friends

Our plan was grand: my cousin and riding buddy Dave “White Girl” Wensveen and I would tour Yellowstone, Beartooth Pass and Glacier National Park in one giant sweep, gathering them all like kids plucking pastel eggs from the green grass on Easter morning. We crammed White Girl’s Dodge diesel pickup camper full of provisions, stowed our twin VFR800s in the trailer and pointed the Dodge’s hood east. Things went wrong as soon as we left the driveway.

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

by Rob Brooks | Mar 17, 2021 | Ride Life | 6 |

I’ve parted company with my beloved “Bertha” after nearly two decades. I feel as though I’ve sold out my best friend. You’ve heard of “buyer’s regret”? I think I’m feeling “seller’s remorse”. And yet, deep down, I know it was time. The older I get, the heavier that bike feels. The more years and miles she accumulates, the more attention she needs- old parts need replacing, more tune-ups are necessary, more tightening and wrenching is required. For someone not very mechanically inclined, this would eventually become a challenge.

Sisters Of Fire

by Ted Edwards | Aug 5, 2020 | Rides & Roads | 0 |

Residents of the Pacific Northwest live in a blissful stupor, either unaware of or ignoring the alluring assassins surrounding them. Going directly down the heart of Washington State like a slashing knife wound bleeding lava is a line of volcanoes, part of the Pacific Ring Of Fire called the Cascade Volcanic Arc.

Skool of Moto

by Ted Edwards | Jul 20, 2020 | Nuts & Bolts, Ride Life, Rides & Roads | 13 |

It’s Independence Day, a Saturday, and students are in school. But the four students attending summer school were not lackluster performers or behavior problems, nor are they being forced to attend against their will.
Quite the opposite. They paid to come here, some traveling thousands of miles to attend. Even more unusual, the curriculum at this school involves clutch control, lofting the front wheel and monkey lifts. All of them, including the instructor and her support staff, are female.
Welcome to Skool of Moto.

Confessions of an Old Hooligan, pt. 1

by Rob Brooks | Jun 8, 2020 | Ride Life | 6 |

My brothers and I grew up in the house of a master mechanic. In the garage behind our home, there was always an automobile up on jacks, a motorcycle or two to the side, and enough extra bike parts hanging from pegs on the wall to practically build another. Accompanying all the machinery, there were stories in abundance. One would never know it by observing this stooped, white haired, soft-spoken senior chap, but in his younger years, Dad was a hooligan, a 50s greaser (think “Fonz” from the old “Happy Days” sitcom. I’m not exaggerating), even a bit of a renegade during his overseas stint in the USAF. Even now as he recounts these stories to me, some I’m hearing for the first time, I can see that glint of mischief in his eyes, as memory carries him back to those heady days of his youth and young adulthood. Here’s a few of my favorites, in his own words-