Style

The target rider

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-08-19
Posted in: Motorbikes, Style. Leave a Comment

gearchic is doing an awesome job busting the myths of seat heights of motorcycles. I want to go a step further and talk about how seat heights come to be, and why this sucks for smaller riders.

I own two of the most female-friendly bikes that exist – the enduring BMW F650GS single and the Kawasaki Super Sherpa. Both bikes came about their ladies’ bonafides in a round-about way – they were both designed for smaller men.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Design for a smaller population and the smaller population will buy. It’s not quite so simple, because often, a bike has to be made for many sizes of rides, and as the US market is largely made of up large guys, we get bikes designed with large guys in mind. Tweaking a frame for various body geometries is not an easy task, what is given to the torso must come off the arms, the knees suffer at the expense of the hips, and you can see where that is going.

Think of cars for a minute – the designer of the retro Mustang was fired because a 6′ tall male did not fit in the back seat. The average car seat is adjustable to fit everything from a 4’6″ granny to a 6’6″ football player. That can’t happen on a motorcycle, because the degrees of freedom are far fewer and the hard points more numerous.

Big motorcycles happen because of the way the target rider is chosen. The average American male is around 5’10” and weighs something like 200 pounds. The average female is 5’5″ and closer to 145 pounds. Five inches and fifty pounds is a lot on a motorcycle. And if you’re on the smaller side, it’s a lot more.

Kawasaki developed the Super Sherpa for use as a delivery bike in various “second world” markets – places that are mostly first world, but have enough third world sections so as to make life difficult. It was to fit in under the KLX250 and allow Kawi to go after markets where the riders were smaller, but still needed the flexibility and durability of the KLX250. The electric starter, lower seat height, and softer suspension made the bike much more accessible, and while it was never really marketed in the US, it gained a fan base among guys who wanted to get their wives a dirt bike the ladies would be more comfortable on.

It’s a hit, and Sherpas are durable little buggers that ladies love like Cool James. Too bad they don’t really make it any more, and you are limited to finding someone who is willing to  sell one. Mine came in a box and I had to rebuild it, which was worth every cent and hour invested.

A bonus with the Sherpa that seems to go unsung is the height adjustable rear spring. Akin to adjusting preload, it’s yet another reason the Sherpa shines as a smaller person bike. No need to upgrade to get it sized properly, because making it smaller was on the drawing board from day one.

Way back when, BMW was roundly criticized for the early R65 – deemed a girl bike because the frame was smaller and the bike was targeted to smaller riders. The smaller boxer was no help there. Thankfully, the Bavarians were not completely put off the small rider thing, and tried again with the old BMW single – it was designed with a smaller rider in mind. The target rider was a 170cm male weighing about 70kg. That is by any measure a small guy. It’s also a slightly tall lady. Sprung from the get-go for lighter riders, and sized from the get-go for shorter riders, it gets even lower when you equip it with factory low suspension. I had that, and eventually swapped for normal, because I’m a 167cm lady weighing 61kg. I have the preload set to mostly extended, because as I grow as a rider, it gets easier to ride a taller bike and it also gets more fun to enjoy the suspension travel.

I hope that other manufacturers will start to follow BMW’s and Kawasaki’s leads in the use of smaller target riders. There is no denying BMW’s command of frame design for maximum suspension flexibility – they seem to be able to kick out frames that fit anyone with simple suspension swaps. It’s kind of disappointing that Kawi hasn’t put much into the small rider market on the dirt side of late, however it’s clear they can do it.

Let’s bring the smaller target rider to the forefront, and start at the drawing board, instead of trying to patch it up after the fact.

Passat GTO

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-08-15
Posted in: Automotive, Style. Leave a Comment

Found this oldie in a dark corner of the interwebs…

GTO

Go back to 1964. While GM is not thinking about much besides moving some people around at moderate speed, a few engineers at Pontiac have other ideas. Borrowing from Ferrari (more on that later), they designed an option package for the mild-mannered Tempest. Ignoring GM’s self-imposed displacement limit of 330 cubes, they pulled a 389 cubic inch V8, new steering, and a funky dual exhaust together for an option package they would call “GTO”. As the line grew and matured, a manual transmission, improved rear end, and stronger styling would be added. This first of the sleepers, the GTO would take America by storm, outselling even the wildest expectations of the engineers.

