Do you remember how boring and mundane going to a museum was as a kid? It was practically torture, but any excuse to get out of school was better than the alternative. It’s funny how things change as you get older. You start to appreciate and become more interested by the way things were, how previous generations lived compared to what we’ve grown accustomed to now. Shit, you could actually learn something.

Bad habits are a part of being human. We know we shouldn’t do something, but gradually, over time, we might drift toward them. Or maybe we arrive at them through sheer ignorance. Whatever the reason, bad habits can lead to bad results. So, what do we do once we realize that we have some bad habits that need breaking? Before each ride, remind yourself of the proper technique you plan on practicing on the ride. Make it a positive instead of a negative. Say, “Today I will increase my following distance” instead of “Don’t tailgate.” By bringing the skills to the foreground before you ride, the bad habit you’re working on can gradually fade away and be replaced by a good habit.

While you might already be satiated with the Thanksgiving Feast we served up over the last couple of weeks about all the new bikes that might be coming to the World’s Biggest Motorcycle Exposition, the new bikes that did appear at EICMA, and the future new bikes that might be in the works for next year’s EICMA – have you watched our full-color live-action videos of all of them?

Have I died and gone to motorcycle heaven? Pretty much. EICMA is the world’s biggest motorcycle trade show; anyone and everyone who has anything to do with motorcycling is there. From all the OEMs, to aftermarket performance parts manufacturers to riding gear and apparel companies – it’s all there in unimaginable abundance. I was tasked to sniff out the top five coolest things at EICMA this year and thought – well, that ought to be easy! Boy was I mistaken…

Bologna, is the world’s gateway to the picturesque Emilia Romagna region of Italy’s east coast. Quite recently I flew-in a day prior to boarding a bus to Rimini for the international press ride of Ducati’s new 2018 Monster 821.

Well, the rumors were true. Honda has updated the Gold Wing for 2018 – and the makeover is an impressive one! While we’re pretty sure that some of the nuts and bolts used in the previous generation made the transition, the rest of the motorcycle is brand spanking new. Honda’s stated goal for the upgrade was to use the restyle and improved performance to attract more than just the Gold Wing faithful and put to rest the myth that Wings are just for old riders. Well, the styling is certainly more aggressive, and the bike looks decidedly more swoopy. Losing eight inches of front-facing width can do that for a motorcycle. There’s so much that’s changed on the Gold Wing that we thought we should make a cheat sheet for you to peruse.

KTM North America decided to let us know they would be live streaming the global launch of the 2018 KTM Freeride E-XC and the company’s vision of E-Mobility as a whole from Austria at about the same time I was searching for a topic for this week’s Top 10 list. Thankfully, the presentation was full of interesting information that I shall now parse out for you in 10 easy-to-read slides. Grab yourself a cold Steigl and enjoy.

I used to think 10 Big Ones was a lot of dough ’till I started pricing new pickup trucks. Now, I realize it’s chicken feed. Let me eat cake. Sure, yes, I know there are great used bargains for half that much, but a private seller’s not going to give you a 1% APR for three years like Suzuki does, you’re not going to ride off on the shiniest, newest bike on the block, and you won’t have the inner warmth of knowing you’ve done your part to stimulate the moto-economy. Here’re my picks!

Flying us to England to witness the reveals of its new Speedmaster and Bobber Black seems an outsized expense for Triumph considering that riding the latest Bonneville line’s variants wasn’t part of the trip. However, the significance of the Modern Classics to Triumphs recent sales successes can’t be overstated: The Bonneville lineup accounts for 25% of the company’s total production.

Now that AIMExpo 2017 is complete, we’ve compiled our choices for the coolest stuff we saw while perusing the show. While the number of new 2018 model-year motorcycles was limited because of the show’s early date, that didn’t prevent the show from reflecting a vital motorcycle industry. So, as we reflect on last week’s show, here’s a list – in no particular order – of the top 10 products that we saw at the 2017 AIMExpo in Columbus, Ohio.

