This Week: ‘Man Made Bugatti Super Car’ Premieres
After many months of hard work, long days and sometimes even longer nights, I’ve finally got some fantastic news to share — The Bugatti Veyron documentary that I produced and directed finally has an air-date!
‘Man Made: Bugatti Super Car’ will make it cable television debut this coming Thursday, February 11th, at 8 pm on The National Geographic Channel.
It is a project that I am immensely proud of and am eager to share. The film looks and sounds fantastic, as I briefly wrote about before, and it would be my hope that everyone in the audience enjoys the watch.
The folks at Bugatti were extraordinary in terms of the access they granted us and frankly we were able to capture some tremendous things on tape – Sometimes for the very first time. Even though I’ve had the distinct privilege to go inside of a lot of factories, design studios and engineering departments in the past, I don’t know if there’s any one group of people that I have more respect for then the VW engineering staff, given what they have successfully accomplished with this machinel.
People can knock the Veyron for the price or ask whether the world needs a 1,001 horsepower machine that can break the 250 mph barrier, but it unquestionably one of the most amazing engineering exercises ever undertaken and successfully completed in the automotive world. If you’re lucky enough to sit in the car and pull 1.9 G’s while braking from top speed, I guarantee you’ll agree with me. The Veyron is just an amazing thrill ride…
All told, this has been a wonderfully inspiring project to work on and to be a part of, and now it’s time to let it go… Time for you the audience to enjoy it and to get ready for the next great moto-adventure…
'Man Made: Bugatti Super Car' premieres this week on National Geographic
From the National Geographic Website:
The Bugatti Veyron is a “super” super car - part automobile and part airplane. And with a base price of $1,750,000, it is the most expensive production car in the world. Designed with materials and construction techniques normally found in the aerospace industry, this remarkable engineering achievement is one of the fastest street-legal cars ever built. Now, NGC takes an insider look at the Bugatti factory to see how this modern engineering masterpiece is built.
There’s also some video from the show available on their website, along with other info & air-date times;
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/man-made/4237/Overview#tab-Overview
This Week: ‘Motorcycle Crash Tech’ Premieres
As a rider, over the years I’ve become keenly aware that there are roads you know well and ride all the time, roads you’ve never seen but find yourself making plans to visit, and then roads that from a mere photograph have a unique power to consume your dreams — because they are not easy to get to or to conquer.
The last several weeks have been a remarkable stretch of time where all of my personal roads, both the seen and unseen, the known and unknown, have blended together to form a wonderful combination of one single and seamless moment where everything feels like it’s exactly where it is supposed to be for right now…
And I can’t think of a better culmination of that sense of purpose than this Thursday evening, when our newest sportbike documentary, Motorcycle Crash Tech‘, premieres on The National Geographic Channel at 9 PM EST.
In May, I briefly wrote about the project but at the time couldn’t go into much detail about it — Tonight I finally can…
After we finished Twist The Throttle, the next inevitable question was what do we want to shoot next? For month we went back and forth, talking about what would be different then Twist and yet still part of the greater sportbike arena… A few truly intriguing ideas surfaced, but they never quite took off or captured enough of our collective attention span… But then lighting struck… While ‘taking a break’…
We were watching a sportbike race, when a rider crashed. It looked horrific. It looked deadly. It seemed disastrous. Yet the rider got up. Shook his head in frustration. And walked away…
It was a scene punctuated by the notion that twenty, maybe fifteen, hell probably ten years ago, would have required an ambulance or a helicopter. But instead suddenly seemed rather matter-of-fact. The rider later quoted as saying it was a run of the mill event. Barely noticeable and simply a function of ‘push the edge’…
Tonight it seems rather obvious that something interesting was there, but at the time it was simply a curiosity — was racing, and by extension regular-riding, really safer today? Have we actually come to a point where we can engineer out the danger?
The answer as many riders know is, yes.
It is something I learned first hand this January when I crashed (an odd occurrence while working on a sportbike show about crashing no doubt!).
Now, of course I’m not suggesting that racing is 100% safe, nor regular everyday riding, neither one is, but the odds of survival should the worst happen have dramatically increased and that’s something I personally find fascinating… So we set out to see the remarkable advancements in racing and riding gear; from the bikes themselves, to the brakes, to helmets, and the actual riding suits.
