A note from the Dept. of You've Got To Be Kidding...

Progressive Insurance just released it's list of the ten best states for motorcycle riding, and placed Florida in the #1 position.

I just got back from a week down there, and while there are plenty of bikes on the road (and obviously some solid motorcycle racing heritage in the state) I would not rate it #1 or even in the upper half. Sure it's warm enough to ride year 'round, but it's actually uncomfortably hot for several months of the year.

I guess I could dig taking a slow cruise down to Key West on some funky bagger - if I was in the right mood and could find a Jimmy Buffett station on Sirius. But most Florida roads are long, flat, straight concrete slabs cutting through miles of decaying exurban blight. No wonder stretched Hayabusas are about the most common bike on the road; it's just terrain you want to get through as fast as possible.

I remember riding from Dallas to Daytona one year for Bike Week, and the Florida panhandle was one of the most boring transects in motorcycledom. (Hey, don't complain to me; Floridians call it the 'panhandle' even though it's obvious that the whole state is a panhandle.)

In fact, helmet use is so rare down there that I assume most Florida bikers are dying to leave.Note to Progressive: Did you even look at Colorado? Are you sure you weren't listing states from the bottom up? Something's fishy here, but I did note that Progressive does a lot of motorcycle insurance advertising in Florida on local TV. Is it possible that they've got great market penetration down there, and they're just stroking Florida bikers?..

Days 2 & 3 – Inaugural RTCUSA

 

Day 2

So Day 2 of RTC started with a thought provoking class by Alexjandro Ogata of HNTB on BIM Beyond the Documentation. This was a great class & it seems that HNTB are using similar techniques we are trying to implement at HOK. What was very apparent is that team structures & leadership skills fundamentally need to change when implementing a BIM process. The typical roles are changing & the knowledge required to fully implement BIM are not being fully understood by many firms.

After meeting with Newforma & discussing how it could potentially be used for FM, I caught the tail end of Doug Williams of Perkins & Wills class on “How to Establish a BIM Execution Plan to Assist Your IPD projects”. After lunch I sat in on Lee Millers class on using Revit for Urban Design. Even though I know most of what Lee showed as I have seen it many times before, it always amazes me how impressive this is. I hear it again & again that Revit really isn’t the right tool for this type of work. However, if you set things up correctly & utilise some of the scheduling capabilities of Revit, this is “so” the right tool. Towards the end of the day I drifted into Marcelio Sgambelluri class on adaptive families. I just wanted to see the parametric elephant & cow for my own eyes! Marcelio is an insane genius! It was then onto the RTC BBQ. Steve Staffords son DJ’d & my kids had a blast.

 

Day 3

I joined Lee Miller & Matt Jezyk in Stephen Taskin class on Conceptual Massing. A superb class to start the day. Stephen showed some incredible panelling concepts, both Matt & I where equalled excited about what we saw. To quote Matt “holy shit, this stuff is insane”! After a short coffee break I joined Jason Grant class where he showed how he has developed presentation techniques to improve the quality of output from Revit. Everything you see in the screen grab below was undertaken in Revit; no Photoshop work here!

During lunch Matt J then showed some secret squirrel stuff he & his team are working on. More details to follow on this in the next month or so.

It was then onto the closing speeches by Alan Preger of Newforma & then Paul Doherty of Screampoint to close RTC USA. Paul highlighted some great development technologies he & his teams are working on. Some of it was rather scary stuff, but as Paul emphasized, Architects need to realise that they will be the masters of this new digital world. This will provide Architects with greater business opportunities over & above just designing buildings. His most thought provoking comment, was in the very near future “architects will be in a far greater demand” which certainly got a laugh from the audience. Whilst I am not an architect, just a humble technician at heart, I hope Architects do realise that this is genuine opportunity & they need to think beyond just good design & traditional ways of working.

Jim Baldings ANT group finished off proceedings with “glorious gadgets”. Doug from P+W showed how they had developed Ipad apps to showcase projects, Eon Reality showed 3d glasses & we where also exposed to some amazing VR stuff.

Wesley Benn wound up the formal side event with the assistance of Phil Read before the Gala Dinner.

Steve Shells band Shell Shock rocked the night away, with a drum appearance from Steve Stafford. Is there no end to this guy’s talent? A good drummer & a sound Revit aficionado.

My children then ripped up the dance floor with the likes of Jim Balding, , Wesley Benn, Dave Conant & others!

So my opinion of RTC USA? It was beyond excellent. It had a totally different feel to AU. The quality of speakers was brilliant, I didn’t attend one duff class. The venue was extremely good & the connectivity with others within the Revit community made this event invaluable. RTC plan to move the event around, so maybe it will be on the East Coast next year. Running an new event in this continued challenging economic climate is always risky, but the RTC team certainly pulled it off. I would guess the biggest challenge for the RTC event organisers will to maintain the events sense of community social feel without growing too large.

Next month's the 40th anniversary of On Any Sunday. So here's my unscientific list of the best (and worst) bike films of all time...

It’s not surprising that the list of the best motorcycle movies of all time includes clusters of films made between the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and again from 1995 to 2005. Those were the two periods in which postwar motorcycle sales – and interest in the sport of motorcycling – peaked.

1. On Any Sunday (1971) Documentary filmmaker Bruce Brown was a surfer who made the classic ‘60s surf-doc “Endless Summer”. Commercial success is rare in documentary films, but revenues from that one hit allowed Brown to retire young. He spent much of his time riding dirt bikes in California. Eventually he realized that bike racing was a perfect subject for another film. With investment from Steve McQueen, Brown’s camera crews followed AMA Grand National contender Mert Lawwill and versatile dirt racer Malcolm Smith, with cameos from McQueen himself. Flat out the best documentary film ever on the subject of motorcycle racing. July 28 marks the 40th anniversary of On Any Sunday's release, so get it in your Netflix queue now and plan a '70s theme party with lots of LSD and unprotected sex.

