The performance-based scooters come with ABS standard. The braking system features three 270mm discs, two-rotors on the front and a single disc on the rear. Both tires stand 15 inches tall and measure out at 120/70 up front and 160/60 on the backside. Though a full spec sheet hasn't been disclosed yet, there's a pretty healthy stretch between the spoked wheels.
BMW chose the C 600 Sport for the world premiere of its FlexCase stowage system. From what we understand, the FlexCase uses a flap in the tail base under the seat which unfolds to make the storage space bigger when the vehicle is parked. There are also a couple of smaller storage compartments built into the front fairing. Since the C 650 GT is built with long-distance rides in mind, its standard storage compartment is a tad larger.
The C 600 Sport and C 650 GT scooters are full of the modern, edgy styling you'd expect from BMW Motorrad. Its split-face front fairing looks like something you'd find on a sportbike instead of a scooter. It has air intakes on its sides ala the BMW GS while its single-sided swingarm isn't standard scooter fare, either. It has a multifunctional instrument panel highlighted by a large LCD display with an analog speedo and digital bar tach.
BMW Motorrad is also offering an LED daytime running light as an option. We were hoping BMW's C scooters would come with the twin LCD monitors that were connected to two rear-facing video cameras the BMW Concept C Scooter used as mirrors, but that option has been ditched for conventional mirrors. Attractive features like heated seats and heated grips are optional accessories.
The C 650 GT has a greater emphasis on comfort and touring so its riding position is a little more relaxed, the passenger seat is designed to be even more comfortable on long stints, and it has passenger floorboards instead of fold-out foot pegs. The rider's seat comes up a little higher and has more of a true backrest which is adjustable and its bars are a touch higher than the C 600 Sport as well.
Its windscreen is larger and electronically adjustable while the one on the C 600 Sport is manually adjustable to three different settings. The seat height on the C 650 GT is 30mm lower, too. Other differences between the two are the bodywork as the panels on the front and rear of the C 650 GT cover up more of the bike while the C 600 Sport is more streamline. As mentioned above the C 650 GT has a larger stowage area, claimed to be almost 60 liters in the tail. Other small differences include the location of the turn signals, with the C 650 GT's units integrated into the mirrors on the front and with the LED light cluster on the rear.
The BMW C 600 Sport is available in Cosmic Blue Metallic Matt, Titanium Silver Metallic, and Sapphire Black Metallic while the C 650 T is offered in Sapphire Black Metallic, Platinum Bronze Metallic, and Vermillion Red Metallic. BMW's new maxi-scooters will be available in spring of 2012 while prices have yet to be announced.
In Copenhagen, 40 per cent of people ride instead of drive (which, with all those cyclists, must surely make it a deeply unpleasant city). If this were the case in an Australian city, two lanes of a four-lane road could justifiably be given over to cyclists. And we wouldn't need both of them; one could be used for more cars. Or parking. Or parks.
Cycling is also good for me. Not only am I interested in the environment, I am concerned about my health. Truly I must be a self-absorbed, anti-social freak.
I don't ride far, and I don't ride quickly - in fact I barely break a sweat - but that 20 minutes of exercise every morning and again in the evening is exactly what the doctor ordered.
"Lifestyle diseases" are now the number one health problem facing Australians. These are diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease. In an opinion piece yesterday the co-ordinator of Bicycle Network Victoria's Ride to Work Day, Anthony Aisenberg - yes a genuine mung-bean worshipping cycling lobbyist - pointed out that three hours of riding a week is enough to cut your risk of heart disease in half.
My nana died of a heart attack and my dad has had a quadrupal bypass. Looking after my heart is pretty important to me. Selfish, aren't I?
Cycling keeps me slim, too. I don't want to boast or anything, but I look pretty good for a chick on the downhill side of 35. And you in the car, you're 13 per cent more likely to be fat than me. Consider that as you settle your super-size beverage back into one of your 19 cup-holders.
I don't have to pay for petrol and parking every day. I don't have to shell out for a train ticket. I don't have spend big on gym membership fees so that I can sit on a stationary bicycle in an air-conditioned office block and watch Oprah as I sweat and pant while some gratuitously toned instructor screams 'encouragement' at me. So not only am I better looking than the fat motorists, I'm richer than them too.
But really, truly, there's a reason I go out there every day, in all weather, risking my life on badly designed roads with motorists who believe the only good cyclist is a dead cyclist, (or Cadel Evans 'cos he's an Australian sporting hero).
It's because it's actually very enjoyable.
On a crisp morning, with the air cold as it hits my lungs, I push off. Cruising, pedalling, the wind on my cheeks, the rhythm of my legs. Leaves crackling under my tyres, dog-walkers smiling hello, camaraderie at the traffic lights with other cyclists.
I arrive at work flushed and awake. No crowded train carriages for me. No late busses. No battle with bumper to bumper.
Cycling has any number of benefits. But I would ride even if it didn't.
I'm a lifelong cyclist. I raced with the Gordon's Sporting Goods cycle team in the early '70s and was shortlisted to the B.C.
Junior Team in those same years. I took the somewhat informal title of B.C. Cyclo Cross Champion of 1972.
I built Escargot bicycles for several decades and my photo graced the pages of the Daily Colonist.
In April 1986, at the age of 31, I was struck by a street racer at Douglas and Johnson streets. As I rode east on Johnson, she ran the red light heading north on Douglas. And as I realized, in my last thought for several days, that she wasn't going to stop, I jumped up off my bike, but didn't manage to clear the top of her windshield and roof.
I was thrown from the northern edge of the south lane of Johnson to the north of the post boxes on the northeast corner of Douglas and Johnson, about a lane's width north of the northern edge of the street itself.
The impact left the car a write-off. It also fractured my skull from my right temple around the front, clear to my left temple. I wore no helmet.