We stretch before we run, we stretch before we lift weights, Rossi stretches before he rides, as does every professional motorcyclist. So why don’t you? It doesn’t matter if you’re touring, doing a track day, or riding single-track, stretching can benefit everyone by helping to give you full range of motion while also getting your muscles warmed up to work more effectively. If you’re sore after a long day of riding, stretching can help if done immediately afterwards as well as the next morning before saddling back up. You want to keep those muscles from becoming short and tight, which causes them to function less efficiently and can lead to injury. Another tip to help with muscle soreness: drink more water. Like two times more. Sore in the morning? You should have drank more water.

Harley-Davidson is America’s most legendary and iconic motorcycle company. For most Harley owners, it’s more than just a form of transportation – it’s a lifestyle. They’re quick to claim that there is something about riding a Harley-Davidson that’s unlike riding any other brand. Is it the rumbling exhaust note? Is it the “lobe-y”, “cammed” lope at idle that shakes the entire bike? Or is it the old school, rebellious, lack of a certain refinement attitude and mystique that is so deeply rooted in Harley-Davidson’s rich history? The answer for many is D: All of the above.

Ah, the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, an alien terrain on earth steeped in mystique, legend and awe. It’s a bizarrely barren and flat landscape seemingly designed for wheeled vehicles to push harder and faster in the pursuit of higher and higher speeds. The odd part of the design is that the surface is sodium chloride – salt – pretty much the same stuff that’s in your kitchen cupboard.

While working moto-retail, you start noticing a trend in questions asked, as I did in my previous job. You also start picking up on common cases of misinformation. Any good employee should notice these things and do their research diligently to be fully armed with true information to help their customers make the best possible decisions for their specific needs.

Regular Motorcycle.com readers know that we are big proponents of wearing proper motorcycle gear while riding. We think wearing anything else would be foolish. (Yes, we’re looking at you t-shirts, shorts, and sneaker-wearing riders!) Rationally, we all know that, in a crash, the best thing to be wearing is durable gear – if we want to minimize the potential for injury.

Much as there is a difference between the performance of an Aprilia V4 and a Royal Enfield single, donning the proper timepiece is a necessity in the world of professional motorsports. Certain watch elements are handy for spectators wishing to monitor laptimes, including accuracy, durability and readability. Stopwatch functions (which most non-moon phase chronographs have integrated), sapphire crystals (for the scratch resistance necessary in harsh trackside environments) and reliable illumination (for night and/or endurance races) are critical. Whether sprinting the quarter mile or tackling a 24-hour attempt, here are the top 10 watches for motorsport enthusiasts.

It’s a rare day when you get the opportunity to spend time in Tom White’s Southern California-based Early Years of Motocross Museum. Even rarer when you get to enjoy a personal guided tour by the AMA Hall of Famer himself.

I, like many others, have rarely watched a film adaptation of a book that I enjoyed more than the book itself. Books give us so much more detail and let our imaginations run wild with interpretations of our own. We rely on the author’s creative prose to help us feel the grit of the dust that has made it into every nook and cranny of our being, to help us imagine the isolation one would feel thousands of miles from their home in an unknown environment, and the fatigue yet satisfaction of back to back days of hundreds of miles on the road.

Be a Facebook hater if you must, but if you’re involved in any sort of information-gathering work, FB is amazing. Case in point, somebody turned me onto the 1970’s Motorcycle Road Racing page on FB, where I stumbled onto some great old images I’d never seen before.

Perhaps the motorcycle manufacturers are to blame. They’ve made their products so reliable that we take them for granted. We almost feel that if we just keep our bike’s tank full and spoon new rubber on the rims when necessary, we’ve got our machinery handled. Well, that’s not quite true, and consequently, many riders tend to overlook basic maintenance for extended periods. While lots of riders have the off-season in which they have the time away from riding to take care of annual upkeep, many little things need to be done on a regular basis throughout the riding season.