2. Easy Rider (1969) This film was written and produced by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, who also starred in it. They play a pair of hippies who ride their choppers from L.A. to New Orleans. Along the way, they meet a cast of characters that includes an ACLU lawyer played by an unheralded Jack Nicholson.

The film was a true road movie, as the crew followed Fonda and Hopper (both avid riders in real life) as they crossed the American west picking film locations on the spur of the moment. The narrative brilliantly captured the country’s Vietnam-era malaise, and Hopper was acclaimed as the best new director at the Cannes Film Festival. Fonda’s “Captain America” chopper became an American icon. Interestingly, the bike disappeared after the film was completed.

3. Electra Glide in Blue (1973) Half road film, half film noir, this cult classic tells the story of a vertically-challenged motorcycle cop (played by Robert Blake, whose real life was also plenty ‘noir’). Blake’s character, “Big John”, wants to get off his bike and become a detective so he can work with his brain and not “sit on my ass getting calluses.” This was the only film James Guercio ever directed; he’s better known as a Grammy Award-winning producer, composer, and performer who worked with the jazz-fusion bands Blood, Sweat and Tears, and Chicago.

4. Dust to Glory (2005) If the name Dana Brown rings a bell, it’s because he’s Bruce “On Any Sunday” Brown’s son. Following in his dad’s footsteps, Dana made this documentary about the Baja 1000 desert race in Mexico. The race is for cars and trucks as well as motorcycles but in the best family tradition, the emphasis is on motorcycle racer “Mouse” McCoy. Unlike his dad, Dana had access to 55(!) cameras and four helicopters, allowing him to capture the best footage ever of this epic race. Warning: Don’t watch this film unless you have been inoculated against the racing bug. The Baja 1000 is one of the last races that’s open to anyone and has classes allowing almost any vehicle to compete, so you won’t have the “I don’t have a racing license,” or the “My bike’s not legal for the event” excuses!

5. Continental Circus (1969) Continental Circus documents a season in Grand Prix racing. This classic bit of cinema-verite is hard to find but well worth looking for. It was originally made in French by producer-director Jerome Laperrousaz, but it can also be found with English voice-over narration.

Laperrousaz follows a charismatic Australian privateer named Jack Findlay. The film brilliantly captures the end of an era – the last time when an independent racer with a couple of bikes slung in the back of his van could mix it up with world champions like Giacomo Agostini. Jack travels from country to country, sleeping in a tent at the track, and living from prize check to prize check. A trippy rock score reinforces the oh-so-‘60s vibe. This is Woodstock, with gasoline instead of acid and plaster casts instead of long hair.

6. World’s Fastest Indian (2005) This film was written and directed by Roger Donaldson. It is based on a true story about Bert Munro, an eccentric New Zealander who traveled to the Bonneville Salt Flats in order to prove that he had the world’s fastest Indian motorcycle. Along the way Munro (played by Anthony Hopkins) meets a cast of characters nearly as charming and offbeat as he is.

7. Crusty Demons of Dirt (1995) In the early ‘90s the aptly named Fleshwound Films company – which had already made a couple of successful extreme snowboarding videos – turned its cameras on motorcyclists in the deserts of SoCal and Nevada. Fleshwound spent two years filming established Supercross stars like Jeremy McGrath and Jeff Emig, as well as then-unknown freeriders like Brian Deegan , Mike Metzger and long-jump lunatic Seth Enslow. They set their footage to an indie-thrashmetal soundtrack and created a video that launched the whole “freeride” FMX phenomenon.

8. The Long Way ‘Round (2004)

This was filmed for a BBC “reality television” series. Real motorcycle globetrotters (who ride without a support truck and helicopter assistance) rolled their eyes at the thought of two actors riding across Eurasia and America for the cameras. However, once they got underway, Ewan McGregor (Star Wars, Trainspotting) and his sidekick Charlie Boorman quickly charmed their way past even the most cynical viewers. It’s great, escapist fun.

9. The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) Based on Che Guevara’s own account of his journey through Latin America on an old Norton. If you’re watching it as a motorcyclist and not a budding communist, you’ll probably find the second half of the film, after Che abandons his bike, to be less entertaining than the first half. However, intelligent direction by Brazilian director Walter Salles and a typically fine performance by Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal made this film a darling of awards juries everywhere. It even won an Oscar for Best Original Song, “Al Otro Lado Del Rio” by composer Jorge Drexler.

10. One Man's Island (2003)

Call me self-serving but I stand by this film and story it tells. If documentaries like On Any Sunday or Dust to Glory are sweeping, One Man’s Island is intimate and intensely personal. Canadian independent director Peter Riddihough spent the better part of a year following an ordinary rider (yes, me) who quit his job and sold all his possessions in order to move to the Isle of Man and race in the famous TT. It’s a film about motorcycle racing that non-racers can also appreciate since, at its heart, it’s a story about the pursuit of dreams.

What about the worst motorcycle movies of all time?

On one hand it’s easy to compile a list of terrible bike flicks – after all, the list of bad motorcycle movies is almost identical to the list of all motorcycle movies. The good ones are the exceptions.

On the other hand, with so many real stinkers to choose from, narrowing the field to the ten worst is tricky. Some of them are so bad they’re almost amusing. (Note that I said “almost”– watching them is still downright painful.) The following ten is a strictly personal list including films that are about motorcycling, as well as a few films in which bikes play notably lame supporting roles.

