Freedom Motorcycle

Archive for June, 2011

Most motorcycle helmets are made from fiberglass or carbon fiber which is a very durable material. You can also find motorcycle helmets made from leather, chrome and stainless steel. Once you have chosen your helmet style and what material you want it made from, you then get to choose its appearance. You can purchase your helmet in stock condition, or you can choose to purchase a custom made helmet. Even if you initially purchase a stock helmet, you can always take it at a later date and have it painted and customized. Here are the top five helmet styles on the market that are favorites among motorcycle riders.

5. The Full Face Motorcycle Helmet

This helmet is for those that want complete coverage. The full face helmet offers the most protection as it covers the entire head and has a face shield. The face shield is extremely convenient for keeping bugs and weather conditions such as rain and snow out of the riders face. These are most often made from a fiberglass material and come in a wide variety of colors.

4. The Half Motorcycle Helmet

This style is for those that still want good head protection, but don’t like having a full face shield in their face. It provides a partial face shield that will help shield the forehead and the eyes from insects and bad weather. The half motorcycle helmet is generally found made from fiberglass, though you can sometimes find it in other materials as well. It is also available in many different colors and styles.

3. The Open Face Motorcycle Helmet

This helmet closely resembles the half motorcycle helmet, but has a little less face and head coverage. This helmet is popular for riders that frequently take moderate to long rides, as it provides good head coverage, but keeps their face in the breeze. This is another helmet that is generally made from fiberglass though you can often order it in another custom material as well.

2. The Shorty Motorcycle Helmet

This helmet provides the least amount of head coverage, covering only the top portion of the head. This helmet style is popular for riders that enjoy cruising at lower speeds on cruising or touring bikes. This helmet is the popular choice for carbon fiber, stainless steel and chrome, though you can also easily find it in fiberglass as well. For some reason, these helmets often come in a standard color of the material they are made from, though you can also easily have it painted and customized.

1. The Novelty Style Helmet

There are many types of novelty style helmets including the Jockey, German and Kaiser style. These helmets generally offer limited head protection but are quite popular among riders that want something a little different than the norm. There are no hold barred with the novelty style motorcycle helmet. You can find these helmets made in almost any material with any kind of paint job.

By Elizabeth West

The motorcycle didn’t spring full-blown into this world. Rather, it evolved from the earlier bicycle. Women loved bicycles for the mobility and freedom they allowed. In fact, Susan B. Anthony said, “The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world.”

In the 1880s, bicycles were a huge fad. Then, in 1885, Gottlieb Daimler made one that had an engine. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a bicycle, because it had four wheels instead of two. Two were safety wheels. This bike went a magnificent and stately 12 miles per hour. Today, women can absolutely ride a motorbike and they can get the extra cash buy applying quick payday loan

An idea was born, and soon other motorized bicycles were invented. Perhaps the first true motorcycle was a charcoal fired two -wheeler made in 1869 by Sylvester Roper of Massachusetts.

Within two decades, motorcycles were being mass-produced. The first such bike was the Orient-Aster, which was made by the Metz Company of Waltham, Massachusetts. This state clearly loved its bikes. Another early cycle was the beloved Indian, made by the Hendee Manufacturing Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Later, the company changed its name to Indian Motorcycles.)

In 1902, Harley Davidson sold its first three motorcycles, and soon there were dozens of manufacturers. They had names like Marvel, Exelsior, and Henderson. The Depression killed off all but Indian and Harley, and soon only Harley remained.

Women enjoyed the motorcycles as much as they had enjoyed bikes. After all, they were economical and fun. They also didn’t have the stigma that they acquired later. Early riders were seen as adventuresome, not as outlaws.

In 1915, Indian motorcycles offered front and rear shocks. Since these cushioned the ride, people began to consider long-distance travel as a real option. That year, a mother-daughter team, Avis and Effie Hotchkiss, rode from New York to San Franciso. They didn’t take the direct route. Instead, they meandered about, covering 5,000 miles.

The next year, two society women in their 20s, sisters Adeline and Augusta Van Buren bought a pair of Indian Powerplus Bikes. They were the first people ever to climb up and down Pike’s Peak. They, too, completed a transcontinental ride. Their 3,300-mile trip took almost two months, and they had to contend not only with many unpaved roads, but also with social mores. Once they were arrested for publicly wearing trousers.