Summer is most certainly upon us in the northern hemisphere. That means lounging at the beach, sunburns, and beautiful long days to enjoy rides on your motorcycle. Summer means different things depending on your geographic location, from triple-digit scorchers to high humidity levels that have you sweating before you even strap on a helmet.

It’s been a good run. In early 1990 I began my powersports career selling motorcycles at a small Honda shop on California’s Central Coast. Twenty-seven years later and I’m bidding adieu to full-time motojournalism. The period between beginning and end has been a tragicomedy chain of events, a frayed yarn of two-wheel adventures, and an experience I can’t imagine having lived differently.

The best way to solve all these problems is to just ride by yourself, old numero uno. But no man is an island, and group rides are their own special kind of fun. At MO, we definitely do our fair share of group rides. Here’s what we’ve learned about the things most likely to go wrong, and what you can do to ward them off ahead of time.

Starting from pole position with the fastest time among the fastest riders in the world is certainly a psychological edge, but pole position doesn’t guarantee the winner of a MotoGP race, largely because the span of time separating P1 from P6 is less than a second. If starting from pole position were indicative of a race’s outcome, Valentino Rossi’s win record would nearly be halved because he has almost double the amount of MotoGP/500cc race wins as he does MotoGP/500cc pole positions.

I’ve lived and worked most of my adult life on two wheels, and as such, I’ve experienced some pretty awesome rides across these United States. All the rides mentioned in this list are ones that I have personally taken. Since I have split my years between the two coasts, the routes do favor those areas, but I’ve also managed to rack up a few in the central U.S., too. I see this list as a leaping off point, one in which I start the conversation, and you, the reader, fill in the blanks for the areas I’ve missed. What we end up with could be a great collection of motorcycling journeys. Ideally, we’d come up with one in each of the 50 states. So, read my picks and then start adding more.

All good things must come to an end, my fellow MOrons, and it’s with a heavy heart that I tell you all that my time at Motorcycle.com is officially over. In fact, as these Top 10 lists are usually posted on Thursdays, my actual last day was yesterday. Nevertheless, it’s been a fantastic six-year run getting to ride motorcycles and telling you about it. I’ve enjoyed meeting readers and viewers, and am always humbled when someone says they’ve enjoyed a story I’ve written or a video I’ve been in. It truly is a gratifying experience, and one I never take for granted.

Cult: A small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous; a situation in which people admire and care about something or someone very much or too much. —Merriam-Webster

Depending on your perspective, washing your motorcycle is either a great way to spend some quality time with your bike or a chore that prevents you from riding. Either way, the benefits from washing your bike are measurable. First, it’s clean and looks good, providing you with a feeling of pride when you’re out on the road. Second, cleaning your bike protects your bike from the ravages of time. Oxidation never sleeps. Cleaning off harsh road grime and adding protective coatings helps delay its progress. Finally, staying intimately acquainted with your motorcycle can actually help you spot troubles before they develop into something more serious.

Here at Motorcycle.com we get to ride all of the newest, latest, and greatest motorcycles on the planet. However, more often than not, our time with each bike spans the course of weeks, maybe months (but definitely not years), as new bikes are constantly flowing through our proverbial garages, waiting to get tested. This means we have reviews of almost every motorcycle on the market, but it also means that we lack firsthand experience learning about long-term durability and maintenance. So, when our readers ask about the reliability of a certain make or model, it’s a difficult question to answer, as reliability testing requires ownership for several years – something we simply aren’t in a position to provide.

Plucked from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), here are the states with the fewest annual motorcycle fatalities in 2015. These figures are fatalities only. There is no consideration given to geographic size, topography, population, population density, annual miles traveled by motorcycle, or any other pertinent information that would better determine the actual safety record of a given state. But maybe, just maybe, the knowledge that you’re riding in a state with very few motorcycle fatalities will provide a positive psychological edge.

