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One would think that I would have my bike ready to go for the one week, 1000+ mile trip that starts in one week from today. Nope. While I have managed to put new skins, rotors and pads on the RSVR, the maintenance items still need to be done. I’m looking at the minor stuff like oil change, wash & wax, and a shakedown ride since I had it apart.

I am already going through the packing list, but will be traveling light. A backpack and the space in the rear cowl. Its not as bad as it sounds as we will be shipping clothes to the hotel in Monterey for the remainder of the trip,

As I am still finishing up my pre-trip service on the RSVR, I was planning to take it for a local shakedown ride to check everything out. The normal route is to go to Bartlett Lake. That’s a park area with some nice twisties throughout. The problem is that all the roads dead end and it surrounds a lake…every aftermarket exhaust can be heard for miles as you are way above the lake level.

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! The whole area is on fire and the entire park system is shut down and all the campers and park users evacuated. I can see the fire head from my house if I’m upstairs and its spectacular (read:

A bunch of us at the Aprilia Forum are trying to get together either in Monterey one night or at the track at a pre-determined meeting place and time. So far in my world, the best place seems to be the semi-private Aprilia Tent. I say semi-private because Aprilia puts up a tent for its owners and you need to show your ignition key to get in. As you can imagine, its not too crowded in there, but the tent is located on turn #4 right next to the Flag Room where my tickets are (how convenient).

Another option was by a former local who has connections and was offered a ‘friendly’ discount of $1000 for a

The MotoGP race in Assen, Netherlands was much better of a race than I thought. Rossi got a bad start, but somehow I knew (we all knew) that he would work his way to the front…and he did. I have to give a golf-clap to Marco Melandri for hanging in there with Rossi for as long as he did. That may have been the longest anyone has hung with Rossi this season after being passed. At no time did ‘The Doctor’ check out of this race. In fact, Melandri started to reel him back in lap by lap towards the very end.

In the post-race interview and in the chatter among the announcers, there was mention

That’s what I finally got to do Sunday morning. I didn’t go to the mountain twisties and booger up some rubber, but the mountain single trackers and chunk up some knobbies. Even though its 105F+ this past week, there is a window until about 9am that a lot can still be done. As for the rest of the day, air conditioning and soaking in the pool are in order.

It had been quite some time, and surely not often enough that I’ve been in the dirt. I’ve been out only once in the past year, but with a 2.5 year old and a 6 month old, duty calls. This was nice because I’ve always considered the

That’s the response I got when I asked my coworker why he doesn’t ride to work more often. It takes too much time for him to get ready. If he takes the car he can just jump in and go. But with the bike he has to (1) put on all the extra gear, including helmet, boots, gloves, and jacket, (2) then there are the work-related items that he has to put in his backpack, such as his planner, his notes, etc., and then (3) he has to let his carbureted bike idle for a minute or two before taking off. It might take an extra five to ten minutes before he can get on the road. And then there’s

Biaggi mixing it up with Melandri…

Biaggi fined for ‘irresponsible behavior’
The Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme published the following press release after the incidents involving Max Biaggi in the Gauloises TT Assen qualifying practice :

- On Friday 24 June, during the MotoGP qualifying practice, Italian rider number 3 Massimiliano Biaggi rode in an irresponsible manner, causing danger to other riders, which is an infraction to article 1.21.2 of the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix Regulations. For this infraction, the Race Direction has decided to penalize the rider with a fine of USD 5000.

- During the same session, Massimiliano Biaggi made start practice on the track before the chequered flag (infraction to Art. 1.21.17). For this, the Race Direction has decided

Wow. I never thought motorcycle racing would be as bad as the Superbowl as far as advertising titles…the Totstito’s Halftime Show, etc. Well it did. Red Bull is the consumate whore tat this year’s Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix At Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. As it turns out, Red Bull is also the group that took over the Embassy Suites which cost what seems to be several people their well-in-advance reservations (I know…I’m kicking a dead horse, but truthfully I do not blame Red Bull but they could have helped accomodating those they displaced).

I have now discovered that they made a one-time deal with the Suzuki MotoGP team to be a major sponsor for this

The saga continues with Embassy Suites (ES) cancelling rooms of those commoners who had reservations for MotoGP. I first opined about the ES cancelling reservations about a week ago (June 15) through several links at Roadracing World. Guess what? They have become the outlet, support center, and possible hammer for resolution.

I didn’t know this, but that particular Embassy Suites is ‘the Official Hotel of Laguna-Seca”. It looks like RRW’s involvement got the attention of the CEO / General Manager of Laguna Gill Campbell. Check it out…

From an e-mail sent by Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca General Manager Gill Campbell to Roadracingworld.com reader B.J. Worsham and copied to Roadracingworld.com regarding Worsham’s reservation cancellation at

Now that we’ve been up for a few months, I am curious as to what our readers ride. As we have tried to keep the specturm of topics broad enough for all to enjoy, the articles still seem to lean hard to the sport and/or sport-touring bikes….and a lot of post-race commentary during MotoGP season.

As we’ve added contributors verbally, those with the experience and background outside of the sport and/or sport-touring have yet to contribute. Heck, maybe every one of our readers owns a sport bike.

If you’re a regular, you probably already know that I have an Aprilia Mille R and Caponord for the street and a YZ426f for the dirt. I planned on including