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 …
Read More »Two Montesa Basket Cases Get Rescued
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 …
Read More »News Outlets Share Bogus “Gang” Story
(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, …
Read More »Counting The Days Until Spring…
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 …
Read More »Marriott Rates Gouge Daytona Beach Bikers
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.” …
Read More »New England Air Museum Made Correct Call
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
Read More »New Year Begins In Frenetic Fashion
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 …
Read More »Is This Justice? No Jail Time For Rider’s Death
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
Read More »Moto Guzzi Added To Stable
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 …
Read More »Five Rider Resolutions for 2015
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
Read More »Lifelong Affair With Honda Leads To Charity Bike
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
Read More »The Not-So-Incredible, Shrinking IMS
Examined on a year-to-year basis, the downsizing doesn’t instantly appear to be that significant. You first think that maybe there’s a manufacturer missing or a favorite vendor that’s absent. But when compared to what the Progressive International Motorcycle Show was like several years ago,
Read More »Tiger Woods Brand Ambassador For Hero?
Let me see if I have this straight… He doesn’t ride a motorcycle. He has no interest in riding a motorcycle. But now a motorcycle manufacturer in India is paying pro golfer Tiger Woods to be its “brand ambassador” for
Read More »BMW R75M Still Serving Decades After WWII
Keeping vintage BMWs running is master technician Phil Cheney’s primary responsibility at Max BMW in Brookfield. He’s been wrenching on German-made BMWs for 45 years and is revered among Beemer owners in Connecticut and beyond for his expertise. Over that long span, he’s only worked on two R75M models.
Read More »What’s a Just Punishment For Killing A Rider?
What’s just punishment for a driver who takes a motorcyclist’s life? Obviously, it depends. What was the cause of the accident? What were the road conditions at the time of the crash? And in what shape was
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