Recent content by Brian P

Who's in? Cooler weather is welcome.

In the 1970s and 1980s, cars went to the junkyard with fenders flapping in the breeze and holes in the rocker panels, and often with wafts of blue smoke coming from the exhaust. That sometimes still happens, not as often (corrosion protection and paint technology has advanced enormously). Now...

"Right to repair" ... big discussion. Nothing to do with EV or otherwise. It's an issue with all modern vehicles. Some manufacturers have opted to VIN-lock their various electronic control modules. Means you can't just swap it out with a replacement. It has to be coded to the VIN to match...

You're not going to notice brake fluid contamination in a one-off stopping distance test. You could flush the entire system out with water and use that in place of brake fluid for a one-off test, and it will work fine. Boiling point issues will only turn up if you do something that leads to...

Practice sessions both mornings, qualifying sessions Saturday afternoon, finals Sunday afternoon starting at noon. I'm in two classes, one should be early afternoon, one mid afternoon.

Out. Heading for Grand Bend, I still have some preparation to do. (And it's too hot)

I bought my Shark carbon-fibre helmet at Motocard in Barcelona for €240 three years ago. I'm headed to Portugal this fall. I should pick up another one...

There's a thing called the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, which (among many other things) allows tourists to temporarily use equipment legal in their own home jurisdiction, outside of that jurisdiction despite it being locally non-conforming. This is how you can ship your own...

The legality doesn't coincide with the physics.

Helmet sourced in Europe will have ECE certification but probably not DOT. ECE is accepted in Ontario, not sure about other provinces. It isn't recognised in USA, but I doubt you'll find anyone who cares. I've been using an ECE-only Shark helmet for years.

Careful ... lots of project vehicles spend a fair amount of time without a license plate until they're up and running ... or as parts donors. There's ways around this to address the issue at hand without screwing over the automotive hobby, but it requires thought and consideration, not...

In that case, the loading conditions and directions are the same as for a car.

My head hurts. LOL So, the new F800GS would therefore be using the new 900cc (I think) parallel twin with the 270-degree crank and with the output shaft on the left (normal side), as opposed to the old F800GS (which I've ridden in Australia) which had the old 360-degree crank and the funky...

The near universally recommended 2 second following distance feels too far, for anyone accustomed to Toronto traffic. Still, there's good reason for not being closer than that. I believe the Ducati Multistrada adaptive cruise control has some authority to apply brakes, but it won't decelerate...

Is the F800GS still around? I thought the F900 had replaced it, and it's a completely different engine. F800GT/F800ST/F800R have been my favourite hire bikes on overseas trips. Only F900 variant that I've sampled has been the F900XR.