Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

As a sport-tourer the big Honda worked pretty well, at least for my particular tastes. It has a big, 7.4-gallon fuel tank, for 250-plus miles between fill-ups, a wonderfully comfortable seat for both pilot and passenger, and— best of all— genuinely tall gearing. It purrs along at a relaxed, 3000 rpm at sixty miles per hour. At a mere 4,000 rpm, it's going eighty.
As for shortcomings, the ST has a windshield that at certain speeds generates helmet-level turbulence, with a whorl that carries cold air down the rider's
back and— by extension— down the passenger's front.
The ST is also quite heavy at 700 pounds (with fuel). Though like a lot of big Hondas, it disguises its weight well. Without working too hard, we were able to stay with a gaggle of well-mounted sport bike guys who thought they were dragging their knees in corners. In short, the ST is a nice bike for people whose touring tastes lie somewhere between Goldwing conservatism and race bike masochism, which is probably a lot of people. In fact, I'm one.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p71

[Biggles]

At the visitors' centre, people were pulling into the parking lot in motor homes and air-conditioned cars, some opening cans of cold soda, walking up to the hilltop in their usual tourist attire— Bermuda shorts, Reeboks, the ubiquitous Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirts, Disneywear, etc.
Suddenly, for reasons more intuitive than rational, I was very glad we'd arrived at the battlefield on a motorcycle.
It seemed somehow more fitting to have ridden four days through cold, heat, and rain to get there; to be wearing boots and leather jackets and clothing with a purpose; to have the soles of our boots still damp from yesterdays downpour; to be wind-burned, saddle sore, and a little dusty. It didn't seem quite right to step out of a motor home, open a soft drink, and walk 300 feet to the spot where Custer and his men died in the terrible heat and dust on a June morning 115 years ago. The ease of the act was mildly disquieting.
It wasn't realistic or possible to arrive as the cavalry and Indians had, after gruelling weeks on horseback, but a motorcycle was at least a semi-legitimate modern counterpart. It made one's arrival seem more sympathetic to the spirit of the place.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p83-4

[Biggles]

Essentially, what the public does not like is fast bikes, and 100 horsepower has become the bogey, the place in the mind where others begin having too much fun or behaving too dangerously.
Never mind that there has never been any link made between horsepower and motor accidents. In fact, some insurance studies have shown an inverse relationship, probably because young, inexperienced motorcyclists can seldom afford big, powerful bikes. I've been riding for twenty-nine years, and the causes of near accidents have always been the same: sand on corners, wet leaves, car turning left, following too closely, passing too late. None of my close calls had anything do with horsepower. I had exactly the same threats to good health on my Honda CB160 as I have now on my Ducati 900SS. More, in fact, because I was less experienced.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p101

[Biggles]

Why am I saying all this?
Well, to paraphrase Will Rogers, I never met a horsepower I didn't like.
Horsepower gets us around trucks right now, livens acceleration in uphill sweepers, allows us to carry a passenger and luggage without diminished elan, tugs (or, better yet, yanks) gratifyingly on the arms when we pass the city limits sign. Horsepower is fun. And it has not escaped my notice over the years that, within my own small, ever-changing motorcycle stable, I have tended to favour those bikes with power over those that were lacking it. Once I bought my KZ1000, my CB750 Honda went almost unridden. One weekend on a BMW R100RS bike caused me to trade in my sweet-running but docile R80 for the bigger Boxer. The new generation of more powerful Ducatis quickly seduced me away from my favourite bevel-drive Duck. The new BMW K1100RS I rode last week is much nicer than the old K100RS, and people are constantly trading in their 883 Sportsters on 1200s or big twins. They almost never, ever, go the other direction.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p103

[Biggles]

