G450X Bimmer

Touratech G450X Supermoto

Pieces to transform a BMW G450X.

Up close to a stock G450X, taking in it's lean, lithe form and intense detail of engineering - that's when I realized what this machine was about. Seeing it in the window of a dealership near Wall Street one night last Fall, I was transfixed. I imagined what it would be like as a Supermoto.

Imagination no longer necessary.

(The 2010 enduro is 49 state legal, on and off road... just add rims and tires and a big disk, baby.)

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a tough tracker for foppish fancy lads

This Deus tracker with a surfboard rack (???!!).

I guess riding a badass tracker isn't enough cred. You gotta be headed for the beach to get in some surfing too. If that ain't enough, you can grow a full beard and smoke unfiltered Camels... start dating Supermodels. Whatever it takes.

Yeah, I'd lose the surfboard rack. The rest is about as simple and perfect as you get.

Spotted at Smith+Butler, a Brooklyn "biker chic" store for refined and dandy gentleman in Boerum Hill. Or is that Cobble Hill?

errr... Carroll Gardens?

I dunno. Somewhere above my pay grade is all I know. Check it out if you got the scratch.

and now for some very non-foppish, non-dandy action. The real deal:

click above pix to see the vids

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what gear am i in?

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Back in the day when I was a wee lad still shooting blanks I rode a dinky little 60cc Yamaha JT1. It had a "4 down" shift pattern with the neutral at the end. Sometimes when cutting fast through a tight turn, I'd downshift at the apex and goose the throttle only to be greeted with the engine freewheeling and screaming in neutral. Being leaned over for the turn, the bike would swiftly thud sideways down onto the dirt. Oops.

In the early 70s, Suzuki started putting high tech red LED gear indicators on their street bikes. They used a rotary switch attached to the end of the shift drum

Nowadays gear indicators require microchips and sophisticated algorithms to calculate what gear you're in based on "gear position signals" or road speed/engine speed calculations. This is what is known as "progress" - you need a tiny thumb-sized computer to figure out what a 50-cent switch used to do.

In any case. They are certainly a lot brighter than the hair-thin 7-segment LED display on my old GT550 smoker.

Various models from various manufacturers for various bikes. don't be an assclown and get the wrong one.

The Gipro unit has some "Timing Retard Eliminator" feature that is supposed to make certain bikes run better.

• Acumen DG8 at acumen-electronics.co.uk
• Acumen DG8 at gear-indicator.com
• Datatool Digi at www.datatool.co.uk
• Datatool Digi at kneedraggers.com
• GiPro
• God's own unit from RB Racing.

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