Issue:
July/August 2005

Text:
Chris Myers

Photography:
Christian Neuhauser

Pages:
78 - 85

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They're coming at us from every direction, giant machines with colossal motors capable of shaking walls in the next county and undoing even the best dentist's precision work. Nowadays, one cylinder in a V-twin engine coming from the Far East substantially out-ccs my first two street bikes combined. Making it's way from the "old country," there's a massive inline three-cylinder engine that feels and sounds like it spent a previous life winning the Battle of Britain. Right here in America, you don't have to go any further than your cable box to see in head-to-cylinder-head competitions any number of custom bike builders who are banging, bending, chopping, and torching steel behemoths to insane lengths that bring in truly insane numbers followed by zeros to the shop's bottom line.

Has the collective motorcycle world lost its mind? Are we destined to sell our homes and all of our worldly possessions just so we can own the latest piece of rolling art created by a garage full of guys screaming at one another in a fashion that resembles a domestic disturbance on "Cops" more than anything else? In a word, no – not everyone needs bigger bikes with even bigger price tags to have bigger fun. For most of us, riding is not about winning an AMA championship or having the baddest of badass bikes at the bar. No, for the majority of riders the experience is all about waking up early on a day off and heading off into the sunrise to look for the ever-elusive perfect back road or just a familiar valley or lake shining in a different light. If that sounds like your type of riding, read on....