David Stafford's journal and travel log

David Stafford's Journal of Motorcycle Touring and Technology

Musings brought on by whichever brain cells happen to be firing at the time.

Thursday, July 31, 2003 - Test driving a Ducati ST4s

I took Wheelie Freak, er, I mean my Suzuki SV1000 to Eastside Motosports this morning for its 600 mile service, a set of heated grips and a few other tweaks. I'm staying mum on my impressions of the SV1000 for now but I will have plenty to report later.

Ducati ST4s

Brett Fladseth knows my addiction all too well and offered to let me have a 2003 Ducati ST4s for a loaner. I've ridden the ST2 and wasn't impressed so I didn't expect much from its bigger brother. Still, I'm always up for new experiences so I took the keys and resolved to give it a fair trial.

The verdict? This is the first Ducati I ever wanted to keep! I am extremely impressed... but with one provision which I'll get back to later.

It all starts with the engine. The ST4s possesses the renowned 996 v-twin powerplant while both the ST2 and ST4 carry the less potent 916 engine. The 996 outputs a measured 112 hp and 69 ft/lbs of torque at the rear wheel which is so similar to my Suzuki SV1000 that comparisons are inevitable. These are, in my experience, two of the finest sport v-twin engines ever made. The Ducati takes a close second to the Suzuki for minor points: The 996 runs slightly rougher below 3,000 rpm and digs into the wallet deeper due to its relatively brief valve check interval of 6,000 miles. These differences have to be considered minor quibbles in light of their fantastic performance and overall driveability (happiness is a flat torque curve.)

Hop on almost any Suzuki or Honda and the gearbox feels instantly familiar. Maybe it's all just part of the old-world charm but every time I ride a Ducati it seems like the gearbox has an entirely different personality. This one isn't up to Japanese standards but it is entirely willing and practical for everyday street riding. Shifts are firm and finding neutral is no treasure hunt. It slipped out of second once under acceleration but that was the only time the gearbox got my attention during several hours of riding. Compared to the ST2 it is a big improvement. Clutch pull is just a touch stiff but not bad. Overall, I'm satisfied with the gearbox.

Instruments are easy to read with two large dials for the speedometer and tach. A small LCD displays a clock, engine temperature and fuel gauge.

The sport fairing is entirely effective at keeping the wind blast off my chest without causing much turbulence at helmet level. I found I could even ride at low highway speeds with my face shield up and sunglasses on. The optional higher windscreen would make it perfect.

The Brembo brakes are fantastic. Feedback is generous with a smooth, linear feel. Stopping power is what you would expect from a Brembo: confident and pavement-ripping. Absolutely first-class.

Virtually everything about the ST4s is first-class and it shows up best in the suspension. The components read like a list of who's who in the high-performance motorcycle field: Ohlins shocks with remote preload adjustment. Showa fully adjustable upside-down forks. Light-weight, five-spoke Brembo-Marchesini wheels. Ducati spared no expense on the components or the manufacturing. The ST4s even has an aluminum swingarm and carbon fiber rear mudguard to reduce weight. This is the best of everything with no compromises.

The designers and builders clearly have a lot of pride in this motorcycle but unless it performs it's nothing more than bunch of expensive shiny parts bolted together. I gave it a thorough street test and am pleased to report it handles brilliantly. This doesn't feel like any sport-tourer I've ever ridden. Sure, it's not a professional racing bike. The weight and conservative geometry see to that. But you can be forgiven for ignoring that dinstinction as you take the next corner at twice the posted speed. The ST4s does an amazing, nearly flawless, impression of a super-sport. And all this without the intimidating twitchiness of a racing bike! How can this be? I am, to say the least, extremely impressed. Maybe I've just become a Ducati fan? Do I have to take this bike back?

Deb and I agree on the styling. It's beautiful with smooth, curvy, flowing lines. Ducati is entirely out of step with the current fad of angled, angry-insect styling but long after those designs are seen as dated and goofy as bell-bottom pants the ST4s will still be a classic.