There are times, I suppose, when loud pipes do notify car drivers of your presence— during a pass, for instance, or in those states where you are allowed to split lanes. But it has been my observation that a sudden, loud exhaust note usually just causes an unaware driver to swerve or make some other erratic manoeuvre, and leaves that hapless individual with a vague sense of having been mugged. I don't know if sonic shock waves make a pass any safer. What loud pipes mostly do is make the public madder than an over-turned anthill on a hot day.
When a motorcycle annoys or shocks them, they compose imaginary (or real) letters to their senators and representatives and daily newspapers demanding that motorcycles obey the same noise laws as cars. Eventually, this legislation gets passed, and our new motorcycles are so quiet we can't hear them at all.
Meanwhile, manufacturers are forced to develop water-cooled, heavily shrouded engines so they can eliminate the last audible trace of piston slap, gear whine, intake noise, and valve clatter from a bike that may soon be roaring around with its mufflers off. Logic and good sense are once more defeated.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p104

[Biggles]

Everybody drives. But not everybody rides a motorcycle. There's a finer focus here; thousands are eliminated from the sport by timidity, incompetence, or— most often— simple lack of interest. So those who participate automatically become members of a relatively small club.
Probably the best known historical figure to have been a motorcycle buff is T. E. Lawrence. He had the unfortunate distinction, of course, of being killed on his Brough Superior, but it was not such a bad end to a dashing life. Though he was also an avid bicyclist and an aviation devotee, Lawrence's most impassioned descriptions of machinery and the joy of speed are dedicated to motorcycling, mostly in a few great passages from his oft-quoted book, The Mint.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p127

[Biggles]

Besides writers, and the random anomalous capitalist such as Malcolm Forbes, most of motorcycling's celebrity exponents seem to have come from showbiz. We've had Clark Gable, Robert Young, Keenan Wynn, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Lee Marvin, Elvis, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Duane Allman, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, the Carradine brothers, and many others revealed to the public as riders whose enthusiasm goes beyond movie screen or the recording studio. And then there's Steve McQueen. When I was in high school, McQueen made bike ownership seem almost a requirement, like breathing.
Currently, Jay Leno is probably the celebrity best known to the general public as a motorcycle nut. As such, he may have done more good than the Honda 50 to convince the American population that motorcycling is fun and enjoyable ("If Jay likes bikes...").
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p128

[Biggles]

Besides writers, and the random anomalous capitalist such as Malcolm Forbes, most of motorcycling's celebrity exponents seem to have come from showbiz. We've had Clark Gable, Robert Young, Keenan Wynn, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Lee Marvin, Elvis, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Duane Allman, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, the Carradine brothers, and many others revealed to the public as riders whose enthusiasm goes beyond movie screen or the recording studio. And then there's Steve McQueen. When I was in high school, McQueen made bike ownership seem almost a requirement, like breathing.
Currently, Jay Leno is probably the celebrity best known to the general public as a motorcycle nut. As such, he may have done more good than the Honda 50 to convince the American population that motorcycling is fun and enjoyable ("If Jay likes bikes...").
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p128

[Biggles]

Not only has the downward slide been arrested, says Yamaha, but the boomers are exhibiting a trend that apparently has never before been seen in the entire history of the whole world: They are becoming more active as they get older, rather than less.
Traditionally, fifty to sixty-year-olds have slowed down, growing more comfortable and complacent, not to say doddering, buying cardigan sweaters, baggy pants with a scosh more room, etc.
But not the boomers. No way.
We (I am one, after all) are apparently behaving like agitated air molecules in an overheated laboratory flask, bouncing off the walls. As a group we are getting fitter, spending more time outdoors, and blowing more of our income on canoes, parachutes, mountain bikes, skis, and motorcycles. For the time being, at least, it appears we are going to boogie 'til we drop.
Good for us, I say.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p136-7

[Biggles]