I hope everyone in the audience enjoys! (Press Release Below)
Umberto rides the F4
New Motorcycle Documentary Premieres on the National Geographic Channel
September 17, 2009 at 9PM ET
“Motorcycle Crash Tech” is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the new technologies being used to avoid motorcycle crashes, and prevent injuries or even death when a racer or rider does go down.
Exclusive interviews with racer Neil Hodgson and the legendary Giacomo Agostini describe first-hand what goes through a racer’s mind the moment they know they’re going to crash and vividly recount just how deadly racing was in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Combining rare archival footage from years past as well as contemporary AMA racing coverage, the film explains the differences between high-sides and low-sides and the extreme forces involved in both types of crashes.
The film captures stunning action photography of world-class test riders Vito Guareschi (Alpinestars, Nolan, and Ducati) and Umberto Rumiano (MV Agusta) in action during what are normally closed test sessions of new riding gear and bikes. Brembo factory riders are also filmed testing the company’s newest brakes on twisting Italian mountain roads and performing incredible braking tests on Brembo’s private test track.
Produced by Cry Havoc Productions, an award winning documentary film company specializing in Moto related films, “Motorcycle Crash Tech” will premiere on September 17, 2009 at 9PM ET on the National Geographic Channel.
Filmed in 1080i high-definition and 5.1 digital surround sound, “Motorcycle Crash Tech” takes viewers on an extraordinary journey across Northern Italy. With rare access to the R & D facilities and research departments at Alpinestars, Brembo, Nolan, and MV Agusta, the film chronicles the very latest technologies being used in motorcycle riding gear, boots, helmets, brakes, and the bikes themselves to make racing and riding safer.
What Comes Next v2.0: The Bugatti Veyron
The Bugatti Veyron
“Nothing is too beautiful, nothing is too expensive” — Ettore Bugatti
Every now and then this gig truly has its moments — And the last month has certainly been one of them…
As most longtime readers have undoubtedly noticed, Twisting Asphalt has been dark for quite awhile — again — It’s been just over a month since I penned the last post. This self imposed media blackout is not a harbinger of a slow death for the site but rather the unfortunate side effect of the realities of life superseding the joy that comes from riding or sitting at the screen and hacking away at a post about riding.
For the past month I’ve been existing in a remarkable world of Moto-Lust, where each breath is not filled with only air but also the nuances of ultra-performance at its unequivocal best…
For the last thirty days I’ve had the distinct privileged to live one of the greatest automotive fantasy’s around — An unreal, absolutely marvelous adventure spent documenting the world’s fastest production car — The Bugatti Veyron.
It is a machine unlike any other automobile I’ve ever been around — That’s not to say I’ve lost my taste for Ferrari’s, Lambo’s or Porsche’s — But rather an acknowledgment of just how incredible this machine truly is when you see it in its native environment. From the design and engineering that went into it, to the craftsmanship at every step of the assembly process and, really, the utter lack of concern over time or money spent creating perfection, it is simply a hard to walk away from one and not admire it… Or dare I say fall in love with (though clearly I will never be one of the 300 owners — Starting at 1.7 million Euros I’m fairly certain that’s a hit my wallet will never support)…
While everyone talks about the Veyron’s remarkable top speed of 407 kph or 253 mph — After a month hanging around the car and the folks who build it, I’ve come to the distinct conclusion that talking about the top speed is the easy one-liner, the simple description you tell your buddy at a bar, but there’s so much more to this car… And frankly, I’m not even sure it’s fair to call it car… So much aircraft technology has gone into it that it’s probably more apt to consider it a airplane — just one that happens to have four-wheels.
On the Track with the Veyron
On the Track with the Veyron
My New Favorite Camera: The Sony HXR-MC1 1080i High Defintion Lipstick System
There are a ton of fun toys in the motorcycle world - heck, some folks even call bikes themselves toys, though I’ve never quite liked that description for a purpose built machine myself - however over the weekend I got a chance to try out what quite possibly might be the coolest motorcycle toy ever created, a pre-production unit of the brand new Sony HXR-MC1 1080i High-Definition Bullet Camera System.
Granted, calling the HXR system a toy is totally not fair because it is a professional grade video production tool - however it is by far the best combination photography and record system I’ve seen in the POV camera market to-date.
