OfficerImpersonator
Seattle-area Rounder
No - I haven't gotten an early start on my New Year's celebrations - I was just doing some independent research and came across the following, which I thought I'd share with the group.
Let me preface with my story of how the Tour de France relates to my BMW motorcycling. I think the Tour de France is the most amazing sporting event in the world. Forgetting the doping allegations for a moment (like baseball and football are immune from "performance enhancing drugs"!), who among us could ride a bicycle for 1200 miles, over 7000' mountain passes, in the 100 degree heat of summer, 80-150 miles a day? It's a simply amazing race, and it's usually televised live. For me, the best part of watching the race is a rather thorough look at what rural Europe looks like. No strip malls, no eight lane highways - just narrow twisting roads in an alpine or country-side setting, with quaint little villages, stunning mountain scenery, beautiful green fields, etc.. Perfect motorcycle country, right?
One of the side-shows of the race is watching the race marshalls, official race photographers, water-bottle delivery folks, etc. racing around the bicycles on motorcycles. It's a death-defying display of motorcycle riding. Imagine riding two-up on the twistiest roads on the planet. Now imagine your passenger has a 10 pound camera, and they are standing up on the footpegs, swiveling around taking photos of the riders in front, alongside, and behind the motorcycle. Simply insane. Then there are the course marshalls, whose job it is to clear the course of the insane and usually drunk fans who line the course. How these obviously inebriated fans don't get arms amputated by motorcycles is beyond me. How you can ride a motorcycle at 40 mph through a crowd of people and presume they will get out of your way at the last second is beyond me.
Anyway, watching the motorcycles zoom around last year's race re-kindled my interest in motorcycling, and was the catalyst for me eventually acquiring a 14 year old K75S two months ago. I thought I'd do a little Google research to discover what brand of bikes were used in the Tour de France. The bikes are so plastered with decals I could never discern the make. The first link returned by Google is to a story on a "motorbiker.org" web page. It talks about how motorcycles are used in the Tour de France, and mentions that "all the motorcycles seen in the race are donated to the Tour by Kawasaki". Fair enough.
Except check the photo at the bottom of the page. I think there might be some manufacturers represented in the little motorcycle parade at the front of the peloton that ain't Kawasakis!
http://www.motorbiker.org/blogs.nsf/dx/07112005112049MWECYK.htm
Let me preface with my story of how the Tour de France relates to my BMW motorcycling. I think the Tour de France is the most amazing sporting event in the world. Forgetting the doping allegations for a moment (like baseball and football are immune from "performance enhancing drugs"!), who among us could ride a bicycle for 1200 miles, over 7000' mountain passes, in the 100 degree heat of summer, 80-150 miles a day? It's a simply amazing race, and it's usually televised live. For me, the best part of watching the race is a rather thorough look at what rural Europe looks like. No strip malls, no eight lane highways - just narrow twisting roads in an alpine or country-side setting, with quaint little villages, stunning mountain scenery, beautiful green fields, etc.. Perfect motorcycle country, right?
One of the side-shows of the race is watching the race marshalls, official race photographers, water-bottle delivery folks, etc. racing around the bicycles on motorcycles. It's a death-defying display of motorcycle riding. Imagine riding two-up on the twistiest roads on the planet. Now imagine your passenger has a 10 pound camera, and they are standing up on the footpegs, swiveling around taking photos of the riders in front, alongside, and behind the motorcycle. Simply insane. Then there are the course marshalls, whose job it is to clear the course of the insane and usually drunk fans who line the course. How these obviously inebriated fans don't get arms amputated by motorcycles is beyond me. How you can ride a motorcycle at 40 mph through a crowd of people and presume they will get out of your way at the last second is beyond me.
Anyway, watching the motorcycles zoom around last year's race re-kindled my interest in motorcycling, and was the catalyst for me eventually acquiring a 14 year old K75S two months ago. I thought I'd do a little Google research to discover what brand of bikes were used in the Tour de France. The bikes are so plastered with decals I could never discern the make. The first link returned by Google is to a story on a "motorbiker.org" web page. It talks about how motorcycles are used in the Tour de France, and mentions that "all the motorcycles seen in the race are donated to the Tour by Kawasaki". Fair enough.
Except check the photo at the bottom of the page. I think there might be some manufacturers represented in the little motorcycle parade at the front of the peloton that ain't Kawasakis!
http://www.motorbiker.org/blogs.nsf/dx/07112005112049MWECYK.htm