Ups & Downs
Ups & Downs
UP: To photographer Gigi Soldano, for going to great depths to get “the shot.” The sometime CW contributor was hired by Aprilia to shoot the new CapoNord Rally Raid (CW, August). Wanting to create something special, he pushed the big adventure tourer onto a makeshift raft and set it adrift on a lake in Tuscany, Italy. He got the shot seconds before the machine toppled over and plunged into the murky water. “It caused a significant splash,” laughed a company spokesman.
DOWN: To a small collection of idiots in Homer Glen, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, for... well, being idiots. The group is composed of irresponsible motorcyclists who wheelie down residential streets, an equally mindless resident who openly admits to hurling 2x4s at them, and Susan Frick Carlman, a staff writer for The Sun, a local newspaper, who omitted the citizen’s name in her story about a public-safety committee meeting even though she named everybody else mentioned in the article. Apparently, something is running rampant in Homer Glen, and it’s not clear thinking.
UP: To Kawasaki and Yamaha, for making parts diagrams available online. Visit www.kawasaki.com or www.yamaha-motor.com and after a few easy mouse clicks, you can be looking at an exploded view of your motorcycle’s bits, complete with parts numbers. Although you can’t order the parts via either website, you can jot down their respective numbers to ensure accurate ordering at your local dealer. Also, should you need help assembling an assembly, you can print out the relevant page(s) and take it to the garage to use as a guide. Other manufacturers, such as Ducati, make owners’ manuals available on the web, but this is way cooler.