Gran turismo omologato

Go back to 1962. You will find a Ferrari that wasn’t just a track car. One of the first few supercars, nitro you could take out on a date and bring home without worrying about the aftermath. A car you could drive to work on weekdays and wring out on the track on weekends. True homologation (omologato) was a bit questionable, with only 42 of the required 100 cars (for GT qualification) actually being built. Somehow this was overlooked in the racing circles, and Ferrari went on to torture opponents at race time. The Scaglietti coupe remains one of the most beautiful automotive designs to ever find its way into traffic.

Grand touring, homologated

Homologation is the process of making a car street legal. The Ferrari was homologated to participate in the particular racing class it was destined for. While some may question the roadworthiness of any Italian cars, it is always a concern of the manufacturers to have the cars meet any safety or other regulatory guidelines for driving on public highways by lay drivers. Homologation can mean adjusting the power to weight ratio, adding emissions controls, even modifying the traction control components. Homologation also means proving that the car is a true production model, not a one-off. Hence the 100 car requirement in the case of the Ferrari GTO.

The Pontiac GTO bore little resemblance to the Ferrari GTO. Not a race car, not even race-bred, it was a glorified passenger coupe that could go very fast and do it without attracting attention. With a final production run of over 32 000 in its first year, the homologation requirements for GT class racing were surely met! The Pontiac GTO was also assembled in the opposite direction of the Ferrari – chassis first, drivetrain second. It is generally clear to car enthusiasts that Ferrari operates in the other direction.

I have recently become very interested in homologation, largely because I have only recently learned what it meant. I have also been thinking about the unfortunate and impending demise of the W8 engine in the Passat, so I got around to tracing its lineage.

The W-series program seems to have started with the Nardo, a W12-based GT car which will never see real production. The goal of the Nardo program (named after the track on which many world records for speed were set by the car) was to produce a compact engine that would produce a maximum horsepower to weight ratio. With such a compact and powerful drivetrain available, homologation was the next step for the engineers at Volkswagen.

Street legal road racer

With the largest production vehicle at the time being the Passat (the Phaeton was still on the drawing board), power-to-weight ratio and engine bay limitations were examined and four cylinders were lopped off the W12 leaving the W8. The Passat chassis had been proven out in track circles through the V8STAR series, although not fitted with the W8 motor. A six speed manual transmission was added (likely from the Nardo program considering the weak stock clutches in other Passats) with four wheel traction to handle the power. Big brakes suitable for stopping such power completed the new drivetrain package. With the conveniently 4Motion Passat chassis readily available, the new drivetrain was inserted and a performance beast was born in the form of the W8 Sport option package on the venerable Passat.

Like the Ferrari, the Passat W8 Sport started with a motor. Like the Pontiac, the choice of chassis was an unassuming, nearly invisible family sedan. Given the introduction of the Rabbit GTi some 25 years ago, one would think that VW would remember their past success in making street legal road racers. The irony is not lost on this writer.

I suppose I’m mostly disappointed about the impending demise of the W8 Sport Passat because it was a GTO in both senses – a homologated grand touring machine packed into an otherwise unassuming package. A sleeper of the grandest proportions. I’m particularly upset about losing the wagons. The Americans have never had the guts to produce such an extreme vehicle. The Dodge Magnum is their best effort so far, but there is no stick (or even SMG) option. I find that to be a serious flaw.

I’m also sad that I didn’t realize how much could have been made of the car, particularly in advertising it. The ads for the W8 Passats flat-out sucked, but a phone call to the right people with mention of ‘GTO’ could have been made. I kick myself for not seeing it sooner, not figuring out how to make the program a success in the US. Nostalgia is a powerful tool, and VW has used it wisely in the New Beetle program. Why not haul it out again for this most glorious of cars? I don’t know.

