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Friday, October 31, 2003 - St. Petersburg, Florida
 Ana and Keith Locke I'm in sunny St. Petersburg visiting my old friend Keith Locke and his wife Ana. St. Petersburg is south of Tampa on the bay and has something of a running feud with St. Augustine as to which is really the oldest city in Florida. Every time an archeologist pulls a stick from the ground they rush to radiocarbon date it to bolster their claim. Keith raves about the great weather. It's fantastic this time of year-- just like Seattle in the summer. If it was like this all year round I'd just stop right here and stay put!  
Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - Altanta, Georgia - The Kevin Schwantz Suzuki School
 Kevin Schwantz I am in Atlanta attending a two-day motorcycle racing class at the Kevin Schwantz Suzuki School. The school is held at Road Atlanta racetrack and consists of equal amounts of track time and classroom instruction. The thirty of us are split into two groups: racers and street riders. The groups alternate every half hour between track time and classroom instruction. I'm in the street riders group. Each group, racer and street, breaks up into three further subgroups for fast, medium and slow. Each subgroup goes out in sequence behind an instructor; fastest group first. It was raining the first morning and some students were concerned about practicing in the wet. The instructors assured us the best classes always start out wet and finish dry because nothing gives you a better appreciation for traction and smooth coordination of throttle, brake and clutch like a wet track. No problems for me. I ride year-round in Seattle and am, somewhat regrettably, entirely used to it.  One of the instructors has a video camera mounted on his bike and follows closely behind each student to record them. You never know you're being recorded until he passes you and moves on to the next student ahead. Minutes later you're back in the classroom watching the video of yourself and listening to the instructor's commentary. It works. You feel certain that you are doing one thing on the track but back in class, on the video screen, you can see yourself clearly doing something different. This kind of feedback is incredibly helpful. Here's an embarrassing story to tell on myself. I was riding in a group behind an instructor when Kevin Schwantz pulled in front of me and tapped the rear fender of his bike. It's the message for "follow me." Whew! I felt more than a little self-conscious following the former world champion around Road Atlanta! Following him wasn't easy-- even at what must have been a relaxed pace for him. After we completed a lap he raised his arm and signalled for us to exit the track. I pulled to a stop behind him with another rider behind me. I was certain he was going to chew me out for my poor form. Something like, "David, here's a quarter. Go to the pay phone and call your mom. Tell her to pick you up and take you home because you just don't have what it takes." Instead, he praised my form and told the rider behind me to watch and learn from me. Wow! A compliment from Kevin Schwantz means a lot. If I wasn't wearing a helmet you could have seen my head swell. Then Kevin told us to go back on the track without him. I went into the first turn, feeling great and concentrating on the right line and maintaining good form. No problem. Then came the second turn and I realized something very, very important. I had absolutely no idea which direction this blind turn exited! We had been following instructors so far and all I had really focused on was mimicking their moves. Which way to go? By the time my brain could formulate the question it was already too late. I ran off the track, briefly, and then back on. My fellow student dutifully followed me off and back onto the track. No harm done but so much for my pride! Lesson learned: You absolutely have to know the track cold. Know the track first, learn the lines second, and concentrate on form third.  An instructor demonstrating technique The school supplies the bikes and offers two to choose from: The Suzuki SV650S and GSX-R600. I rode the SV the first day and the GSX the second. I panned the SV in my review because it's too much a clone of the Ducati Supersport and unlike its predecessor it is no longer practical as a streetbike. But, oh, on the track it comes into its own. The fuel injection is spot on. The suspension is a bit on the soft side but that's exactly what a beginning racing student needs. The SV is gentle, predictable and most important, forgiving on the track. I always felt completely in control and relaxed on the SV. What a lovely bike! The GSX is a different story. Don't get me wrong. It's not twitchy or inferior to the SV. It gives you more but at the same time it demands more from the rider. The SV invites you to explore the limits of your ability. The GSX dares you to try. Most of the students wanted to ride the GSX because it's so much faster but this was, I believe, a mistake that contributed to the three accidents we had in class. You can experiment and try things on the SV that you can't get away with on the GSX.  