The Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) recently graduated its six millionth RiderCourse student (can we get a collective A&R booyah!). WIth over 10,000 coaches and 2,000 locations, MSF has been helping make new riders into competent motorcyclists since 1973, and partners with Federal, state, and military groups in providing basic motorcycle skills to new riders.

Though known best for its introductory course, MSF offers 23 different RiderCourses designed to meet the requirements and needs of riders of any skill level.

Training more than a handful of Asphalt & Rubber writers in the art of two-wheel transportation, we’d like to give the Motorcycle Safety Foundation a special congratulations and thank you for all its hard work. Post up in the comments if you too have been through an MSF course.

Source: Motorcycle Safety Foundation

Probably the worst kept secret on the mountain, the 90th running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb will occur on a fully-paved race course. Responding to legal and safety pressures, Pikes Peak has slowly been paving its dirt sections, which during the hill climb week made for spectacular plumes of dust and breath-taking slides from cars and bikes alike. With under 3 miles of dirt section currently remaining on the course, Pikes Peak has slowly been adding more asphalt sections over the past few years, which in-turn have been a major contributing factor to the hill climb seeing records smashed across virtually all classes each year.

While the remaining dirt section resides in a lower portion of the race course (between mile markers 10 & 13), which is relatively safer than the higher elevation sections (do NOT look over the edge), Pikes Peak has been under pressure to increase the safety of the mountain, adding guardrails and paving dirt sections. Even in its current form, our initial impression of the course was that there were seriously risky corners that we couldn’t imagine taking at speed, let alone with a dirt surface.

News out of Germany this weekend is that 15 of the 17 riders racing in the MotoGP Championship have threatened to boycott the Japanese GP at Motegi later this year because of safety concerns. Lead by Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo, who publicly announced Saturday at the post-qualifying debriefing that they would not race in Japan, the riders are worried about radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, despite Motegi officials (essentially HRC) declaring the Twin Rings circuit safe. The planned boycott also comes ahead of an independent study being conducted on behalf of MotoGP, which is supposed to be an objective assessment of the track’s safety for host MotoGP (the results of the study are due to go public on July 31st).

It seems more often than not, the video advertisements we feature here on Asphalt & Rubber are examples of what is wrong with marketing in the motorcycle industry. However every once and a while, we get a gem like this safety campaign for The Sussex Safer Roads Partnership, which was done by director Daniel Cox , the maker of a similar car campaign that was quite the rage in the advertising world.

The best part about this ad is that it centers around a little boy who seeS the motorcycle of his father, and wants to share in that experience. In a way, a lot of us are like little boys when we get on our bikes, and there certainly is a captivating element with motorcycles and small children. It just makes the imagery seem more fitting, and then there is of course the whole rolemodel message. It’s good heartfelt stuff, and it’s waiting for you right after the jump.

Depending on whom you talk to in the MotoGP paddock, you might get a different impression on the state of the Japanese GP, set to be held at the Motegi Twin Rings circuit this coming October. As we are all aware, the tragic events sustained by the Japanese people after their country was hit by earthquake, tsunami, and then nuclear disaster have been on the minds of citizens around the world.

While Japan begins the process of rebuilding, the country still has to contend with the Fukushima plant, which continues to leak radiation. While MotoGP won’t make an official announcement about its plans to race in Japan until later this summer, the camps are clearly divided on whether the series should abstain (for a second year in a row) on visiting the island nation, or make the flyaway race to Motegi.

You’ve likely seen the video where a “crash proof” motorcycle, which has rider detection aids on-board, gets plowed by a truck as it enters the highway. If you haven’t seen this video, well…we just sorta ruined it for you, and we’re going to ruin it some more for the rest of you who thought it was real, as the group behind the video’s making has finally stepped forward, and revealed it was all a hoax to get you thinking about rider safety.

Produced by the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership (TVSRP), as part of the Safer Rider campaign, the locale has been trying to make riders in their 30′s and 40′s aware of the area’s high casualty rate on the roadway. “Our aim was to produce a video that encouraged people to discuss the attitudes and ability involved when riding a motorcycle and for it to spread virally within the motorcycle community,” said Craig McAlpine of TVSRP.

World Superbike riders have begun establishing a safety commission to have a stronger voice in providing safer conditions for racers in the series. Though other top-tier racing series have long had a body specifically to promote the safety of riders and drivers, it seems that the timing of the race at Donington Park this season has moved the riders to join forces. They met first during the official test in Portimao a month ago and met again this week during the testing at Phillip Island.

I love our neighbors to the north, endless outdoor fun, progressive thinking, and an affinity for things of a more “crunchy” nature. But as a 5th-generation Californian, it is ingrained in my head to fear and mistrust the oppressive dictatorship and hate machine the Oregonians run (the California public school system starts this process in the second grade), as they steal children in the middle of the night and brainwash them into Birkenstock-wearing slave labor and questionable physical hygiene boot camps.

So it comes as some surprise that the Oregon State House of Representatives is introducing a bill to allow motorcycle riders, ages 21 and over, the choice of whether they want to ride with helmets or not (an act that misguided tea party wannabes equate with freedom on the open road).

Our former-overlords from across the pond have begun a new study on installing driving aids to motorcycles that would increase the safety of riding on two-wheels. In the research that is being carried out at Mira (formerly the Motor Industry Research Association), the UK is studying whether having devices that alert the rider to speed limits, road conditions, tightness on road bends, and possibly even collisions with other vehicles (not unlike the system currently being developed by BMW & Volkswagen) would benefit motorcyclists like it has car drivers. Currently outfitting a Yamaha Super Ténéré and a Triumph Sprint with the electrical packages, researchers at Mira say the safety system could be available in as early as 18 to 24 months if the studies are successful.

As a motorcyclists in California, we honestly don’t understand how the other 49 states get along without having lane splitting laws on the books, yet that is the case (for now at least). Although recently Texas and Arizona declined to adopt such provisions for their own motorcyclists, our cousins to the north in Oregon are contemplating allowing lane splitting.

Holding an open forum at 6:30 PM tonight in Portland, the Oregon Governor’s Advisory Committee for Motorcycle Safety is considering a recommendation for a lane splitting provision be included in the Oregonian Traffic Code, if public sentiment at the open forum favors such a move.