My left scaphoid bone was broken. I spent six months in a cast from my finger tips to beyond my elbow. Pinwheeling and crash-landing caused ligament and freedom-ofmotion damage to neck, shoulders, back, and arms. I lost my sense of smell, the olfactory bulb's nerve connection to my nose being severed. I've never smelled my child. Food is tasteless.
A rib was used to rebuild my eye sockets. It took me several years to learn to form one image out of the two that my eyes acquired since the eyes didn't point in the same direction any longer.
My skull was fractured so severely that I didn't also suffer from too much intracranial over-pressure due to bleeding. My mother didn't recognize me due to bruising and swelling and my wife, a nurse, spent the first week after the accident at my bedside wondering, weighing the opinions of the professionals about whether I'd ever speak, see, think or walk.
My sense of balance has never fully recovered.
A few years after my accident, my wife and I were Sunday driving westbound on Munns Road. As we approached the bottom of the long hill, several cyclists desperately sought our attention.
One of their fellows had lost control coming down the hill, had left the road and had come to an abrupt stop at the uphill vertical edge of a culvert. We called for an ambulance and helped as best we could.
That cyclist was never the same person again. His personality was seriously altered. He lost wife, family, friends, job and his former identity - all due to his head impact. He had not been wearing a helmet.
My personality is, thankfully, only slightly different from before my accident. I tend to handle stressful situations by shying away, not by trying to overcome. It takes me longer to make decisions and I'm less confident in what I decide upon.
Most of them are on foot. They carry backpacks, push shopping carts, ride bikes or have children in tow. They stand in turn lanes waiting to cross, and dart between traffic to reach the opposite side.
Jaywalking on Fletcher Avenue between Nebraska Avenue and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard is so problematic that traffic experts have deemed the 1.5-mile stretch Hillsborough County's most dangerous bike-pedestrian corridor. Three jaywalkers have died since January 2006 and 97 others have been involved in accidents.
"Any time of day, you have people out there standing on the hash marks just dodging traffic," said Peter Brett, manager of the county's traffic engineering section. "They cross anywhere they can."
Now, engineers are pushing an ambitious $4 million proposal to curb jaywalking on Fletcher.
The work, about a year away from breaking ground, will include five mid-block pedestrian crossings, concrete and landscaped medians, and shrubbery along both sides of Fletcher to discourage jaywalkers from stepping into the street.
Signs and strobe compact fluorescent will warn drivers about the crosswalks, and bike lanes will be added to both sides of Fletcher. The speed limit will drop from 45 to 35 mph.
"We've done this at intersections but not on a whole corridor," Brett said. "That shows the extent of the problem. This corridor has the highest crash rate in the county involving bikes and pedestrians."
About 40,000 vehicles a day travel Fletcher between Nebraska and Bruce B. Downs. It's hard to gauge how many pedestrians cross illegally, but a recent county study found 1,400 pedestrians crossing Fletcher between Nebraska and 50th Street during an eight-hour period.
"I've seen many accidents out here," said Bruno Scipione, owner of Bruno's Pizza Pie at 2301 E Fletcher Ave.
"The cops give out tickets but that only lasts a couple of days, or as soon as the cop leaves, that's it. Anywhere they can cross, they cross," he said.
Nathan Masters, 34, who lives near the University of South Florida, says the problem worsens at night with jaywalkers clad in dark shirts and jeans that make them nearly invisible to drivers.
"You don't see them until you're right on top of them," he said. "I had one guy standing right there in my lane, holding his arms up like I was in his way."
Masters said he's skeptical the proposal will stop jaywalkers and suggested using the money to increase enforcement.
Karen Matusic, spokeswoman for XTO, acknowledged there had been citations, but said some of those stemmed from “paper work” violations. Other citations have led to changes and adaptations within the industry, she said.
She noted XTO places a heavy emphasis on safety measures and provides rigorous training for all employees. The state also has strict regulations in place for drilling.
“Anything we do is a risk, and we have to do everything we can to mitigate the risks,” she said.
Some of those measures include steel, cement, and gravel casings around well pipes, which Matusic said should make it impossible for frac water to escape into the ground if something should happen. The company also is not creating any frac ponds on the property.
On some drilling sites, frac ponds are used to store the water that is pumped into the ground to fracture the shale below the surface. A storage tank holds the water after it is pumped back out of the ground. The water is then carried away on trucks.
After complaints by some neighbors about the noise and the lights from drilling, Matusic said XTO erected sound barriers around the operation, even though they didn’t have to.
“We believe in going above and beyond what’s required,” she said.
Other benefits of Marcellus drilling are an increase of jobs in the area, she said. The workers also have been frequenting local businesses, including Marburger Dairy.
Ron Weber, whose home is located across the street from the well pad, said he is not bothered by noise or light from the drilling. He and fellow neighbor Sharon Hanmeyer said they weren’t worried fracking would affect their water. Nor were they worried about the dairy products at Marburger. Weber pointed out that the majority of Evans City residents use city water and not well water.
“I buy milk there all the time and I buy their iced tea,” Hanmeyer said of shopping at Marburger Dairy. “There’s no problem with it.”
Craig Marburger, vice president of the family-owned dairy farm, said the family closely examined drilling policies and procedures before leasing the property. He added the milk would continue to be carefully tested for quality.
Marburger Dairy also takes in milk from numerous other farms around the area. According to its website, the farm processes, bottles, cools, ships, or delivers more than 25,000 gallons of milk to about 2,500 hospitals, restaurants, businesses, and schools, including the Seneca Valley School District.
Marburger said there are several other natural gas wells within a half-mile of Marburger Dairy. He believes the farm was singled out for the protest because of its high-profile location on Mars-Evans City road.