The number one lesson I got from the class was the vital importance of knowing the track. The instructor gave us an enlightening experiment to demonstrate this point. Everyone closed their eyes and imagined riding one lap of Road Atlanta. At the end of the imagined lap each of us opened our eyes. It isn't as easy as it sounds and there was a shocking divergence in the times. Some people took thirty seconds. Others took a couple of minutes. Considering that the course record is 1:22 doing it in under a minute means you simply do not know the track. A professional racer will run his imaginary lap within one second of his actual time. Knowing the track means more than just knowing which direction a blind turn exits. You are travelling at high speed and you must be prepared for the exit of the turn long before you enter it. You often have to think three or more turns ahead to be in position for them. You must know every patch, every crack, every imperfection in the track. Know the ideal lines and passing locations for your riding style. Know the second and third best lines so you can deal with congestion and unexpected events without having to think about them. Attention is the limiting factor to speed. Knowing where you are on the track and what is coming up should require almost none of your limited attention. You must know it so well that it is automatic. If you are consciously thinking about which direction the next turn exits you are not going to have good lines and your form will be terrible. The morning of the second day we walked the track and got some advice on picking out good reference points along the way. Seeing the track up close and slow helped a lot. By the middle of the second day I felt I was finally beginning to know Road Atlanta well enough that I could begin to think about making good lines. My graduation qualifies me for the next step as a novice racer. I'm not ready for it. A half-dozen more track days, maybe another class, and then I'll be ready for my first race as a novice. So, would I recommend the Kevin Schwantz Suzuki School? Yes, highly, with one qualification. If you have the chance do a track day on the school's track first. The first day and a half of my two-day class was spent getting to know the track. I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of reference points but didn't get to spend as much time practicing cornering and transitions as I would have liked. I enjoyed my two days in class and emerged a better rider for it. The instructors are first rate and patient. The ratio of instructors to riders is about 1:3 so I always had good personal attention. Highly recommended.
Saturday, October 25, 2003 - The Hunley submarine
 Artist's conception of the Hunley attacking the Housatonic Charleston is home to the most exciting relic of the Civil War. On February 17, 1864, in a daring attempt to break the Union blockade of Charleston harbor, the Confederate submarine Hunley attacked and sank the Housatonic. Although the signal lights of the Hunley were seen from shore after the attack the submarine disappeared with all hands and was lost. Finally, on May 4th, 1995, an expedition financed by Clive Cussler's NUMA organization found the Hunley intact on the bottom of Charleston harbor. They didn't let me bring my camera into the room where the Hunley is stored but if you follow this link you'll find a good source of photos and information.  A full-scale mockup of the Hunley The Hunley was constructed by taking two iron steam boilers and riveting them together. Imagine climbling inside the hatch on that frigid February night and taking your place on the bench next to seven other men knowing that it had already sunk twice killing thirteen men including its creator.  Lt. George Dixon's life-saving gold coin The Hunley web site tells the fascinating story of this coin:
Friday, October 24, 2003 - Cypress Gardens swamp
 Howard and I are taking a rowboat tour through the Cypress Gardens swamp.  Howard brought along Circe, his loveable little Shih Tzu. We're in a flimsy plywood boat, there are alligators in the swamp, and we're making nervous jokes about Circe's safety.  I was on the lookout for alligators but they can be hard to spot in this murky water. They float just below the surface with only their nostrils and eyes exposed. Just up here, on the right, we got a big splash next to the boat from an alligator.  This duck couldn't decide whether to pose for my camera or eat it.