I know this sounds ridiculously superstitious, and I am not trying to imbue simple nuts and bolts with some kind of foggy New Age mysticism. But just as some dogs can sense fear in their adversaries, I swear an old British bike can sense patronizing approval. Especially if its not backed up with the required hours of meticulous maintenance. Even a trace of sloppy sentiment turns the bike instantly into a lightning rod for trouble.
We call them British bikes, but in a sense they aren't British at all. They are Greek, in the classic dramatic sense, like the men and gods in Homer. Beautiful, spirited, heroic, flawed, and full of fateful games that measure hubris against honour and seek to test our tenacity and sense of adventure.
They are here to see what we are made of, not to be our friends.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p163

[Biggles]

Suddenly, while we were cruising through the town of Fort Atkinson, only about eighteen miles from home, Tom waved us all over to the side of the road. "That corner back there looked like a nice spot," he said. "What say we stop for a beer or some coffee?"
I looked back over my shoulder at the bar and then at the road ahead. I was struck absolutely speechless for a moment. Finally my brain and jaw kicked in. "Sure," I said reluctantly, "why not?"
The problem was, I'd never done such a thing. One of my longtime bad habits as a touring motorcyclist has been to get "homing instinct" toward the end of a long trip. This is where you put the hammer down and blow off the last day (or two) of your ride so you can get back to the old homestead. No long lunches, scenic overlooks, or detours on side roads. Just twist that grip and go.
I have no idea why I do this. After a long midwestern winter spent dreaming about long rides, you'd expect a person to savour every mile and delay the end of a trip as long as possible, but it seldom works that way for me. Or at least it didn't until Tom brought me to my senses. I sat in the bar that day and vowed to do better, and since then I've been at least partially successful, if not fully reformed.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p185

[Biggles]

You learn many things at a track session, but I've always thought the most valuable gift of the racetrack is faith in your tires. Every year that I don't ride on the track, my cornering lean angle gets about two degrees more upright and I start to forget just how hard you can lean on a good set of modern motorcycle tires.
The track brings it all back into focus. This renewed insight doesn't necessarily make you ride faster on the street, but it lets you ride more safely because you have a better sense of how much traction is left in reserve. And there's usually a lot more than you think.
Most of the crashes I've seen over the years (or almost had myself) have stemmed from a simple lack of belief. Halfway through a botched corner the rider says, "I can't get out of this," and subsequently gives up and crashes, as if surrendering to fate.
Track time makes you believe in your tires again. Especially the unused, shiny parts, with those little rubber bristles on them.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p199

[Biggles]

The problem was, I'd just dumped a full gallon of gasoline into the tank of a newly acquired green 1973 Honda CB350G and I'd forgotten these things have underslung cross-over hoses to equalize the fuel level in both sides of the tank. This one was disconnected, so fuel was spewing all over the place.
And I, like that famous Dutch boy, was trying to reach under the tank and plug the dyke with two fingers on the spigots. Meanwhile, gasoline gushed over the bike and down the insides of my coverall sleeves, flowing into a huge puddle that spread ominously in all directions, like the dark borders of Fascism in one of those old World War II documentaries.
As I knelt in the fuel, looking in all directions for something to plug the tank, my overhead workshop furnace kicked in, igniting the propane with the
usual loud WHOMP!
This was not good.
What would my friends at the funeral say? Probably, "What was he thinking?"
To which the terrible answer would be, "Apparently, nothing."
Acting decisively, I lifted the unlocked motorcycle seat with my chin and wrenched the entire tank off the bike, tilting the fuel away from the outlets. I ran outside with the tank and opened the garage doors to lean out the fumes in my workshop, which was running a little rich, you might say.
Fifteen minutes later, I had the floor cleaned and everything back in order. No fire. Saved again.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p221

[Biggles]