The only flaws in this motorcycle are nitpicks. The stock seat is good for about an hour before it becomes unbearable. Corbin makes a seat that looks good and gets positive reviews. I'm sure there are other choices too. The stock gearing is too tall- most likely so Ducati could preserve bragging rights that it matches the top speed of the 996 racer. A couple more teeth on the rear sprocket will make it right. The only thing not easily fixed is heat thrown off from the engine. It's not enough to cook you (certainly not as big a problem as the ST1300 or FJR 1300) but on warm days your thighs will be uncomfortable in low-speed traffic. The problem goes away at speed.

And about the provision I mentioned earlier? Ducati calls this a sport tourer. Sure, Ducati, it's a sport tourer if your formula is 98% sport bike and 2% touring bike. Take a fantastic sport bike, alter the frame and steering geometry to acccomodate more weight and improve stability, make the fairing larger and sell it with bags as standard equipment. Call it a sport tourer. Brett put it well-- It's a sport bike in sheep's clothing. I like to think of it as a civilized sport bike. The ST4s could never replace my BMW R1150RT (or an R1150RS for that matter) but it could replace my other sport bikes. I want one.

I came back to the dealer just before closing time to pick up my Suzuki. The service manager apologized and explained that he was sorry, it was taking longer than expected and it wouldn't be ready until tomorrow. "Hey, no problem!" I was more than glad to hang on to the Ducati over night. "In fact, if you need to keep the Suzuki for a week....or even two.... that's OK with me."

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 - The 1234 Puzzle

Time for a quick follow-up to my July 16 journal entry where I described Douglas Hofstadter's ingenious MU puzzle.

Did you get anywhere with it? If you haven't stopped to think about it do yourself a favor and put some brain cycles to work on this puzzle. It's fun to play with and it will help a lot when I explain the insight it gave me.

I've tried to design the smallest possible puzzle that still demonstrates the same kind of reasoning process. I call it the 1234 puzzle. You should be able to solve it in your head in about as much time as it takes to describe it. Here's how it works. Take the digits 1, 2, 3, 4. Your job is to reverse them to make 4, 3, 2, 1 by swapping pairs of adjacent digits. Here's the catch: You can only swap pairs that are mismatched-- one even and one odd. Since 1 is by definition neither even nor odd it can swap with anything.

Do you already have the answer?

If you know a smaller puzzle that demonstrates the reasoning involved I would be curious to see it.

I'll get back to this topic soon.

Saturday, July 19, 2003 - The Bite of Seattle

Deb, Greg, Linda and I went to the Bite of Seattle today. It's an annual event where local restaurants set up booths so you can sample their cooking. We had the opportunity to try fried alligator shish-ka-bob. Not bad! It's chewy with a unique flavor and texture. Doesn't taste like chicken.

I took this photo of the Space Needle and Warholized it. You can click on it for a larger version if you like.

Friday, July 18, 2003 - First impressions of the 2003 Yamaha FJR 1300

Yamaha FJR1300

Getting a test-drive on a Yamaha FJR 1300 isn't as easy as it sounds. It's unlikely you'll find one in your local dealer's showroom. Yamaha markets the FJR aggressively in Europe but they lack confidence in the FJR's ability to compete in the sport-touring category in the U.S. It took a letter-writing campaign from envious American motorcyclists to persuade them to bring it here. Yamaha was sufficiently convinced to let us Yanks order one, cash up-front, but not convinced enough to stock it with their dealers. The only chance you'll get to test an FJR is when your dealer has a used one to sell and that doesn't happen often. Lucky for me, my dealer got a low-mileage 2002 FJR today!

I tested it with an eye to comparing it with my 2002 BMW R1150RT. I think the world of my RT. It's the bike that convinced me to sell my car and ride year-round in Seattle. So the FJR was going up against tough competition.

Everything looks good on paper. Its claimed dry weight of 537 lbs (553 with ABS) puts it 55 lbs lighter than my R1150RT (39 lbs lighter with ABS.) The 1300cc inline-four engine cranks out significantly more muscle than the RT. List price is four thousand dollars easier on the wallet. Lighter weight, more power, and lower cost. It all sounds good to me.

But that's on paper. How does it ride? I took it for a short trip around Bellevue and Redmond with a mix of highway, suburban and city riding.

