Musings from one who writes, and rides…
This article was originally published on Motorcycle.com. Photos by Randy Wilder. Forty sweaty high school kids are on a group mountain bike ride in the Fort Ord National Monument, outside Salinas, California. They don’t seem to know, or care, about the identity of the tall guy in their midst. To them, he’s just another well-meaning…
Originally published in the BMW MOA Magazine. Call me grumpy, but as the saying goes, the more people I meet, the better I like my dog. Or my motorcycle. In other words, when it comes to crowds and motorcycling, my general impulse is to go as fast as possible in the opposite direction. And so it…
Originally published on Motorcycle.com. Photos by Randy Wilder. In the pantheon of vintage motorcycle shows, the Quail Motorcycle Gathering is a little like your neighborhood block party. Part Concours d’Elegance, part custom show and part biker bash, it’s a place where a hardtail chopper with springer forks sits happily alongside an impeccable Manx Norton. Vincents, Velocettes,…
Originally published in Motorcyclist Magazine. For a someone restoring an old motorcycle, it was the most egregious sin: there, affixed to the down tubes of my lovingly reconditioned 1969 Triumph Tiger, were four, black plastic zip ties. To the cognoscenti, it was as if I had spit in Edward Turner’s eye. To the ghosts of the…
Originally appeared on Motorcycle.com. The scene repeats itself dozens of times each day. My passenger, a professional photographer named Mjrka, yells into my helmet. “Stop here, on the right!” I pull over, and he scrambles up the adjacent slope to get a better view of the oncoming Tour du Rwanda bicycle race. I wait. At first,…
Note: This article originally published on Motorcycle.com. Photos by Randy Wilder. Robb Talbott is late. We agreed to meet at the site of his forthcoming motorcycle museum in Carmel Valley, but the guy is nowhere in sight. Just then, a late-model pickup comes rattling up the drive, towing a trailer. On the back is something you…
It’s a cool June morning at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. A vintage Volkswagen bug ambles across the pits, but there’s no telltale air-cooled boxer rattle coming out the back end—only the sweet sound of an electric motor doing its thing, moving the world forward one less hydrocarbon at a time. Nearby is an assortment of…
This article was originally published in Rider magazine. I am a motorcycle commuter, and so carry the emblems of that profession: a somewhat tatty Aerostich suit, which fits neatly over my business clothes; well-worn, waterproof boots; messenger bag with laptop computer; and of course, an unerring eye for disaster. I am festooned with so much…
This article was originally published in Cycle World. Santa Cruz, California, 1969. A young man, clad only in jeans and a white T -shirt, wanders into the local Triumph motorcycle dealer with a slight swagger. Earlier that day, a beautiful, two-tone Triumph Bonneville 650 had passed him on the street. The rumble was visceral; he felt…
This article was originally published in the BMW MOA magazine. In my younger days, motorcycle adventures involved unfurling a not-so-sweet-smelling sleeping bag in the dunes, eating a UFO (Unidentified Food Object) from a rusty pot, and washing the dinnerware with river rocks. Cold hands were warmed on protruding cylinder heads. Showers were an imagined luxury,…