So, goodbye, Passat GTO. You never really were, but I will miss you anyway.

roll video of Nardo taking laps at Nardo.
VO: At Volkswagen, sometimes our engineers get a little creative. This time, they took two thirds of our grand touring car’s drivetrain and one third of our award winning Passat to create the Passat W8 Sport.
CG: Nardo drives through a Passat and turns into a W8 Sport variant.
VO: With eight cylinders, six gears, and our superior 4Motion all-wheel drive system, we like to think of it as the German GTO.
video: PW8S drifts to position on screen.
VO: The Passat W8 Sport. A milk run doesn’t always mean groceries.
offstage VO: Did you tell them it seats five?

Dear Media,

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-07-25
Posted in: Style. Leave a Comment

Way back in the 90s, I put a Sam Katz for Mayor sign in my Philadelphia window. To my recollection, it is the only political sign I have ever put out, if you don’t count my old “don’t blame me, I voted for Perot” bumper sticker.

Sam Katz was a republican candidate running for mayor in a Democrat town. Ed Rendell had run his two terms and up next on the Democratic ticket was John Street, a bully of a City Councilman who’d decided to throw his name in the ring.  The city was still (yes) reeling from W. Wilson Goode’s two terms in office and finally getting over Frank Rizzo. Katz came out of nowhere and ran a solid campaign, convincing the city’s intelligentsia, and moreover, the editorial board of the left-leaning Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Inky endorsing a Republican candidate for mayor was the east coast equivalent of a magnitude 8 earthquake, and it left the Philadelphia Daily News editorial board in a bit of a pinch. The Inquirer had leaned left for so long that this shift caught everyone by surprise. The News pulled their endorsement editorial and sat on it for a week, during which the editorial board decided to endorse Street. Street went on to win the election, and by all measures was a good mayor for the city during his terms.

Some time after the election, the editor of the Daily News was interviewed about the endorsement of Street, and opened pointed out that endorsing Katz as they had wanted to do would not sell papers. Endorsing Street was news on many levels. First, it made a race out of the contest. Second, Street was a character – he sported a big afro with a white Bride-of-Frankenstein streak and kept a fleet of conversion vans and ATVs on his Overbrook property – and was known to lose his cool in Council meetings. Third, brother Milton Street was a multiply-convicted felon, so there was opportunity for scandal. And fourth, the flip-flop of positions by the two papers was news in and of itself. By holding their endorsement editorial, they kept the discussion of the papers’ roles in city politics at the forefront of discussion, selling a ton of papers on that news alone.  Street’s personality was good for at least one feature a week. Milton stayed out of trouble for the most part. The race was on. Three out of four bets paid off. Papers sold, both from the News and from the Inquirer, too. Subscriptions at both papers went up.

It’s arguable whether the Daily News’ endorsement and coverage actually influenced the election – Street was a popular black councilman with well-honed skills in back-room city management, and Katz was a total outsider of the Ross Perot mould who tanked with the working class. All the wishful thinking in Chestnut Hill wasn’t going to get Katz elected, and Street swept the neighborhoods. To be clear: this is about the media using the candidate, not the influence the media had over the public. Papers sold. The two papers successfully (if unplanned) co-opted the election for themselves.

This co-opting is happening again in our entire US media. The demand for clicks is so high that our newsmedia is going for anything that will sell their content, regardless of what it looks like. This is scary, because Donald Trump is no John Street. He’s no Sam Katz, either, not by a long shot.

So, dear media, please stop worrying about selling clicks. They are coming to you regardless. But I need reporting, not clickbait. I need the deep analysis more than ever. I need you to treat politics like the future of our country, not the Kardashians. I need your editors to double down on the meaning of “fit to print”. Please. Now.

Sincerely,
America

Little Old Lady Driven

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-05-29
Posted in: Automotive, Style. Leave a Comment

You see it in car ads all over the net:

“Driven to church every Sunday by a little old lady”

“Grandma-driven”

“My elderly aunt had it for the last ten years and only put about 20K miles on it”

I recently took possession of a car driven by a little old lady – my mother-in-law. I have a new view on what “little old lady driven” means.

First, lets discuss the interior. A Little Old Lady is probably pretty fastidious, that’s how she got to be so old in the first place, so the interior is probably kind of clean. It might even smell like perfume. But she’s not as strong as she used to be, and getting in and out can be a chore. Look for wear and tear on any surface that could potentially be used a hand-hold. Cubbies suffer too, because as dexterity fails, it gets more difficult to operate the opening and closing mechanisms. Good bye, $250 center stack trim….. Hello permanent creases in the upholstery from the box of stuff that never made it to Goodwill….


