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3.19.2006

Meet the new Steed


Joining Rocinante in the stable is this new kid

Asfaloth Bucephalus

(cementing both my Tolkein and Classics nerd creds)

I think I will call him AB or Abie for short




Kawasaki
1000 cc's of engine
in-line four
shaft drive

7.5 gal tank
600 lbs dry weight


I think I may just be feeling the starting of a leading to visit some Friends who are far. far from here.

Noro Lim!
Comments:
Here's an interesting link.

Seriously, though: a question. The part that struck me was the bike's male gender. Being an old bicycle racer, the idea of two-wheeled vehicles having a gender seems perfectly normal, but the difference is that our machines tended to be female (my racing bike was Alex, a female Alex). A grad student in gender studies could do some interesting polling the genders of our rides.

Have fun riding, it looks tres cool!
Your Friend, Martin
 
Martin, you strike right at the heart of the deal! I am quite surprised to find that this bike feels male to me! All my previous rides back down to my tryke days have been shes. It is traditional from starships to racecars and aparently race bikes. I suspect that sailors started the thing. Lonely and with all the loyalty and conflicted feelings of need and control or lack there of that they associated with women.

But motorcycles have always felt 'horsy' to me. And war horses were most often male. I always ride the thing before I settle on a name.

This bike is big and strong. If it had hormones there would be excess testosterone in the mix. It is going to take a lot of muscle to ride this bike. It is a ninja engine with a fairing.

Rocinante, my 750 cc cruiser, is a bike for dreaming. soft cushy seat, so stable I can take hands off the bars. Low center of gravity - baby got junk in her trunk.

The new bike is all angles, zero cush for the tush. All upper body - high center of gravity. He(that's still weird) is still on break-in so no going over 6K rpm but at 6k he's got 90 mph. The red line is at 12k - don't think this bike will ever see red. It is a steed worthy of a lamb's warrior.

The Master rides a white horse in the book of Revelation, but the horse is question is not given a name - so I had to go to other sources - one extremely trustworthy, and the other barely tameable but neither gelded.

The sun is shining
gotta go
 
Having neither Tolkein nor Classics cred, I am at a loss. Can you explain a little more about the name?
 
Asfaloth was the great white horse of Glorfindel, an Elf Lord in The Lord of the Rings. The great Elven horses were not riden with bridle and bit - they would carry you or not by their own will, but if they chose to bear you - you would not fall! Their speed was unequaled. Asfaloth carried Frodo Baggins through a particularly wild and dangerous moment.

Noro Lim is elvish for "Run Fast"

Bucephalus was the mount of Alexander the Great. The story goes that Alex was just a boy when he first saw the great stallion in his father's herd. No one could tame this horse. Alexander observed that the horse was skittish and turned his head into the sun so that he could not see his shadow, and was able to bridle and ride him. His father the king was reported to say "go and find a country worthy of you - Macedonia is clearly too small!"

So with the combination we end up with barely tameable, but fast and loyal.
 
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