| 9 November, 2012 - EICMA 2012: On My Way - Here Is How To Follow | World's biggest motorcycle exhibition, the Milan, Italy EICMA will start Monday afternoon. It's an enormous event, with thousands of exhibitors showing off their latest motorcycles, accessories and clothing. Although press days are Tuesday and Wednesday, Monday will see two major press events; Ducati and Honda. Both have planned big events, Ducati at the fair's conference center, Honda in Milan itself.
As usual, I'll be there to cover this incredible event, armed with cameras, computers and smartphone. I've currently left my house in Normandy and making the long journey over to Milan with a stopover at Paris. I'll be back late Thursday.
Since press days are usually packed with press conferences back-to-back, with no room to even have lunch, it's going to be difficult to write up articles after each event. But I will be using my smartphone to upload interesting photos to my social media accounts. So while I'll be looking at the new motorcycles (and pretty demo girls), I'll have a few articles appear which I've programmed in advance so that you'll not find an empty space on this site. We'll keep you amused..............
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| 8 November, 2012 - Eicma2012: What To Expect | A few more days and world's biggest motorcycle exhibition and fair opens its doors in Milan, Italy. Eicma as it is known is enormous, with more halls than you can imagine, more manufacturers, more stands and more visitors than anywhere else.
The annual event draws every major and minor motorcycle manufacturer and accessory maker in the world to show off their gear to thousands of journalists and visitors. So what can we expect to see? Well for one, as usual Eicma is FUBAR since they have not released the press conference schedules, so we do not know who will be presenting what. Which is normal for the Italian organization, they'll probably release it the day after the show has closed. So we'll just guess our ways...
But here's our guesstimates...........
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| 15 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Wrap Up | This is the final article on Eicma, world's biggest motorcycle exhibition. 500,00 visitors made it an enormous success.
Here's a photographic impression of the show, all the motorcycle that caught my eye.
See you next year...
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| 14 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: 91 Pretty Girls and 3 Handsome Guys - Part 2 | Here is the second part of the pretty & sexy girls of Eicma, and for the girls, the last three are guys. A total of 49 photos.
That's it for me for this year for the Eicma 2011 motorcycle exhibition. It's been a very tough one, lots of press conferences crammed into a too small time frame, not enough space to work and pretty bad management. But at least the pretty girls made up for it. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it... right?
I hope you enjoyed the tour of Eicma; next motorcycle exhibition is at the end of the month in Paris, France.
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| 14 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: 91 Pretty Girls and 3 Handsome Guys - Part 1 | The only reason we go to motorcycle exhibitions like Eicma is not to see the new motorcycles and scooters, or all the new equipment, but to see the demo dollies, the stand hostess and in general, all the pretty girls.....or at least, that's what a lot of people think.
Every year, the motorcycle exhibitions try to outdo each other with the prettiest and sexiest demonstration girls, and this year at Eicma was a bumper year.
There was one motorcycle manufacturer who realizes that woman are an important market, and as such had several "handsome" guys sitting on motorcycles, and the company is Honda. So for the ladies, I've included in part two, three photos of guys.
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| 14 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Police Confiscate Motorcycles | The Chinese manufacturers are known to rip-off copies of almost anything under the sun, and fake motorcycles are the norm there. But they are becoming more and more brazen about their rip-offs, so much so that they actually tried to market their fake Piaggio MP3 scooters at Eicma.
Piaggio pressed charges during the Eicma exhibition, and the police came and took away the fake models.
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| 14 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: And The Prize For The Worst Product.. | Eicma is an incredible motorcycle exhibition, with 1000's of products on display. It's motorcycle porn to an extreme, and you could stay there for days and still not see all the products.
Many products are incredible, and would be great at home, but you'll also find some products that you go .. gulp... Here's one.
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| 11 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Demonstrating The MotoAirBag - The Video | I showed you a photo earlier on how the folks at MotoAirBag demonstrated an airbag jacket for motorcycle riders. Quite an unconventional approach.
I returned to their stand, and asked for another demonstration, but this time I made a short video. They used a demo-girl from another stand as the unsuspected victim... poor girl.
Here's the video on how to demonstrate a motorcycle airbag jacket.
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| 11 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: The Electric Motorcycles | Every year at Eicma there are more and more electric motorcycles and scooter manufacturers.
This year so a lot of them, though many are cheap Asian bikes, there where however several players in the market.
Here's a round-up of the more interesting electric motorcycles and scooters.
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| 11 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Marco Simoncelli Tribute | Eicma had in very little time turned the world's largest motorcycle exhibition into a tribute to the late Marco Simoncelli. Everywhere you walked there were enormous posters hanging with SuperSic's face, and the words "Ciao SuperSic".
Nice touch, and good to see that they responded so fast.
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| 10 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Rumors | Eicma is where you see all the product announcement and launches. But if you pay attention to what's going on you can see other things that are not announced.
For example, is BMW looking at doing something with Brammo??
And is Piaggio and Royal Enfield looking at doing business in the nearby future.
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| 10 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Hells Angels | It's the first time I see on such a big event a rather large stand used by the Hells Angels. Their Italian chapter was present at world's biggest motorcycle exhibition to show what they are.