I was a little surprised my kid liked the new Honda Rebel 500 as much as he did last week, but then all of us are surprised by our offspring, aren’t we? His daily driver lately is my old Yamaha R1. He finally got around to getting his motorcycle endorsement last month – on our borrowed KTM Super Duke GT… so he does have quite a varied motorcycle background for a kid who’s only 23 years old. In an effort to understand the younger moto-mentality, and as a service to all the manufacturers trying to figure out what the hell millennial motorcyclists want, anyway, I drilled further into my child’s mind to get down to the Top 10 of things.

This past weekend at the MotoGP race at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar, I had the opportunity to tour the Michelin paddock area to learn some fascinating information about what happens to the Michelin MotoGP Tires on every race weekend.

In the last few weeks we’ve categorized the cheapest motorcycles of 2017, as well as the most expensive motorcycles of 2017. But what about the realistic bikes that offer the best bang for your buck? You know, the motorcycle that’s going to deliver the most of everything you desire for the money spent. In this list you’ll find bikes we consider to be the best value from categories including cruisers, sportbikes, ADV bikes, utilitarian bikes, and play bikes. Depending on your personal proclivities and the size of your bank account, there are probably a few more that can be added to the list. Write your suggestions in the comments section below.

Trizzle started it two weeks ago with the Ten Cheapest Motorcycles, so in honor of Donald Trump and MO’s whole more-is-more philosophy, I hereby offer the 15 Most Expensive New Bikes of 2017.

We were all new motorcyclists at one time. So, we should be gentle when making fun of them. Still, when the same questions keep making the rounds for generations, we have to poke a little fun. Newbie motorcyclists have a unique combination of ignorance and earnestness that is frequently compounded by the lack of funds often associated with the aftermath of buying a first bike. While it is often hard to resist being glib and spinning some yarn that plays into that youthful cluelessness, keep in mind that a misleading response could lead to dire consequences. Therefore, give the correct response – followed by some gentle ribbing. After all, they deserve it for asking such a dumb question.

It’s been almost three years to the day since we posted the 10 cheapest bikes of 2014, and, my, has the landscape changed since then. So much so that we thought it necessary to update the list for 2017. Generally speaking, cheap bikes have gone small. Partially due to the uptick in 125cc playbikes sparked by the Honda Grom, but also due to the proliferation of Chinese motorcycles all powered by little engines. Those two clues should give you an idea of the kind of bikes you’ll see in the coming pages.

A week ago Evans Brasfield and I scratched an item from our respective bucket lists when we finished an Iron Butt SaddleSore 1000. Satisfied with our accomplishment (which Evans will be documenting in a soon to be published memoir on MO), curiosity of other motorcycle endurance records had me searching the internet. What I found was a variety of increasingly peculiar endurance records comprising this week’s Top 10.

Hey, if Brasfield can get away with it, why can’t I? In the good old days, a big-time professional such as myself would be accompanied by an also professional photographer, but that’s so 2010. Luckily, thanks to the geniuses at Canon, anybody who can push a button can now get decent results. Here are my favorites from the last few years. (In case you don’t already know, clicking on MO photos makes them not just bigger but usually also sharper. No one knows why…)

With my three year anniversary as a card-carrying MOron rapidly approaching, I’ve been thinking over my time working at Motorcycle.com. As the staff photographer, I get to spend a little more time out of the office than my coworkers because I’m usually charged with shooting the bike tests – not just those that I’m writing. This translates into more saddle time for me – not a bad deal for someone who has chosen to devote the bulk of his adult life (if you can call it that) to motorcycling.

By the time you read this, the world famous Mecum motorcycle auction will already be underway in Las Vegas, Nevada. Having started yesterday, January 25, Mecum bills the event as the largest vintage and antique motorcycle event not just in the country, but in the world. It’s so big, with over 1,000 motorcycles and memorabilia up for grabs, that the auction is being televised on NBCSN. If you’ve got a large wad of cash just burning a hole in your wallet, there’s still time to act, since the auction continues through the 28th.