In the 1920s, Harley published a magazine called The Enthusiast. It sponsored Vivian Wales on a 5000 mile trip to a Harley factory. Another early motorcycle heroine was Bessie Stringfield, a.k.a. the Motorcycle Queen of Miami . She made 8 solo-cross country trips and was a motorcycle dispatch rider.

Bessie had started out with two strikes against her: she was a woman and she was African-American. At first, she couldn’t even get a motorcycle license in Miami, Florida. However, a police officer interceded in her behalf.

Motorcycles were also used in wartime, which gave them a lot of public exposure. About 20,000 Harleys were used during the WWI. They were ridden by couriers, soldiers, and others.

As motorcycle popularity grew, it was only natural that some people became highly skilled in its use. They showed off these skills in motordromes, which had been around since the turn of the century but grew in popularity during the 1930s. A motordrome often advertised itself as “A Wall of Death.”

Essentially, it was a giant barrel with a platform on top for viewers. They could look down on motorcyclists, who sped around the inside of the walls, held in place by centrifugal force. One of these early daredevils was Margaret Gast, who billed herself as “The Mile a Minute Gal.” She was not the only woman daredevil. May Williams and Jean Perry also performed on the walls.

By 1940, the United States had its first women’s motorcyle club, The Motormaids. Today, there are scores of such clubs. Anyone who wants more information about the history of women and motorcycles may want to check out the book Hear Me Roar: Women, Motorcycles, and the Rapture of the Road. I haven’t read it, but I’ve read several descriptions of it and seen the table of contents. It looks like fun.

For more Motorcycle news for please visit http://www.allaboutbikes.com

With the current market trend depicting a retraction in sales in the motorcycle industry, Harley-Davidson has planned a reduction in shipments for the third quarter of 2008. But when confronted with the question of “Will you be doing the same?” Mark Blackwell, VP of Victory Motorcycles and International Operations stated that they have a 10-15% growth goal for the year.

Therefore, in answer to the question above, it can be safely assumed that Victory Motorcycles has no intention of mimicking Harley-Davidson’s idea. Blackwell also stated that in addition to not backing off in their shipments of product, they will also build up their dealer network, rather than expand with a training focus of the existing staff.

Victory’s edge against a retracting market includes the latest addition to their “touring” products — the Victory Vision. This stylishly unique introduction into the touring category of inventory gives the advantage to Victory in the custom cruiser market. And Blackwell has adamantly stated that he feels Victory no has an excellent chance of nearly doubling their sales opportunities with the addition of this beauty to the already high quality line of bikes that exists. The vision is manufactured with a 106 cubic inch 50-degree V-Twin engine and comes well-equipped to attract considerable interest of Victory showroom visitors.

Besides tweaking the numbers a bit, Victory Motorcycles focused on some design revisions especially with their signature bike — the Freedom V100/6. The bike is built with an air/oil-cooled, single overhead cam (SOHC), 50-degree V-Twin motor. The lowering of the compression ratio from 9.8:1 down to 8.7:1 has created a reduction in “spark knock” and boosted horsepower and torque as a result. The new, closed-loop injection system with its fully-sequential operation feeds the larger 45mm throttle body.

The changes made to the oil-cooling operations round out the rest of the upgrades to the Freedom V100/6. Where oil-cooling is concerned, the oil flow path was altered in order to cool the exhaust valve bridge therefore preventing a reduction in the size of the 31mm exhaust valve. As a consequence, there will be no loss of power, and this also enabled the utilization of a smaller oil cooler as well.

Noise pollution and the reduction of it were also key focal points for Victory Motorcycle this past year in that they employed the use of a taller sixth gear in order to reduce the noise that results from the transmission meshing. It also reduced the bike’s cruising RPMs, but only by 3%. Other areas that noise reduction was the targeted goal included a “re-tuned” compensator and split-gear clutch, the addition of more sound-deadening ribbing inside the cover, a quieter alternator, and longer closing ramps combined with slower valve-closing speeds.

This last factor was responsible for eliminating most of the top-end tick that frequently occurred with these particular bikes. Finally, the handlebar grips were redesigned, but in addition to this, heated grips were added as an option in their parts and accessories line.