After giving it a fairly glowing review in our single-bike evaluation, the WR then went head to head against Kawasaki's supermoto contender, the KLX250SF. Although the WR costs $890 more than the KLX, its surplus of power, premium adjustable suspension and sweet aluminum frame made it the clear favorite in our Quarter-liter Supermoto Shootout.

Most modern wheel bearings last a long time. However on high-mileage bikes, or dirt bikes that see a lot of mud and water, and bikes washed with high pressure hoses, the bearings can go out sooner than you think. In the case of our example, a well-used Beta trials bike, the front wheel bearings were completely shot after two years. The bearings were so worn that the wheel could flop around about a half-inch at the rim.

If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where well-stocked motorcycle shops abound, it’s likely possible to get same-day service on tire mounting and balancing. For the rest of us, purchasing new tires often requires leaving a bike at a shop for a few days. As often as I go through tires, this involves considerable down time. Since I can change a set of tires in about 90 minutes, and save money in the process, it makes sense for me to do it myself. It might make sense for you as well.

If you're ready to take the plunge and tackle the job read on, because that's just what we did with our long-term 1996 Yamaha Virago 1100. This particular bike's get-up-and-go had got-up-and-went, and we felt it was time to bring the valves back into the swing of things. After clearing a space in our cluttered shop, we tossed the beast up on its center stand, put on our rubber gloves and went to work.

No matter what type of motorcycle you own, from a 1908 Indian to a Ducati Desmosedici RR, you can probably find a place in the US to race it. The first decisions the budding road racer needs to make are what type of road racing to do and where to do it, as there is a myriad of national and regional race organizations. Find the one that best fits the type of motorcycle you want to race and the type of racing that you want to do.

Speaking of assets, your bike does depreciate. If you are financially sound and you are insuring a bike (or bikes) with values of less than $3500, consider dropping the collision coverage if you know it will not cause financial strain to repair it or replace it if there is a loss.

Wrong. Lets get real. If you dont have a friend in the business, a proper transport vehicle or a clue, then youre going to have to put your trust in the hands of a complete stranger. Youre going to have to let go of your partner in crime and hope for a blissful reunion. Here are a few tips on how to find a shipping service provider:

With braking, the use it or lose it principle definitely applies, and skills can become rusty if not proactively attended to.

With a motorcycle built for any challenge – well, almost – we’ve put ‘er to the test this year. I think however, an observed trials course would be the immature end for more than a few parts on our project KLR.

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While stripping down our Project KLR to install the suspension and exhaust modifications you’ll read about in a future installment, we took the opportunity to test out a soft-sided rackless pannier system that’s easy to install and easy to remove as well. Oregon-based, Giant Loop Industries makes motorcycling luggage (one big bag, really) designed for abusive use on adventure bikes with one primary goal: To be as low and tight as possible to the bike for greater stability and control. A bag that hugs your motorcycle, much like you hug the road.

“Believe it or not, your first-race experience isn't really uncommon,” Editor-In-Chief Duke offered on the Monday after. “Despite best intentions, a first race is always fraught with tension and some measure of unpreparedness for the entire experience. Although your back-of-the-pack finishes aren't what you'd hoped for, they are much preferable to wadding up your bike in the hapless pursuit of initial glory. Your next race weekend will undoubtedly go much smoother, leaving your mind free to explore where you can trim chunks off your lap times.”

In Part 4, I suggested that the freshly-prepared KLR was ready for a fantastic voyage, and that it got! Joining a few other KLR riders, we packed our rides with passports, bribe money y regalos (& gifts) and fresh underwear, crossed our fingers and throttled our way down to the Panama Canal via mainland Mexico and five of the seven Central American countries. Interesting to say the least, the ride was a piece of cake thanks to our reliable Japanese steeds.

