Ride New England

Update: Donald L. Miller died Saturday (June 20, 2015) in New York City at the age of 83 after suffering a stroke. This column appeared last Sept. 16. It was a pleasure knowing him, hearing his stories and eating his scones, if only for a short while… Donald L. Miller …

Some press releases don’t warrant a “full post” while other items from elsewhere and personal observations don’t warrant a full story or column. Consequently, here goes with another edition of “If you had asked me, I would have told you that…” – The barbecue restaurant known as “Q,” which is …

Every question needs an answer. If you had asked, I would have told you that… – Harley-Davidson has not one but two flops on its hands with the smaller Street 750 and Street 500 models. We’re talking “Gigli” proportion flops. I’ve yet to see one on the road, dealers don’t …

DEEP RIVER, CT – It was only after extracting the 1994 Moto Guzzi California 1100 from winter storage and getting it out on the road for the first time early this month – more than three months after buying it – that the question popped to

How often do we rely on the advice of others when it comes to goods and services? A friend recommends a restaurant, we try it. A total stranger suggests a scenic or curvy road to ride, we seek it out. When the automatic transmission in my pickup recently began slipping, advice …

The email from Bjorn “Bob” Bagn that arrived on Jan. 6 instantly caught my attention. The subject line revealed that he was offering two Montesa  basket cases as freebies. “Little by little, ‘galloping geriatrics’ has caught up with me,” he explained. “With two metal knees, and at 84 years, I …

(Update: Jillian B. Stickels of the FBI responded this morning (3/26), confirming that the story is a hoax and noting that the faux story is already included on the debunking website Snopes.com, which says it first appeared on a satirical site called National Report. And, also as of this morning, …

What can be said about this winter that hasn’t already been said; usually with four-letter words?  After popping the bead on one of the tires of my snow blower last weekend, I had a particularly colorful combination of bon mots running through my head. Suffice to say that winter needs …

Call me suspicious, but I just had to wonder about the press release issued Tuesday by Daytona Beach Marriott Hotels that bragged, “Bikers heading to Daytona Beach Bike Week this year will find rates worth getting revved up (emphasis added) for at Courtyard Daytona Beach Speedway/Airport and Residence Inn Daytona Speedway/Airport.” …

In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea – mixing a staid, military-skewed vintage aircraft museum and a leather-clad motorcycle club whose violent name can be misconstrued or viewed as offensive by

An early episode of the television series “Law & Order” had detectives Lennie Briscoe and Mike Logan tackling a heavy caseload that included five unrelated murders and a domestic quarrel in a 24-hour period. Appropriately, the episode was titled “Mayhem.” It came to mind earlier this week when contemplating today’s …

Sipping my Sunday morning coffee a few moments ago while sitting at my laptop, I made a routine visit to the state’s Judicial Branch website to see if there was any change in the status of the case related to my riding mate and friend Gary Randall, who died from

When the best time to buy a motorcycle? The answer to that question has become something of a cliche because “when you see it” seems, at least on the surface, to be just too simple of a response. It’s a sound reason, though, that took me more than 10 years …

Did you make a resolution (or resolutions) a year ago at this time? If you did, how’d you fare? Exceptional or exceptionally poor? In a column last Dec. 30, I vowed to literally take more unexpected turns, and followed up by

Jeff Crampton spent years in his youth working on Hondas. As a certified Honda technician and later as a service manager, he toiled at several dealerships in New England back in the 1970s. His first motorcycle was a Honda – a 1965 Super 90 – and his current bikes are