Now, on to the drivetrain. The mysterious “O/D Off” button was never touched, and neither was the RPM range over about 3K. You’re going to be blowing carbon out that motor for a month. Check the suspension, too, because as vision fails, so does the ability to recognize potholes. CV joints and wheel bearings can take a particular beating. I’m still sorting out what the squeak in the driver’s front wheel is.


That limited vision? The slowed reflexes? The deteriorating range of motion? Oh, man. They all add up to one thing – “I didn’t/couldn’t see it!”, and that means paint. All over the body. Usually belonging to other vehicles and stationary objects. The tears of a hundred parking bollards in this case. Plan on at least a solid eight hours of wheel work just to get the worst of it off the sheet metal. The plastic bumpers might be a lost cause, and we’re not even at the scratches yet.


If the paint is suffering, you can be sure the metal is, too. Look for misaligned panels (what? Oh, no, she/I never hit anything!), deep scratches, and other small dings that throw some serious shade on Grandma’s health condition.


Needless to say, this could have been a total cream puff, but in reality, it’s a damn mess. Because little old lady. Next time you read that in an ad, think twice. You don’t want to deal with parking bollard tears. They kind of melt into the paint and stay there.

Rental Review: 2017 Hyundai Elantra

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-05-25
Posted in: Automotive, Style. Leave a Comment

Urgh, another rental. Wait, I have a blog, so I can tell you all about it!

I got to Enterprise yesterday and was asked if I wanted to upgrade to something roomier than the midsize I booked. Uh, no. Thank you, but no. I asked for something smaller, and the manager just sighed, wandered off, and eventually handed over the keys to a brand new (seriously – 102.3 miles on the odometer) 2017 Hyundai Elantra. I took it home, loaded up my stuff, and headed out to visit a plant in the middle of OH. Possibly the most boring road trip ever.

The stripper rental car was doomed when Volkswagen decreed in the early 90s that all cars shipped over to our shores should have at a minimum air conditioning. By the early 2000s, Honda had caught on, and by the mid-2000s, it was almost impossible to find a true stripper any more. There isn’t even a delete option for most automotive features now, so good luck with sweating. All this change has meant that your average rental car is now actually a decent place to be, like this Elantra.


The Elantra I got was a bit of a surprise to me. The 2016 was ok, but not something I would consider renting again. The 2017 has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it a particularly good choice at the counter, the first being the incredibly adjustable front seat. Yes, I am swooning about a seat that is otherwise kind of stiff, not particularly supportive, and not really pretty either. The shear range of positioning is what makes this seat so great: in fact, the entire ergos for the car are far better than I expected, and frankly, might set a standard. The vertical adjust on the driver’s seat is nearly six inches. This means that I, as a person who does not enjoy the Actros or Mack seating position, can get the seat (and my H point) down to somewhere sensible. Forward and backward are manually adjustable and also generous. The seat is missing lumbar adjust, something that would prevent me from purchasing the car. Regular notched seatback angle is also impressive in range.

Complementing the extreme seat manipulation is a very adjustable steering wheel. It pulls out about five inches and has significant up and down motion. While it might not look like an F1 car on the outside, those of us who prefer the F1 seating position can almost get there. And still see out of the greenhouse. One noteworthy feature – the seat is nearly perfectly in line with the steering column. Otherwise perfect ergonomics have been ruined by misalignment of these two critical parts, so it’s nice that Hyundai has taken care here.

The rear window has a nasty fogging effect from its internal lamination that obscured vision in the lower driver’s quadrant. At first, I thought I had the generous AC cranked too far up, but the rear defroster did not help. Some investigation and reduction in solar angle of incidence revealed the tell-tale dot pattern of optical adhesive. Otherwise, visibility was very good, even with the seat all the way down.

The stereo works pretty well, and was minimally difficult to figure out. The base stereo and button-intense control surface seems almost quaint in today’s world of full-color TFT touchpads. XM works as expected, with three bands available for presets. The preset function is super-easy to use. I would recommend this stereo for technophobes, it’s straight out of 1995, but with more words on the screen.

