A few short years ago, the prognosis was looking grim for America’s iconic motorcycle manufacturer, Harley-Davidson. With a history of posting annual sales losses piling up, the recession hit the Milwaukee company hard and forced it to sell off its holdings in MV Agusta closing down the Buell Motorcycle line in order to keep its [...]
Read More →
The Fastest Man on Two Wheels…Backwards Of all the ways there are to ride a motorcycle, riding backwards might well be the strangest, and I’m impressed. I have a hard time shaving in a mirror, so operating the controls of a bike in reverse must be quite a challenge. I’m not saying I won’t give [...]
Read More →
It’s brutal. You sling a leg over your bike, reach down for the key, push the starter or give it a kick and…no bueno, she does not start! There’s only one way to know why a bike won’t start, and the process begins with knowing how an engine operates. It also doesn’t hurt to know [...]
Read More →
Last weekend almost 50,000 motorcycle maniacs from around the Midwest descended on Clevelandfor the Progressive International Motorcycle Shows – and to take in the eighth round of the Ultimate Builder Custom Bike Show. Jon Shipley’s “Whiskey Bent,” which sports a copper oil tank fed by some hilland-holler country copper tubing, an antique brass headlight and [...]
Read More →
It seems that if you’re doing any kind of business these days (or just bullshooting with your pals), you already know about the phenomenon of social media. Everyone has to have a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a Tumblr page. Motorcycles have a built in appeal, but they don’t sell themselves in a marketplace [...]
Read More →
BlackSmith Motoring Co.’s ‘El Vaquero’ is proof positive that you can indeed make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Starting out life as a humble and decidedly unattractive Honda GL1000, this machine is a testament to what an ingenious custom motorcycle builder can do with the most humble of raw materials. El Vaquero [...]
Read More →
For me, motorcycles have always been about internal combustion. The aroma of gas and oil. The percussive report of an engine at full throttle. It’s the sound and vibration as much as the propulsion that makes a ride what it is – a visceral experience. Will that gut-moving experience be the same on a machine [...]
Read More →
There was once a time in the not too distant past when buying a custom motorcycle meant buying a really custom motorcycle – one distinctly tailored to the whims and wants of the rider and created specifically out of the factory for an individual rider. Al Crocker built such machines. A Crocker was built with [...]
Read More →
These road trips will help you decide where to grip the road on those ever-enticing steel-cut death machines.
Read More →
There’s one critical element that keeps you heading in your intended direction on your motorcycle – the suspension. What your motorcycle’s suspension is supposed to do is pretty simple stuff. It’s meant to absorb shock from bumps and potholes in the road or ruts out in the wild, keep the tires in contact with the [...]
Read More →