"I don't know," I admitted, glancing self-consciously at my other five bikes.
"Gotta get one," he said. "A full-fairing SP, just like this. Your assignment, Egan," he said with mock Mission Impossible gravity, "is to help me find one." So that afternoon I called my pal Mike Mosiman in Fort Collins, Colorado. Mike is a motorcycle addict who spends more time on the Internet searching for motorcycle bargains than most people spend breathing. "We need an SP," I told him.
Mike called back fifteen minutes later and said, "Okay, I got on the 'net and found you a nice one in Cleveland. A '96 SP with only 4,000 miles; rejetted, sprocket, high Ferracci pipes. Owner sounds like a nice guy, says it's immaculate and wants around $6,000 for it."
I passed along this information to Jim, and the next day he called me back. "Want to go to Cleveland with me this weekend and pick up a Ducati?" he asked.
"Sure," I said, "sounds like fun."
"Oh, by the way, can we take your van?"
"Sure," I said. "Do you need anything else? Shoes or anything?
"No, just your van, and some help loading the bike. I have shoes."
So we drove to Cleveland, picked up the bike (immaculate, as represented), and stayed overnight near Toledo on the way home. Jim bought me dinner at a Mexican restaurant and we toasted his rebirth as a motorcyclist with a couple of Margaritas.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p231

[Biggles]

Dirt Bike Incentive No. 3, you might say, is anecdotal. In the past year I've had at least four acquaintances tell me their dual-sport bikes, originally purchased for trail riding, have gradually become their favourite streetbikes, by virtue of their light weight, simplicity, and nimbleness. So, fully spring-loaded to acquire a dual-sport, I walked into our local Suzuki/Honda/Yamaha shop just before Christmas (always a good, selfless place to look for gifts for the whole family) and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a leftover blue 2001 Suzuki DR650, marked down $700 in an end-of-season blowout sale. One of a handful of finalists I'd been considering.
Alas, the dealership also had a leftover DR-Z400S— another of my favourites— on sale at almost exactly the same price.
So here was a real quandary. On one hand, the DR-Z would be a much lighter (by thirty-three pounds) and nimbler dirt bike, but the DR650, with its big torquey motor, slightly wider seat— and lower seat height— might make a better blaster for the wide-open sections of Baja and the back roads of Wisconsin.
In the end, I came down on the side of the slightly better roadability of the 650. So, with Mrs. Claus' approval, I handed a bank check to my salesman friend Tym Williams just before closing time on Christmas Eve and trailered the bike home smack dab in the middle of the first real snowstorm of the season.
But a week later the snow melted, and our strange, on-again/off-again winter of 2002 continued. Since then, I've sneaked in three weekend rides on the DR. No dirt time yet (the turf is still frozen solid, and I want to get some DOT knobbies on the bike), but lots of miles on narrow, winding pavement strewn with loose sand and gravel. Lots of dead-end farm roads full of pot-holes and dirt. Places I would never explore on most streetbikes.
The DR works beautifully on these rough old rural roads, but what's more enlightening is how much I'm enjoying it on clean, normal pavement. Smooth, torquey, and fast, it cruises easily between seventy and eighty miles per hour and flicks through corners effortlessly. Amazing what light weight, narrowness, and wide handlebars will do for you.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p237-8

[Biggles]

I have found that cars, unless they are old and funky (MG TC) or very high performance (Ferrari), or both (Cobra, E-Type Jag), tend to dull our memories of travel, while motorcycles amplify them and etch them clearly in our minds.
Some years ago, I wrote a column about overnight lodgings and noted that I had never forgotten a campsite nor clearly remembered a motel room. Exposure to weather nearly always sharpens our perceptions. Likewise, I can still remember the two years I spent in the army, almost minute by minute, because much of it was hard and challenging— and mostly outdoors. But the earlier years I spent in school have been largely reduced in my memory to a handful of highlights and low points.
Road travel is like that, too. What we call luxury is sometimes nothing more than the absence of sensation. Too much ease becomes a sort of opiate. Feels good, but you forget where you are. And where you've been.
Which is all a long-winded way of saying I'm glad Barb talked me out of taking the Buick. Next year, however, I might take the Aerostich suit and wire up my electric vest. In humans, unlike computers, there is such a thing as too much memory.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p262