I suppose a short backtrack is in order here — We’ve used a variety of POV Camera systems on a number of our projects over the years. None was ever perfect. System after system, one thing or another always left me wanting more. Either the cameras didn’t handle the vibrations on a motorcycle very well, or the record unit wasn’t exactly user-friendly, or the battery life just flat out stunk.
And ever since the Television world went High-Def, I’ve been actively searching for a stellar High-Definition POV camera system (sometimes referred to as a Bullet Camera or Lipstick Camera) that met Broadcast specifications in order to capture those great Point-of-View shots from various angles on a motorcycle that we as riders love to see. The shots that make you feel as if you’re part of the action.
Well, Sony it seems has answered my prayers…
The HXR-MC1 system shoots 1080i High-Def footage and records it seamlessly to a Sony Memory Duo HG Stick. The interface on the unit is superb thanks to the LCD-touch screen, easy to navigate menus and simple record features. The best proof I can offer is that because the unit was a pre-production model it didn’t come with a manual - because the manual apparently is still being written according to our Sony rep - but that didn’t matter at all. We were up and running in less then five-minutes. It’s really that easy. If you can run iTunes, I feel fairly certain you can operate this gizmo…
The embedded Vimeo video below is a quick and dirty camera test we shot up in Malibu, California, with the HXR unit set to auto-exposure in the highest quality setting. While it’s not nearly as crisp as a true 3-chip professional HD camera, it’s damn good looking stuff. Especially if you take in to consideration that a high-end professional HD Camera can run from 40k up to 100k. The HXR is anticipated to come in at just around three-thousand dollars. I’d say that’s some nifty bang-for-the-buck!
But, don’t take my word for it, take a look yourself 
Unfortunately we didn’t have to time to run the unit through a million paces, but as I understand it the lens is also capable of being set manually (most seem to suggest underexposing three stops). My primary concern was simply seeing if it a) worked and b) could handle the stress and strain of the specific vibrations from a motorcycle. (Historically that’s been the real undoing of a number of POV options we’ve tried in the past)…
So while this isn’t nearly as complete of a review as most folks will do, my gut tells me we’re going to be using this little’rig a lot on our next several upcoming sportbike projects 
Quick snap-shot of the record unit.
Another quick snap of the unit gaffe taped to the tank of a Ducati Monster.
Oh Sweet Jet Lag
It’s 6:10 in the evening, I’m staring at a blank blog page and it feels like it’s the morning. And that’s because it is. In Italy.
At the moment the nine hour timezone difference is kicking my ass, though a small price to pay for a week of Italian coffee indulgence.
In the end it was a really quick trip that covered a lot of ground. More work than play — well there really wasn’t much playtime at all actually — but right now, at least in a business context, I feel fairly certain it was worth the time and the effort. While the world has gone digital on a global level, there are scenes and settings that emails don’t do justice to and some meetings that truly are better in person…
At the moment I can’t blog much about it nor will I go into great detail, but if there was a general tenor to the travel, it was simply ‘wow’. There is some cool stuff coming down the pike in the motorcycle universe and needless to say I’m greatly looking forward to going back with gear and crew to capture the magic of the people and their products.
A few random picts from the trip…
Wheels Up On Another Moto Adventure
Twenty-two months ago I boarded a plane bound for Japan, and then subsequently Europe, on a quest for sporty motorcycle greatness. It was the experience of a lifetime and to be honest it’s hard to believe that it took place nearly two years. I could swear it was just yesterday.
Eventually that quest turned into the Discovery HD Theater series Twist The Throttle and needless to say it was one of the greatest personal experiences that I’ve ever had the pleasure of living through.
Yet life — and television for that matter — is not about reliving memories, but rather creating new ones. Just as the clock continues to spin, so too does the need to fill the creative void…
So tonight I will once again be boarding a plane bound for Europe, only this time it’s not an adventure in search of great brands but rather brilliant people and quite literally the years they’ve spent and continue to spend in finding new ways to make riding and racing, in all it’s many forms, faster, safer and ultimately much more survivable should something go wrong.
In Twist The Throttle we spent quite a bit of time looking backwards, but tonight we start a journey to look forward… And I can’t wait, so stay tuned for more details
