Up To Speed

It’s the September installment of “If You Had Asked Me, I Would Have Told You…” Maybe it’s because so many weekends of late had the threat of rain, which severely curtailed my riding, but I’ve got my cranky pants on. Or maybe it’s just because I’m so unenthused by the …

WOODBURY, CT – A new store on Route 6 featuring motorcycle apparel and accessories quietly opened for business on Tuesday. Fowlers USA offers riding jackets and pants, gloves and other gear, and is owned by Sasha Fowler-LeBlanc and her husband, Todd LeBlanc. The retail business may be new, but its …

SOMERS, NY – The setting is an outlaw motorcycle race in the 1920s, depicted near the end of the Discovery Channel miniseries “Harley and the Davidsons,” and it’s where Harley-Davidson makes history. Not only is the race the first time its legendary “Knucklehead” engine gets tested competitively, but the scene also …

NEW HAVEN – The CT United Ride, which bills itself as “CT’s largest annual 9/11 tribute,” is being lambasted today by a local motorcycle dealer and by Slingshot owners who charge discrimination in the treatment of a group that wanted to participate in the 15th annual charity ride on Sunday …

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ – A bike dream coming true for Motorcycle Cannonball rider John Pfeifer of Houston, TX was quickly shattered Saturday when the 1916 Harley-Davidson that he was riding was destroyed by fire. Pfeifer was unhurt, although

Craig Johnson is a best-selling author and a motorcycle enthusiast. His “Longmire” mysteries about a Wyoming sheriff have sold more than 1.5 million copies and been turned into a television series that shifts from the A&E cable network to the Netflix streaming service

Is “Harley and the Davidsons” accurate? My answer to those folks inquiring today following last night’s premiere of part one of the three-parter is probably somewhere between

BRATTLEBORO, VT – It’s not often that you hear the word “whetstone” used in conversation; a whetstone being a sharpening stone for knives. Having grown up on Whetstone Road in Harwinton, CT, though, it’s a word that always perks my ears. Hearing of a craft brewery and restaurant here called …

WINDSOR LOCKS, CT – Riding on a divided highway is supposed to be safer than riding anywhere else. No one can pull out from a side street and an oncoming vehicle can’t drift across the center line. That doesn’t mean accidents can’t happen – as a Connecticut state trooper discovered …

MILWAUKEE – Layoffs are coming to Harley-Davidson with some 200 jobs being cut at U.S. plants. Workers at the factory in Springettsbury Township in Pennsylvania were notified at a meeting Wednesday with the local union reporting that 117 full and part-time positions will be lost. The layoffs will begin in …

UPDATE: Having received its certificate of occupancy, Brookfield Indian Motorcycle is now open.

SOMERS, NY – Harley-Davidson may have been founded in 1903 in Milwaukee, but an interesting element in the company’s history can be traced to Somers, which west of I-684 in Westchester County. That’s where William B. Johnson had the first Harley-Davidson dealership owned by an African-American. Johnson opened the franchise in …

FARMINGTON, CT – Motorcycle training classes run by CONREP are held rain or shine, but it was another kind of intrusion from above that provided a teachable moment at the Tunxis Community College training site on Sunday morning. Hot air balloons from the nearby Plainville Hot Air Balloon Festival began …

OK, I’m thoroughly confused… Having not grown up around motorcycles, I’m not up to speed on a lot of motorcycle history. Consequently, when Harley-Davidson unveiled its new “Milwaukee-Eight” engine this week, it got me wondering about the power-plants that had preceded it. While I was aware of some of the …

NASHUA, NH – Rocket Moto Sport will soon become the first New England dealer of Tilting Motor Works three-wheelers. Already a dealer of American-made Motus motorcycles, Rocket Moto Sport will by mid-fall start converting Harley-Davidson and Honda touring models into trikes using Tilting Motor Works kits. Tilting Motor Works is …