Hotshots

HOTSHOTS

Calamari World

PASSIONATE, I say, Passionate Italian Ducati, easy power wheelies! OMG, the other motorcycle companies better start calling emergency meetings. STUNNING Aprilia Tuono, lose your license! QUICKEST EVER Kawasaki ZX-14R! Who is going to say “to hell with it” and turn loose the horses to blast through the 186-mph gentleman’s top-speed agreement? What’s wrong with Americans? Why don’t you buy naked (giggle) bikes?

I, for one, am proud to relay to all of my tree-hugger friends that global climate change and predicted extinctions be damned, it appears that the Squid will remain a viable species as long as Cycle World continues to employ editors and writers. Robert J. (Buck) Monday Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Amen, Buck! All of us cephalopods here at Calamari World thank you for your unflinching support. And please, keep reading!

Smelly d’Elegance

Dear Mark Hoyer: As a bearded Moto Guzzi rider for 33 years and an oddball for 67,1 take offense at your B.O. slur (Moto Guzzi Norge QuickRide, June). Our national club is a diverse bunch that allows oddballs and even a few yuppies like you. Don’t worry about canceled subscriptions; most of us are pretty frugal and your rag is cheap. I’m sure your fellow champagne-sipping, flocking quails and concours d’elegancers don’t have B.O., since they trailer their cycles to their galas. Have one of your beardless friends sniff your backside after an all-day Death Valley ride, and let us know if it smells like roses. Next time, just review the bike. Tom Kelly Spring Green, Wisconsin

Fair and unbalanced

So, I re-up for another three years of your superb publication, then promptly find the June issue in my mailbox with some of the most unbalanced coverage of the motorcycle world I’ve ever read. A full test on a battery-powered bike with the intent to persuade your readership that the development of electric motorcycles should now be taken seriously? Really? For those of us with gasoline in our blood, I think there is “zero” chance of that. Are you throwing an annual “cross-bone” to the cruiser culture? Two articles on Harley-Davidson marketing philosophy plus the Softail review? Aren’t there already enough niche magazines out there about $ 15,000-plus motorcycles with poor handling, air-cooled “technology” and oversized lawnmower engines? Finally, calling a BMW scooter an “urban mobility vehicle” doesn’t make it any less uncool.

If these trends continue until my subscription expires in three years, Ell then be reading about electrically powered cruisers with continuously variable transmissions marketed to urban millenials living in “megacities.” And I’ll be riding one of my several internal-combustion dual-sport bikes into the wild solitude of open space just to escape the madness. Can Egan come along? Tom Lehman Marion, Indiana No.

I just read Marc Cook’s review of the 2012 Zero S (June), and I have to say I’m impressed! As an electric motorcycle builder, I’ve been waiting for some sign that you folks were genuinely open to the idea of bikes powered by electrons instead of dinosaurs. Marc’s review convinced me, and I just signed up for a subscription. Now what you need to do is go out and see the custom electric bikes people (like me) are building in their garages. I think we’re on the cusp of something big. Noah Podolefsky Boulder, Colorado www.gsx-e.com

Congrats on another fine issue, but I’m beginning to wonder if your flights to far-flung test tracks and stable of factory loaner bikes haven’t rendered you as far out of touch with the common man as our representatives in D.C. An ’04 Yamaha FZ1 at $3500 would be quite the price to pay toward a personal indulgence for a lot of people I know. To then turn around and more than double that by buying the laundry list of parts your article prescribes to make it “an inexpensive entree to sporttouring” and “a truly affordable machine easily maintained and upgraded” seems a little over the top. You now own a $7300 bike with 32,000 miles that’s just new enough to still have some depreciation left.

I love the sport naked bikes, and it broke my heart to sell my ’07 Honda 919 when Citibank sent my job to India. Try to remember your audience when you pen something under the guise of “affordable.” Oh, I almost forgot to add...Egan ROCKS! Dave Baird Martinsburg, West Virginia

The H-D love-hate thing

I am not a Harley hater, but The Motor Company frustrates me like no other. Swap the tins, change the colors, small wheels, big wheels, tall bars, drag bars and call it a new model. What galls me more is Victory following suit. H-D can make something really special but wishes to stay with the same old thing.

I hope one day I can buy an American bike with the latest technology and the power and comfort I crave. John Forgit West Islip, New York

The Slim needs a taller, fat 18-inch tire up front and a bit more fork, and it would be perfect. God bless Willie G. and Harley-D. Bob Martin Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

How did you ever get Willie G. out of that beret? I thought it was sewn to his head. Lenny Gehlhaus Toms River, New Jersey

More Vincent, less parking

It appears I might be in the minority here, but Vincents are and have always been fugly motorcycles. Mr. Decker took the ugly bits off and made the bike into what he wanted, the rest of us be damned. A big “good on you” to Mr. Decker.