1. The Wild One (1953) This film was almost certainly the most influential motorcycle movie of all time – unfortunately it influenced America to hate and fear motorcyclists! Laszlo Benedek directed a star-studded cast including Lee Marvin and, of course, Marlon Brando.

Thanks to Brando, this movie’s still in every Blockbuster store but don’t kid yourself – it’s as dated as stale cheese. The outlaw bikers come across more like disaffected artists from the Left Bank in Paris and as for Brando’s performance… let’s just say that it’s no “On the Waterfront.” Benedek made the film shortly after emigrating from Europe. Once he was more settled in California, he was a solid Emmy contender as a TV director, but this movie stinks!

2. No Limit (1936) This movie was a huge hit in prewar Britain and definitely consolidated the TT’s status as the world’s most important motorcycle race. It starred George Formby, who was a ukelele-playing vaudeville star and enormously popular as a live performer. He plays a speed demon determined to win the TT on a motorcycle of his own design. How this movie managed to become a box office success and survive to this day on video is a complete mystery. The race action is almost comically bloodthirsty, Formby’s off-key singing grates on your ears, and as an actor he made Stan Laurel look like Sir Laurence Olivier.

3. The Wild Angels (1966) Saying that this film is about a couple of Hells Angels facing off against the cops is misleading, as there’s practically no plot. That was one of its many flaws, which prompted film critic Christopher Null to call it “truly one of the most awful films ever made.” It’s perhaps even more tragic in that many of the people involved had real talent and/or Hollywood Boulevard street cred. The movie was directed by B-movie “auteur” Roger Corman. His (massive) oeuvre is now being reappraised by serious film critics. Peter Bogdanovich worked on the screenplay. Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Nancy Sinatra starred in it. The film opened at the prestigious Venice Film Festival. Don’t kid yourself: none of that comes close to saving it.

4. The Hellcats (1967) “Motorcycle mamas on a highway to Hell!” “Leather on the outside... All woman on the inside!” This movie was luridly promoted as the story of a bike gang run by women. It’s notable mainly for its comically bad post-production; in some shots motorcycles approach in utter silence, while other scenes with no bikes have loud motor sound effects. Director Robert Slatzer had a thankfully brief career as a cheap, exploitive sensationalist. Sadly it didn’t end soon enough to protect the world from “Hellcats.”

5. Biker BoyZ (2003) For the last decade at least, the whole urban/African-American/outlaw street-racing scene has been rich fodder for a great action film… too bad no one has made it. Real street racers will marvel at the scene in which a couple of turbo- and nitrous-modified Hayabusas stage a drag race on a gravel road.

6. Torque (2004) Another take on the street-racing scene, this time complicated by the tired old framed-for-murder plot device. Curiously, director Joseph Kahn came to this project having done almost nothing but Britney Spears videos.

7. Supercross (2005) The colorful world of professional Supercross racing forms the backdrop for this limping story in which two brothers have a falling out. They become bitter rivals before hardship brings them back together. Cue: audience rolls eyes.

         This movie is the only directorial effort by Steve Boyum, an established Hollywood stunt coordinator. It has quite possibly the least-talented cast and crew in the history of cinema, but it’s Boyum himself who’s most to blame for its box office failure. Real supercross is so spectacular that it doesn’t need stunts at all – let alone a stunt coordinator as director. Someone capable of telling a compelling story could probably make a great movie about this sport but, the way Hollywood works, Supercross’s flop will make it impossible to pitch another SX script for at least a decade.

8. I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990)

By day it’s a Norton sitting quietly in a garage. But by night it is possessed by a demon and emerges to drink the blood of anyone foolish enough to act in this film, er, wait a minute, I meant to write “walk around Birmingham after dark”. Plenty of splattered gore and – I’m not making this up – a talking turd. Even stranger than that last tidbit is the fact that director Dirk Campbell was previously known as the writer-director of Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. Surely those are the two most divergent films ever made by a single person.

9. Special industry award: American Chopper (c. 2005) No one was more surprised than the Discovery Channel when the Teutels’ dysfunctional family schtick became the network’s most-watched show. In short order it spawned a host of imitators. The real problem is that millions of Americans watch them and actually think, “This is real.” In fact, Hollywood screenwriters gotup in arms because the writers who work on such “reality” shows are paid far less than those who write for shows like “Lost” or even “Joey”.

Why, you might wonder, would reality TV even need writers? That’s a good question. In 2005, at least 1,200 members of the Writer’s Guild of America worked in the reality genre. Clearly they weren’t all writing hosts’ introductions and voice-over narration. You don’t suppose the Teutels’ tantrums are scripted?

10. Dopey-stunt award (tie):

Matrix Reloaded (2003) Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

The breathless advance promotion of both of these films emphasized the ludicrous claim that Carrie-Ann Moss and Tom Cruise both did their own stunts. If only that were true! Both would’ve been killed early in production and we would have been spared these tiresome sequels.

In fact, the Wachowski brothers’ signature “stunting” is mostly done in computerized post-production. That explains why real motorcyclists find Trinity’s Ducati ride through oncoming traffic to be visually spectacular but fundamentally unconvincing. At least Mission: Impossible’s old-school action film director John Woo still arranges for most of his stunts to be done in front of the camera. Real riders will note that Ethan’s tires change from knobbies (when he’s riding on dirt or gravel) to slicks (when he’s riding on pavement) in the same chase sequence. If the villain could simply patent those tires, he wouldn’t have to threaten the release of a deadly virus in order to hold the world for ransom.

Slant artists

The AMA sanctions a professional hillclimb championship. This is not a 'Pikes Peak' style hillclimb, it's a short, brutal drag race up an ungroomed mountainside so steep you can barely climb it on foot. 