[Biggles]

He grew up in a well-to-do family in Mexico City, falling in love with motorcycles and American rock 'n' roll at an early age. An outstanding drummer right from the beginning, he worked with a series of nationally famous and well-paid Mexican rock bands, and immediately went out and bought himself a Triumph Bonneville after seeing Marlon Brando in The Wild One. He writes, "... Just as rock music had become an instant passion for me, I realized that motorcycling was going to be a part of my life forever. I was jazzed, I actually slept next to the bike for the first few nights."
Old Triumphs, however, did not remain a part of his life forever. The Bonneville— his only transportation— broke down so often he frequently missed gigs, and it also affected his love life: "My dates often ended with angry, oil-splattered girls snarling at me by the roadside."
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p287-8

[Biggles]

Last spring, I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, an unpleasant little virus whose eradication requires six months of injections and pills that make you too queasy and tired to do much but lie on the sofa and stare at the ceiling.  As of this writing, I have five weeks of this delightful treatment left and, though the prognosis is good, the past summer was an almost total write-off for motorcycling. I was simply too tired and dizzy to ride most of the time. I took a few short rides into town, but didn't have the stamina to go very far.
If you look carefully at the sofa where I spent the summer, however, you will note that it is surrounded by stacks of motorcycle magazines, sales brochures, U.S. road atlases, and maps of Europe, England, and Mexico.
Somewhere in the pile is a book about the Isle of Man...  I may not have ridden much this summer— a few hundred miles total, on the handful of days when I felt okay— but I have lived what is possibly the richest imaginary motorcycle life since my days in Vietnam. Never have I had so many plans.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p298

[Biggles]

I cruised over to one of our two local Honda shops last weekend to take a look at a used red 2001 Honda VFR800 they have for sale. It's very clean, with about 8,500 miles on the clock.
I must admit to a weakness for this generation VFR, even though I've steered away from four-cylinder bikes in recent years, generally preferring the torque and personality of twins. But there is something in the sizzle and snap of that Honda V-four I find quite soulful.
Nevertheless, I'm still at the mulling and pondering phase, looking around at other bikes as well. It's a long winter, and what else have we got to do here in Wisconsin? If you think of anything else, besides drinking Guinness and watching the V-Four Victory Isle of Man video, send me a card.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p302

[Biggles]

Anyway, as I drove home from the dealership, it dawned on me that I had checked the VFR's digital odometer, duly noted the mileage, and dismissed that 8,500 miles as a piffling trifle, hardly worth the mention.
Eighty-five hundred miles a trifle? That's almost three full transcontinental crossings of the United States.
Yet the VFR is only about halfway to its first valve adjust. The O-ringed chain is still fine, and the bike looks clean enough to put back on the showroom floor
as a new leftover. It's had one set of new tires, four oil changes, and that's its total service history.
As a guy who cut his teeth (and often his hands) on the bikes of the early 1960s, I find this sort of durability to be one of the biggest changes seen in
motorcycling during my interminable, yet fleeting lifetime. Motorcycle engines have gotten so good now, we almost think of them as sealed units. We still change oil and adjust valves once in a while, but very few people feel compelled to buy a complete shop manual with a new street-bike any more. Imminent replacement of crank bearings or valve guides is not really in the picture.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p302-3

[Biggles]