Last week came the announcement that Victory Motorcycles was being shut down, but Victory’s death knell actually tolled in early 2011 following the announcement Polaris Industries had acquired Indian. All the good will in the world to keep Victory afloat is no match for bottom-line data, and in just a few short years the Indian brand has eclipsed Victory in growth, profit potential, consumer popularity, and overall coolness.

This week’s Top 10 comes to us courtesy of Miguel Galluzzi. Mr. G is best known for designing Ducati’s original Monster and starting the modern naked-bike movement, but before that he also penned Ducati’s early ’90s 900 Supersports. He’s been a busy man ever since, and is currently director for PADC (Piaggio Advanced Design Center), in Pasadena, CA, where he – together with another design team in Noale, Italy – cooks up new Moto Guzzis, Aprilias and other Italian delicacies. —John Burns

As we reach the end of one year and the beginning of another, it is only natural to look back at the recent past with more than a little bit of fondness. To date, we’ve listed the best news, most watched videos, most anticipated motorcycles for the upcoming year, and the editor highlights, running the gamut from empirical to emotional choices. Now, we will delve again into the collective psyches of the MO staff in the form of each editor’s favorite MO-produced videos for 2016.

In just a few days 2017 will be here, which means there will be a metric crap-ton of new bikes to ride! This clearly gets us very excited, and so we’re taking the opportunity with this, the last Top 10 list of 2016, to point out the 10 new motorcycles we’re most looking forward to riding in the coming year.

Let’s face it; by many accounts, 2016 was an awful year. We had terrorist attacks and the Zika virus, police shootings and the normalizing of the “Alt-Right,” Brexit and whatever the hell Ryan Lochte did at that gas station in Rio.

More often than not, a world press launch is held somewhere not far off the beaten path of familiarity. The local language may be French, Spanish, Italian or some other Latin dialect, but the sights and sounds don’t fall under the guise of the really exotic. The 2017 KTM 1290 Super Duke R launch in Qatar was a little different. While Qatar is very westernized (I saw an Applebee’s in downtown Doha, for chrissakes!) there’s no forgetting you’re visiting an area of the world that’s  fundamentally dissimilar. Architecture, fashion, culture and cuisine are constant reminders that things are different. And sand, lots and lots of sand.

Hey, I’m sorry it’s always about me, but the 1990s really were: In the ’90s, I got a new wife, a new child, a condo, a new truck! And the motorcycle manufacturers pampered me (and all the rest of us tail-end Boomers) with a lot of great new jockey shorts-dropping sportbikes that many of us could actually afford to buy. Later, as Bill Murray famously said in Stripes, “reality set in.” But the ’90s were great while they lasted. These, listed chronologically, are the bikes we, the whole MO staff (even Troy, who was but a wee pup), remember most…

I’ve often felt that the real reason many motorcyclists don’t winterize their motorcycles is that they keep holding off in hopes to squeeze in one more ride. Although the MO Towers are located in Southern California, many of us ventured from colder climes to the Great American West in an effort to enjoy year-‘round riding. The journalism gig is just something we managed to weasel our way into as a means of supporting our habit.

Today is Thanksgiving here in the United States of America, and with all the new motorcycles coming out in 2017, there’s definitely a lot to be thankful for. Last week the MO crew made its annual pilgrimage to the Long Beach round of the Progressive International Motorcycle Show, where it was my first chance to see many of these bikes I’d been reading and writing about in person. The Long Beach show is a special one, as it’s centered in the heart of the U.S. moto industry, making it one of the rare times we get to see all of our industry friends all in one place. As such, there were a lot of cool things to see as we walked around. Here are my personal highlights from the show.