Climate control controls were scattered and took me a few minutes to sort out. Seriously, though, GM-level AC in this thing.

Riding down I75 in Detroit, the car started beeping at my, with no indication in the instrument binnacle of the source. I quickly learned how to operate the steering wheel controls, the various functions on the dash, and a few other odds and ends before realizing that my purse, coat, and adapter bag were enough weight to trigger the passenger airbag/seatbelt interlock and warning. Ooops. I swished my purse and coat to the floor and the beeping stopped. The angle of the late afternoon sun had made the warning light on the center stack very difficult to see.

The car struggled with grooved pavement and winds, with very unsteady tracking. The first one hundred miles or so of the two-hundred mile trip were difficult. Once I was through the grooves in Michigan and the construction zones in OH, the car started to settle down a bit. The sensitivity may be related to the tall-sidewall tyres the car is shod with, or to air in the steering rack. I don’t know, but it was super annoying and made an otherwise pleasant ride into a more stress than it should have been.

The engine is plenty powerful for rental abuse, and the transmission is remarkably not annoying. In sport mode. In regular and eco modes, it is a dog. Way too much lag off the line. Gear-hunting was rare, downshifts were smooth, and no clunks or lurches. No shifter weirdness because the shifter is like the radio – an artifact, but a very welcome and pleasant artifact. If it ain’t broke… you know, don’t “fix” it.

The interior is not upscale, but it’s also not downscale. It’s extremely neutral. Hyundai uses a better quality hard plastic and textures it to avoid surface glare. The upholstery is smooth, but looks to be a fine knit that may pill or pull. Time will tell. No one is going to mistake this thing for a Genesis, that is for sure, but it’s noticeably better than a Corolla. The trunk includes a rear seatback release button and is roomy.


It’s a car with decent looks and controls. It’s boring, but predictable. Overall, you won’t go appreciably wrong by selecting the 2017 Elantra at the rental counter.

(pics coming soon)

Slow is the tempo: In versus On the bike

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-05-05
Posted in: Motorbikes, Style. 1 comment

Each year that I’ve returned to my bike after a winter off of it, I’ve reflected on what came back. Why stop now? I’m starting my fifth spring season and it’s a good thing.

This year’s little surprise is riding slow. Stupidly slow. Playing in traffic slow. I’m actually enjoying it. I’m finding that I am much more stable than I used to be at slower speeds. I’m staying upright and rolling ever so slowly in traffic jams, relaxing and enjoying the proverbial ride. It’s so different. I want to try a slow race, something that was not really on my radar in the past. I’m also finally using my knees to brake – clamping down on the faux tank to anchor myself when I get on the front lever. That is very cool. Somehow, my body is picking and choosing new techniques to remember and cement into my riding arsenal.

Getting my lean back last year was a big deal, and my neck and shoulder are still not really right. But they are no longer really interfering in my riding. I’m well along the learning curve for riding with whatever I’ve got for nerves now. I am self-balancing much more securely. The Leatt brace works – I have banged my helmet on it a few times now and I’m quite grateful for it. If you don’t have one yet, get one. There are a few competitors out there, choose the one that will work for you.

Another oddity is that I raised my seat 10mm. I ended up having to raise my handlebars 20mm (no 10mm risers to be found). I now sit on the bike instead of in it. When I had the low seat and the low suspension, I often felt like I was in the bike. Add my tower of tank bag, and I was really sandwiched in the frame. The ten millimeters shouldn’t make much of a difference, but somehow it does. I feel different on the bike, like I’m able to push it with my feet and legs more. This is empowering. I took off my tank bag two weeks back to get even more of this “on” feeling.

I’ve been bouncing my pre-load up regularly, which is adding the the height. I can still flatfoot the bike, but it’s sagged a bunch now to do so. Tripod-ing it is actually much easier with the seat up under my butt. I wish I would have understood this earlier – I’d have raised the bike a lot sooner. I love that I can just skim the tarmac with my boots now, instead of having to pull up my knees. There is no danger of dragging hard parts, set low, the angle was 45°, now it must be close to 60°. Balancing at stops is strangely easier. My head is solidly up over traffic and I can see for miles and miles and miles as the song goes.

