Welcome to a special year-end Friday Fudge, where we bring you all the best motorcycle content of the Internet. Well, not actually the best, more the weirdest, and some of it is definitely the worst. You decide.
For sale: Speed
We’ve all seen it before — a sportbike up for sale, with a blurb saying the bike has never been dropped, abused, raced, blah blah blah (so why is there race safety wire everywhere, hrm?). However, this bike on eBay is quite the opposite!
We’re talking about this listing, sadly now unavailable, for the Triumph Daytona 675R that was raced by Peter Hickman at the Isle of Man TT. With its Iron Maiden livery (actually, a beer logo), it’s not exactly like it could be mistaken for your average sportbike. Reading further into the specs, we find this is a very interesting motorcycle indeed! The engine is supposedly tuned to pro supersport roadracing level, with more than 130 hp. The rest of the bike is a list of high-end parts: Motec electronic gadgetry, K Tech suspension, Promach rearsets and clipons, and so on.
The bike needed all those go-fast bits, as Hicky raced this machine at the North West 200, the Ulster GP, and the Isle of Man TT. He won at Ulster twice in 2017 and once in 2018 with this bike, and earned podiums at the TT in 2017 and 2018 on this machine.
Sounds cool, but the price was a lofty £25,000, which works out to about $44,000 CAD, and who knows what it ended up selling for. Yikes! Somebody got a great Christmas present. No question you’d be the coolest guy at Tim Hortons if you pulled in on this machine, though.
The power of vegetables
You’ve got to have some sympathy for the carbon-conscious motorcyclist. On one hand, they want to ride. On the other hand, gas-powered bikes are going to be muscled out by emissions regs, and electric bikes are just too expensive for many riders still.
No worries! A team of researchers has come up with a solution: adapt existing internal combustion technology to run off vegetables! Well, sort of.
According to The Times of India, two professors from the Malviya National Institute of Technology have come up with an apparatus that easily converts a diesel-powered motorcycle engine to run off vegetable oil instead. This isn’t a new idea — using bio-diesel is a common goal for cheap hippies the eco-conscious. However, the design used here is supposed to make the whole process much easier and more accessible.
As a result of the vegetable oil design, the engine is now supposed to create 60 to 70 per cent less carbon emissions, which would certainly appeal to David Suzuki. No word, though, on whether the engine has lost its characteristic diesel rattle for a “potato-potato” exhaust note.
Long way down
It’s a long way to the top, if you want to run an airline. Being the CEO of a nationally-owned air carrier is a really big deal, and once you’re up there, you want to mind your Ps and Qs, right? Especially if there have already been three CEOs canned in the past five years. Don’t try pulling any fast ones, because there are lots of people who want your job …
You’d think so, but that wasn’t the approach taken by Ari Askhara, CEO of Indonesia’s Garuda airline. Askhara was given the boot by the Indonesian government earlier this month for improper use of the airline. Hrm, you ask, what monkey business might the CEO have been up to? Coke-fuelled, sky-high parties? Nope, Askhara was actually busted for smuggling a Harley-Davidson motorcycle out of the Netherlands and into Indonesia without doing the proper customs paperwork. The bike was worth 800 million, which sounds like a lot, until you realize that’s 800 million rupiah, not 800 million dollars. It’s actually closer to $75,000, which is pretty hefty but definitely not worth losing a job over.
According to the Financial Post, Askhara was caught trying to evade the taxes on the Harley-Davidson, as well as a couple of expensive bicycles. His higher-ups in the government were unimpressed at the stunt and canned him, making him the fourth CEO the airline has sacked in the past four years.
Crim in training
Being an outlaw biker is hard, especially when they won’t let you join unless you own a made-in-America motorcycle. ‘Course, if you have a sportbike, and the established gangs won’t let you join, you could always strike out on your own. Start with something easy, like stealing Amazon parcels. Just try not to lose your shirt in the process, or in this case, your pants.
Tiffany team-up
Speaking of made-in-America motorcycles, there’s no question the classic V-twin embodies the outlaw motorcycle image. Yessir, there’s nothing like a low-slung cruiser to show you’re a real tough guy. Unless, of course, you’re riding a Tiffany & Co.-branded Indian Scout.
That’s right! Tiffany and Co., retailer of luxury goods such as perfume, jewelry, purses, etc., has now branched off into the motorcycle world, partnering with Indian to create the new Tiffany Blue edition of a Scout.
According to the marketeers, “This finely tuned machine features custom 16″ laced wheels, chrome-plated rims and spokes dressed in vintage tread tires, a custom high-polished stainless steel exhaust, one-of-a-kind Tiffany engine covers and a custom sterling silver plaque on the front fender.” Sounds like a really cool bike, and no doubt you’ll be swamped with offers to start your own one-percenter club, if the Hells Angels don’t automatically sign you up when they see you ride in.
“We’ve all seen it before — a sportbike up for sale, with a blurb saying the bike has never been dropped, abused, raced, blah blah blah (so why is there race safety wire everywhere, hrm?)”
A-hahahahaha! That is what some goof told me years back, about a Honda NS400R. Drove to his place, got out of my car, and half way up the driveway I spotted the safety wire (and other hints).
I spun around, jumped in my car and went home. I then phoned the clown and told him he was lucky I didn’t knock on his door and then knock on his face for wasting my time and making me drive so far.