Top 10 Favorite Motorcycle Things to Be Thankful For

Anonymous
by Anonymous

Father's Day Edition

When we want your opinion, we’ll ask you for 10 of them at a time.

The world continues to fall apart all around us as we gaze into our deepening navels. The heat in the kitchen gets hotter. The guilty stupid can’t contain their bile. The neighbor’s dog keeps barking. None of it bothers me, not in the least. Because people keep giving us new motorcycles to play with.

Now that half a year’s worth of miles have passed under me, here’s a list of my 10 favorite motorcycle-related things of 2014.

10. Hipsters

Time magazine asked the question some years ago: When everybody is cool, is anybody? Many once-cool things have gone mainstream and suffered serious cool dilution as a result. Motorcycles still have not, and so I salute any fellow man or woman crazy enough to ride around in traffic more exposed than Miley Cyrus’ uvula. So they drink PBR and they’re driving up the price of CB350s, so what? Nobody grown wants either of those.

Today’s hipsters are tomorrow’s buyers of really expensive BMWs and things, once the economy picks up and their latent consumerism kicks in. Then we’ll snap all of it up a few years later at steep discount after all the warranty work is done, the clutch is replaced, and Baby Forces Sale. All I’m jealous of is the kids’ ability to grow some really impressive mountain-man beards, which sometimes look a little strange on their ectomorph bodies. Must be all the hormones in the milk?

Photo by Simon Kjellberg.

9. Transitions shield on my Bell Revolver Evo

Why doesn’t everybody do this? Wait, maybe they are starting to: Shoei is now offering a photochromic shield for its helmets. The bad news is the Bell shield retails for around $120, the Shoei one for about $150. Ouch.

But if you’ve been caught after dark with a dark shield repeatedly – like some of us who’ve got enough baggage to lug around without adding a clear shield to the mix – a face shield that lightens and darkens is one of the best uses of technology motorcycling has come up with in a long time, and worth the money. All Transitions products claim 100-percent UVA and UVB protection too, and the one that’s been on my Bell for the last two years still looks and works great.

8: Carburetors

I started messing with carburetors on my first car, some weird Stromberg things, which made me appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the Holley double-pumper on my next car, which led me to an appreciation of all the geniuses behind nearly all the stuff we use every day. I know enough about how carburetors work now to make my R1 run okay, and to appreciate how much better it runs when an expert tunes them. I’m eternally grateful carburetors are obsolete on my transportation appliances.

But now that the electronic age is here to stay, I love the interplay of all the brass jets and needles and springs (especially when somebody else is doing the playing), but mostly because I know more about how carburetors work than my kid – who knows more about practically everything else. My 2000 R1, last year before EFI, has taken on a slight steam-age museum quality. Someday they’ll have to drag me out of the care facility to blow out the pilot jets and get it to start.

7. Aerostich Roadcrafter R-3

Big deal if I get wet in Arkansas, I thought, it’ll be a nice warm rain in May. Wrong again; the rain was pouring down and the bike thermometer said 53 degrees. Since I was riding a big American cruiser, I’d thought about jeans and a leather jacket and throwing a rain jacket in the trunk. I would’ve hypothermed out and been miserable.

Aerostich Roadcrafter 3 Review

Instead I wore my new Aerostich Roadcrafter R-3 (third generation) and I’m glad I did. The new R-3 is completely waterproof and not much harder to take on and off than a jacket. Not only did it keep me warm and dry in the cold rain, it also kept me cool and happy crossing the burning sands. Still the most convenient onesie ever devised by man.

6. Valentino Rossi and Giacomo Agostini

Before Valentino, my 500cc GP heroes were larger than life and too big and serious for their britches; they all went down in flames. Rossi was different from the start, not afraid to laugh, not afraid to express himself with his graphics to his post-win plays-within-the-play to his WLF neckwear. Rossi’s been pacing himself since about 1996, winning the last 500cc title in 2001 before making the segue to 990cc four-strokes and winning four MotoGP championships in a row. And now that there’s a new wonderboy, it’s a joy to watch Vale E. Coyote try anything short of crashing to beat the kid just once; you know he would Gibernau him if only he could catch Marquez.