Thursday, October 23, 2003 - Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
 Howard Teller I am in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina to visit my friend, Howard Teller. Mt. Pleasant is near Charleston in what the locals call "low country." It's a combination of swamps, marshes and dry land so close to sea level that parts of it flood when the tide comes in. Combine high tide with a rainstorm or hurricane and the flooding can be severe. Houses near the beach are built on stilts and raised platforms where the first floor is an open garage and the living areas begin on the second floor. Some of the newer houses, built since hurricane Hugo devastated Charleston in 1989, are constructed with exterior walls at curved angles so the wind can pass over them instead of knocking them down. Life on the beach is a mix of enjoying the present and preparing for the next apocalypse.  Howard's house sits next to a creek and on the edge of a marsh. He fishes for sea bass and crab right from his own backyard. This tasty crustacean became our lunch.  We toured the old downtown and visited The Battery where the old Civil War cannons still keep watch over Charleston Harbor. I could see the walls and flag of Fort Sumter across the water where the first battle of the Civil War began on April 12, 1861.  Charleston is one of the earliest colonial cities and some of its houses are more than two hundred years old. They have a block of houses called "rainbow row" where each house is painted a different bright pastel color. Many of the doors and window shutters are done in "Charleston green", a shade so dark that it appears to be black. Howard says it appears even darker than black because it is less reflective of sunlight.   I am impressed with not just the unique architectural character of these historic houses but also their practicality. The Charleston Single House is a type of architecture I have encountered nowhere else. It's a long house, usually two stories, which is only one room wide and several rooms long. The rooms open up to each other and to a porch which runs the length of the house. The short side faces the street. The long side contains the porch and stairs to reach the upper floors. The wall on the short side extends as a facade to the porch where the front door is placed. This arrangement has the advantage of maximizing the cooling ocean breezes. Windows and doors on the porch side can even be left open in rainstorms.  Howard showed me to his guest room and asked if I could find a surprise that he had hidden somewhere inside. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. It took me a couple of minutes but I eventually spotted a package of- what else? -instant ramen nestled away! Howard has quite a sense of humor. Howard is an inventor and an enthusiastic amateur radio operator (call sign KH6TY.) Remember the Radio Shack weather radio from the 1970s? Howard invented it, built a factory in Taiwan to manufacture them and Radio Shack sold them by the millions. More recently, Howard's been creating new amateur radio communication protocols. Visit Howard's web page to see what he's up to.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - Go tidbits
I've come across a few items of interest for Go players. Eric S. Piotrowski has created an animated introduction to the game of Go: The Wonderful World of Go. John Fairbairn wrote an account of the Hashimoto/Fujisawa match in MindZine. It's a gripping story of a match played in postwar Japan and conveys the tension and mood of the time: Hashimoto vs. Fujisawa: The Forgotten Match glGo is, as Peter Strempel describes, a prototype for a 3D Goban display, full featured SGF editor, client for IGS-PandaNet and interface for GNU Go. It's good to see a real-time 3D renderer for Go games.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - The Great Smoky Mountains
 The Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. The twisting roads of Deals Gap on a warm October afternoon. Leaves of gold, brown, red and green drift in the breeze as you ride the Tail of The Dragon. 318 glorious curves in 11 miles. This truly is motorcycling paradise. US129 is a magnificent road for almost any motorcycle. Pick the riding style that matches the bike. Admire the scenery as you take it slow and easy on a cruiser, test the limits of your nerve on a high-performance sportbike or settle for something in between. I took the middle ground with my R1150RT and enjoyed every second of it.  Carl Fox and his Hawk I met Carl Fox at a rest stop along Deals Gap. Carl is 60 years old and knows the Dragon well. We talked for a while and swapped stories as we watched motorcycles go by. I admired his pristine Honda Hawk. He bought it new in 1978 and says it runs so much better and smoother than his 1962 Triumph Bonneville ever did. He told me his family comes from Ireland and he would like to visit his ancestral home some day and ride a motorcycle there.  Next time I'll come back and spend a few days memorizing every turn of the Tail of The Dragon and exploring the roads through the Smoky Mountains. If you ride a motorcycle do not miss out on the Smoky Mountains-- especially US129. This will easily make it on my top ten list of the best roads in the United States. 
Monday, October 20, 2003 - Corbin, Kentucky
 Cumberland Falls I visited Cumberland Falls in Corbin, Kentucky. It is advertised as "The Niagra of the South" but this is somewhat misleading as the falls are so much smaller (125 feet wide and 60 feet tall.) Still, it's worth a visit if you are travelling nearby and would like a peaceful place to stop and rest. Corbin's other claim to fame is being the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Colonel Sanders's original kitchen has been restored and turned into a working museum where you can order chicken cooked with his famous recipe. I have to admire the Colonel's determination. He had many jobs throughout his life but nothing ever panned out. Failure, failure, failure. By the time he was 65 he was dead broke and living off a monthly social security check of $105. Some people might be bitter and give up but not the colonel. He got in his car and criss-crossed the country visiting local restaurants to pitch them a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. His sales technique was perfectly simple: Cook his chicken for the owners and if they liked it offer them a franchise for the fee of a nickel for every chicken cooked. Needless to say, it became a huge success. There is nothing quite like persistence. Good for you, Colonel!
