World champ

The new world champion. Has his cool factor improved since his last title ? Yes, definitely.

Inspiration

It's a Daytona, but you get the idea ...

Mono seat tail with great graphics, inverted forks, powerful brakes and beefy lower triple clamp, black frame, carbon protections, ... It's a nice tool apparently used on track.

Kawasaki Z800

More plastic ? No thanks ... The new Kawasaki Z800 reminds me of those bad motorcycle caricatures ... Please Mr Kawasaki, update your styling.

Guintoli wins WSBK Magny-Cours first race

How delightful it was to see Sylvain win first race today. After being fired mid-championship from Liberty Racing  for spurious reasons ("bad results", they say ...), Sylvain teamed up with Pata to race (almost) the same Ducati 1198R.

Rather obvious it was already, but now with Liberty Racing's withdrawal from Magny-Cours round, it is so blatant that they had money problems and put it all down on their riders ... Pitiful.

That said, Sylvain has a wonderful season ending with a podium at last week's Portimao. He' said to be riding a Suzuki in WSBK next year with Crescent apparently.

(Credits on the "arty" picture ;) )

Random from the archive

Abstract :
The way we used to pack things in the back of a rented van for a trackday says it all on our motivation. This one's been taken in 2007 just before heading to Carole. Olivier and I had pilled up his loyal CB500 and my CBR600F4, tons of spares and our suits in a way nothing could move.

Triumph tool

Whatever the plan really is for the Triumph, I would have to be able to remove the top yoke one day or another. The main issue is that I had never looked at the headstok nut before with the idea of having to remove it, so never come to the conclusion it needed a special tool. Moreover, over the almost 20 bikes I've owned, none ever required anything but a monkey wrench for their headstock nut to be removed.

Looks like it's already been removed or more likely butchered in the past.

Ok, so if this Triumph needs one, then let's try to find one somewhere. Spending a bit of time on eBay might sometimes prove be a successful approach, and for a short time I had one of these tools for me, but was outbid in the last minutes. Nevermind, the second chance came to the form of the Triumph online parts specialist World of Triumph. Most parts for 955i models can still be had new from them (apart from options of the likes of faux-carbon protectors and fly screens which seems to have disappeared off the surface.)

The tool has been delivered within 3 days and its only 2 teeth are now ready for action.