Superbike Handlebar

I really enjoy long days in the saddle of my Bandit, but sometimes my mid-30s body starts to complain more than it used to. A few years ago, I installed a first-generation Bandit handlebar, which gives about an inch more rise than the second-generation bar. (This modification has become known as the "DJGoody Mod," named after the first Maximum-Suzuki member to try it and post their experience with it.)

Recently, I noticed that when my wrists start to bother me, I tend to turn the heels of my palms outward on the grips. I finally realized that the bars forced me to turn my wrists outward to utilize the controls properly, causing some discomfort on longer rides. What I needed was a bar that let my arms reach out naturally, and place my hands on the grips without having to bend my wrists laterally.

On the advice of some other Bandit owners over at Maximum-Suzuki, I ordered a "Superbike" handlebar from RideNow Powersports. Total cost was $19.78 USD shipped to my door in about 12 days. The bars required drilling two holes, as the switchgear on each side has a plastic peg that keeps it from rotating on the bar once it is mounted. I have stock-length stainless-steel brake and clutch lines, and there are no apparent clearance issues.

The weather here is horrible and unpredicitble right now, so I could only take it for a 2-minute test-ride around the 'hood before work today. While the superbike bar is lower than the second-gen Bandit bar it replaced, it doesn't feel like I'm leaning any farther forward at all. It's a very comfortable reach straight to the bars. At first, it felt like riding a cruiser with a drag bar, but that sensation went away quickly. Turning corners, the extra leverage of the wider bar is quite apparent, and welcomed.

I'll be sure to review the superbike bar on future long-distance ride reports.

Video: Thrashing the Two-Fiddy

CLICK HERE to watch the video on Google Video.

I put together a short video showing PurplePeopleEater (Phil) and I swapping turns on Hugh's 250 Ninja at the USDesmo club day at Carolina Motorsports Park in May 2006. The "two-fiddy" absolutely ruled in the corners, being not much more than a bicycle with a motor, but you can see how frustrating it was on the straights, as everyone else just breezed past.

DHOOM. A movie review.

OK, so I'm a sucker for motorcycle-related movies. I paid to see "Biker Boyz" in the theater, and then bought the DVD when it came out. I wisely skipped "Torque" in the theater, and merely rented it on NetFlix. I still maintain a small section of my DVD collection dedicated to movies featuring motorcycles: movies like "Black Rain" with Michael Douglas, as well as the more obvious features such as "Faster," and the "Long Way 'Round" series with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. So, it was no surprise that when somebody posted a few months ago about a Hindi movie featuring a main character that rides a Bandit1200S, I had to have it, no matter how bad it might be.

DHOOM was released in India in 2004, but I was only recently able to find the DVD available here through Amazon. I received the DVD a few days after returning from the Spring Fling, and watched it right away.

DHOOM starts out with a neat scene of the main bad-guy on a Hayabusa, and his thugs on GSXRs, staging a robbery of an armored car in Mumbai. After the opening credits, it goes right into a traditional "Bolly-wood" musical number with the main good-guy (the police officer, Jai Daxit) and his wife singing and dancing around the house. Fortunately, there are only four musical numbers in the whole movie, and they are entertaining enough to be tolerable.

The third main character, Ali, is the fastest bike racer in Mumbai, on his supposedly modified Bandit1200S. Not to be unrealistic about the Bandit, when Jai visits Ali's bike shop and asks someone if the Bandit is the fastest bike in town, the guy responds "In Ali's hands, yes." Also, at one point in the movie, Ali cannot catch the bad guy's Hayabusa with the Bandit.

Needless to say, the cop and the biker team up to catch the thieves, and action ensues. For an action film, the actors really bring some character to their roles. The characters are not complicated, and maybe even somewhat canned, but the actors make them quite likeable. The two main female characters are played by some of the most beatiful women I've seen in a long time. In the musical number with Ali (Uday Chopra), Esha (who plays Sheena) is absolutely breathtaking.

Be prepared for some reading, though, as the NA version of the DVD does not have an English audio track, so viewers must rely on subtitles. In the extra features, however, all the behind-the-scenes stuff is in English.

This is no world-class motorcycle movie, but it is definitely better than Torque (but what isn't?). I actually liked Biker Boyz (even though I cant dismiss that crappy race at the end), but I definitely like "Dhoom" alot better. The musical numbers show that it doesn't take itself too seriously, yet it provides some great motorcycle action, interesting character interaction, and a decent story. And there were no outrageous claims about the Bandit - merely that Ali is the best mechanic and racer in the city, and the Bandit is his best bike.


I have to say, I liked "Dhoom" enough to watch it again a few days later, and will keep it in my collection for a long time. Well, that's just my opinion. Anyone else seen it yet?!

Bandit Road Rage on I-87

OK, this story is from back in August 2005, and I originally posted it on the Maximum-Suzuki forums back in January. It took me this long to be able to tell it without causing my blood pressure to skyrocket again. Actually, this story would have been better under the old "I thought I was gonna die" forum.

I had spent the weekend with FHaze, meeting up with Satz and NJYang in Stowe, Vermont and enjoying the Sport-Touring.Net (STN) Eastern rally at Stowe. Fred and I had met up with BlueMax and GSXRJoe the next day, and Joe and I spent the night at BlueMax's house. The next day, we met up with MWT, Pappy, and others to ride from the Albany area to Cooperstown, NY. The rest of the story happened on the way home later that afternoon, as Joe and I headed south on I-87 (the NY Thruway) on our way back to the Philly area.

