Up To Speed

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 …

MILWAUKEE – Harley-Davidson this morning unveiled a new engine, the ninth Big Twin in its history, dubbed the Milwaukee-Eight. It will be offered in two displacements: the Milwaukee-Eight 107 (107 cubic inches/1,750cc) and the Milwaukee-Eight 114 (114 cubic inches/1,870cc). The company says the new engine “is a clean-sheet design that combines …

BROOKLYN – The date for the eighth annual Brooklyn Invitational Custom Motorcycle Show is now set. It will be staged Saturday, Sept. 24 at the Root Studios, 131 n. 14th St. in Brooklyn, NY, according to a new post on Facebook. Using a gallery setting, the motorcycle exhibition showcases unique …

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown today signed into law legislation making lane-splitting by motorcyclists legal in California, becoming the first state to do so. The law gives the California Highway Patrol the authority to

MILWAUKEE – Harley-Davidson has settled with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over illegal engine devices that the EPA said caused excessive pollution. Harley-Davidson will pay a $12 million civil penalty plus $3 million to mitigate air pollution as well as buy back and destroy thousands of “super tuners.” The EPA …

What’s life without a little romance, although at my age (62), marital status (single) and location (rural Connecticut) that means enjoying the company of a motorcycle? Consequently, any time I see a motorcycle, I tend to look closely – whether it’s

CAHOKIA, IL – A favorite wheelie bike belonging to record-holding stunt rider Doug Danger (real name Doug Senecal) was stolen off a trailer overnight. A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to replace it even as police here search for the missing 450cc Honda dirt bike that Senecal has owned since

EASTON, CT – When Mark Esposito acquired his 1971 Moto Guzzi Ambassador last September, it was a mess. “The motor was in the frame. The gas tank was on it. The rest of the parts were kind of scattered all over the place,” he recalled during

MINNEAPOLIS – Indian has unveiled its Scout FTR750 flat track race bike, doing so at the 76th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. The Scout FTR750 features “a high-revving, racing V-Twin engine developed in-house and is wrapped in a

WEST HARTFORD, CT – The line to meet actor (and avid rider) Scott Patterson stretched out the door of the Kiehl’s store at Westfarms mall on Friday. Fans of “Gilmore Girls” were anxious to get pictures with the guy who plays diner owner Luke Danes. They wanted autographs, too. And …