Happy New Year / Feliz Año Nuevo

2008? Well it was a bit frustrating wasn't it...
Still pretty excellent for Bati despite some poor luck and reliability, but let's hope he does just one step better in 2009 and truly gives Sideshow Bob the stuffing he so richly deserves for riding like a total cock for most of 2008.
So - a very happy new year to you Alvaro ("Feliz Año Nuevo"), and also to all the readers of this blog, the members of BatiFans.com and to Alvaro's fans all over the world.
Hope you all have a great 2009 - and that Alvaro has the best of all.

Happy New Year! :-)

gb

BatiFan Blog 2009 Coverage To Include Juanjo Nuñez

Just to let you all know about a slight extra/tangetial piece of motos we're going to be following on this blog in 2009...
We'll be bringing you news on the career of Juanjo Nuñez - a young, up and coming rider (he won the 2008 Madrid Minimotos Championship) who, like Alvaro, hails from Talavera de la Reina. He's also a member of Alvaro's fanclub and so in the spirit of the Peña and also taking any Talaverans under our wing, we're happy to root for him and to add him to our roster of Bati-related newsworthiness.

Buena suerte por la 2009 temporada Juanjo :-)

*FYI: We have affiliated his website Juanjo29.com on our various blogs and Alvaro fansites, and you can also often find mention of his activities on Alvaro's official website.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

Downloadable 2009 BikeSport Calendars

I've made a bunch of iCals to help keep tabs on all the important dates next year. iCal is an application on the Mac, which uses the open .ics calendar format - which means that you can also use these in various Windows and Linux applications such as Microsoft Works (Version 8 or higher), WinDates, Mozilla Calendar, Sunbird and Zimbra.

MotoGP 2009 Calendar
Click here to subscribe in iCal...

CEV Buckler 2009 Calendar
Click here to subscribe in iCal...

SBK: World Superbikes 2009 Calendar
Click here to subscribe in iCal...

BSB: British Superbikes 2009 Calendar
Click here to subscribe in iCal...


More information about how to use these calendars on Windows PCs here at iCalShare...

Hope they're useful.
Enjoy :-)

gb

OFFTOPIC: "De Personas A Personas"

Again, only posted here on the tenuous rationale that Alvaro is a fan of El Canto Del Loco here's some shots of the fab "De Personas A Personas" boxset from the band - a limited edition that's just recently come out.
Grabbed this off the Spanish eBay the other day - very swiftly delivered and in perfect nick. A beautiful package of text and pictures, featuring a new nudey shoot - and a CD of the Personas album but with a bunch of extra songs, and also a DVD featuring 3 versions of promos for "Eres Tonto", the video for "Peter Pan", plus a 45 minute documentary and also a couple of other goodies like a film about the nudey photoshoot.

It's Christmas and I deserve it! :-)

End Of Year Number Crunching

The finale to this season saw Alvaro taking part in his 100th Grand Prix in the World Championships.
It's a fitting time to take stock of his record since he first contested a WC race at Jerez in 2002 as a wildcard (entering the championships properly in 2003) and to knock out a few figures.
Lurking in these stats are his fab 2006 season, comprising the title, 8 victories and 14 podiums; and also this year's excellent 4 victories and 11 podiums (10 of which were consecutive)...

Here we go:

125cc
Races: 67
Victories: 8
Poles: 8
Fastest Laps: 9
Podiums 18

250cc
Races: 33
Victories: 6
Poles: 6
Fastest Laps: 8
Podiums: 18

TOTAL
Races: 100
Victories: 14
Poles: 14
Fastest Laps: 17
Podiums: 36


Great stuff, eh?
Hopefully plenty more cool stats to come next year - including another world title! :-)

Alvaro Bautista Mosaic Poster (A1 Size)

In a determined effort to put my Alvaro-related picture library (or "The Stash" as it is known in these parts...) to some good use, I've made one of those cool Mosaic posters, where you create a single (or apparently single) large image out of a vast quantity of smaller images.
In my initial experiments I found that shots in the box and ones that involved too much general detail didn't really work out and that a cleaner, simpler image with a dulled-off background and a distinct foreground image worked out best by far.
So the result is an image of Alvaro leaning it in - from one of the Aspar Team's excellent high resolution race images - made up of some 7,396 tiles comprising 2,685 individual pictures from Alvaro's entire career, Talavera de la Reina, and other random Bati-related pics such as helmets on eBay etc!
The result, as shown above, is now available as a huuuuuuuuuuuuge high-resolution file that will gladly print out at A1 size (and probably even A0) and is a special Christmas prezzie for all the members of the BatiFans.com Avaro Bautista Fan Forum and which you can get by clicking here... (*Members Only)

Enjoy :-)

Test Your MotoGP Knowledge With The 2008 MegaMoto Quiz

Fancy testing your knowledge of MotoGP 2008?
Then go see our special 2008 MegaMoto Quiz over at BatiFans.com, where we've set up a nice big quiz to keep you occupied over the Christmas break - 30 questions; 10 for each class -125cc, 250cc and MotoGP.
To actually enter the quiz you need to be a member, but that also brings with it the opportunity of winning some pretty cool Valentino Rossi diecasts, an Avlaro Bautista documentary on DVD, official Bati '19' stickers...
(*And of course, other exclusive downloads and competitions. And the priceless benefit of being a member of the friendliest MotoGP forum there is...)