And Giacomo because he’s the only guy with more titles, and because at the Legends of the Motorcycle a few years ago, Ago brought his 22-years younger wife and I brought my 22-years younger GF. He winked at me, I winked at him. Simpatico! Phil Read tried to wreck our happiness but failed. Again. Greatest weekend of my life, really …

5. Go-to Gear

I hate to come off like a hypocrite shill since I do get most of my gear for free. But I have to say, good motorcycle gear is no place to economize if you can possibly afford not to. My red Ducati jacket (made by Dainese) was expensive once upon a time too many years ago to mention, but I still wear it all the time.

And I’d wear this Vanson jacket more if it would ever break in. Same goes for my tired old Frye boots. (All three items are 100-percent Velcro-free.) This is one of those times where less expensive doesn’t mean better, and the premium you pay for a jacket or boots you love is minuscule amortized over 20 years. Or 30, but who’s counting?

4. Traction Control and ABS

These are the Viagra and Cialis of motorcycling (not that anybody at MO requires them!), the electronic fountain of youth that will keep plenty of us roosting long past our sell-by dates. Even when your synapses are completely shot, you’ll still be able to remember: When in doubt, gas it! And to squeeze the right hand lever when you need to stop. I already wrote too much about TC” here.

3. International Trade

When I got started in the 1980s, Japanese bikes were really the only game in town unless you wanted a Harley, which you didn’t, because even the H-D guys would admit they were crap then. BMWs were for elder statesmen. Ducatis were maybe in California?

Now BMW and KTM are building the most exciting motorcycles on the planet – go for the 690 if the Super Duke is too much. And everybody who wants to continue to be a player is having to step up their game, including Harley-Davidson, whose new Street 750 I think is already my favorite Harley ever – for local use anyway. I’ve read it a thousand times over the years, but now really is the best time ever to be a motorcycle nut.

2. Wide Open Spaces

Everybody here wants to go to Europe. Everybody in Europe wants to come here, and the reason is simple: You can ride for weeks and never see everything there is to see in the wide-open western U.S. Why not go to Alaska while you’re at it, via Vancouver, and don’t forget Mexico. The Alps and the Pyrennees are nice, but let’s face it: The Continent’s a bit claustrophobic compared to what’s right outside our back door. Resumption of normal speed limits in most western states makes them fun to ride again. Great roads, great reliable motorcycles, great times for people who like to get away from it all on their own schedule.

1. Punk Kids

Nothing makes you appreciate being an adult more. And nothing makes the manufacturers stretch their imaginations farther as they strive to come up with inexpensive motorcycles that will woo those who were born jaded.

Witness the new H-D Street 750. The Honda CB500F is a hoot. So will be the new Yamaha FZ-07. With their near-complete ignorance of all non-Xbox-based or iPhone technologies, the kids transport us back to a time when we were just as innocent and trusting and hopeful – before The Man beat us down and put us to work. Most of us.

Which reminds me: Thanks, Dad, for disapproving of the whole motorcycle deal, thereby reverse-herding me down not such a bad career path. And to my own son, for dragging him along behind me: You’re Welcome! Now it’s time to think about getting a job to support your habit. Our habit.

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  • Diesel Driver Diesel Driver on Jun 19, 2014

    I would love to have a 1985 Honda CB700SC Nighthawk with electronic fuel injection. That would be my perfect motorcycle. The only thing I'd change would be to add fuel capacity. Give it 5.5 gallons or even just 5 would be cool. 3.7 just wasn't enough. But since I no longer commute 90 miles each way every day I could do with 3.7. But NEVER EVER stop for gas in Ludlow, Goffs or that station 10 miles north of Barstow unless you absolutely have to. Their gas prices are astronomical even for CA. I love long range riding capacity. That's one of the reasons I bought the Vstrom 650 instead of a Kawasaki Concours to commute on. That extra gallon of gas gave me security should a freeway be closed. Had I have been at LAX on my Vstrom I could have ridden home even the day of the last really big earthquake, the one that closed the 5/14 split. I'd have had to ride to San Bernardino and up over the 15 but I wouldn't have needed gas. Oops. Got sidetracked. Darn, never did that when I was riding, did you?
    EFI is definitely the best thing to come along.

  • Mahatma Mahatma on Jun 20, 2014

    #6 should include Mike Hailwood.Hail to the king baby!

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