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Those BMW Guys Get All the Nice Stuff
BMW and Garmin have released a new motorcycle navigation device for BMW motorcycles, the BMW Navigator IV. It sounds very nice.
With a new slim design and custom BMW four-button mount cradle, the BMW Navigator IV includes a bright widescreen 4.3 inch display and waterproof design, configurable fields and display, stereo Bluetooth for hands-free calling, turn-by-turn directions and lane assist features with lane guidance and junction view.
BMW Motorrad Navigator IV
Of course, it’s specifically designed to be used while wearing gloves, too. It’s also got a lane assist feature that guides you through multiple lanes, and even displays road signs on the screen that look like the actual signs you see over the highway.
And, since it’s a BMW device, plan on shelling out about $1,000 for it, too.
BMWs are really the Swiss Army Knives of motorcycles. BMW riders get spoken, turn by turn navigation through their Bluetooth-linked helmets. Meanwhile, a gentleman such as myself, who rides an FJR, has to carry around paper maps like an animal.
Ducati Execs Do the Right Thing
It’s no secret that the recent worldwide economic downturn has seriously affected motorcycle sales, sending them plunging by a third. Now here in the United States, it’s become a common thing to see executives at big firms take huge bonuses, even when the company isn’t doing so hot. The most egregious example of this was when failed insurer AIG took billions of dollars in Federal money for a bailout of the company, then promptly paid off millions and millions in executive bonuses with it.
Apparently, things are different in Italy, where senior executives at Ducati, faced with slumping sales, did the right thing.
Senior executives at Ducati have taken a 10 per cent cut in their pay and will not receive any bonuses because of the decline, while [Ducati CEO] Mr [Gabriele] Del Torchio said he had taken a 20 per cent pay cut.
Let’s leave aside any legalistic or other arguments about whether the executives should be compensated or not. At the end of the day, when you’re cutting production, and laying off staff, it seems only right that the pain should be shared by everyone else in the company, all the way to the top.
Kudos to Ducati for setting an example of shared sacrifice.
Don’t Screw With Bears
If you live in bear country, you probably already know not to keep food in a car, because bears will tear a car apart to get at a box of donuts, or whatever. Now, it appears that even transporting food may be a problem. Especially in a motorcycle.
Wells and his wife had taken his 2004 Harley-Davidson motorcycle out to get a pizza for dinner. They put the leftovers in the tour pack on the back of the motorcycle for the ride home.
“We got home around six, took the pizza out of it right away and put it in the refrigerator,” said Wells.
Three hours later they heard something outside, near where his motorcycle was parked. Wells went outside to investigate.
“I came around and shined the flashlight and my bike was on its side and a bear cub was on top and another bear cub was behind it and the momma was right there too,” remembers Wells.
The bears ripped the tour pack apart trying to get to where the pizza at one time had been. In the process they did around $3,000 damage to the bike.
So, three hours later, just the 3 hour-old smell of pizza in this guy’s tour trunk was enough to get it seriously molested.
And you thought deer were a problem…