The championship dates back to the Great Depression, when factory support for flat track racing nearly dried up, and promoters couldn't draw enough paying customers to justify renting tracks. Putting on a hillclimb was cheap. All you needed was a steep hill, and since the races only lasted a few seconds, wear and tear on equipment was minimal. During the sport's heyday (from 1930 until WWII) Harley-Davidson and Indian entered stars like Joe Petrali in events across the country. Nowadays, it's shrunk back to the point where, this year, five of nine events will be held in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania.

Still, it's a national championship, and in 2008 I was surprised to see that a guy named Phil Libhart had won the title on a bike with a '70s Bonneville motor. Libhart's Triumph twin was racing against bikes powered by Yamaha R1 motors and GSX-R1000s. I figured he was a special kind of lunatic, and put him on my list of stories to track down.

Phil and his brother Todd ride for a team run by an old Pennsylvania hillclimber named Ralph Kreeger. Although it's staunch Harley country - there's a big assembly plant in nearby York, PA - Kreeger was always a Triumph man. Years ago, Ralph was a member of York's White Rose Motorcycle Club. He met a local hillclimber named Bees Wendt at the club, and Bees gave him an introduction to the world of 'slant artists.' Ralph took to it, fitting an extended swingarm to his Trackmaster Triumph. Later, he made his own frame, taking cues from the Trackmaster design, but leaving more room around the engine, so he could pull the heads without taking the motor out.

Todd Libhart, on the smaller of three Triumphs built to Ralph Kreeger's original pattern. Ralph wanted me to point out that Phil is the machinist wizard that keeps these bikes running.

Ralph finally hung up his helmet after one too many hard crashes. "I can handle broken arms and legs," he told me, "but when you start knocking your brain around, it's time to stop." He'd met Phil Libhart at a local flat track race, and he offered Phil a ride on his bike. Ralph passed along the knowledge that Bees Wendt had given to him, plus interest. They built a couple more frames, and the team currently has three bikes; Phil runs a stock-displacement Bonneville in the 'Extreme' class (basically anything displacing under 750cc) and a Bonnie punched-out to 788cc in the Unlimited class. His little brother Todd races the bike Ralph originally gave to Phil. It's got a 1970 Daytona engine bored to 540cc.

All the motors drink nitromethane from Hillborn fuel injectors. The bikes are fitted with Nourish cranks and eight-valve heads, Carillo rods, and CP pistons made to the team's own spec. Hillclimb bikes use only one speed, so they modify the gearboxes to run top gear only; that leaves empty space in the box, allowing it to double as an oil tank. Although it's hard to get reliable dyno figures using nitro, the little bike makes about 150 horsepower. Phil's bikes put out around 200.

The typical competition hill's only about 500 feet, and runs last from four to eight seconds. There's no practice; riders eyeball the hill and try to choose a line, then they make two timed runs. In the last few years, to control increasing speeds, organizers have started throwing in a couple of turns, but over the course of the championship, bikes are wide open for less than five minutes. I was surprised that a 40 year-old Bonneville motor could produce 200 horsepower even that long.

"There's about thirty hours of machining in each set of cases," Phil told me. "You'd be surprised how far out of parallel the axis of the cam and crank are. We get them all squared up; we fit steel inserts for the main bearings, and we cut improved oilways." Even at that, last year was the first time they got a whole season out of a set of cases. They've blown the cylinders off the top and cranks out the bottom.

"I think I'm driving the price of vintage Triumphs up around here," Phil laughed, "I buy so many old bikes just to get the cases."

Despite racing against modern motors, Phil's finished near the top of the standings in one or both of his classes for over ten years. According to Ralph, it's because their Triumph twins have a better punch right off the bottom.

"We gain an advantage in the first 100 feet," he told me, "before the four-cylinder bikes really make their power. Then, the question is, 'Can we hold on 'til the top?'"

Yeah, can they hold on, and will it hold together? I'm not sure I'd want to straddle one, myself, at least not without one of those Kevlar 'diapers' they wrap over drag race motors to catch shrapnel. But the old twins don't put Phil at much of a disadvantage, because hillclimb bikes are limited by traction, not power. The bikes have wheelbases of around 96", with nearly a foot of adjustment. The essential tuning skill is choosing the right wheelbase for conditions. If you go too long, it will just spin the rear tire. (Phil uses chains, but some competitors run paddle tires.) If you go too short, you'll get traction at the rear but the bike will loop out.

"If I get it just right," Phil said, "I can make the entire run without the front wheel ever touching the ground. When you wheelie a ten foot-long motorcycle, you're a long way up. It's not always the fastest way, but it's the most fun."

Dreaming of a Trip

Bryan Hansel's recent solo kayak expedition from Port Huron Grand Marais, MN, in 45 days has me dreaming of paddling trips. Bryan's trip was nearly 1300 km and traversed the length of Lakes Huron & Superior. Now, that sort of thing is more than a little out of my league, and I don't envision myself taking off from my family for a month and a half, but, an adventure on a more reasonable scale is worth dreaming about.

Specifically, I've been thinking a lot lately about a circumnavigation of Lac La Ronge. Lac La Ronge is a large lake about 380 km north of Saskatoon, straddles the edge of the Canadian Shield and is surrounded by boreal forest. The southern portion of the lake is sandy and wide open, while the northern portion is rocky and full of granite islands. It may not be "Great Lake" big, but it's still pretty darned big at approximately 35 km across from the town of La Ronge on the western shore to the eastern side, and about 65 km from a bay in the southwest to the exit of the Rapid (Montreal) River in the northwest corner. It's large enough that standing on the shore in the town of La Ronge and looking ESE to the open lake, you see nothing but horizon.

