e-BOOK ORDERS – CDROMs to be replaced by Download option
Because of the postal disruption and until further notice, Survival Skills e-books will be delivered via download, rather than posted out on CDROM.
There have been long delays on a couple of packages that have been posted, already and delays look set to get worse.
If you’ve recently ordered e-books from me to be posted out, please contact me via email, with your order details and I’ll get back to you with the download details.
The news wires were hot yesterday afternoon with the story that Harley-Davidson have shut down their Buell subsidiary and will cease production of Buell motorcycles permanently by Friday 30 October.
In a statement by Harley-Davidson spokesman Paul James, the shut down “is part of Harley-Davidson’s go-forward business strategy. The new long-term strategy aims to drive company growth through a focus of efforts and resources on the Harley-Davidson brand.”
James said, “The fact is, a dollar invested into Harley-Davidson, there’s more impact than the same dollar invested elsewhere when it comes to reaching new riders and enriching the experience of our core customers.”
At the same time Harley-Davidson is also divesting itself of MV Agusta, a company purchase that it only made last year.
“We’re exiting the sport bike market with those niche brands,” James said.
In the statement, it was explained that MV Agusta can be sold because it was a standalone business unit, but Buell was not considered for separate sale because it is “highly integrated into the entire business and the distribution network of Harley-Davidson”.
In an emotional video on the Buell website, Erik Buell appeared to be close to breaking down as he explained some of the decision making which has led to Buell’s 26-year-old history coming to an abrupt end.
Buell has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Harley Davidson since 1998 after purchasing a 49% minority shareholding in 1993.
So what’s gone wrong?
It’s no surprise they have sold MV. The surprise was that they bought the italian company in the first place – I could never see how the MV sports bikes fitted with the Harley brand.
But the Buell shutdown, I am surprised about, it’s the Harley that many non-Harley riders would consider riding.
Buell itself apparently has been increasing its sales and profitability, but it’s a sideshow compared to the core territory of Harley-branded machines. For the last two years Harley-Davidson have had seriously declining sales, not just a bit of a downturn but a hugely shrinking market, with a reported 84% fall in quarterly profit since the company peaked.
It’s arguable the reason Harleys sell in the States is precisely because they aren’t simply cloning Japanese bikes but are selling “traditional American iron”. But that puts them in at the lifestyle end of the market, and that’s been hard hit by the current recession over there.
Their last quarter figures were something like $20m profit on $1bn sales.
One gets the impression that Erik Buell was never in it for the money. He used to spend a lot of time online on the old Compuserve “Ride” forum of which I was a member more than 15 years ago, and openly talk about why he was building Buells. He was clearly running on a shoestring then.
As the keynote of Buell’s designs was technical innovation, one of the questions he got asked all the time was why he stuck with Harley engines. His argument was because the engine was American and iconic.
So it was with some surprise I read about the Rotax-engined 1125 that was launched last year. Was that a nail in the coffin for Buell as an offshoot of the all-American dream motorcycle builder? Or was it a genuine attempt by Harley-Davidson to break Buell out of a niche market with an affordable sports bike?
I suppose the question we’ll never know the answer to, is what IF Buell had been funded enough to push into new markets; would sales have continued to grow?
One thing that strikes me is that Erik Buell may have known about this for a while – or at least, feared the worst.
You may remember the bizarre “crusher video” announcement made back in July that the Buell Blast was being discontinued at a time when it was the best selling Buell and a bike favoured by a growing new market; women. The bike wasn’t merely discontinued and stocks allowed to run down in the normal way, they were actively destroyed.
What about the subsequent even weirder announcement of the “limited edition 2010 Buell Blast”, which turned out to be a “run” of the crushed machines signed and numbered by Erik himself.
Here in the UK, I’m left wondering how well the Buell supply chain has been functioning to dealers in recent months.
As we actually have a Buell dealer just up the road, I wandered along this morning to see what the situation is, and aside from the fact that the sales staff completely ignored my obvious interest in their corner of the store, basically the floor appears to be nearly cleared of Buells.
They had one brand new 08 Camo Ullyses traillie thing, another Ullyses ex-demo, a 1200S and an 1125R, and that appeared to be it, with the area that used to be dedicated to Buell mostly filled with Harleys with a SOLD sticker on.
It’s unlikely the full story will come out for a while yet. Buell himself is supposed to be “in negotion” to continue as a consultant, but one wonders if he’ll want to work for the firm that killed off 26 years of his work at the sweep of the corporate red pencil.