I had my GPS running, and I also knew my way from Albany back down I-87 and the NJ Turnpike to the Philly area, so I was leading with Joe (on his Aprilia) behind me in the wingman position. We had been making decent time, and still had plenty of daylight left, as it was still summertime. Nevertheless, we kept the pace up as best we could to get home and rest after a long weekend of riding. We weren't taking any extra risks, just swapping lanes when the opportunity presented itself to get around traffic.

After a short run, traffic got a bit dense as I-87 was down to two lanes on each side. I ended up hopping into the left lane, and settled into traffic a few car-lengths behind the next car. I started to relax, knowing we had time, and comfortable with the pace of the traffic, and knowing I was getting a bit tired so as not to take unnecessary risks. Joe settled in behind me, and we were both one-handing the handlebars, resting our left arms in the typical biker fashion.

I thought I saw some erratic movement in my right-hand mirror. Just as I turned my head, a blue Mercury Marquis (like the Ford Crown Victoria) comes wallowing into my lane about 3 feet in front of me! The car was pitched into the lane so hard, the body rolled so far the fenders nearly touched the wheels. The driver slowed to match the speed of the car that was in front of me, and I merely backed off the throttle to make some space. I completed my shoulder-check to see if there was someone else at fault, but the traffic in the right lane was just correcting themselves after this Marquis driver came plowing through them.

I could see the curly blonde hair of the driver, and her big eyes darting to the rear-view mirror. She kept looking at me in the mirror while tailgating the car in front of her - at about 60mph. I just shook my head at her. Then she started pitching the car left to right in her lane. I thought she might be trying to get the car in front of her to move, but she kept looking at me in the mirror while she was doing it. A bit of road-rage crept in on me and my titanium-clad middle finger rose up to wave at her.

The bitch then STOMPED ON HER BRAKES, slowing from 60mph to about 35-40mph in a split-second. I was able to brake just as hard, if only a fraction of a second later. Luckily, I am used to commutting in city traffic, and I had my front brake lever covered at the time. Then, she takes both hands off the wheel and flips me two angry birds while glaring at me in the mirror.

She finds an opening and puts the pedal to the metal. Now, my life had just been intentionally endangered. Everything in my vision went red. I downshifted 2 gears and pinned the throttle. She was a mad-woman, back and forth in the lanes, doing about 85-90mph through 60mph traffic, just missing other motorists by inches (literally, INCHES)! I kept a few car lengths back, but the wake she was creating with that family car made it quite easy (and relatively safe, considering) to follow her at the same speed with the Bandit.

Approaching a toll booth, she jumps in the EZ-Pass lane (far left) and slows. I run up on the left shoulder and pull alongside her window at about 45mph. She rolls the window down and shouts "I could kill you, ya know!" Now, this girl was kinda hot, and under normal circumstances I might have been inclined to give her a break. But, she TRIED to make me crash, and she was endangering every motorist on the road far worse than I had ever seen in my life and my career.

I yelled back "Are you TRYING to kill me, bitch?!" She just looked at me. "What the f&^k is your problem?!!" Still nothing from her. "Pull the f&^k over!" She rolled her window up and continued through the EZ-Pass toll gate. I, too, had an EZ-Pass on my tank bag, so I followed her through.

On the other side of the toll, she punched it again, and tore-ass through 3 lanes of slower traffic, narrowly missing nearly every car she passed. I decided to play it smart and make my own way through traffic this time, rather than following her path. It worked, and I found myself hitting the right shoulder and then back into the right lane just as she was hitting the middle lane at the same point. She had her passenger window down and so I yelled again, "I got your plate number, you f%^king whore!!!"

She smiled, gave me a thumbs-up and said something like "You're pretty good! That was a great run!"

I flipped her off and said "Tell it to the state troopers, bitch!!!" Then I hit the shoulder and slid to a stop. I got my gloves off and ignored Joe for a second as I wrote down the plate number of the Marquis. I promptly called state police and filled them in on the activity. Luckily, my GPS showed me what mile marker we were at. I think the entire pursuit went for about 8 miles total. I never did hear back from the NYSP, but I have no doubt that dozens of other motorists called it in as well.

I was afraid Joe would be furious with me for road-raging and taking off like that. I remember thinking i left him behind, but saw him right on my tail coming out of the toll booth. He told me later that while I was yelling at the bitch on the right, he thought about taking her mirror off on the left side. LMAO!! Honestly, I had thought about taking her mirror off to get her to stop just before the toll booth, but I didnt know how friendly the stateys in NY are to other cops - I didnt want to end up in jail for destruction of property or vandalism just to get this bitch to pull over.

Joe and I talked about it later. I know most guys I ride with are alot faster than me on the twisty roads. But, all I kept thinking while cutting through NY traffic at that speed was "this is my home." Those of us that commute in northeast city traffic seem to have a different outlook on riding near cages. Joe and I both have a bad habit of trying to intimidate other drivers while we're on the bikes - whether its coming up on a slower driver and hounding him until he moves over, or pushing our way into another lane when we need to merge.

Either way, that bitch tried to get me riled-up and it worked. Then she tried to outrun me in an environment that I ride in every day. Hell, I bought my first bike for the sole purpose of commuting to work in Philly. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY will outrun me in traffic. (Well, nobody that wants to live through it, anyway.)

Don't bother flaming me for what would I have done if I got her pulled over. I do that for a living. Although I wasn't armed, it would have been just as if I did it on duty - same tactics and all. I would have just had to call in to NYSP and wait for "backup". Sometimes I wish I did more to get a menace like that off the road. It might have been worth buying her a new mirror to get her to stop what she was doing. At least we didnt see any wrecked cars in her wake on the rest of our ride home.