#Whatever

Lead photo (above): The flower of North American motojournalism ponders the fate of the world in the Munich Hofbrauhaus.

So, we were kicking around what bikes to compare the new Harley-Davidson Street 750 to, when I said how about the new  Yamaha FZ-07? One looks a bit more “cruiser” and the other more “sportbike,” but they’re both new twin-cylinder models in the same price range, with mostly upright ergonomics, aimed at beginners but suitable for all open-minded riders. Now that the violent stage of the motorcycle culture wars has pretty much ended, how are you supposed to know if you’re a cruiser or a sportbike person, anyway, if you’re just getting started?

What’s wrong with kids today? All they wanna do is sit around and play video games. They don’t care about motorcycles.

As print magazines continue their long slide into the abyss, the competition between them only grows more heated. The smaller the pie, the more the rats fight for the biggest pecan. It’s even more fun to watch than the UFC. Wait, I hate the UFC.

Every fall, the big magazine where I used to work hosts an industry ride up in the mountains outside Yosemite, a time for the ad sales people to get in some serious schmoozing, and an excellent time for the rest of us to get in some fantastic riding during the day and some open bar in the evenings.

WARNING: This column is completely SATIRICAL (I don’t really mean it). I actually love Peter Egan, but grew terribly jealous after a few years opening his fan mail at Cycle World. And PE loves me, too, a little anyway. At lunch during my last week at CW not long ago, he told me I was the guy to take over his column. Ha! Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon, but in the words of John Paul Jones, I have not yet begun to write …