Friday morning, 3:30 a.m.:

You should have your racing license in your wallet before the bike is completed. Send in your application as soon as you complete your track school. Then you're ready to pick your race weekends and pre-enter. Remember, learning to race is all about track time. Enter yourself in as many races as you can afford and your body can handle. As a Supersport racer you can always "move up," entering your Supersport-spec bike in Superbike, Grand Prix or Unlimited classes. The competition is stiffer, but you'll be getting in more track time. Also, sign up for the endurance events. You've spent all of that money getting here, so you should maximize your time on the track.

By now you’re probably familiar with the Happy-Trail.com website and how easy it is to shop by make and model. How cool is that? Who needs to sort through bar risers for a bike you don’t own? No one does.

Body Work

Protection

With a stripped down bike in the garage and a few bucks in your pocket, it’s time to start building your first race bike. Now that you know the minimum it takes to race your motorcycle, here are the three areas where you should spend your money first.

Bad news. At the novice level, the rider is much more important than the bike. Chances are a stock CBR600RR in street trim will be faster than you are for your first race season. Not that your first race bike isn't important. Building a competent machine will go a long way towards getting a novice racer "up to speed" quickly.

I suggested in my last installment that I put the bike to the test, and I’ve gotten my opportunity. The winds of change blow through the California offices like unpredictable dust devils, and before I ever made full contact to the crew at Twisted Throttle about outfitting our KLR with their armor and luggage like we’d seen at the IMS show, another option dropped in our laps by way of the dualie’s maker, Kawasaki.

Once you've decided which organization to race with, the only thing standing between you and going for the checkered flag is a race license. All racing organizations require that new riders have some form of schooling to prove that they have at least an elementary understanding of how to ride bar end to bar end with a pack of other motorcycles at high speed.

While there have been far fewer combat-related deaths than in previous eras, unwelcome statistics from motorcycle accidents have been spiking.

Nearing the end of my second day at Jamie James’ new Yamaha Champions Racing School, this is my last track session to put all of the pieces together. This time I am trying not to think too much about all of the instruction, but just do it. Staying wide on the track and downshifting earlier, I make a smooth transition leaning into the tight corner. Increasing the throttle through the apex, my Yamaha R6 exits in what feels like one fluid movement. It is an experience I’ve felt a few times in my life with other sports, but never on a motorcycle. It’s that feeling athletes refer to as being “In the Zone” where everything is automatic and flowing. It has me totally fired up, as I roll on the throttle to chase my instructor, hitting triple digit speeds heading toward the blind corner leading into the museum turn.

If you discuss American motorcycle road racing in the last decade and the topic of privateers (racers without factory support) comes up, then invariably the conversation will turn to a racer named Geoff May. Now an AMA pro, May is a self-made legend in road racing circles for his often one-man assaults on the podium. He fought his way up from an under-financed amateur to earn a ride on the Jordan Suzuki support squad. If anyone could pass on a few pointers on how to start road racing from scratch, May I reasoned, would be it.

But for those race fans who have always aspired to do more than just watch, why not make this winter the one in which you move from spectator to participant, using the down time to prepare instead of daydream. Come spring, you could find yourself on the other side of the chain-links with your hands wrapped around the grips instead of clutching a program and a beer.

So far, we’ve noticed suggestions for a handful of cosmetic updates – headlights, grips and saddle – as well as some hard-part upgrades. Your ideas are obviously those that help get you down the road harder, faster or both. Thank you for the posts to date.

While down in California we don’t have to stop riding, upgrades are often desirable regardless the season. Many of you ‘Rounders’ will stand up at this point and make yourself known. You’re cool and lucky to have the cojonés to “keep it real” while the rest of us take the wimpy way to the office.

There are several things you can do to ensure your bike will be just as ready to go as you will be at the first genuine signs of spring.

Motorcycle.com’s Forum Manager, Stew Lawson happens to fit into the latter, so over the course of the next year or so we will be tricking out his 2007 ultra blue metallic CBR 600RR. Now we’re not talking about the chrome spinning rims and extended swingarm kind of mods that drug dealers with gold teeth dream about, our goal is to add some tasteful alterations and adjustments that will unleash the dark side of this RR while keeping it classy.