The first thing I noticed is how much smaller it is than my RT. It's not just the weight. The dimensions are smaller and the saddle sits lower to the ground. It feels like an overgrown sport bike which is exactly as Yamaha intended. The riding position is a little more forward than the RT but nothing that would cause discomfort on a long trip. You know instantly the FJR is meant to be a sport-tourer while the R1150RT and Honda ST1300 are sport-tourers.

"Go to your corner and stay." Neutral handling in a corner is the first big test. Pick your line, lean it over and it will happily stay there with no effort on the the part of the driver. My RT has it, the Suzuki SV650 and SV1000 have it and the FJR has it too. You can't quite throw it about like an SV650 but that is to be expected. It's 160 lbs heavier than the petite Suzuki. Like the RT, everything the FJR does it does gracefully but deliberately. I would put it exactly where its weight suggests: Between the SV1000 and R1150RT and very close to the R1150RS in cornering. This is high praise indeed.

The racetrack is a perfectly groomed imaginary playland. Real roads have flaws. It doesn't take long to find a corner where the asphalt is cracked and buckled near the apex of the turn. The FJR soaks it up and keeps its line. Competent and composed. I'm already grinning in my helmet.

There's good news about the motor. Though I'm not a fan of inline-fours this 1300cc motor is just so big it has oodles of torque at low rpm. I'm reminded of the old saying, "There's no replacement for cubic displacement." I can feel it wind up as the rpms rise but there is enough torque down low to keep me happy. You can ride it at a relaxed pace without having to work the gearbox hard.

Like the RT, RS and ST1300 the FJR delivers power to the rear wheel by means of a shaft drive. Yamaha knows how to do it. They've been building shaft drives for a long time and no driveline lash could be detected. This the way all sport-tourers should be.

The clutch and gearbox are what you would expect of a Japanese bike which is to say nearly flawless. Yamaha is about a half step down from Honda and Suzuki but that still puts them far ahead of anyone else.

Wind protection is excellent. I would opt for a larger aftermarket windshield but that's what I did for my RT too. I could ride the FJR year-round in Seattle and remain comfortable. It would be nice if it came standard with heated grips and an accessory socket but for the price I can't complain.

Side luggage comes standard. It seems a little small for long trips but should be adequate for anything else.

Oh, I must not forget the FJR's trick electrically adjustable windscreen. My RT has one and I have become addicted to it. It's easy to adjust it exactly where I want it depending on speed and wind conditions. This is something that looks like a gimmick the first time you see it but after using it for a while you wonder how you got along without it.

Nothing is perfect and the FJR is no exception. It has one congenital flaw which will be a problem for some riders. The engine puts out a lot of heat. It's not noticeable at highway speeds but riding in city traffic can make your legs uncomfortably warm. It's probably not as bad as the ST1300 but it's still a problem. Here in Seattle six months out of the year it would even be a blessing.

There is so much to like about this incredible bike. It handles wonderfully, has a powerful motor and is priced aggressively. In one word: Brilliant! For once a motorcycle is even better than the reviews claim. I am highly impressed. I wish Yamaha would put some effort into promoting it in the U.S.

The FJR looks like it would be ninety percent as comfortable as my RT and much more fun to drive. Would I trade my RT for the FJR? No, not as long as I can have my Suzuki sport bike too. The only way to get the best of both worlds is to have both worlds. But if I could have only one bike I would be sorely tempted to make it the FJR. If Yamaha solves the heat problem that temptation may even become overwhelming.

Thursday, July 17, 2003 - Deb, Linda and Greg visit Mt. Ranier

Deb and Linda

Deb's cousin Linda has come to visit us for a week. Deb, Linda and Greg took off for a trip to Mt. Ranier today. Work kept me home but I enjoyed the trip from their stories and photos.

Our last photo of Greg!