For our upcoming Bagger Brawl Shootout our intrepid Evans Brasfield took the MO crew on a scenic tour of Southern California ghost towns, as well as a run through Death Valley. With that kind of itinerary we were guaranteed to stumble across the strange and entertaining. We weren’t disappointed. Here’s what we found.

Some things, like love and substance abuse, everybody has to learn for themselves, the hard way. The wise man says, “the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history,” but if you’re smart you can save yourself a little pain by listening to the wisdom of the ancients. Here are 10 of my pearls. At MO as always, no charge.

Well, this seemingly decade’s-long election cycle is winding down to its climactic conclusion. If we’re lucky, on November 9th, we’ll know who the 45th President of the United States of America will be for the next four years. The really good news is that we will have a couple of Presidential-campaign-free years ahead of us. However, that doesn’t mean that the gears of government will stop grinding. Lots of other issues will be voted on during the election days of this year and those in the future. So, why not make the process of voting fun. Ride your motorcycle to the polls.

It’s finally happened. I bought a bike. For the first time in over a decade I own a motorcycle again. For all these years I never found the need to actually buy another bike, especially since I’ve got new ones to ride all the time, but the bug finally bit me. So what did I buy? A Suzuki RM85 converted to full supermoto trim.

AIMExpo’s final year in Orlando was an impressive one. The event was home to the world debut of Yamaha’s new YZF-R6, and the first time stateside to see up close and personal many of the hot new models for 2017: Honda CBR1000RR SP/SP2, Suzuki GSX-R1000R, Suzuki V-Strom 650/1000, Yamaha FZ-09. In fact, the amount of new-model videos we had to shoot left no time for some of the other cool stuff found at the show. So, here’s a compendium of the best of the rest at AIMExpo 2016.

Seriously, after a while the parade of hot new bimbos grows old. They’re all great, but they all have their own demands, their own need to have their buttons and controls manipulated in the one certain way that makes them happy – a requirement older bikes just don’t have.

While my colleagues do enjoy teasing me about my tendency to overpack, I have a pretty extensive background in motorcycle touring and, before that, backpacking. Also, I believe that I’m the only member of the MO staff that has ever lived on a bike for a period of months. (While chronologically, my cross-country trek took over three months, I spent about four weeks of that period living in a “nest” of gear in the corner of a friend’s Phoenix apartment.) Before settling down to a life of domesticity, child-rearing, and working in the motorcycle industry, my periodic freelance employment allowed me to hit the road for extended road trips. From these two-wheeled forays, I will now give you a little insight into the twisted world that is my technique for preparing for a motorcycle tour.

Deus Ex Machina, the coffee shop, surf, moto, and apparel depot of choice for the hipster set, recently hosted a custom bike build-off across all of its locations worldwide on Saturday, September 24. Feeling the need to take the family out for a night in Venice, California, an eclectic beach town known for its artist community and laid-back lifestyle, I ventured to Deus USA to get a peek at what the local garage builders are churning out these days. I came away pleasantly surprised. Check out my Top 10 picks within.

Like just about anyone with internet access and an office job there are days when accomplishments are measured in the amount of time wasted clicking away at anything that’s not work. Lucky for us MOrons, keeping tabs on motorcycle-related social media sites is considered an obligation, not an irresponsibility.

Riding large motorcycles off into the boonies is a fairly recent phenomenon for most of us city kids, a thing the MO crew did last week that you’ll be reading about soon. It really does open up a whole new world of, ah, adventure, but it can also come as quite the surprise when something goes wrong, you get stuck, and it suddenly occurs to you that no good samaritan is going to come along in a pickup truck to help you out; in fact nobody is likely to come by for days except small woodland creatures and maybe even big dangerous ones. And the sun really is beating down, isn’t it? The Boy Scouts are right, it’s best to be prepared.

As jobs go, working at a motorcycle publication is pretty darn good – as long as you’re not too fond of money. Still, like every job, there are work days and there are work days. This week, aside from having Monday off for Labor Day, we’ve got a pretty hectic work schedule planned.