championship

I have to admit that I've always looked at the AMD chamionship as yet another cruiser contest where admitance was limited to fat moustache large tatooed arms beer drinkers.

Well I changed my mind and it can only mean two things : I'm getting older and as the years past on, I've become a cruiser fan. This simple idea is still frightening me, so even if it's probably partially true, this can't be the main reason.

The reason why I changed my mind about the AMD championship is without a doubt because of last year's competitors list. Here are some of the bikes that were battling there to win the prize in 2009. Look at these hand made motorcycles and dare to tell me you're just simply not impressed.

Ok I know, some of the bikes in the competitors list are still the ugliest in the world (check the whole list here), but hey that makes the others even greater.

These are the brakes

(Kurtis Blow, anyone ? "break it up ! break it up ! break it up !" ? Nope ? Forget it ...)

One of the key points to weight loss on the current track bike project is to get rid of the ABS. Back in 2001, the ABS option on the R1100S is the "integral" version of the system. It is actually the second genetation wich is smarter and applies on both front and rear wheels. So it keeps the standard feature of the ABS by preventing the wheels from blocking, but it adds the ability to balance some brake power from front to rear.

But I'm still going to remove the system anyway ... Mainly because of its weight, but also because I don't want the system to trigger on the track when applying full brake. In order to combine front and rear brake power, the second generation ABS uses of a special central unit and a lot of braided brake hoses that go all around the bike. Once wholy removed, the bike should be a little lighter.

The central unit controls both front and rear brakes

Once removed, the bike will be fitted with braided hoses all along to replace the partial rubber sections. I chose to buy this complete Goodridge kit from eBay and I must admit that's certainly the weirdest one I've ever come across for a motorcycle. It's not designed to replace the whole line but only the rubber sections, so the pipes are really short and at first I even thought I did a mistake when ordering.

The brake system should soon be a mix between ABS orentied parts (like brake pads as calipers should remain on the bike) with non-ABS oriented parts (derived and short braided lines, for instance).

Nicky's new year's gift

Has Nicky fucked up with this picture ? Well from my point of view yes, a little. I like Nicky Hayden for the way he is even if some of his personnality is sometimes too much of an american's lampoon. Anyway, he's a talented and stylish rider - let's not forget he's been the MotoGP champion, plus he's the only Stoner teammate to actually tame the MotoGP Ducati - and looks like a good chap out of the track.

But when he went to Ducati's racing facilities late in last December to meet his new racing motorcycle, he took some pics of the bike for the memories. The problem is that he thought that would be cool to share them with the fans and uploaded the pictures on his website, revealing the whole new Desmosedici to the planet, including every other MotoGP teams. That was a very nice idea for the fans, but that wasn't very smart from a Ducati manager's perspective.

Now the japanese teams have the whole winter to study Ducati's new MotoGP weapon. I hope it hasn't ruined Ducati's efforts too much.

Happy new year

I guess I should start this new year by wishing you all a happy new one. It's probably a bit laconic, but trust me when I say it is very sincere. I wish the best for this new year to any reader, especially to those I know personnaly. We may not spend a lot of time working on our bikes together, we may have taken separate directions or we may not meet as often as we (I ?) would like to but you're all in my thoughts.

I'm starting the year with this big teutonic project in my garage. There's still a lot of work on it before it even runs and I won't be at ease before I fix a couple of fixable issues. I promised to practice a lot more on track than last year - that'll be peace of cake as I've cancelled most of my rides - and to spend a lot more time having fun than working - again that shouldn't be too hard.

Hope too read or see you soon lads.