I have done restorations on two Triumph twins and one Ducati single from the 1960s, all of them (curiously) with almost exactly 12,000 miles showing, and they all needed serious engine work. Both Triumphs had worn-out valve guides, valves, pistons, rings, rod bearings, primary chains, sprockets, and clutch baskets at that mileage. The Ducati had not been as hard on its own internals as the Triumphs, but it still needed cylinder-head work, and it had more electrical glitches than the Baghdad telephone exchange.
The point here is, all of them were disassembled and laid out on my workbench before they'd reached 13,000 miles. Or 3,000 miles before that modern VFR needs its first valve check. Japanese bikes, particularly Hondas, were the force of change that raised everybody's expectations. They were oil-tight, civilized, easy to live with, and fast for their displacement. Critics (including me) pointed out that they were disposable consumer goods, generally not worth rebuilding once you wore them out, but you still got about three Triumph, Ducati, or Harley engine-rebuild lifetimes out of them before they had to be tossed. In the meantime, you had a lot of fun riding around and stayed out of the garage.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p303

[Biggles]

That rugged, air-cooled appeal also holds true for another bike I think is an unsung budget classic, the Suzuki DR650— which, like the XR400, has been with us since 1996. It's on about the same adventure-tourer/fire road wavelength as the KLR650, but is a little more dirt-oriented and not quite as posh on the highway. It also has a smaller gas tank and doesn't come with a luggage rack, but it has a higher level of fit and finish than the KLR and is a bit more agile. Also, the motor is wonderful, torquey yet willing to rev, and has a nice snap to it.
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p309-10

[Biggles]

There are no self-service gas stations at this point; the only people who pump their own fuel are employees or owners of service stations. I'm nineteen years old and have never operated a gas pump. Bob would be offended if I tried, and it would be taken as a rude demonstration of impatience, like going behind the counter to bag your own popcorn at a movie theatre. It just isn't done.
I remove the gas cap and Bob carefully tips the nozzle into the Honda tank. "All done with college for the year?" he asks, and in the time it takes to say that, the tank is full. Bob peers into the tank and back at the pump and looks baffled. The bike has taken a tick over .7 of a gallon, and the pump says I owe twenty-three cents.
"When did you fill this up last?" he asks.
"Yesterday afternoon, in Madison."
"You really went ninety miles on twenty-three cents worth of gas?"
"I guess I did," I reply, feeling somewhat guilty for making Bob come out of the station to pump so little fuel.
"That's well over a hundred miles per gallon," he says. "More like one-twenty something..."
"Yeah, I guess that's right," I say, nodding in solemn commiseration. I take two dimes and three pennies out of my blue jeans pocket and hand them to Bob. It doesn't feel like a fair exchange for two hours of carefree motoring on a beautiful spring morning.
Bob hefts these tiny, almost weightless coins in the palm of his hand and looks at the Honda. "Well," he says, "I hope they don't make too many more of those things."
Leanings 2  Peter Egan p312

[Biggles]

Some speed then, not a lot, and the bike unstable because of design and the short bars, but some speed, and when the mufflers came off and the exhaust was cut and tuned, more speed. No helmet then— nobody wore them— and there was some carnage but it was in some strange way acceptable. Jimmy Tort died when he flipped after hitting gravel, crushed his head like an egg. That's how they always said it, how we always said it: "Crushed his head like an egg." He wasn't wearing a helmet. Carl Kantine died when he leaned too far and snagged a foot peg, crushed his head like an egg.
Good way to die, we said, and, insanely, meant it.
Zero To Sixty  Gary Paulson p13

[Biggles]

I felt strange but in some way whole. It was like an extension of my body, and I cradled down in blue steel and leather and chrome and sat that way for a time, perhaps a full minute, and let the bike become part of me. I know how that sounds but it was true. I would meet hundreds of men and four women who owned Harleys and they all said the same— that the bike became an extension, took them, held them.
This is one hell of a long way, I thought, from clothespinning playing cards on the fork of a bicycle to get the sound of a motor when the spokes clipped them, but it had all started then. The track from that first rattling-slap noise in the spokes led inevitably to here, to me sitting on this Harley, sure and straight as any law in physics.
I turned the key, reached down and pulled the choke out to half a click, made sure the bike was in neutral, took a breath and let it half out, like shooting an M1 on the range. Then I touched the starter button with my thumb.
Zero To Sixty  Gary Paulson p34