Go on, go on.... ;-)

Well, What Else Did You Expect Me To Do?

It was bound to happen really - as soon as the 2008 250cc Season Review DVD arrives in the hands of a total BatiNerd with a copy of Handbrake and an iPhone...

Well, I've got to have something to help make those tube journeys a tiny bit less miserable ;-)

It would be easier of course if you could just buy the season reviews on the iTunes Music Store...
Maybe next year...

New Alvaro Desktop Icons For Mac OSX & Windows PC

(*Preview of the new set of 9 fabby Bati icons)

On a genuine piece of Bati-related news (and certainly Bati fan news) I've just published a new set of Alvaro Bautista desktop icons for Mac OSX and Windows PC.
These are great for replacing drab system icons for your folders, applications and drives; and I've done a mix based around a nice shot of Alvaro on the 2008 bike (with the 19 on it, unlike my last icon set which featured the pre-season bike) - and created 9 variants based around drive, netowrk and folder symbols. They are all nicely detailed and feature everything you'd expect from a state-of-the-art icon set, including alpha-channeled drop shadows so they look gorgeous on your desktop.

How do you download these?
Simple - Join up on the BatiFans.com Alvaro Bautista Fan Forum and you can get the links from our "Members Only" downloads area.
Not a member?
You should be... ;-)

OFFTOPIC: More El Canto Del Loco In UK iTunes Music Store

Okay, slightly offtopic - but there's not a huge amount of MotoGP news at the moment, and it's still vaguely Bati-related as Alvaro is a fan of El Canto Del Loco...
British fans who also use the *UK* iTunes Music Store will be interested to know that a second ECDL video has cropped up; although it's actually a song called "Me Gustas Cuando" by Lucas Masciano. It has to be said that it's not anything profoundly special, but it's nice enough - and you can see and hear the guys, and overall I'd say that hte song has a slight hint of the same vibe as "Gigante" off the album Personas.


I have to admit that I still can't get "Peter Pan" out of my head (although to be honest I do listen to it a lot anyway!)
It's kind of become the soundtrack in my head to the trip to Talavera de la Reina; it was played so often on the radio, in bars and on TVs there. I particularly remember being huddled round a table in a packed bar with Tamara, Michaela, and a bunch of the Peña guys and gals sometime around 2am with it blaring out over our heads, and everybody joining in... :)
Good times.
Though I have to laugh at myself for getting a bit maudlin whilst watching it on my iPhone on the return flight, having necked some G&T and a couple of bottles of red!
What a total wuss! ;-)

It's a lovely video - and you deserve to buy it for yourself!!! Click here to go check it out... (and buy it if it grabs you, of course...)
Hopefully this means we will see more and more ECDL videos on iTunes very soon....

What Would Steve Jobs Say????

I've been asked many things since I got back from Talavera de la Reina... Did you have a good time? Did you get pissed? Did you meet Alvaro? What's the Batster like? Was he nice? How was the big dinner & party evening?
But possibly the thing I've been asked the most is "How old are you???" when people see my newly pimped MacBook Pro. I'll be the first to admit a whiff of the tragic about it, having spent the best part of 20 years refusing to put a single sticker on any of my Macs. I must have just got a bit into the mood of it all :)
The photo was taken with my iPhone which is of course also in danger of getting stickered-up if I get bladdered anytime soon too...

;)

My 2004 Aprilia Conversion Meets Its New Owner

Although a lot of the pictures and videos from the trip to Talavera de la Reina we want to keep special and exclusive to our Forum Members there's no way I can resist posting up this picture (by stv21 - thanks!) of Alvaro taking delivery of my 2004 NGS Aprilia 125cc conversion (based on Altaya's Hector Barbera model, re-worked with my own designed decals). He got a real kick out of it, and said how it was really special and how the actual 2004 bike was really special to him too, having taken his first podium on it.
I'm probably even more chuffed at his reaction than he was chuffed at the model, and can only say I hope he gets loads of pleasure from it :)

The full story and pictures covering the process of converting the model can be found here...

To Steal A Phrase.... "All Kinds Of Awesome!"

It's all been a bit hectic since getting back from Talavera de la Reina on Monday (a fantastic trip that even exceeded expectations - genuinely awesome, really); lots of work to catch up on and lots of photos and stories to post onto the BatiFan.som Forum...
There's loads of very special stuff up there - pics, videos - and more to come. I f you're a member of the forum you can see them just by logging in. If you're NOT a member of the forum, well what the hell is wrong with you????? ;)



Here's me with Alvaro's 2008 leathers.
More pics here (forum members only)...



Here's me on Alvaro's 2006 Championship winning 125cc bike.
More here (again, forum members only)...



Here's one of many lovely pics of a lovely city.
More here (froum members only)...



And purely randomly, when returing via Madrid - although we didn't go to many places it was astonishing how they didn't seem to pimp anything about either MotoGP or El Canto Del Loco... (We couldn't find *any* MotoGP DVDs at all! Honest!)
In fact this Converse posterboy panel was about the only special ECDL thing we saw. ("Peter Pan" is going to be stuck in my head for months after many emotional listening to it in bars late at night!)


Thanks Bati -thanks to your family - thanks to the Peña - thanks to all the new friends we made.
It was a very very very very special weekend...
Can't wait to come back in 2009. :)