Top 10 Motorcycle Predictions!

It’s that time of year again – that time where it’s my turn to do this week’s Top 10, and I’ve got nothin’. Time to make some predictions about the future, then! Let us prepare a beverage and gaze once again into the crystal ball.

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BMW Develops Autonomous R1200GS

BMW has developed an autonomous motorcycle that can operate without a rider. BMW showed off a prototype based on an R1200GS to journalists last week in southern France, demonstrating its ability to start up, accelerate, corner and come to a stop without any human input

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Do I Really Need a New Superbike?

Dear MOby,

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How Much Better Are Tires Compared to 30 Years Ago?

Dear MOby,

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Best Motorcycle Technology of 2017

TFT displays are a type of LCD flat-panel display screen in which each pixel is controlled by one to four transistors, which can combine to yield full-color readouts. Not only does this type of display offer great resolution, it allows manufacturers full customization of how the user interface interacts with the rider. In more performance-oriented bikes, we see normal street-riding displays, while more track-focused screens can be made available at the push of a button. Track-specific screens generally focus on tachometer, lap timers, and gear indicators to give trackday enthusiasts an easier intake of information that is important while spinning laps.

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Head Shake - Basement Epiphany

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

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Skidmarks - Gratitude

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

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Skidmarks - Start Me Up

“The only real mistake is the one
from which we learn nothing.”

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Top 10 Moto Innovations of the Last 30 Years

Looking back 30 years at things auto- and moto-motive is like stumbling into those caves in France with the caveman art. I remember my dad’s Volare wagon with the slant-Six and the newfangled emission controls on the carburetor that ensured it ran like crap when it ran at all… Actually Japanese motorcycles were way ahead of cars at the time, but the miracle of modern electronics and the computer chip has rendered everything of that era antique. And the rate of progression of the last decade or so, if it keeps up, makes it impossible for my Cro-Magnon brain to even imagine what lies ahead. I tried anyway.

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Technological Strategies To Motorcycle Safety

It’s nearly impossible to purchase a new motorcycle that doesn’t include some form of pre-installed electronic rider aid. From cornering ABS to switchable ride modes, on-the-fly adjustable traction control to hill-hold start, the variety of rider aids made available in just the last few years is mind blowing.

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Top 10 Star Wars Technologies Motorcycles Need

The technology to harvest excess atmospheric humidity here on Earth exists in a variety of small-form ideas such as the Fontus self-filling water bottle. But to battle something as large-scale as California’s drought problem we’d need industrial-strength moisture vaporators like the ones from Owen Lars’ moisture farm on Tatooine. Comparatively, Star Wars-type technology is already employed in the motorcycle industry, just not to the same level. Although we’re far behind the technology of that far away, long ago galaxy, we’re gaining ground fast. Let’s take a look.

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Skidmarks - Electric Love

I love electric vehicles. No, I really love electric vehicles. I didn’t used to love them so much, and you may not, either. But then I rode one and fell in love.

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2015 Yamaha YZF-R1/YZF-R1M First Ride Review + Video

Cresting the hill coming onto the front straight at Sydney Motorsport Park (better known as Eastern Creek Raceway), the throttle is wide open in second gear. As I click into third, the front comes up, rests at a neutral position about a foot off the ground, then gently returns to Earth moments later. All the while, the throttle was resting on the stop. Drive never felt interrupted, and despite the roughly 200 horses packed inside the new 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1, there was never a fear of being too liberal with the throttle. That’s when I knew Yamaha has just raised the bar. A lot has changed since the original R1 was introduced in 1998, and with the 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1 and R1M, never has the line between MotoGP and lil ’ol me been so blurred. That’s not just a Yamaha marketing tagline, either. Valentino Rossi himself (along with American Superbike champ, Josh Hayes) had a significant role in developing the R1, with the aim to incorporate the most sophisticated level of electronics on a production sportbike. These are just a few examples:

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Best Motorcycle Technology of 2014

Introduced on the new 2014 R1200RT and K1600GTL Exclusive is BMW’s latest electronic rider aid, Hill Start Control. HSC is a technology any touring rider who’s struggled with a weighted motorcycle at a graded stop will immediately recognize as beneficial.

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