Ride New England

FALLS VILLAGE, CT – If a motorcycle could talk, the single-cylinder race bike owned by Ed Bozzi of Naugatuck, CT would probably say that 15 years of retirement have been quite enjoyable. No hard running – just an annual oil change, a twice-a-year startup, an occasional track day, and periodic trips …

WATERBURY, CT – Mother’s Day weekend didn’t go as uneventfully as Taig Rehmel had hoped. He’d anticipated a wonderful reunion with a fondly-recalled motorcycle model from his earlier street riding days and an exhilarating ride from Connecticut to his home in Georgia. Instead, he was confronted by pain and the challenge …

WESTFIELD, MA – If it seemed at all odd when Polaris Industries, maker of Indian motorcycles, came out with the Slingshot roadster three years ago, it was really a case of history somewhat repeating itself, and with a good deal more success. The three-wheeled, belt-driven Slingshot is really more automobile …

Maybe it was the muscle aches from yard clean-up, exacerbated by start-of-season riding with arms, legs and butt unaccustomed to being in a locked-in seating position for extended periods, that prompted the thought. At age 63, I probably have more riding days behind me than ahead of me.

HARWINTON, CT – It has been a schizophrenic end to winter. Warm one day, cold and windy the next, with occasional rain or snow. One day I’m toasty while riding to New Haven to meet a friend for lunch, the next I’m shivering while hauling logs for the wood stove. …

WILLIMANTIC, CT – Mark Turkington is a familiar figure at motorcycle shows around New England. The 72-year-old Bolton resident is a life-long rider and a collector of rare, vintage models, and he enjoys showing off his two-wheeled artifacts. For Brit Jam in 2015, he brought a British-made 1924 Douglas SW/24. …

PEMBROKE, N.H. – Ever traded in a motorcycle at a New England dealership and wondered what became of it? In some cases, the dealer may have simply tied a price tag to the handlebar and put it on the showroom floor for resale, not even bothering to inspect or clean …

WINSTED, CT – Sometimes moving forward in life requires a leap of faith, a belief in one’s abilities, and the guts to take a chance. And there’s no better time to move ahead than the start of a new year. Eric Pleil recently gave his employer

The life of any motorcyclist can be snuffed in an instant. All it takes is for a distracted, unobservant or impaired driver to cross the center line or make an improper turn across the path of an oncoming rider. In just seconds, a rider can go from enjoying the wind …

FALLS VILLAGE, CT – The motorcycle-themed paintings, oil on wood, by Ian Hemingway are often self-portraits featuring a solo rider in vibrantly-colored leathers and helmet against more somber, murky backgrounds. They reflect his passion for riding and the catastrophic memory loss he suffered in a motorcycle crash

WEST HARTFORD, CT – It was happenstance that the white and teal Harley-Davidson motorcycle ridden by actor Michiel Huisman ended up parked next to a flat black Indian outside of Westfarms mall. Commenting about their adjacency to the “Games of Thrones” star was only natural, though, because

NEW HARTFORD, CT – A sign stating “TWO DRINK MAXIMUM” is not often seen in a bar. In fact, I’ve never seen one like it before in nearly 45 years of legally imbibing in probably 26 states from coast to coast and in some 14 other countries. But there it was, …

  HARWINTON, CT – Giving a Harley-Davidson devotee the key to a Zero electric motorcycle is somewhat akin to asking a person who loves greasy bacon cheeseburgers to become a vegan. The response is apt to be a sneer. No way would a Harley-Davidson owner who adores the rumble and …

Oops, a few days late, but better late than never. Time for the June installment of “If You Had Asked Me, I Would Have Told You…” If you haven’t checked this out before, it’s a monthly catch-all column for news items culled from elsewhere, moldy press releases and odd opinions …

Back in college at Ohio Wesleyan University, I had an amiable, wise politics and government professor named Art Peterson. Dr. Arthur L. Peterson held an undergraduate degree from Yale University, a master’s degree from the University of Southern California and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. He lived on …