Buell 1983-2009.
The last few days have seen the slipping away of the Azores High, an area of high pressure which has been dominating our weather in the South East for two months, giving us the long settled dry spell through August and September. I’ve hardly needed waterproofs since the end of our disappointing July, and haven’t mowed the front lawn since mid-August, which is a bonus!
But it looks like we’re finally moving into autumnal weather, with a very windy day on Saturday, though it didn’t cause us any problems on our bends course beyond bringing down lots of acorns and chestnuts, and then a very wet day here in Kent yesterday.
It looks like Thursday 8 will be a good day here in the South East, which happens to be free if anyone wants a day’s training, and Friday looks reasonable too, which is good as I’m over in France doing an “intro to France” session.
After that, the forecast is volatile, but indications are that the Azores High will make one last foray north to give us a settled spell of warm dry days (although possibly cold nights) mid-month – a few years ago I was training right to the last few days of October in 20+ temps. The end of October and early November is traditionally still, cold and foggy.
So depending on how accurate the above forecast is, from about mid-month in October, rather than take solid bookings weeks ahead, what I prefer to do is be flexible; to look at the weather forecast and plan training days around the poor weather.
Whilst courses go ahead in ordinary wet weather, if the forecast is for heavy rain, or worse ice and fog, then the course is deferred. After all, I don’t find getting soaked on a bike much fun, and neither does the average trainee, and if we’re splashing around in torrential rain dodging flooded roads, we don’t learn much either.
So, Survival Skills is still open for bookings until the end of November, but if you’ve been dithering, now is the time to grab a booking whilst there’s still the promise of some decent weather. Just look at the forecast, check my availability and email me!
“Thank you again for your time and energy during our course yesterday and also for these very detailed and relevant feedback notes. I feel the experience has been extremely worthwhile and thought provoking, and I will work to practice and reflect on these lessons.
“I was impressed by the structure of the day and I think your teaching/coaching skills are excellent, using a range of visual, verbal and physical/practical techniques, which would engage students with a variety of learning styles.
“I think a lot of these approaches (particularly hazard awareness) are transferrable to car driving.
“I’m aware that I have spent most of my time riding and driving on automatic, far from the optimum. Improving these skills requires bringing these processes back into conscious awareness, which is mentally exhausting while the re-training and practicing takes place. But this is just what we have to do.
“I’ll recommend you to Jo, my wife, and to others, and I will aim to get back in touch in due course for more coaching.”
Nick and I had an excellent day out in gorgeous early Autumn weather in Oxfordshire on Saturday, lovely weather for doing the “Bends” course.
“The CDs arrived today – typical of “first class” post round here.
“I sat down to take a quick look through them to see what was covered,
started with the Course Notes, got completely hooked by the Instinctive
Reactions and Psych Plans sections (fascinating stuff!) and have just
realised that I’ve been reading and considering it all for the last two and
a half hours….
“So there goes this evening – but I guess all the jobs I was meant to be
doing will keep.”
From Alan Clifton March 2008
I spent an hour cleaning the bike on Saturday afternoon, on the promise of at least a week’s more fine weather.
So what’s it doing this morning in Kent? Raining of course!
As ever, I’ve been working hard on some new ideas for affordable training, and have put together a number of short training courses that can be delivered “workshop” style to small groups of riders at the same time.
The plan is to run these for a small number of people at the same time, probably 3 per session. There will be a mixture of the following:
* some theory to look at online before the course (nothing too heavy!!)
* a pre-ride briefing
* practical riding for around 90 minutes
* a debrief at the end
These will be perfect for the shorter days of winter (and the colder weather!), as they’re not too long. We finish up for the debrief over a breakfast brunch at a pub near Canterbury, with easy access to the M2.
The brunch and tea/coffee will be included in the price of £50 per person!
Radios will be in use, and depending on the content we’ll be riding round Canterbury or in the surrounding countryside, and you’ll get demo rides from me where appropriate.
Topics to include subjects like:
- Countersteering
- Avoiding SMIDSYs
- Positioning on bends
- Cornering lines & Apexes
- Motorway riding
- Riding assessments
(If there’s any particular topic you’d like to see covered, let me know!)
These courses will be available some Saturday mornings (usually a couple a month), and weekday mornings on demand, from 9:30 to 11:30. (if there’s sufficient interest on a single day, I might be able to run a second group in the afternoon, starting with brunch and running approximately 12:30 to 2:30.)
