Motortopia

Motortopia has launched - a cool, MySpace-like site for cars, bike, planes and boats. The site is really well-designed, and lets you upload photo albums, make friends and challenge other owners in style, performance and overall coolness. Check it out... there aren't a lot of bikes on there yet, so get posting!

My R5 can be found here:
http://www.motortopia.com/lotoole3/bikes

Joys of Motorcycle Repair

I thought this article well-timed after having to stop twice on my last ride to switch out fouled plugs. The Kneeslider has a good article summing up why some of us are compelled to keep our ol' bucket of bolts running, and doing it ourselves:

Buying an old motorcycle may not make complete economic sense when some new or relatively recent bikes are available, but the promise of getting that old bike running again as it was designed to do and once did, hearing an engine that hasn't made a sound in decades come to life, you just can’t buy that kind of happiness.

License Plate "Trunk"

While perusing the pages of Ebay, I struck upon this little gem. It's an auction for a nifty little polypropylene "trunk" that mounts between your license plate bracket and plate itself, and gives you a little lockable storage compartment for things like your wallet, insurance information, tire gauge, etc. Very clever. A great addition for us early Yamaha riders, as there's not a lot of space to store stuff on this bike. It looks generic enough to bolt to our license plate hangers, but I'm not sure.

Here's a link to the auction. I wasn't able to find a site selling them.

Note that it will NOT fit MD, OH, WI motorcycle license plates. Sorry guys!

Redesign!

It took a bit, but it's finally live! A complete overhaul, code-wise and graphics-wise. A few highlights of the new (and recent) functions:

• New design - layout is much cleaner, more modern, easier to read
  
• Site subscription - via RSS and/or email
• New Lightbox feature - photos no longer go to a new page - click and see!
  
• New Frappr Owner's Map Widget - newer, less wonky version
  
• Site archives - not all posts are on the same page
• Post commenting - leave feedback, suggestions, etc...
  
• Site search
  

In the coming days I'll be tweaking the ad space as well as going though the links and photos to make sure everything is working. Everything might not be 100% yet... In the meantime, let me know what you think!