#ConsumerElectronicsShow

While in Spain on the 2024 Triumph Street Triple R/RS intro, I crashed during the street portion of the ride. As much as I’d like to let this mishap go down the memory hole, it gave me the opportunity to abrasion and impact test some gear. Let’s set the stage, shall we: By making a series of small mistakes in an S-bend that combined to tuck the front end and put me on the ground at about 60 mph, I landed on my left knee and hip, followed by my torso and the underside of the left arm – all fairly typical of this type of crash. In those few seconds of sliding, the Alpinestars Caliber Jacket did its job of protecting my hide by sacrificing its hide. I won’t get into the specifics of the Alpinestars Caliber Jacket’s construction in this review. You can read about it here. What I want to focus on is how it performed in the crash, how much damage it sustained, the repair process, and why I decided to have it repaired.

As a kid, I remember my folks would take their shoes to the local shoe repair shop. I take it for granted now since I’ve been working from home long before it was cool, but there was a time when people not only had to go into an office, they also had to wear nice clothes, too! And the bit of that wardrobe that got the most punishment were the shoes. Those business shoes never looked comfortable, with their hard soles and weird patterns on the leather. But they lasted a long time, and if the soles ever wore out – which they did regularly with my folks – the local repair shop (I guess they were called cobblers even further back in time) could just put a new sole on and breathe new life into what would have been (re)tired shoes.

My latest stupid thing is rinsing the engine of my new used car with the hose. Not a pressure wash or even a full blast, I swear! Just a light drizzle to rinse off some degreaser in a couple nooks and crannies the morning after I brought the thing home. Before I did that, my new-to-me 2000 Jaguar XJR had been running like a 4-liter V-eight Jaguar with an Eaton supercharger on top of it. After it, the RESTRICTED PERFORMANCE lamp was lit and it would barely run. Dang. (I hope we can talk about cars here, too, can’t we? I was a car guy before I was a motorcycle guy, and the same concepts apply.)

Hopefully, you’ll never experience the sinking feeling of having your motorcycle suddenly sputter and die while you’re in the left hand lane of a crowded highway traveling at 70 mph. Or maybe it’s that mushy wobble of a rear tire that is quickly going flat. Mechanical problems are never fun, but on the interstate, they can be dangerous if you don’t take the proper steps. So, what’s a rider to do?

There is nothing more hateful than bad advice.

VerticalScope’s VP of Sales, Jason Brilant, has lived a variation of this scenario first-hand. While riding on a rural highway in the Allegheny National Forest, he encountered gravel on the road and low-sided his 2012 Ducati Monster 1100 EVO at about 50-60 mph and slid into a grassy ditch. Jason and his bike were banged up but not badly broken, and he was able to ride his cosmetically injured Duc the 220 miles back to his Toronto home. Functionally, the only impairment was a broken gear-shift lever that eventually and painfully wore its way through his boot during the ride home.

The more stuff you know how to fix, the more things fall apart. Before I started keeping not one but two flat tire repair kits on hand and a shiny new air compressor, I never got flats. Now I seem to pick up about one nail per vehicle per week. I took the old Ranger truck in to have a tire patched the other day when I couldn’t make a plug work. The next morning, the same tire was flat again. Oh, said the dude at Pep Boys upon my return, after a little investigating – there were two nails in there. Sorry.

When we first decide to buy a motorcycle and start riding, we think the whole experience will be what happens out on the road – the wind in the hair, bugs in the teeth, freedom and individuality and living in the moment and all that clichéd stuff about riding that is totally true and an essential part of the riding experience.

Ride for enough years, and you’ll experience some of the immutable truths about motorcycling: Leathers get smaller when hanging in a closet, our past racing ability improves the further we get from actual racing, and tire pressure drops when your bike isn’t ridden daily. While I can’t do anything about the first issue (except recommend diet and exercise changes) and I don’t want to change the second, as I’m enjoying my ever-expanding track exploits, tire pressure is an issue neglected by far too many riders.

Repsol Honda #1 Marc Marquez sits atop the grand prix motorcycle racing world with expectations growing at a geometric rate. Heading into Round 5, he has captured the last five poles, dating back to Valenciana last season, and has won every contest in 2014. He has topped the timesheets in most of the practice sessions. Aside from his boyish good looks, all he has going for him is timing, balance, reflexes, intelligence and a really good bike. The only hope for the rest of the grid this weekend is rain and plenty of it.