Chronicles
A Softail Standard takes on Laguna Seca
While trying to keep up with a group of metrics through some back road twisties, you find out biking is more than cruising, that your Harley was designed for more than freeway riding, and that it's time to sign up for track lessons. I know you've ridden to Sturgis but think of your loved ones, think of Christopher Reeves, go on, take the course –...
Group Riding
Sharing the experience of the road, the companionship and camaraderie make riding with others a great deal of fun. And if you do it right, it's safer than riding alone: a group of riders is more difficult for a dozing driver to miss than a single bike. Yet if you get it wrong, it can be downright dangerous. Just like riding in traffic, the goal of...
Crossing the Delaware
The Delaware River was treacherous with ice on Christmas night 1776 when General George Washington led 2,500 Continental Army soldiers across in small boats during a snowstorm. A bold and dangerous mission, but one that quickly led to a stunning victory over the British and Hessian soldiers occupying Trenton, New Jersey, it revived the morale of a nascent...
Getting Ready for Europe Riding
Some choose to bungee jump, extreme ski, fly ultra-lights or skydive. However you get your thrills, there is one experience that any real motorcyclist should not miss. In September 2004, 20 others and I rode the Alps of Austria and Italy with RoadRUNNER publisher Christian Neuhauser, his brother Daniel, and senior staff member Mike Miller. Having lived...
The Alps and Dolomites: Curves, Curves, Curves
Riding up to another set of hairpin switchbacks, the fifth or sixth mountain pass we've climbed today – OK, now, focus on the road...set up for that right- hand switch back, downshift, look up the road...no cars coming...drift to the outside curve, look through the curve, lean...lean...lean more...nailed the apex. OK, roll on the throttle...easy...up...
Boston
Boston's biking community is a healthy, vibrant scene. Nary a summer weekend passes without a charity ride or rally to choose from, and although the seasons work against us, a little cold weather keeps but a few from a day in the saddle. Perhaps the blood of the hearty Yankees who settled the region still runs through the veins of its riders....
1971 BSA 750cc Rocket 3 - Rocket Science
When BSA re-launched the 750cc Rocket 3 in 1971, they created an outrageously impractical motorcycle. The factory painted the frame "dove grey," a kind of pale taupe that showed dirt like your mom's white gloves. The tiny gas tank held 2.5 U.S. gallons, giving the thirsty triple a range of around 70 miles. The front brake (the BSA/Triumph group twin...
Kansas City
It is still dark outside when my watch alarm starts ringing. By five, the whole family in the car, we're turning out of the driveway for the Midwest where we'll take a scooter tour of Kansas City. The clan arrives after a boring 12-hour drive: the only highlight being Florian's sighting of the Oscar Mayer WienerMobile™. He is still talking about...
The King's Castle
A young couple living from job to job and paycheck to paycheck bore twin sons in Tupelo, Mississippi, on January 8, 1935. Gladys Love Smith Presley and Vernon Elvis Presley lived in a small, two-room house when the twins were born – the first died at birth, the second was named Elvis Aaron Presley. In 1957, Elvis purchased what is now the most...
The Leather Boys
Calling the experience a "rite of passage" might be overstating the case a bit, but watching The Leather Boys for the first time was certainly a watershed in my teenage years. I was thirteen, though able to pass for older, and motorcycle-mad when The Leather Boys hit the big screen in 1963. The movie had received an "X" certificate from the British...