View Lac La Ronge Circumnavigation in a larger map

A circumnavigation that generally follows the shoreline but is not strict about following the bays and completely skips Hunter Bay would be over 220 km. One could cut this down somewhat with a few more shortcuts in the northern portion of the lake, but at some point you would jeopardize being able to call it a "circumnavigation". Hunter Bay is a large lake unto itself (~18km x 19km) and adding a circumnavigation of the bay adds another 68 km to the trip.

Because of the large open nature of the lake, especially in the south end, I think this trip is best suited for sea kayaks rather than canoe. If you can figure on 25km per paddling day, the trip would take about 9 days. Add on some days for rest and being windbound, and we're at about 12 days even without Hunter Bay. It seems possible to do it in less time (30 km days, for instance), but that allows less time for fishing, repairs, rest & recovery, etc. and I would be reluctant to count on it. I should be able to carry 12 days of the food in the kayak, though I will probably need to pack more lightly than I am accustomed to. There are a few points where road access is nearby and so egress in case of trouble or re-supply are both possible. Overall, much of the lake should have a fairly remote feel to it, but there may be the occasional motor boat around, especially in the northern end of the lake. Lac La Ronge is a popular fishing destination so it would have that safety net of not being completely isolated.

I don't know if a trip of this scope would ever be in the cards, but it can be fun to plan regardless. In the meantime, I will keep working on my paddling skills in order that when the opportunity to take on a challenge like this, I have the skills to allow me to do it, and to do it safely. Perhaps I should start off with a mini-expedition, such as the circumnavigation of Candle Lake.

Note: All of the above is pure speculation. I have not gone over the topographic maps in detail and have not engaged in figuring out the logistics of such a trip. Do not use the above information to plan your own trip other than as inspiration!

The Cycle World saga continues...

Superbike Planet recently noted that Hearst has put Cycle World on the block. Regular readers will note that I thought Hachette wanted to unload CW a couple of years ago, when they sold off a few other 'enthusiast' publications. Instead Hachette moved CW into its Bay Area-based Jumpstart Group, which effectively positioned CW magazine to become a subsidiary of CycleWorld.com.

After Andy Leisner took over the publisher's duties, Cycle World's sales guys pitched their advertisers on a grandiose plan to use Jumpstart's tech and new media skills as the foundation for a much more modern business model, across print, web, events, social media and what-have-you. But all bets were off when Hearst purchased Hachette's magazine titles en-masse a few months ago. Then, I wondered if Hearst was really casting a vote of confidence in the magazine category as a whole, acquiring all Hachette's American pubs, or whether Hearst was really pulling a sort of leveraged buyout - picking up (literally and figuratively) a few glamour titles like Elle, while planning to spin off scores of niche pubs like Cycle World.

Well, the second shoe's dropped if CW is for sale. This is almost certainly not good news for the venerable bike mag and its staff. A big media umbrella like Hachette or Hearst would certainly play a role in attracting non-endemic advertisers. I never got the feeling that CW had really committed to the changes that would have been required for that 'new, improved' business model to work out. Nor do I know what's been going on there behind the scenes. But a big company with a strong new media bench - and the deep pockets needed to invest in a new model and prove it before selling a bunch of ads - would make it easier to avoid extinction in a very fast-evolving media environment.

I've been around a few magazines as they were sold off. I was writing for Motorcyclist around the time it changed hands. That whole business has been picked up and dropped almost as frequently as the magazine; in the last decade or so it was sold by Petersen to EMAP, sold by EMAP to Primedia, and sold by Primedia to Source Interlink. I also wrote for Bike, Classic Bike, and Performance Bike when they were sold by EMAP to the Bauer conglomerate. It's pretty much always a bean-counter's deal, with all new buyers arriving with the same mindset -- "I can cut costs and increase profitability." No bean counter thinks of editors, writers, and photographers as content creators; they think of the editorial department as a cost center only.

As Brian Catterson; he jumped from CW to Motorcyclist, going from a magazine with stable ownership and a large staff, to a title that had the fat, then the muscle, and finally the bone trimmed by successive new owners. Cat actually does a good job without much help. Cycle World's probably spending triple the editorial salaries to produce a marginally superior publication.

If CW is incredibly lucky, it will be purchased by a real angel investor who wants to underwrite the migration of the CW brand to new media platforms. (The way audiences consume information is changing, and publishers need to change their relationship with readers to keep pace, even if right now, it's hard to even write a coherent business plan which even offers an avenue to profit.) If things go as they usually do, the news that CW is for sale bodes ill for the staff and for American motorcyclists. Love it or hate it, it's been the motorcycle magazine of record for years.

But that could all change soon.

Surprise birthday party for Scott Fairty

Scott, surfing a wave at the Geneva Kayak Center's Yorkville site.

All good conspiracies are grounded in a solid motivation. Last night's conspiracy to host a 50th birthday party for Scott Fairty was no exception. When Scott was hired as Geneva Kayak Center's general manager a few years back, Chicago paddling instructors knew our students wouldn't be the only beneficiaries. We, too, had a new mentor--one who soon also became a paddling partner and friend.

Part one of the conspiracy was the party, attended by various local paddlers as well as Scott's three kids and his father, Jack.

Caitlin, Gordon and Tara Fairty.

Jack Fairty, who drove in for the occasion.

Part two was the gift: Dozens of instructors, students and friends pitched in to buy Scott a new whitewater boat: A Pyranha Varun. (A huge thanks to Kelly Blades and Pyranha for facilitating the purchase.)

Scott begins to realize something is up when the card contains about 40 names....

...then finds, inside a small box, a model of the boat that will arrive in a week or so.

No 50th birthday party would be complete without a little ribbing from the kids about Scott's age. "Over the hill!" the cake declared. "Happy birthday, you old fart."