“[Kevin] writes exceptionally well on his subject. His writing is clear and easy to read – it’s never heavy going, and every so often there are stories from his experiences as an instructor that will have you sometimes laughing, sometimes cringing – and he’s a master at putting the physical process of riding into words.
“The format is great, too: he takes each subject through what to do, what can go wrong and what you can do to fix it. And it’s the second two that are really useful: a lot of other stuff I’ve read basically comes down to “here’s how to do it right” – you get no help if it all goes pear-shaped.
“I guess that’s what I like the best about Kevin’s writing (and courses): instead of giving you rules to stick to, he recognises that things can and do go wrong and gives you the abilities to deal with mistakes, whether they’re your own or other peoples.”
Thanks to Alan C for those nice words!
I’ll let one of my trainees answer that. John did a training day with me as well as the Somerset ‘Rider Performance’ day back in May and this is what he has to say:
“I did this combination in May this year (Castle Coombe Track one day, followed by Survival Skills- tight bends and slow bike control) – the next day. It was excellent. I am going to book with Kevin at SS again as soon as I have recovered from a hip operation (no not bike related!
“I have passed IAM and RoSPA tests, but the SS experience opens up another perspective on the whole ‘bike skill enhancement’ arena providing both practical help and ideas to reflect upon.
“Keep up the good work!”
John Challis, August 29, 2009
One visit to Spa this year wasn’t enough. So I’ve been back!
After the Spa 24 Hours world endurance championship event passed into the history books four or five years back, I’ve missed what has, since the early 80s, been my near-annual fix of endurance racing. So after visiting the Biker’s Classic weekend and enjoying the spectacle of vintage bikes (and riders!) tackling the wonderful Spa-Francorchamps circuit, I was tempted back again last weekend for the 8 Hours of Spa.
It’s part of the Belgian national championship, so doesn’t attract the big crowds or the international teams but even so, there was a fair crowd with lots of Dutch riders there to watch the 8 hour race start on the Saturday afternoon, run on into the evening sun and eventually finish in the full dark.
Rather intriguingly, until 6pm when qualifying for the racing starts, the Friday is given over to a trackday. It’s around £200 to enter – so not cheap for the five sessions I understand you get, but on the other hand you get to ride one of the greatest grand prix circuits. And you can always stay over and watch the racing! We met some very happy (and wet!) riders down at the cafe on the Friday night, who’d enjoyed every moment of the day out.
It was a bit of a mad dash of a weekend. Across the channel in the small hours of Friday morning, we took a scenic time out to cross the Ardennes into the Hurtgenwald area of Germany, scene of some of the fiercest fighting of WW2.
70,000 soldiers, non-combatants and ordnance clearance personnel lost their lives in this relatively unknown conflict in late 1944/early 1945 and the area in which it took place was devastated. There’s a link to a local museum here, which was unfortunately closed.
88mm gun and driving and bogie wheels from a Mark IV Panzer
It was quite sobering to pass through a beautifully scenic area of forested steepsided hills and rivers where hand-to-hand fighting ended so many lives on both sides, and to pass through the villages and towns which had been on the front line, and where today hardly a building survives from the pre-war period.
One of the lakes, near Schmidt, in the centre of the area of fighting
From there, it’s a short drive back to Belgium and we got to Spa about 5pm, and decided to put the tent up on a campsite not far from Stavelot rather than on the circuit itself. This was mainly due to the fact that the temperature at this point was in the low 30s and I could see a pressing need for cold showers, something the circuit camping is a bit short of!
We could hear the bikes out on the circuit, by now running free practice and had a vague plan to get up there to watch the night practice, but having started putting the tent up in beautiful sun, we finished a bare 15 minutes later with threatening clouds looming overhead; I’d just put the final peg in the guys when the first spots of rain started falling.
Within minutes, the rain was torrential, and the sounds of high performance engines ceased, so we retired to the car (yes, I know – fair weather biker, me!) and took a snooze whilst waiting for the storm to pass over.
An hour later, it was clear the storm was in no hurry to go and dump its moisture somewhere else, so we took out to a pizza place in Stavelot and demolished some of their offerings.
By the time we came out, about 10pm, the rain had backed off and as we got back to the site, we heard engine noises again, so we ran up to the circuit and watched from Les Combes for 30 minutes or so, before the drop in temperature after the rain got to us and forced us back to the tent.