Seattle by night

Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - Douglas Hofstadter's puzzle

Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is required reading for anyone interested in artificial intelligence, information theory, or just thinking about thinking. You aren't expected have a PhD in these subjects to understand the book. Hoftstadter takes great pains to patiently lay the groundwork for the ideas he expresses in order to not assume too much of the reader. He also tries to keep the topics interesting and entertaining by the means of fictional characters who are wrestling with the same problems examined by the book. Hofstadter is a talented storyteller and he succeeds at this but it comes at the cost of bloating the size of the book to over 700 pages. His attempts to keep it accessible have the ironic outcome of scaring off many world-be readers. Don't let it get in your way. Unplug the TV, turn off your cell phone and take a week of evenings to enjoy this book. It's worth it.

Though Hoftstadter received accolades as a writer he remains underappreciated as a thinker. His light and breezy style smacks hard of the genre of not-to-be-taken-seriously pop science books. As a result, Hoftstadter has, I suspect, become unconsciously labelled an architecture astronaut: a man who thinks the deep thoughts and expounds on them in entertaining ways but doesn't really do anything useful. It's good enough for a Pulitzer but they award those for writing not for science. Hoftstadter deserves better.

Hoftstadter gave me one truly good insight that I would like to pass along. But first, in order to appreciate it, we have to lay a little groundwork borrowed from G.E.B. I promise it won't be much so if you'll just do one small exercise for me I will explain it later.

Hofstadter offers a simple-looking puzzle to the reader. The idea is to take a word, change letters in it according to four rules, and produce another word. I will describe how it works.

The MIU system uses only three letters of the alphabet: M, I and U. Words in the MIU system are words which are composed of those three letters.

RULE 1: If the last letter is I, you can add a U at the end.

examples: I becomes IU. MUI becomes MUIU.

RULE 2: Any string of the form Mx can be made into Mxx. Here, x stands for any string.

examples: MI becomes MII. MU becomes MUU. MUIII becomes MUIIIUIII.

RULE 3: If III appears anywhere you can replace it with U.

examples: III becomes U. IIMIII becomes IIMU. IIII can become either UI or IU.

RULE 4: If UU appears it can be deleted.

examples: MUU becomes M. UUU becomes U. MUUI becomes MI.

Given those four simple rules can you change MI into MU?

That's all you have to do. Figure out how to convert MI to MU by those four rules. Trust me, it is essential to the insight I promised you. Give it a try and I'll get back to this topic next week.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - Horseback riding on Tiger Mountain

Deb, Greg and I are riding horses through Tiger Mountain.

My wonderful Deb!

Deb's brother, Greg Braun

Monday, July 14, 2003 -

Deb's brother, Greg, is visiting Seattle and we're doing the touristy things. Today we are enjoying a relaxing sailboat cruise in Puget Sound.

Sunday, July 13, 2003 - Test driving the 2003 Ducati Multistrada

Ducati Multistrada

I recently test-drove a 2003 Ducati Multistrada and it's given me more food for thought. I have concluded the press doesn't hold Ducati to the same standards they hold the Japanese bikes. The Italian bikes have a sense of style, make that a grand sense of style, and flaunt it with a smooth kind of elegance and inspiration that shows everyone else for the pretenders they are. Ducati is also willing to experiment and take risks. Beauty, character and daring... These things count for a lot in the minds of motorcycle reviewers. It makes it easy to gloss over their flaws with a shrug of forgiveness that could never be granted to Honda or Suzuki.

But the street is cold and unforgiving. And that's where it matters to me. Ducatis were born and bred for the purity of the racetrack and made few compromises for real-life street riding. You bought a Ducati because you wanted to race, or because you loved the styling or because you yearned to join the cult of Ducatisti. You didn't buy it for everyday street riding competence and comfort.

That might be changing. I am both surprised and encouraged by the Multistrada. The gearbox is actually usable. The motor, though just a bit rougher than it should be, pulls strong at low revs. The styling, well, this is a Ducati and they are experimenting. You either like it or you don't. So what's the big deal? It's a motorcycle meant for real roads. It's fun to drive. It's nimble even at parking-lot speeds. The steering lock has enough range for tight u-turns. Best of all it doesn't require lifetime membership in the contortionists guild to be comfortable. That's the big deal. An upright riding position? Is this really a Ducati? If it is, it's the first one I ever even considered buying.

Motoguzzi Breva

While we're on the subject of Italian bikes let's not forget Moto Guzzi. The nearly comatose marque is showing signs of new life. If they put a bigger motor in their Breva, upgrade some essential components and manage to keep the weight down they will really have something to compete with BMW. This is worth watching.