Caitlin serves Scott a choice slice of cake.

There may be nothing magical about celebrating the actual day on which a person was born, but it's a great opportunity to celebrate the person. Scott has brought a lot to the Chicago-area paddling community. We're looking forward to many more years on the water with him.

Track's cool. Track schools, not so much...

I get emails from the Yamaha Champions Riding School every now and then.

YCRS is a track school set up by Nick Ienatsch (who founded then sold Sport Rider magazine at the right time, and developed the curriculum and was lead instructor at the old Freddie Spencer school in Vegas.) After Freddie's deal fell apart, Ienatsch reestablished himself up at Miller Motorsports Park, aligned with Yamaha instead of Honda. I recently got an email from Chainsnatch's school offering a 10% discount if I booked a session with a friend, and I just got another telling me that Scott Russell and Melissa Paris would be guest instructing at an upcoming 'all girls' school.

Now, although I ride like a girl, I'm definitely not eligible for that session, because I can't afford it. It's $2,200 for a two-day school. If you're flying in and staying at a hotel, call it three grand. Recession? What recession?

As someone who makes a living (such as it is) by riding motorcycles and writing about them, I'm often asked for advice on learning to ride. The executive summary of my advice is, avoid schools charging over $1,000 per day. There are ways to have more fun, and learn more, for less.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I've never attended the Yamaha Champions Riding School. But, I've seen Ienatsch in action on several occasions; I attended the Spencer school on no less than three different magazine assignments. For good measure I've also attended the original version of Kevin Schwantz' school, at Road Atlanta, and Reg Pridmore's school at Infineon on assignment too. So I've got the celebrity/champions angle covered. By way of comparison, I've sat in on Keith Code's California Superbike School (the ur-track school), the short-lived KTM school at Laguna Seca, Michel Mercier's race school in Canada (which, at the time, was kind of the 'default' Canadian track school) and came through the old Calgary Motorcycle Roadracing Association 'new racer' school.

There's a huge range in cost represented by those experiences. People pay thousands of bucks for high-end track schools. And I'll give Ienatsch his due; he's a smart guy who created a solid curriculum for the Spencer school, which was then carefully wrapped in Spencer's brand and presented as stuff only Freddie knew or did. At one point, Ienatsch told the students that the reason the specific techniques they taught were the best techniques for use on modern sport bikes was the Freddie had developed the modern sport bike at Honda. This news will come as a shock to the people who did develop the modern sport bike.

One thing that always baffled me at Pridmore's school, Code's school, and Freddie's place was that a lot of the students just keep coming back over and over. The bread and butter in the track school business is a core clientele of middle-aged repeat customers. (Typical profile: high tech exec, or maybe an orthodontist who started riding eight years ago; owns a Ducati Desmodsedici, a professionally restored BSA Gold Star, and a professionally set up GSX-R1000 for track days; bought a Sprinter van just to transport his bike to six track days a year; if he lives in the northern tier, he keeps a bike in California for winter riding. He doesn't really ride on the street, except to take the Desmosedici to the occasional bike night or up to  the Rock Store. His daily driver is a Porsche Cayenne. Yes, they have it all, and blowing two or three grand on a track school, two or three times a year, is pocket change.) What they don't have is anywhere near they speed they should have, considering the mid-six-figures they've sunk into equipment and training. Some of these guys have yet to get the knee down. They're not learning to ride; they're attending a motorcycle fantasy camp where they can fawn over a few 'real' racers who are titular instructors. I noticed a real evolution of the years of Freddie's school, in which track sessions got shorter and more chopped up, and bench-racing sessions got longer. Over the years, I've felt a little guilty about the softball publicity I've ginned up for the schools which, I must admit, make for a pretty fun writing assignment.

Five or six years ago, when I worked at Motorcyclist, I wanted to run a monthly feature called Riding School Report Card, where we'd evaluate track schools and objectively rate them. That was just before they fired me.

But it's finally time to get something off my chest -- something I've wanted to say for years now: Those repeat customers are just a bunch of posers, so I guess that since they keep re-upping, they're getting their money's worth. After all, they are the final authorities on what they themselves value in an experience. But anyone who spends over a grand a day in the hopes of actually getting fast is wasting most of that money. 

For the cost of attending a couple of those track schools, you could buy five year-old 650cc twin, race prep it; join your local racing club and attend their new-racer school where you'll hear all the same theory as you'll get in a more expensive school. Then, you can do a year or two of novice racing.

Trust me, you'll learn far more and get way faster actually racing with a bunch of rank novices than you ever will by just listening to and lapping with anyone - I don't care how fast he is or was. For good measure you can probably spend some of the money you save on a ratty old dirt bike from Craigslist, and convince a friend with place in the country to let you work out there in between races. Don't worry; the worse your tires, the better the practice. And for the record there are a lot of guys who are (or were) hellaciously fast world-championship level riders who actually have no idea how or why they were fast. It may come as a shock to you, but motorcycle racing is not actually a selective filter for introspective self-knowledge or intellectual rigor.

I'm not saying that such well-known track schools have nothing to offer. All of them have something to offer, and several have their own little unique takes on training. A few years ago, someone told me that Jason Pridmore's Star School had a cool system that allowed you to compare data traces from one of your laps, to an instructor's data trace. Keith Code's got that elaborate 'skid bike' with outriggers, which might help you get a feel for braking grip at the limit. I know that I really got my money's worth out of a two-day American Supercamp school where grip is explored almost every session on little dirt bikes. Ironically, Pridmore's Star School and American Supercamp are among the more affordable schools. Supercamp, in fact, is a real bargain.