Next morning, we woke up to dull grey skies, with low cloud scudding round the hilltops. Just how close to the hilltops we discovered when we went back to Les Combes which is the highest part of the circuit – the bikes were out practicing in visibility of about 200m up there!
There’s a track here somewhere! Les Combes in the fog.
We watched various qualifying sessions and a support race for twins, had a coffee in a bar in Francorchamps then headed down to the start-finish straight (the original one, leading to the run up to Eau Rouge) for the start of the 8 hour race.
The track had finally dried on a warm, very humid day and the race got off to a start on dry tarmac with good visibility.
7 hours 59 minutes and 50-something seconds to go
To be honest, it doesn’t really matter that the top teams aren’t there. It’s not a ‘mano a mano’ event in the way that short circuit racing is about the personalities.
In any case, it’s never entirely obvious who’s winning an endurance race anyway, if you don’t have access to timing sheets or the ability to understand distorted “the train now leaving from platform 4″ commentary in a foreign language.
Eau Rouge
The great thing about endurance racing is the ability to move round the circuit and watch from different vantage points. After an hour or so in the stand, we walked up to the new stands that replace the old concrete stand that was demolished to make way for the F1 track improvements over the top of Eau Rouge and up to Radillon. Thankfully, the stands have restored this most wonderful place to watch motorcycle racing, even though you’re not quite as close to the action as you used to be – but whether they’ll outlast the F1 race at the end of this month, I don’t know.
The MV on the climb from Eau Rouge up to Radillon
We crossed over under the track as the sun suddenly emerged from under the cloud and lit the circuit with late afternoon sun, then idled through the paddock before wandering out along the new access road that runs alongside the Eau Rouge stream itself, to find ourselves on the back part of the circuit at Fanges.
Late afternoon sun at Spa – is there a better view anywhere?
We watched from there for a while, then wandered up the hill a little to Pouhon, where we were looking up the straight to the exit from Rivage. The sun dropped below the hills and the shadows deepened.
As the shadows lengthen, the lights go on
In the deepening gloom we strolled back through the woods that fill the middle of the circuit, sat for a half hour in the half-finished new stand on the opposite side of Eau Rouge, looking straight down the start finish straight, grabbed a coffee and frites behind the pits and finished the evening back in the stands opposite the pits, in time to witness the MV drama.
7-plus hours gone
One innovation which confused me somewhat is that the teams are now allowed two bikes, a rule which some teams had taken advantage of. It’s a shame to lose the spectacle of the pit stop organisation, but I guess it’s a bit safer.
Pitlane action at night
To avoid the one-bike teams suffering too much of a penalty, there seemed to be a distinct ‘holding time’ for the swap over. The bike on track would pit with the second bike sitting ready up on the paddock stand.
The replacement rider would place the stand under the rear wheel of the bike that had just pitted, pause then pop the bike up on the stand and the first rider would dismount.
Both riders would then run to the second bike, the second rider would mount up, and the first rider would again pause, then at a given instant lower the bike off the paddock stand, and off the second bike would go. I’m not quite sure but it looked like they had to use the same key to start both bikes as well.
The MV was one of the teams running a single bike, and trickest aluminium stand in the race notwithstanding, I bet they were wishing they could have been running two bikes at that final stop.
At midnight, the race ended slightly confusingly for the crowd in the stands as the bikes were directed off the circuit and into pit lane at La Source.
I think the Brussels Kawasaki won, the MV was right up there but pitted for a splash and go with about 25 minutes to race right in front of us and refused to restart. Sitting across the other side of the track looking at the body language in the pits I was almost as gutted as the team clearly were. I’m not sure what happened to the Honda being ridden by the perennial Stephane Mertens either. There was a BMW up there somewhere as well.
With the end of the action, back to our tent and a good night’s sleep!
Sunday was grey again, but promised to brighten up much sooner, and by the time we had the tent down and packed in the car, there were patches of blue.
We took the car up to Les Combes and watched from there, now in the shade under the trees as the sun burnt through the low cloud and beat down with increasing force.
Les Combes – highest point of the circuit and very different in sun!
We watched the first of the Supersport and Superbike races, the second twins race, and a pro-twins race, then called it quits at 3pm and headed back towards the coast, taking a 75 mile scenic detour through the Ardennes before picking up the motorway north of Liege.
A near-intact Panther, a relic of the Battle of the Bulge
Just on midnight, we were back in Kent, having driven some 650 miles since Friday morning, and watched around 16 hours of racing. Not bad for the entry price of €25!
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