Thunder Roads Colorado Magazine Volume 11 Issue 2 | Page 33

News Bytes overall pattern of profiling, and will assist those fighting at both the state and national level for your right to ride and your lifestyle, so please get involved and pass this survey along to every biker you know… https://www.surveymonkey. com/r/?sm=nFhBGtZx2K9m3xbn3pkZtA%3d%3d ETHANOL-FREE FUEL Looking for ethanol-free gas? The website Pure Gas (www. pure-gas.org) is a definitive listing of gas stations that sell pure, ethanol-free gasoline, and currently lists 10,159 locations in the U.S. and Canada. “Many cars, motorcycles, boats, aircraft and tools have engines that run worse, or have parts that deteriorate, when run on gasoline that contains ethanol. In addition, ethanol leaves residue on valves and other parts that can hinder performance,” claims the site. The website doesn’t get into the political side of ethanol in gasoline, and this site does not sell advertising or seek sponsors. You just click on your state or province to find out in your city those where you can fill up with pure gas without ethanol, and your search provides a list of 100 ethanol-free gas stations sorted nearest to furthest. The site also allows visitors to add new stations or remove existing ones. You can save the Pure Gas website URL address on your phone or tablet to use the listing while traveling, or Pure Gas apps are also available. U.S. DUTY ON JAPANESE MOTORCYCLES TO BE LIFTED UNDER TRADE AGREEMENT The United States will remove a tariff levied on Japanese motorcycles with engine displacements of over 700cc under the recently agreed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, according www.thunderroadscolorado.com to Japan Times, and the 2.4% duty will be eliminated five years after the multilateral trade deal takes effect. The United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific countries reached a broad agreement in early October to establish a free trade bloc covering 40 percent of the global economy. For Japan, the new trade initiative will eliminate 99.9% of tariffs on industrial products within the TPP zone. Japan has exported about 120,000 motorcycles with engines of 251cc or higher annually to the U.S. market in recent years. Honda Motor Co., the world’s largest motorcycle maker by volume, and Yamaha Motor Co., compete with local rivals such as Harley-Davidson Motor Co., which mainly focuses on motorcycles with engine displacements of over 600cc. The U.S. government imposes no tariff on imported motorbikes with engines of 700 cc or lower. Japanese motorcycle makers are trying to beef up sales in the United States and Asian markets to offset flagging demand in Japan, where sales dropped to about 410,000 units in 2014 from a peak of 3.28 million in 1982. Following the broad agreement reached at ministerial talks on Oct. 5, the 12 member nations of the TPP will need to finalize the text of the treaty for formal approval in their respective countries ahead of final ratification. In addition to the U.S. and Japan, the ten other TPP members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. QUOTABLE QUOTE: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Nobel Prize-winning German-born physicist November 2015 Thunder Roads Magazine® Colorado 31