To learn new skills means I must be ready to come in last, to fail the tests, and to come across as a fool – or at least that is what I am afraid of. In an effort to transform insecurity into perversity, I like to foist my incompetence onto professional instructors. Do you think you are a good instructor?  Well, Michelangelo, teach me to paint the Sistine Chapel. I brought a gallon of already hardened exterior paint and a fistful of crayons...

Part of their original success during the motorcycle boon of the ’70s was born out of helping introduce new riders to the joys of motorcycling by producing a line of smaller, less intimidating machines than the competition. As a result, there has always been a residual element of safety that has surrounded the company. Continuing this tradition of accommodating nascent riders, Honda has developed the SMART (Safe Motorcyclist Awareness and Recognition Trainer), also known as the SMARTrainer.

Enter Cal-Sportbike TrackXperience. Motorcycle.com recently used the services of this trackday company and found the whole experience – from the important but relaxed rider’s meeting to the last lap of the last session – to be the antithesis of the negatives that can plague many trackdays.

This is most evident in the liter-sized sportbike category. Revving any of these inline-Fours to redline in first gear will bring a rider dangerously close to 100 mph – and there are still five gears to go! Although they are competent enough on the street, exploring their huge performance potential on public roads is a recipe for disaster.

That smarmy aggregation isn’t just gross in its own right. Leave it alone long enough and those knackered, highly stressed parts could see you off your sparkly mount in an eye-blink.

As the hands of the clock make their way toward 11.p.m., Bedell waits in quiet contemplation of the journey that lies ahead. With the media describing it as “the most spectacular long-distance motorcycle dash the world has ever known,” Allan T. Bedell is ready to make history as he attempts to break the current transcontinental record, one held by living legend Erwin “Cannonball” Baker. Ahead of him lies 3296 miles of hard, unsupported riding across America. A ride that he predicts will take him nine days.

For this grasshopper, it is the effect of the cold on my hands that signals the end of my riding season. There are many possible approaches to remedy this, including heated gloves, heated hand-grips (thin inserts that go between the grips and the handlebar) or small inserts that go inside the handlebar itself. All require additions to – and in some cases, alterations to – the bike’s electrical system. I chose to go with a set of Polly Heaters. Polly Heaters are inexpensive and, as my Buell XB has clip-ons, I figured it would be a relatively straight-forward installation process.

Personally, I never quite understood their passionate pursuit of what seemed to me a rather odd pastime, but then suddenly, just the other day, I realized that I was engaging in an activity almost identical to theirs. And no, I am not a bird watcher, but I am a “biker watcher.” And so are many of you — I’d bet money on it.

“My mother carried me in a sidecar between her feet when I was a baby,” says Bob. “This was in Pana, Illinois, about 30 miles south of Decatur where my Dad was a blacksmith and a horseshoer. We rode around in a four-cylinder Ace sidecar rig as we couldn’t afford a car then and it was our family transportation. My Dad bought, sold and traded motorcycles all his life. Our whole family including my mother and three brothers and four sisters all rode motorcycles.”

Jean-Pierre Goy, in case you didn’t know, is often considered to be the greatest motorcycle stunt rider in the world. Probably his most famous stunt was in the James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" where he doubled for Pierce Brosnan, jumping a BMW R1200C over the whirling blades of a hovering helicopter... two-up. A lot of people think that was a computer-faked stunt, but it wasn’t. Goy actually jumped the Beemer from one rooftop to another, over a helicopter hovering between the two buildings, with a passenger on the back of the bike.

Only the educated are free.--Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher

George Benes asks:

I pulled out the nail, got out my patch kit (bought a few days earlier at a bicycle shop), found the hole in the tube, patched it and was on my way. A few hours later, just out of Coco's corner, that squishy sensation came back. This time I didn't need the lady to tell me I was suffering from pneumatic dysfunction. I pulled out the tube and saw the now shriveled-up patch I had put on earlier in San Felipe. 

