Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Motorcycles, and the Sexiness thereof

I am not a very much a "man's man" in most respects. Aside from the obvious factor of sexuality, I don't like cars, or engines, or guns (Unless they are especially sciency) and most things "extreme" tend to annoy me with their trappings. And sports. Them especially. But, for some reason, motorcycles are extremely appealing to me. And I don't mean Harley's, or other stupid bikes. Those things are as loud and annoying and redundant as the people who ride them. Japanese bikes, on the other hand, are sleek and tight and awesome. Just quiet, understated power and speed. This is relevant because of the following:

I picked up a copy of BBC Focus the other day, and got around to reading it today. There was a bit about a new model of the Yamaha Tesseract, a sort of concept thingy which got revealed in Europe not too long ago. Look for it this list.

http://www.yamaha-motor-europe.com/community/experience/exhibitions/tokyo/

This post won't make much sense if you haven't seen if, so I suggest you take a moment to find it now.
Go on, then.

Four wheels, huh?
Let's have a look. Hybrid engine, but that could be put on anything these days.
It has about the same width as a two-wheeler, apparently. and you still steer it using the same mechanic as a regular motorcycle. And it can rest standing up, somehow.
So, it's exactly like a regular motorcycle. Apparently more stable. .

This seems like a lot of work for a relatively small improvement. Fancy new suspension, new locking mechanism, god knows how many hours engineering time on the nightmare that must be the drive train for something so small. More stability just doesn't seem to a real benefit for such an investment. But maybe I'm wrong. It wasn't reviewed by a driver, no price is given yet, and for all I know it handles like a dream and fixes all the problems with riding a motorcycle while retaining all the awesome. But I somehow don't think so.

I'm going to advance my own theory.
It is a sexy beast. It is a sexy, sexy, beast, and I would ride it, or anyone on it, any time, anywhere. It is flashy, and sexy, and shiny in that "new gadget" way that all nerds secretly have a fetish for, except this things goes hundreds of kilometres an hour, and looks like it's derived from a jungle cat. Were I actually in the presence of it, I'm pretty sure my boner would show through my pants. How long before I will see one in person? Probably never, over in North America, but I can hope.

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