This Bike Sucks
THIS BIKE SUCKS
IGNITION
BIKE LIFE
A PRINCESS LOOKING FOR THE PEA
PETER JONES
It’s a dangerous job, that of a motorcycle journalist. Dangerous from both behind the handlebars and in front of the keyboard. And I’m not just talking about forgetting to turn off the blinker or mixing metaphors.
The biggest risk a motojournalist faces is in being evaluated for how he or she evaluates. It’s difficult to manage the course between conflicts of interest and reasonable judgment while trying to be fair, meaningful, and salient. One needs to inspire the reader but not unjustifiably insult bike makers, and a motojournalist must actually say something about something. Damning with faint praise is spineless, but using the word “sucks” is just plain mean. Plus, using that word is also an admission of being illiterate. It does, however, wake everyone up.
Readers might have doubting suspicions when evaluating journalists because it’s a motojournalist’s job to evaluate products that, by economic necessity, are manufactured by the same companies that purchase the advertising that supports the efforts to evaluate those products. This is a conflict of interest. An evaluation of a product manufactured by an advertiser is a conflict of interestno matter how negatively critical that review might be. Conflict of interest doesn’t mean someone is lying, being delicately kind, or being purposely misleading; it simply means there are interests in conflict. There is a moral road through this conflict; it’s called honesty.
I think readers have always known this, and so their habit is to read motorcycle publications with a critical eye, evaluating the evaluations to determine if a review tells it like it is or not. Some start-up publications try to win over readers by publicly announcing this ageold conflict of interest—as if no one has ever noticed it before—and then assuring readers that they have no conflict and
will always be above contempt. Whether or not that plays out in their evaluations I leave up to readers to judge, but sometimes self-marketing gets confused for journalism.
For my money, evaluating motorcycles has become more difficult but also more fun. In years past it was an easier job for journalists because manufacturers were still making obvious mistakes. Some bikes actually did suck; this had to be stated fairly and professionally.
Most of today’s motorcycles are stupid good. But there is always a great deal to say about the experience of riding any bike, and different ones behave differently and have different personalities. The challenge is always to identify and communicate a motorcycle’s unique character. This needs to be accomplished without being foolish enough to evaluate a cruiser for not being a sportbike or vice versa.
A recently added adventure to motojournalism is the intense marketing efforts of some manufacturers. I usually take such overreaching marketing to imply the product is flawed. It’s also weak to pass this marketing on to readers. A review should come from what the motorcycle is, not from a manufacturer-supplied narrative of an imaginary consumer.
Managing all of this makes for an odd relationship between journalist, ad sales, and manufacturer. But the worst solution is for media to just fill the spaces between the ads, though in my career a past editor suggested that to me. My solution has been to be a bit of a boy, always showing a measured amount of irreverence, to the chagrin of the manufacturer and entertainment of the reader. Unfortunately, a couple of times I’ve totally messed up in judging that measure. A better man would apologize.
I’m still trying to decide if I wish I were a better man.
BY THE NUMBERS
two NUMBER OF MOTORCYCLES I’VE CRASHED AT NEW-BIKE INTRODUCTIONS (THAT I CAN REMEMBER)
2 NUMBER OF MOTORCYCLES BORROWED FROM MANUFACTURERS THAT I’VE CRASHED
NUMBER OFTIMES I’VE APOLOGIZED FOR THE ABOVE INDISCRETIONS