Well, this is the way I see it, from studying several different European systems:

First of all, I think it is only common sense that a new rider should start out on a smaller, lightweight machine. If nothing else, simple parking lot fall-overs from an unsteady foot or improper braking or clutching are reduced, because the bike is easier to hold up. Watch any BRC course, and I think you'd have to agree. And yet, here in the USA, one of the most popular bikes purchased by first-time buyers is the 800-lb. Honda Gold Wing. Can you really make any argument that this is an intelligent move? Don't you think it is pretty obvious that a rookie is considerably more likely to get himself/herself into trouble on that Wing than on, say, a 250 Rebel?

One of the advantages of the tiered system is that it forces a new rider to stay on a lightweight machine for at least one year before moving up to a larger bike. And even better, it requires that the rider remain accident-free and citation-free for that year to qualify for the move. Finally, when the year is up, that rider is required to take more extensive training before being allowed to the next tier. This process repeats itself through several layers, or tiers, the exact number depending on what country you're in, and how big a bike you ultimately want to own and ride.

By 1915, it would be advertised as "The Fastest Motorcycle Ever Built"

He is considered by many, to this day, to have been the greatest jinx that ever lived.

Just about this time last year our man in Italy, Yossef, garnered himself a ride on Ducati's S2R Monster. His review was just short of gushing. Stateside MO staffers got jealous, so we decided to one-up our European-cool-bike-getting buddy by putting on our best pathetic faces and finagling an S2R of our own, but with 189 more cubic centimeters. 

To aid traffic pulling in and out of the beach access road and the game preserve, the highway department had placed a stoplight right in front of the restaurant, about 50 feet from where we were dining. About halfway through our lunch, five motorcycles pulled up to this light. Like most motorcyclists, I immediately identified the machines in my mind: One Harley Fat Boy, one Harley Softail, two Kawasaki Vulcans, a Yamaha Road Star and a Honda VTX. Each and every one of them with aftermarket pipes--though the ones on the Softail looked almost homemade.

Who owns that information? And what about our constitutional protection against self-incrimination? Does the state, or perhaps your insurance company, have the right to use that information against you to raise your insurance rates, or to prosecute you and perhaps even send you to jail? The consensus among the panel was that, legally, the information belongs to the owner of the vehicle and can't be used without his permission, but... read on.

But as this charioteer lurched over towards me
I struck him in my rage...
He was paid back, and more!
Swinging my club in this right hand I knocked him
Out of his car, and he rolled on the ground.
I killed him.... I killed them all.
- Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, 430 BC

Six months later, you're visiting a friend in another city a few hundred miles away from where you live. You duck into a cycle shop to check out used bikes: you've been thinking of getting a new one. There, parked in front of some used cruisers and dual-sports sits a black CBR1000RR with an Akropovic can and a "Motorhead" sticker on the windscreen. It's got to be your bike. But how did it get here?

You have a car, don't you? It's okay, I have a car too. So why, oh why would anybody ride in the rain? Are they stupid? Do they have a screw loose?

For me, the 1980's were a time of pegged, fashionably ripped jeans, re-runs of 'Three's Company' and voluminous hair. For many of you, however, the 1980's were a golden era of motorcycle roadracing, with the Grand Prix being held in California, packed with a grid of American racers, racers as fast and victorious as the most famous of the Europeans.      

"But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days."

Although I have often considered taking the advanced rider course from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, I needed to be ordered to take it to finally make the decision. You see, I was called to Active Duty by the National Guard in May and in order to ride my pride and joy on the post the General said I had to take the MSF course. Being a Captain, I decided to take the course rather than risk being caught by an eager 18 year-old private with a gun and a shiny, new MP badge, salivating at the thought of catching an officer riding an unregistered bike on post. Our MPs here are more crusty than usual - I often wonder which General's daughter these MPs must have impregnated to be assigned to the gate at Ft. Irwin, only a few miles from Death Valley.