Thursday, October 16, 2003 - Duluth, Minnesota
 Aerostich I got up early this morning to find my motorcycle completely covered with a thin layer of ice. Autumn is the most undecided of seasons. One day is freezing and the next is a reminder of summer. The sun was out in full force this morning so I had reason to hope for the latter. You have to be careful on days like this. The sun will clear the roads but it will be a few hours yet before the shady spots give up their little patches of ice. It's always amazing how much warmer it feels to ride in sunshine. Forty degrees on a dark, drizzly evening can give me the chills but thirty degrees on a sunny day is downright cozy. As I neared Bismark I could see a long, thick, low cloud of smoke over the city. A fire? I drove into the smoke but there was no scent. Fog? Then I see the Missouri river and the fog rising over the water like steam in the morning sunlight. Beautiful. I made it to Duluth just in time to visit Aerostich. They are well-known in the motorcycle community for the touring clothing they make. My Darien jacket and pants are getting worn out but they are still comfortable, provide excellent protection and completely waterproof and windproof. I bought an identical set to replace them. Highly recommended. Aerostich is good stuff.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003 - Butte, Montana
 Butte, Montana Butte is a mining town somewhere on the continental divide in the middle of the last century. Its decaying victorian architecture is beginning to crumble but still manages to be beautiful. Faded advertisements on the walls of old buildings tout products from another era and point out the chief feature of the local hotel is that it is fire proof. A more modern sign in front of a downtown bar says, simply, "Reopen mines." Butte has seen better days. I stopped at a diner and talked with the girl behind the counter. She told me the mines shut down three years ago and unemployment was high. One of the mines tried to start a telecommunications company during the dot-com boom but that went bust too. There was some good news though. Electricity prices have risen which created more demand for copper so one of the mines reopened this month. She is optimistic that Butte has seen the worst of it and will turn around.
Monday, October 13, 2003 - Off, at last!
 John Rice I used to think the most difficult part about travelling was making the journey itself. There are always challenges and unexpected problems to deal with on a long motorcycle trip. Now don't get me wrong-- I have learned to anticipate and even enjoy the occasional surprise. Overcoming problems builds confidence and gives the traveller a deep sense of satisfaction. The most dire circumstances always make the best stories. (It might bring you comfort to think about this the next time you're interrogated by the KGB. It worked for me.) As Ted Simon says, the interruptions are the journey. Then I started keeping a journal and discovered that, no, the hardest part about travelling isn't the act of travelling itself. It's writing about it. I was sure of it. It's so hard I haven't even written about the KGB story yet. I've changed my mind again. The hardest part about travelling -- and this time I'm certain about it -- is simply leaving home. Home has a powerful gravitational force that is almost impossible to escape. There are so many important things that need to be done and something always seems to come up that puts the trip off by just one more day or perhaps another week. Time slips by and eventually I just have to say, "Enough! Time to go!" At last, I am off for my long delayed cross-country trip. I packed up my R1150RT this afternoon and hit the road. The most important thing about the first day is to just get on the road and get moving. Go far enough that there will be no thought of returning home to take care of anything I've forgotten. Escape the gravitational pull. By the second day I'll really be on my trip. My neighbor, John Rice, rode his Harley with me up to Snoqualmie Pass. He's thinking of joining me in Thailand this winter.  Bill Massey Bill Massey met me in Ellensburg on his Kawasaki KLR 650. He is looking forward to some adventures of his own.
Thursday, October 09, 2003 - A few things on my mind
One of the things which holds back brain research is it tends to be studied by humans. That is said with tongue planted firmly in cheek but there is more than a little truth behind it. We are, quite naturally, much more interested in how our own brains work rather than how simpler brains work. The human mind is by far the most overwhelmingly complex computational device known. Rather than repeatedly bashing ourselves against this wall of complexity wouldn't it be much better, though perhaps less exciting, to begin with the simplest brains that we can hope to understand? We should look at how brains have evolved over time from simple devices that were used to perform reactive control of the nervous system to brains which became capable of maintaining symbolic state about the world around them and from there into full brains which are capable of planning and reasoning. What are the minimum number of neurons required for the simplest reactive control system? That's easy: one. What is the minimum required to model something about the world? I don't know. Does anyone? This would be a great place to start. Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, has committed $100 million to create the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. Their first effort will be to produce a detailed neural map of the mouse brain. This will be an enormous accomplishment if they can pull it off. Best of all the result of this research will be made freely available to anyone interested. His goal is not profit but to advance our understanding of the brain. Thank you, Mr. Allen, for your generous contribution to science. This may prove to be the most important and worthwhile investment you ever made. There is a fascinating article in New Scientist: Cleverness may carry survival costs. The surprising conclusion is that smarter fruit flies are not necessarily better fruit flies. The article speculates that smarter flies consume more calories for their (presumably) more elastic brains and hence do poorly when food is scarce. This may be true but another possible explanation is that fruit flies have a fixed capacity for neural connections and when some of it is targetted to solve artificial, experiment-induced problems the remainder becomes compromised and they are less skilled at searching for food. I have reason to suspect much of our capacity for language is simply visual processing that was repurposed. I'll write more about this another day but if it's true then, like the fruit flies, we traded a little of one skill for another.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003 - Go and Suzuki
 I was thinking about Suzuki's fixation on Ducati and how there is an old Go proverb that applies perfectly to this situation: Play away from the sound of your opponent's stones. It means you must resist putting yourself in a position where you are merely reacting to what your opponent does. Play the stone that offers the most profit regardless of the move your opponent has just made. Go offers us many useful life lessons. Speaking of Go... There is a nice article by David Mechner about the difficulty of programming a computer to play the game. Most people are surprised to learn that while computers play chess at the world-champion level they are merely weak beginners at Go. Here is the article: All Systems Go If you are interested in learning to play I can highly recommend David Fotland's Igowin. This is a stripped-down but entirely free version of his commercial game, Many Faces of Go. Click here to visit his download page. Here is my own Art of Go web page which offers a set of computer-generated graphic renderings of Go positions. Funny how they don't appear nearly as realistic to me now as they did when I made them in 1995.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003 - 'FASTER' - The movie
 FASTER, a movie about the sport of MotoGP racing will be released soon. Take a peek at the trailer. Most motorcycle movies are poorly made with the exception being Bruce Brown's classic documentary, On Any Sunday. If you haven't seen On Any Sunday stop what you're doing right now and go get it! Fire up the popcorn and sit your motorcycle-fearing family members down in front of the tube. If this movie doesn't turn them into instant motorcycle enthusiasts then you better call 911 because they haven't got a pulse. The FASTER trailer looks brilliant. If the movie is equally as good it will rank right up there with On Any Sunday. Click here for the FASTER trailer.
Sunday, October 05, 2003 - Suzuki, What have you done to the SV? (Part Two)
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Today we're continuing with a mystery that would surely test the analytical powers of the master detective himself. What went wrong with the Suzuki SV bikes? I have spent a bit of time thinking about this and the only conclusion that fits the facts is a sad one indeed: Suzuki never understood what made the SV such a success in the first place. We've seen this sort of thing before. Sometimes successful motorcycles gradually become compromised over the years and eventually drift so far away from their original premise they lose their audience. (Honda, before it's too late, there's a lesson for you here with your VFR!) But this is a much more severe case. The very first significant change to the SV series wiped out its appeal in a single instantaneous fall from grace. The old SV was a great motorcycle because it was easy for novices yet still fun for experienced riders. The SV felt light and quick. Nimble but not twitchy. It had comfortable ergonomics too. It was the sport bike for the rest of us. And this is the key point. It was a sport bike in street clothing. Entirely approachable by anyone. It took otherwise prefectly sensible people and showed them a little of their hooligan side... but not so much as to get them in trouble. The SV filled a previously unmet need somewhere between street bikes and full-on sport bikes. Rumors had been circulating on internet enthusiast forums that Suzuki would create a litre-class version of the SV650. It made sense given the heritage of the engine. Sure enough, Suzuki announced their intention of releasing all-new models for 2003 which included naked and semi-faired versions of the SV650 and SV1000. I was eager to get my hands on a SV1000 so I put my deposit in with the dealer and waited. It came, I bought it, put 1,900 miles on it, and took it back. There's nothing wrong with the new fuel-injected motor. It is smooth with no sign of the glitches commonly associated with fuel injection. The new 650 even has a little more power over the old one. The 1000 is among the best litre-class v-twins I've ever had the pleasure to ride. This isn't the problem. The styling is, well, hmmm.... a solid step down from the old bike. The new frame has a functional, boxy appearance. The radiator looks even more "tacked on" than the old model. It's not entirely ugly though... ok, it's ugly. But this isn't the problem either. The 650s were killed by the same weapon that has slain many a hopeful product: The accountant's calculator. Suzuki wanted to share as many components as possible with the larger bike but