I’ll be hoping for a cheap CBR250R this summer, which I will likely be looking to mod for track work. I miss that little sucker more and more every day, now that I’m living up in the clouds, up in GS Land. I get it, all over again.

The Apple Store Fraction

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-04-30
Posted in: Style. Leave a Comment

I have this new thing where I go to the mall and walk around and count people. Not so much the total sum, but the local totals in each store.

Some background: my spouse manages a retail shop for a specialty chain. They typically locate in mid- to high-end malls and sell moderately expensive, highly functional product. They tend to be a destination shop for their clientele and do high repeat business.

This means that on Saturday evenings when he’s closing up, I often walk over there to check things out, maybe shop a little, and count people.

A while back, I noticed that the Apple Store tended to attract a large number of people. This is kind of a given, but I also noticed that the Microsoft store was dead. No one in there at all. Even Build-A-Bear had a family making bears at that hour. But Microsoft? Bupkis. Granted, this is at 20:30 on a Saturday night, but I did not expect completely devoid of customers. Other stores, like Macy*s, the Gap, and so on usually had a few guests. Eventually I worked it out to about one shopper per 1000sf of retail floor for the general mall. That is terrible. Except in the Apple store, where it was closer to one shopper per 50sf. If there was a line outside of the store waiting to get in, it technically could get even denser. At holiday time, the Pandora shop was so crowded that they had to pay for extra security to manage their line.

Few stores in any mall seem to attract this level of shopping destination intensity. Apple, Pandora, Starbucks, but everything else is hopes and dreams. Unless you are selling something truly unique, you are hosed for clientele in a mall. Everyone is there to get something, and you have to hope that you are interesting enough to draw them in. The conundrum is that if no one is in your store, how interesting is it to anyone who isn’t already interested in it? No shoppers means no one else is interested, either. It is critical to have people in the store, even if they are just browsing, so that people outside of the store see the interest.

I experimented with arriving earlier, at 20:00 on the dot. Total numbers were higher, and the spread was lower. It turns out that you can only jam so many humans into an Apple Store before the fire department start to look at you sideways. The more total people in the mall, the more people that I found in the non-destination shops like Vera Bradley and Buckle. Hot brands like Michael Kors also rely on the total shopper density, a smallish point.

There are some notable exceptions to the Apple phenomenon, but they are just that – notable. Stores like Hot Topic, Lush, lululemon, and (I kid you not) Paradise Pen attract smaller but continuous customer streams. Their markets and merchandise are more specialized, sufficiently so to draw people out of their homes to try, to sniff, to take in the atmosphere. I admit, I am a regular at Paradise Pen. I write with a fountain pen and love to try different cartridges and nibs. It’s my little thing.

This is, to be clear, a high-end mall. It has a Nieman-Markus – a store that closes at 19:00, ostensibly to avoid the after-hours riff-raff. The Saks 5th Avenue is forever under renovation. The Gucci, Tory Burch, and watch shops all cluster around those two anchors in a submall that was built out of the Saks in the 1980s. Those South Side shops are linked to the North side (Macy*s and Nordstrom) by a flying glass bridge, which may as well cross an ocean rather than a busy thoroughfare. Frankly, I’d shop at Niemans if they were actually ever open. They carry a very few precious things that I like (and can afford). I generally only make the trek across the bridge when I am so desperate for a kitchen gadget that I have to go to Sur la Table.

My conclusion from all of this counting and rambling is that the anchor phenomenon has changed shape and become a specialty retail thing. Where once you had big department stores as anchors to draw in traffic, now you have smaller specialty stores like Apple bringing the cars full of people. If the Apple count starts to swing to 100% of the traffic, you might have an issue with your customer base or store mix.

New boots!