Then, in my latest issue, I see Kalifornia continues on its downward spiral; this parking nonsense {Roundup, June) is just plain stupid! It takes me back 50-plus years ago to NYC, when it was required that there be one motorcycle per space. There was a modest demonstration in front of city hall to show how many car spaces would be freed up by letting us park perpendicular to the curb. Of course, if there was a meter and time ran out, everyone got a ticket, but it also meant that there was a bunch of us to feed the meters. Seeing proof that Darwin was right everywhere but Kalifornia made me smile a big smile, in spite of the fact that I live in Floriduh, home of political ignorance and chicanery, and infamous for motorcycle roads that have 11 turns in 318 miles (sort of the opposite of Deal’s Gap). Paul de Florio Somewhere in Florida

Lindemann codbag

Regarding the PSR 2-Up Passenger Bar {New Ideas, April): So, what does PSR stand for, Permanent Scrotal Removal? This thing looks like it’s designed to grab the whole codbag-and-Johnson package and rip it down to your knees the first time some idiot on a cell phone turns left in front of you—about once every hundred yards in my morning commute. I had to laugh at the irony of the last sentence: “The cap remains fully functional.” You’ll be lucky if you remain fully functional after your first close encounter. Crunching your junk on a sportbike tank is bad enough; getting the family jewels tangled up in this contraption at 45 mph is something I really don’t want to contemplate. M.G. Lindemann Schlaraffenland, California

Can-Am vs. Zoom-Zoom

Call me a Luddite noodlehead, but I don’t understand the Can-Am Spy der (May). It has all the disadvantages of a motorcycle coupled with all the disadvantages of a car. Seems to me the similarly priced Mazda Miata is a more sporting vehicle. It is only half a second slower in the quarter mile but offers better braking and slalom performance, superior avoidance maneuverability and similar fuel consumption (all according to Consumer Reports). For the money saved on tires and tune-ups, the driver can buy a V-Twin soundtrack and the entire “bad biker chick” uniform including beanie helmet. Bette Janair Palo Alto, California

Blame the brain cells

Egan’s “To Café or Not to Café” hit a soft spot. Can’t understand why anyone would take a perfectly nice stock bike and mod it for café or any other reason? Well, many nerves (or brain cells) were shot years ago; that’s why I turboed my ’72 sohc 750 Honda and turned my stock ’70 Triumph TR6R into an ARD-mag, twinMikuni-carbed, straight-piped, smokebelching TT Special. There are 10 others currently, nary a one stock. As Egan said, “Every time I turn my workshop lights on now, it’s like Christmas morning.” So true, so true. Tim Tewksbury Santa Rosa, California

After reading Egan’s June column, I had to smile. I and friends in Seattle and rural Ohio purchased three nearly identical Honda XL350s last fall. Two of them are becoming café bikes, the third a CT350

trail machine. Words like “correct” and “original” rarely appear in our e-mails or conversations. Still, XL350s are not Honda Fours, and I have felt that tug of restoration with several of my bikes in the past. I rationalize my desecration by remembering that every one that goes under the saw, torch and aftermarket parts catalog makes those that remain in an unmolested state a little more scarce and, dare I say, collectible. Wilma Dyer Canon City, Colorado

Egan says, keep cutting, you re boosting his resale value.

Jonesina for more sensitivity

I was disappointed by the references to Jesus (“Riding With Jesus and Three Other Racing Gods”) in the article by Peter Jones in the June issue. Comparing an aging Italian motorcycle racer to the person who is the cornerstone of our Christian faith is inappropriate and degrading. I would have hoped for a higher level of professionalism and sensitivity from a magazine that I have subscribed to for years, but sadly, that is not the case. Alan Douglas Ulster, Pennsylvania

Slideways in Georgia

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Someone actually published an article about the most exciting motorcycle racing out there: speedway. I was first exposed to it at Champion Speedway in Owego, New York, in the ’80s. I don’t understand why there aren’t more tracks. Once you see speedway, you’ll be hooked. Bob Nutting Atlanta, Georgia

I coulda had a V8

The V8 Guzzi! Once again, Kevin Cameron has offered up technical bliss (“Otto Cilindri,” June). For we, the Guzzisti, the only gripe could be the ubiquitous magazine spine separating the magnificent exploded diagram as well as the faired bike itself. What a poster these two images would make hanging in the garage over my V7. Thanks, Kevin, excellent article. Bill Stuart St. Augustine, Florida

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