They weren't looking for members, nor were they trying to sell something, it was just pure an information stand. Quite a lot of people were attending, trying to see what they did.
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| 9 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: MV Agusta and the Museum | MV Agusta, as we all know, is not only a super fast and sleek sportsmotorcycle, but a very good looking one; sexy, sleek and pretty. In fact, most MV Agusta motorcycles belong not only on a race track, but in a museum.
That's probably why the company decided to showcase their motorcycles in a museum style display at Eicma. You had to enter in one area, exit in the other. The halls are all pristine white, and all their motorcycles are displayed like works of art, works of art that they are. Indirect lighting, corridors, hushed talking; it all reminds you of a visit to a museum (if you ever do).
Here are some of the "works of art": |
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| 9 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: How To Demonstrate An Airbag Jacket | Here at Eicma, you see many manufacturers trying to sell their stuff. Motorcycles are easy to sell, but there's stuff out there that you need to push, and I really mean push...
One of the items that you need to convince people with a real demo, is the Airbag jacket. Usually what happens is that they put one on, and then pull the cord (if it's a wired jacket).
The jacket inflates in nano-seconds, and you've become the Michelin man. But this demonstrator went one step further.
Once he had pulled the cord that inflated the jacket, he took a baseball bat, and slammed it with all his force against the unsuspecting man's back. The man did not even flinch.... quite powerful for a demo. I jsut hope for the demonstrator's sake, someone doesn't take the bat away and hits him.... |
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| 8 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: A Funny Thing Happened | Every year, Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, opens Eicma (in fact, I've been told he owns the grounds). It's always a big thing, with 100's of operetta-dressed policemen walking around, drinking coffee, and watching the ladies.
This year, when I went to the press center, I saw 100's of journalists focused on one person. None of the photographers or TV people were from the motorcycle world, so they were political journos. I snapped this photos, and thought that in the middle, as usual, it's Berlusconi.
In the hotel, I just found out that he is resigning, and I guess this was a fact finding by some senior politician. The "normal" journalists were obviously waiting for the Prime Minister, and they were told that he is no longer coming.
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| 8 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Ducati 1199 Panigale | Since I had decided to give the Ducati press conference a miss yesterday, I caught up with them at their stand and snapped a few photos.
Here's the megasportsbike, or the supersupersports bike, the Ducati 1199 Panigale motorcycle.
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| 8 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: KTM Presentation | KTM, for their presentation, rolled out most of the Champions and Toby Moody (from Eurosport TV) to liven up the event.
The Duke 690, Freeride 350 and e-Freeride were presented.
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| 8 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: BMW New Maxi-Scooters | BMW introduced with a big ceremony their two new maxi-scooters, the 600 Sport and the 650 GT.
Only thing missing to make it a real BMW, is heated seats...
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| 7 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Honda Integra - The MoSco / ScoMo | Here are the launch photos of the new ScoMo, or MoSco motorcycle/scooter that Honda has launched today at Eicma.
The real name is the Integra, and its a cross between a scooter and a motorcycle.
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| 7 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Kawasaki Versys 1000 Scope | The "pirates" of the Dutch site Nieuwsmotor have been going through garbage cans, toilets and what else not, and found some interesting data of the new Kawasaki Versys 1000 which will be launched tomorrow.
Here's what you can expect.
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| 7 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Honda’s New NC700 Series Motorcycle | Here's a quick view of Honda's presentation of their brand new NC700S and NC700X motorcycles, as shown at Eicma 2011.
The photos are a bit blue, but that's because they used blue filters... sorry.
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| 7 November, 2011 - Eicma 2011: Not Going To Ducati | Since the Ducati information got leaked this morning, and since the schedules are so tight, it's impossible to attend every conference, I'm planning to give Ducati a miss, and head directly to Honda.
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| 4 November, 2011 - Packed The Motorcycle For EICMA 2011 And On My Way | Right, it's that time of the year where I'm heading for the long journey to Milan, Italy to attend world's biggest motorcycle exhibition, EICMA.
The motorcycle exhibition starts Monday afternoon and goes on until Wednesday evening (for the press). Monday morning will have an article or two posted to keep you busy until the press conferences start. Tuesday and Wednesday will be pot's luck, in other words, whenever I have time to post something while running around from press conference to press conference.
In the 3 days, I usually shed several kilos of weight (15 kilo backpack loaded with cameras and computer gear), and some 40 kilometers of walking.
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| 3 November, 2011 - Video: BMW’s New Maxi-Scooter Promotion - Ready For Eicma | A very elaborate TV commercial just to announce that BMW will be showing their new maxi-scooter at the Eicma show next week in Milan, Italy.
This 50 second TV spot shows a little kids with a car and a motorcycle toy (both BMW, but what would you expect?). The funny thing is that they do not even show the shadow of the new BMW scooter, just the thought....
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| 2 November, 2011 - What Can We Expect From Eicma 2012 | This year seems to be a very busy year with new and revamped motorcycle models to be presented at world's biggest motorcycle exhibition, the Milan based EICMA.
Here's a list of newsworthy stuff we expect to be seeing. ... and it's a lot.
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