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The Writing On The Wall
Our life is but a blip in the expanse of time and tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. Money, fame, and millions of Facebook or Instagram followers will not buy anyone an extra day. God decides that. It made me reflect on how I would end the sentence on the board. If I had the chalk, what would I write? Years after taking the picture, I know the answer.
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Wet and Wild in Wisconsin
MotoAmerica rolled into the famed 4-mile racetrack known as Road America in Elkhart Lake over the weekend, with a full slate of exciting races across seven(!) classes on Saturday and Sunday. What ensued would be counted among the fiercest competition of the season thus far. But nothing could hold a candle to what went down in the Medallia Superbike class both days
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MotoAmerica Brings The Heat To COTA
It was a hot one both on and off the track at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. With temperatures at 104 degrees on Thursday, 106 on Friday, 102 on Saturday, and 99 on Sunday, teams, riders, staff, and fans tried to keep cool while enjoying the action. Conditions were tough on the riders with a lot of sticky rubber laid down on the track.
Wayward Sons
Close your eyes and visualize Oregon. What does your mind see? Picturesque lighthouses standing watch on jagged coastlines? Liberal urbanites of Portland? Westward expansion along the Oregon Trail? Tall timber forests full of battling loggers and protesters?No matter what your mind’s eye sees, you are both right and wrong. True, Oregon is all of those things but there is, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.
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Dunlop Roadsmart IV vs. Michelin Road 6: Dry Handling Comparison
For the second year in a row, Road Dirt will be pitting two tire giants against each other in a head-to-head battle for sport touring tire supremacy. Last year, Dunlop’s Roadsmart IV easily won the test over Pirelli’s Angel GT with better dry handling, equal wet weather grip, better long term handling and a shocking 70% more tire life. Conversations with riders and comments from both of my readers asked about Michelins touring giant, the Road 6. So once again, I twisted the arm of my touring companion Dave “White Girl” Wensveen and convinced him to join me for another summer of testing.
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Goodbye Dale, And Thank You
I got word that Dale Walksler, the founder and president of the wonderful Wheels Through Time Museum in Maggie Valley, Tennessee, passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. Dale was 69 years old. The news struck me hard, as several of us Road Dirt guys were just up there back in September, touring this famous museum of American motorcycling. I’ve visited the museum 5-6 times since they first opened in 2002, and have always marveled at not only the vast collection of American motorcycle history they have amassed, but how every bike in the collection actually runs. Yet best of all was Dale’s personal touch. Until his health prevented it, Dale was often out on the floor, meeting patrons and discussing bikes, history, great rides and fond memories, a precedent the rest of their staff continues to practice. Wheels Through Time truly is, “The Museum That Runs.”
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BSA Motorcycles Debuts 2022 Gold Star 650
Finally, the wait is over. About this time last year, we wrote about the news that Mahindra Group in India had bought the rights to the BSA brand, and would be producing them in the UK. They just pulled the wraps off their debut model a day ahead of “Motorcycle Live 2021” in England. BSA sneak-previewed their all-new Gold Star 650 at England’s National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham before the Motorcycle Live event at the NEC, the first in a series of motorcycles the brand plans to bring to market in the coming year(s).
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Searching For America- It’s Not About The Roads
I had a new mission. My crusade was to seek the American ideal of love for our fellow countrymen everywhere I rode. The quest took me three weeks, covered eight states and over 4,000 miles. What I found brought joy, pain, and changed how I ride and write forever. All because of a quilt show in the small hamlet of High Plains.
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Dunlop RoadSmart IV vs Michelin Road 6- Long Term Handling Test
New tires are a gift to motorcycle handling, fresh rubber turning your bike into a dance partner with nimble feet and newfound agility. Yet tires do not stay perfectly round for long as accumulated miles flatten rubber eliminating the roundness of honeymoon handling bliss. Much of a tire’s life is spent squared off and how a tire handles at mid-life is a concern of many rider.
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Time The Gods Do Not Count
Such is the passage of time, the dreadful metronome plowing forward keeping its pace, measuring out our remaining days toward our end. Time is uniform for every soul; a day, is a day, is a ticking away day. God tracks our days, life’s invisible odometer set from the beginning to expire at a mileage unknown to us. Who is able to stop the meter of time? There is no ceasing it, no killing the march, no rolling back of life’s odometer avoiding our conclusion.
But there is a way to pause it, to ever so briefly suspend the turning of life’s odometer. God cannot be tricked, but there is a part of time He does not count against us. It came to me in a river.
Slow Bike Fast
Deposited like an ambulance delivering two terminally ill patients, a pair of ancient Honda Trial 90s were dropped off in front of my house silently; no fanfare, no excitement, no hurry or joy, unloaded quietly, then slowly rolled into my garage, their future operating room. Last licensed and running when President Clinton was entangled with Monica Lewinsky they languished outside for dozens of years worth of northwest sub-zero temps and triple digit heat. Decrepit and decaying, my job was to get them running. I promised their owner I could. I opened my mouth again.
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