What you won't get, in a season or two of novice racing, is the chance to impress your friends by saying things like, "Well, Freddie Spencer told me..." or "When I was riding with Josh Hayes..." But I can guarantee you'll have even better stories, even if none of them involve people who are famous motorcycle racers.

So hmm... $2,200 for two days of lapping and class talk? Or a whole season of racing some crapped out twin in the novice class. I guarantee you'll learn more, be faster, get more seat time and have way, way more fun actually racing. It is, after all, how all the guys teaching those expensive track schools learned to ride.

Annual trip to Adventure Crafters

The new Adventure Crafters space at CBEC (Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center).

Every summer, we spend a weekend teaching at Adventure Crafters in Maryland, a paddle center with a heavy emphasis on instruction and a loyal following of long-term students as well as a continuous influx of newer paddlers. For us, it's an opportunity to paddle and teach on salt water, try out some of our coaching ideas in a new environment, and reconnect with owner Robert Schrack, his family and the paddling community Adventure Crafters has nurtured.

Robert Schrack in his office at Adventure Crafters.

This year, we arrived early enough to meet Robert at Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes, Delaware for a day of paddling on the coast, where we were treated to a sweet tidal race. Then we returned for two days of classes in Queenstown, Maryland.

Two students in the "Yes, You Can!" women's class, celebrating a successful assisted rescue.

Somehow, no matter how we bill a particular class, we always end up returning to fundamentals. Students at every level seem to benefit from a review of the essentials of successful paddling: posture, connectivity, torso rotation, edge control, paddle grip and angle, and basic strokes. Small instructor-to-student ratios enable us to address these simultaneously for students with various levels of proficiency.

If all that sounds like work, it shouldn't. We include lots of games and activities--everything from clambering on the deck for balance, to cockpit basketball for maneuvering--to develop skills on a less conscious level. This concept is neither new nor unique to us. We owe a debt to the BCU (British Canoe Union) and a myriad coaches with whom we've worked who've emphasized the importance of games and activities in learning.

We end every visit with a rousing rodeo event, which is just plain fun.

Racing a raft of kayaks, a new rodeo event we learned from Kelly Blades. 

Time flies when you're having fun. We spent our last day paddling again with Robert, reflecting on our classes and spotting eagles and herons along the banks of the Chester River. Long-term paddling relationships are special, whether they're with students, fellow coaches, friends or family members. Those of us who have a mix of all four are fortunate.

Final day of paddling in Maryland. We'll return in 2012.

Day 1 – Inaugural RTCUSA

So after 8 years, RTC has finally made it to the USA. The first RTC conference was held in the Auz in 2005 & was the brainchild of Wesley Benn. It has grown in size year on year & it seemed timely to bring RTC back (in terms of country) to the birthplace of Revit. I remember speaking with Steve Stafford at AU in 2009 & their where plans back then to try & bring RTC to the USA. However, the economic downturn put pay to that. A year on & a slow improvement in the globally economy; 2011 suddenly looked a good bet for RTC in the USA.

So why RTC you may ask? I have attended AU for the last 5 years, it’s a great event, I have even been involved in co-presenting, but its big, to some extent its too big. Also, in my humble opinion, it’s the wrong time of the year. The Autodesk portfolio is released mid April each year, AU is at the end of the year. For a firm who is utilising Revit & BIM, this is not a lot of good to you. You want to know about the current release, what’s new, how it’s going to affect your business & what steps you need to take to implement the new release. Come the end of the year you have gone through that pain & are thinking about the next release! So to have RTC so close to the annual release date of Revit is actually a smart thing.

I managed to tie my RTC attendance in with a family vacation. Holding it at beach resort is sheer genius as the family can do the beach & pool thing whilst I geek at Revit “stuff”. It also gives the event a total different feel to the dry air condition environment of Las Vegas.

Wesley Benn opened the inaugural event with some history & background about RTC. Wesley also mentioned that they are looking to move the event around the country, so maybe next year it will be on the east coast. Lets hope they also consider Europe.

RTC was fortunate enough to get Autodesk CEO Carl Bass to give a keynote address. Carl has always been passionate about Revit & was one of the key decision makers in the purchase of the Revit product. Carl avoided getting involved in Revit technicalities, as he openly acknowledged it was like being in the Revit lions den, realizing the room was full of Revit experts! Instead he wisely focused on new technologies, in particularly the concept of infinite computing. It was a great speech & you realize how much things have changed in the last 10 years. Its kind of scary & exciting to think what will be possible in the next 10 years!

After a short break, it was onto classes. I attended Dave Conants class on Design a Revolution. Dave gave us a history lesson on the humble beginnings of Revit to where it is now. If you are a Revit geek like me, it was one cool class. To see prototypes of the original Revit concept as well as interface designs made you realise that you have been involved with something which is very, very special. Did you realise the original mockup for the Revit concept was drafted up in AutoCAD? ironic? Maybe? Much like many others, when I first encounter Revit I was fixed, I realised there was no going back.

Next up was Kelly Cones class on conceptual massing where he gave a case study of a project he has been involved with in South Korea. Be sure to check out his chapter in MARA 2012, where he showcases this particular project. 

After lunch I attended Jeffery McGrew & his wife Jillian Northrup’s class on Five Common Pitfalls of Digital Fabrication from BIM. Jeff & Jillian are doing some amazing work; Jeff made some very interesting comments. Whilst Autodesk highlight that Inventor is ideally the tool of choice for digital fabrication, the Becausewecan team buck that trend & instead choose Revit. They have worked hard to establish their tool workflows. To be honest, if you see their work & understand that Revit is indeed a solid modeller with a parametric design pedigree, you will release why they choose Revit over Inventor. Just because it says BIM on the box, doesn’t necessarily mean it should be confined to designing buildings only!