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-04-14
Posted in: Motorbikes, Style. Leave a Comment
I wore my new boots for the first time on the bike today. I ordered the Dainese Svelta from Revzilla and they showed up a few days later, typical Revzilla efficiency.
I have worn three pair of different Dainese touring boots now. The Svelta is more of the same – the exact same fit as my two previous pair and the same (excellent) comfort. My prior pair are Lolas – possibly the nicest touring boot ever made. Seriously, until I wore through the GoreTex membrane, I planned to keep them for ever. But this is about the Svelta, so on with it.
The stiff sole of the Svelta protects my tender underfoot from the horror of the centerstand tang, and allows me to use my entire foot as an extension lever. It takes a bit of time to get used to the stiffness, and right about the time you are finally used to it, it starts to soften up a bit. It never becomes truly soft , but a bit of flexibility creeps in and it moulds to your foot nicely.
There is room for an Aetrex or TWC orthotic, which I use.
The Svelta is NARROW. If you have even normal width feet, you might want to think about a different boots. For those of us with narrow feet, it’s a godsend. I wear a AA width in normal shoes and the Dainese footbed is good for AA to B (regular width). If you squeeze into regular width shoes, you might not be that comfy in these.
The longer shaft is very welcome. The Lola was a shorter boot and I would occasionally hit my shins on the footpegs of my F650GS (single) at stops. The Svelta’s additional 1.5cm height is great here.
I don’t like the side zipper and velcro closure. Ok, I hate this. The back zip style of the Lola (and their Lady Avant ST race boots, which I also use) allowed my ankles to connect with the bike near the swingarm pivot point and increased my sense of connectedness with the machine. With the zipper and velcro in the way, I feel a bit disconnected. I hope that Dainese releases a back-zip touring boot again! On the scale of whining, this is a pretty low-grade issue, as nearly all boots use this closure configuration and I’m being super picky.
Overall, I highly recommend the Svelta if your feet can get into it.

Ducati of Detroit Ladies’ Night

Posted by atomicalex on 2016-02-27
Posted in: Motorbikes, Style. Leave a Comment

Whoa! Ducati Party!

Ducati of Detroit hosted a Ladies’ Moto Night this week and it was fun! Started with registration, snacks (oooo, very Italian, too!), wine, and socializing. Things then really kicked off with an intro from staff and presenters.

The first station (there were five) was intro to different types of bikes. They had three Scramblers, a Panigale, two Monsters, and a Diavel to sit on. The Hypermotard was sold out and the Multistrada was in the back somewhere. Lots of discussion on seat heights, no surprise.

The second station featured different types of gear and the Arai guy. Good for me, I’ve never been able to try on Arai’s long oval fit helmets. They definitely would work, but I’ll likely stay with HJC for now. The staff had an array of different materials to choose from for jackets and boots, and stressed the importance of CE armoring. Nice!

The third station was the crazy one. How to pick up your bike. The staff had a dry Scrambler with frame sliders and every lady was given the opportunity to practice picking it up. We did the back it up with your butt method. I learned that I’ve been putting my butt too low on the seat all this time, and that’s why I struggle with the GS. The Derpa? No prob. But my damn GS…. Anyway, I feel a lot more confident about that now. The other BMW rider in my group and I were just staring at each other like “OMG, we finally get it!” and all of the ladies were carrying on about butt position. Honestly, it sounded like a maternity ward – “Move your butt!” “Spread your feet out more!” “Now you got it, PUSH! PUSH! Keep pushing!” “YAY!! You did it!!”

The fourth station – wow – was an old Monster 620 on their dyno. The shop does sport bike tuning, focusing on Ducati (of course). They welcome all makes to the dyno, but readily admit that they really don’t know much about other EFI systems. I giggled and took that sucker all the way up to the redline in top gear, it really does go 140mph standing still. A few bangs off the rev limiter and I let it back down. It shifts like a GS (bang bang bang), but smoothly. That would be a fun track bike!

The last station was basic bike maintenance. As the night was winding down and all of the ladies in my group were riders with some experience, we mostly just talked about tyre pressure and then BSed about bikes with the senior tech and builder. He showed us two project bikes that they are working on, a race bike and a Scrambler. Seems like everyone is working on Scrambler builds, which is awesome mostly because I am tired of chopper and bobber builds.

We wrapped up with some swag bags and super cute tshirts. The team at Ducati Detroit definitely pulled out all of the stops for this event and it showed. I was very impressed at the thoroughness of the presentations – appropriate for all levels of experience – and the completeness of the event – covering so many aspects of riding. The dyno and the tipped over Scrambler were definitely highlights for me as I’ve never been on a bike dyno (many many car dynos, but no bikes) and getting coached on how to pick up a downed bike was incredibly helpful.