By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com On this Easter, it’s a song that’s cheery and upbeat – “Little Honda” by The Hondells. It was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love of The Beach Boys, who also released it as a single. However, The Hondells version had greater chart success in …

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com Got two surprises when I got up before the roosters this morning. It was snowing in the Litchfield Hills at 5 a.m. and an email had arrived overnight from Bob Rosen of Fairfield, who had a website tip. He provided a link – and I am, …

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com How’s that for a predictable headline? Scooter sales always go up when the price of gasoline spikes, and the spring of 2011 is no exception. The Motorcycle Industry Council reported today that scooters sales for the first three months of the year are up 49.6 …

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com When it launched the Victory brand, Polaris Industries set out to take on Harley-Davidson with a high-quality line of cruisers. When the Indian brand was revived a few years ago, the goal was to revive a legendary nameplate and make it a high-end product. In a …

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com The first clue that the Ducati Diavel is an attention-grabber wasn’t when the driver of a Nissan “Z” sports car drove by me on Route 8 between Naugatuck and Waterbury (on April 9) and gave a thumb’s up. And it wasn’t when a guy walking back …

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com Max BMW in Brookfield has undergone a makeover since Max Stratton bought what was Cliff’s Cycle Revolution. The customer lounge and conference room has been eliminated. That area is now parts storage, while the area that formerly housed the parts bins and shelves is now …

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com NEWBURGH, NY – The new motorcycle museum Motorcyclepedia opened this morning and it is quite spectacular – two floors and 85,000 square feet of floor space devoted to hundreds of motorcycles. There are familiar names like Harley-Davidson and forgotten ones like

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com When RIDE-CT needs info on old Indians, George Yarocki of Torrington is always the first person called, but the “Daily Hampshire Gazette” in Easthampton, Mass. reports that a guy up there named Michael Baer knows a good deal about the motorcycles that were made in Springfield …

By Bud Wilkinson  Children’s author Beverly Cleary, who turned 95 yesterday, has written 42 books and sold more than 75 million copies of them. She’s introduced generations of youngsters to the joy of reading through the characters of Henry Huggins, Ralph the Mouse, and Beezus and Ramona. As a kid, I read about Henry, Beezus …

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com Wearing a varsity jacket with an Indian motorcycle logo embroidered on the back and holding a half-smoked cigar in his left hand, Mark Ruccio stood in the sun-drenched backyard of his Naugatuck home on a Sunday morning earlier this month assessing a small red motorcycle …