Saturday, July 12, 2003 - A new Suzuki SV1000

Brett Fladseth of Eastside MotoSports hands me the keys to a 2003 Suzuki SV1000.

The first time I met Brett I asked him if Suzuki was going to come out with a litre version of the SV650. Rumors had been circulating that such a bike was in development and it seemed like a near certainty given the history of the ill-fated TL1000S and unexpected success of the SV650. Six months ago I put my deposit down and waited. Now it's here... and I have a confession to make.

I'm not so sure it will replace my SV650. What I really wanted was something Suzuki could never truly deliver. I wanted the light weight and effortless handling of my SV650 but with a little more oomph in the motor department. Sure, I know a bigger motor means a heavier bike but it was all so abstract until I got a live one to drive. Now don't get me wrong. It's a relative light-weight for a litre-class bike. But 408 lbs is still 45 lbs heavier than my SV650 and it shows whether you're pushing it hard into a corner at 8,000 rpm or waddling it backwards into a parking space at 0 rpm.

Now I must find the answer to a difficult question: Is the additional power worth 45 lbs? It's going to take some time to come to a definite conclusion. I love my SV650 but I lust for more power. Only one of these superb motorcycles will find a permanent home in my garage. Stay tuned and I'll let you know which one I choose.

Friday, July 11, 2003 -

There's a thought-provoking interview with Jim Gray on ACM Queue.

I'm writing this on a machine with over a trillion characters of permanent storage, two billion characters of memory, and a processor that can execute up to six billion instructions every second. All that muscle is sitting under my desk within arm's reach. Amazing. I need all this storage and processing power for my work. In fact, I can't wait to get even more. But I'm an anomaly. What about other people? I'm not talking about my friends working at software companies but real people who understand computers are for critiquing the newest action movie via instant messaging, winning antique lamps by auction on Ebay, and paying their utility bills online. Most of them have no idea what's inside the box that makes it all possible. How much memory does it have? How big is the hard disk? No answer. And that's the way it should be. The muscle-power of the technology is no longer a limiting factor for them. Ease-of-use is a factor, reliability is a factor, cost is a factor, but Moore's Law has seen to it that the base technology is more than "good enough" for most people.

How about the enterprise? Technology is still a limiting factor there but in ways that are becoming insidious. Jim Gray wonders what we'll do when disk space eventually becomes, for all practical purposes, infinite. One thing we can be certain is that as things change the old ways of doing things gradually make less and less sense.

Case in point- relational databases. They have served us well for twenty-five years but the machines today, and things we ask of them, were not even imaginable when Edgar Codd formulated his 12 rules for relational databases. We've gotten into a perverse situation where a great deal of human time (the most expensive kind) is being lost to working around inadequacies in the traditional relational model.

Let me ask a question: What does a company do when they need to improve their database performance? One answer is to buy new hardware. That works, and obviously companies do upgrade their hardware on a regular basis, but it helps only to the degree that Moore's Law predicts. Competing with that are the twin problems of growing database sizes and the demand for better reporting and richer access. New hardware is necessary but in the end it's an incremental improvement and in some cases maybe even a wash.

There is a way to get better than incremental improvement. You can become an expert, or hire one, in the details of the specific brand of database you use. These expert consultants know how to optimize the data and queries so that it can often run many times faster. This isn't some sensible application of general relational database knowledge. These consultants are well-paid because they understand the underlying implementation details of the database and these details differ dramatically from one database to another (and even between versions of the same database.) What speeds up SQL Server by a factor of five may slow down Oracle by the same amount. And vice-versa. That this pathology exists tells me there is either an underlying flaw in relational database implementations or the method itself is beginning to make less sense as time goes by. I strongly suspect the latter.

The reality for the entrerprise is that for the near future you will still have to care about what's in the box. But you shouldn't have to care about the specific implementation details of your database. It's costing us money and limiting the quality of information we can get back from our own data. The time is growing ripe for new ideas.

Jeff Duntemann visited this topic in his 1999 essay, The Engine That Surpasseth All Understanding.

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