that introduced a problem. The SV1000 has a physically larger motor that requires more room in the frame. To save money, Suzuki designed the frames and components so they would occupy the same proportions. So the 650 had to grow. The new wheelbase is just 5/8" longer than the old one, which isn't bad, but it is laid out so the reach to the handlebars is about 1" longer. That one inch has a profound affect on ergonomics. Most riders can no longer relax in an upright sitting position on the naked bikes. It forces a forward-canted position with a seat-to-handlebar relationship that is now about the same as a Ducati Monster. Ducati can get away with it. Suzuki cannot. Just to add insult to injury, Suzuki brags about how much weight is saved by their new casting technique and the lighter instrument panel. Check the actual weights on their web site. The new SV650 is heavier than the old one. Lighter materials do little good when you make it bigger. The 1000s are killed by the stock steering damper. It is far too conservative and probably unnecessary. Dull, slow steering is exactly the opposite of what made the SV650 so much fun to ride. It seems Suzuki was determined that the SV1000 would not suffer the fate of the TL1000 and acquire a reputation for twitchy handling. It's stable but Suzuki, you have achieved a Pyrrhic victory. It gets worse on the semi-faired models. The clip-ons are set far too low and forward for comfortable riding. This is supposed to be a fun bike, a sport bike for the rest of us, yet the ergonomics resemble that of the contortionists' delight: the Ducati Supersport. Hmmmm... It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Do you think Suzuki had Ducati in their sights? The naked SV set to compete against the Monster and the semi-faired SV against the Supersports? It seems awfully suspicious... No doubt the SV650 was a much better motorcycle than the Ducati 600, 620 and possibly even the 750. And Ducati certainly showed the pressure was on when they upgraded the Monster 750 to 800. There was some competition here. But don't let it confuse you. The SV650 was a success not because it took sales from Ducati but because it created a new niche all its own and brought new riders into the fold. Suzuki's fixation on Ducati prevented them from understanding this. And that's how they went wrong.
Saturday, October 04, 2003 - Suzuki, What have you done to the SV?
The lesson of Suzuki's SV series would make an enlightening Harvard business school case study. This is your classic rags-to-riches-back-to-rags story that is currently in the process of determining exactly how it's going to end. Suzuki surely had only modest expectations for the original SV650. Part of the business motivation must have been to find a way to recoup some of the R&D expenses that went into the ill-fated TL1000. It looked like a simple formula: Shrink the excellent TL1000 motor, use already amortized off-the-shelf parts for the rest, and the result wouldn't have to sell much to turn a profit. I can imagine the meetings that took place where the TL1000 team struggled for a way to convince Suzuki management to keep the engine program going. The SV650 was a low-cost, low-risk motorcycle that could justify the continuing survival of their efforts. Low cost, low risk is not the formula for a great motorcycle but this time proved to be the exception. The SV650 became the surprise hit of the year. Suzuki ramped up production to meet the unexpected demand, introduced minor but useful improvements in the 2002 models and began planning for a complete refresh and expansion of the line for 2003. What was so right about the SV650? The relatively low selling price didn't hurt but it's not something that can make a bike a success. The TL1000 engine not only survived the downsizing but even thrived in its smaller role. This is a short-stroke v-twin that likes to rev. It has the nice, flat torque curve that v-twin afficionados adore with a red-line that trespasses into inline-four territory. You can cruise lazily around town as if it's just a three-speed or you can slice-and-dice through all six gears for spirited racing. The engine is more than happy in either role. Handling is surprisingly adept considering the absence of top-shelf components. Credit the light weight, excellent frame dimensions and steering geometry. This is a bike that loves to lean and is generously forgiving of novice riders' miscues. The SV650 encourages me to experiment and see what it can do. That creates confidence and makes me a better rider. I wouldn't be riding a GSX today if it weren't for what I learned on my SV650. The ergonomics are close to perfection. The wonderful thing about my 2001 SV650 is I could sit upright for commuting or crouch down in a more aggressive pose and it fit comfortably either way. Suzuki got the hand-bar-peg relationship right. The SV650 appealed to beginners as well as experienced riders. It was both a practical commuter and fun sport bike. And the price was right. The SV650 was truly a great motorcycle. Alas, the new 2003 SV650 and SV1000 are not great motorcycles. I haven't seen numbers yet but all indications are the new SV models are not selling nearly as well as Suzuki hoped. Much head-scratching must be going on in Japan. Dealers, no doubt equally disappointed, have too many clogging their showrooms and are cutting prices to move them out. Suzuki is even awkwardly attempting to reposition the 'S' models as sport-tourers. I have taken my almost-new SV1000 back to the dealer to put on consignment. The new SV bikes are not by any measure "bad" motorcycles. But they are not great motorcycles and sales reflect the disappointment of the public. What went wrong? More about this tomorrow. |