After a tea break it was onto Harlan Brumm class on how to find solve common Autodesk Revit Architecture problems, or as I liked to call it, how to fix things when users screw up! Some great tips here. The finally class of the day for me was Jay Zallans session on Revit for planning & programming projects. I kind of knew a fair amount of this stuff, but it was always good to get a different perspective on how others utilise Revit for this type of work in their practice. After classes it was onto the welcome function, sponsored by Kelar Pacific. I meet up with my family, got pizza before going back to the welcome function. It was strange seeing my two young children, Elliot & Bethan & my wife Becky mingling with so many Revit geeks. In the hallway the children both bumped into Phil Read. Uncle Phil then sat with them for a good half an hour keeping them entertained on his ipad! Or maybe he was explaining the merits of thinking different?? :-)

Overall a great first day. The calibre of classes were excellent, the social aspect & connectivity could only be achieved at an event of this scale & this looks set to continue for days two & three. The RTC committee should be congratulated for pulling off what looked the impossible. Finally, be sure to follow me on twitter where I will giving an hour by hour update of RTCUSA 2011.

The First Round of Prototyping of the Liquidlogic Stomper

Lil' A taking the Stomper through its initial paces.  Remember that this is an early proto so the images you see will follow along with the timeline of testing and prototyping the Stomper.  This post is mostly just the 1st proto and some of the changes I made going into the second phase of testing.

We had lots of discussions amongst ourselves and and with you all about what the next creek boat should be for Liquidlogic.  Here are some of the public discussions we had on our Facebook Page.

Here is one thread specifically about a  flat hulled creek boat.
https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=112078594802&topic=16242

Here is a thread about all types of things you all wanted us to work on in the coming years.
https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=112078594802&topic=16207

One more link to more chatter.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150139513145992&comments

Here was one of the early discussions about design on our page.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150136294870992&comments

Woody and the rest of the team and I had been thinking about doing a flatter hulled creek boat for a long time.  In fact I had started a design a while back but had put it on the back burner because the Jefe as always is still killing it for us in stores, and everybody loves it, but once we got all that feedback from you all it was a no brainer.   The full on design process began.  I worked off the initial design concept that I had started earlier and started adding new thoughts and details.  The main focus of the design was to get more speed out of a creek boat that was super easy to use, comfortable, and bomber safety wise.

The speed was influenced by the Remix.  Many of the team and I have been paddling a Remix on all types of water since we came out with it.  I love it for creeking or big water and the speed and smoothness of lines are a big reason for that.  So I wanted to put some of that in the new boat for us to enjoy.  The ease of use was all about making it something that any paddler would want to get into.  The fact that it is flatter in hull shape means that it spins on a dime and the edges allow you to really carve into an eddie or across currents, but those edges need to be tucked so that you won't trip over them unexpectedly which we discovered in this first proto.  We also dropped the seat a little lower in this boat so that stability and rolling would be ridiculously forgiving and easy.  Bad Ass Outfitting takes care of most of the comfort stuff but through out the design of this boat we took a lot of time to look at the cockpit heights, knee and legs angles, and we designed a new seat for this boat with better support and always focusing on a comfortable ride.

Once we had the initial shape down I played around with a bunch of different deck details but none of them really tripped my trigger like a clean looking boat.  No edges to bash your fingers and knuckles on, and less weight by cutting down on extra surfaces.  The deck shape was very focused on shedding water and creating a strong shape that would hold up under a lot of stress and pressure.




The day we pulled the first protos out of the oven it rained epically.  The stars were aligning for a perfect testing situation.  The first day the water was soooo high we decided to go get on some big water.  My girls Adriene and Maria wanted to go check out the small creeker with me on some good classic Chattooga high water. The river was running around 4 feet (Normally around 1.5 feet) so we knew it would be a good test of the boats ability to handle the bigger stuff.

 One thing I hadn't even thought about was how well it was going to surf!  Adriene feeling it!

Maria cruising in the sun!


At the put in for Section 4 of the Chattooga there is an awesome big boat wave.  We could have spent all day there because the boat was soo much fun to surf.  Easy edge control and ruddering which can be a bear in a creek boat.  The flatter hull made it downright playful on the wave.

Big water "Corkscrew"!!  So fun.


But big water and tough moves were what we really wanted to test in this boat.
It was all about the speed working our way through the pushy water in the "five falls" section.  Another thing I didn't think about was how the semi planing hull would assist in surfing out of trouble.  In the shot below you can see Maria was a little right of the desired line at Soc'em Dog and dropped right into the pit of the big hole.  Maria popped out with a big smile on her face because the beating she was expecting was just a more exciting line rather than a bootie beer experience.

Maria dropping into the pit of Soc'em Dog.

And popping out smiling!


The day was amazing out there.  We learned some of the great benefits of the new design and we also found out that there were some improvements that needed to be made for that type of water.  The edges were a little grabby in cross currents which showed itself a couple times when we weren't expecting it but the speed was soo fun we knew we didn't want to affect that too much by softening the edges.

Of course this was only the first day so really we had a long way to go in testing the Stompers first iteration.  We hadn't even really had time to figure out the balance, trim, and paddling style that worked best with this boat.  We knew it would come and we knew we would have a bunch of time to test this boat out on the Green.  Water levels were still high at the end of this day and rumor had it that the Green was running over 20 inches.  It was looking like there would be lots of good flow to test on.

The Green River just before the big rains started.  The next post will be testing 

the new protos on the Green.

Thanks to all of you for offering your thoughts on the design.  It wouldn't be the same without it.

Cheers

Shane

Toby's Video

Some Physical Assignment with CNC Router