“Cycle World” Recycles a Memorable Read

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com

Hunter S. Thompson’s memorable “Song of the Sausage Creature” about being loaned a Ducati 900SP, which originally appeared in “Cycle World” in March 1995, is reprinted in the December issue of the magazine. If you’ve never read it, it’s worth driving 20 miles to find a newsstand copy.

“Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That’s why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba,” wrote Thompson wrote, who later added this truism: “If you ride fast and crash, you are a bad rider. If you go slow and crash, you are a bad rider. And if you are a bad rider, you should not ride motorcycles.”

Former “Cycle World” editor Brenda Buttner wrote a complementary piece about how Thompson’s essay came to be, and its worth reading, too. Wouldn’t it be more entertaining if motorcycle magazines spent more time taking chances than worrying if an advertiser might be offended?

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Stopped by New England  Cycle Center in Hartford on Sunday afternoon to buy an oil filter for the V-Strom and got talking with sales manager Steve Marquardt. Inevitably, a tour of the showroom floor followed during which we chuckled over an irony involving Victory’s 2013 model lineup.

The Cross Country Tour bagger model comes in three colors – gloss black, Boardwalk Blue and Bronze Mist – but the Boardwalk cruiser only comes in glass black and pearl white. You can’t buy a Boardwalk in Boardwalk Blue.

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More to read:

– iBerkshires.com has a story here from North Adams, MA about the Doppelgangers motorcycle club making donations to the Friendship Center.