Horsemeat for Bikers?

Some local guys were jawing on-line about the NY Times article, “No easy ride: Motorcycle industry is in deep trouble and needs help fast, panel agrees.” Like the industry, they blamed the usual suspects for the death of their favorite noise-makers: “the bubble-wrapped Millennials,” “the ultra-liberal lefties,” “tree huggers,” blah, blah, etc. Mirrors are tough on old guys. We look in them, see an accurate reflection and desperate want something else. The problem is, pretty much, us. We’re old, we’re irrelevant, and most of two generations wants to have nothing to do with imitating us.

Mostly, I read the Times article as a pretty accurate accounting of the lazy and braindead folks who represent US motorcyclists and the industry. The AMA and ABATE are just fronts for the butt-pirates who have turned off every sentient person possible with their noise, totally overrepresented crash, mortality and morbidity statistics, and general hooliganism. Nobody represents motorcycle commuters, the only motorcycle group that isn't about conspicuous consumption. The AMA is almost proud of how few actual motorcyclists are regular riders and ABATE is just a drinking club that dabbles in politics and writes sympathy/love letters to gangbanging “brothers behind bars.”

As for off-road access, it's not "liberals" who are shutting down access to public land; it's ranchers, conservationists, residents near the parks, and the people who have to provide unfunded rescue services to the nitwits who go off trail, terrorize livestock, wreak property, and end up tangled in barbed wire somewhere it will take a helicopter to bail out mommy's special little douchebag who has no insurance, no money, and suddenly believes in national health insurance. I’ve run a couple of events and watched dozens of off-road facilities go down in idealistic flames when their customers do everything possible to piss off anyone in the vicinity of the event, park, or private property. Motorcycles attract anti-social types and it’s harder than hell to cope with all of the forces that aren’t interested in putting up with spoiled children. I suspect if everyone were being honest, that would turn out to be a big part of the reason trials got bumped from Spirit Mountain and trials is the least obnoxious of all motorcycle sports. I KNOW that was why there was only one Merrick County enduro.

I freakin' love the argument promoted in the Times article that, since the motorcycle companies don't know how to sell to anyone who isn't already a motorcyclist, it's the job of motorcyclists to keep their business alive. That pretty much wraps up my argument in a Trump-quality gold plated ribbon. The industry is so obsolete it doesn’t even know how to sell its own products. How dumb is that?

Motorcyclists owe the industry their time and energy? For what reason? It's just a vehicle or, worse, a rich kid’s toy. If no one wants to play with them, they should disappear. There is no good reason for motorcycles to be the noisiest, most polluting, most dangerous, least efficient vehicle on the road and not even have to pay their own way with motorcycle license taxes (You know they don't in Minnesota, right?). You gotta provide some social value or you are just a welfare deadbeat if you still expect the public to foot your bill. By now, motorcycles should be knocking out at least 100mpg, emitting puffs of exhaust water and nothing more, and be bicycle-quiet. Instead, the stuff we get is barely 1980's technology and most of it is from the 50’s.

As for the Millennial bulllshit, you guys are just fuckin' old. You need to visit one of the boxing clubs, martial arts clubs, wall climbing clubs, bicycle racing clubs (off road, long distance, closed course, etc), and packing maker's groups. Those places are all about Millennials. Sure, there are lots of pampered Millennials. There are also lots of pampered, overpaid, underworked, barely-skilled X-gens and Boomers. My parent's’ generation paid a pittance for Social Security and jacked up the benefits until the system was almost broke before they elected Reagan who stripped that fund for his military-industrial buddies. Change just happens. Characters like Max Biaggi whined that all of that stuff crippled MotoGP riders while Rossi and the next generation just cranked ‘em up faster and leaned ‘em over further. Old people always complain about the next generation. “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise,” said Socrates. One of the fastest riders/coaches I know is just raving about Honda's auto-transmission. I love well-implemented ABS and throttle mapping, even though I don’t own a bike that has either.

Face it, 90% of everything humans do is always crap. You don't think millennials packed Washington with a bunch of superstitious, anti-science, spoiled trustfunders do you? If humans touch it, it will be screwed up. If humans deregulate something critial, it will be a disaster. Always. We’re just a braindead species desperately trying to fire off the 6th Extinction just to see which nutty death cult got it right.

That “wimp” label is nothing new, either. I have heard horse owners making the same “you are a bunch of wimps” arguments about motorcyclists since I was a kid. That is sort of valid, too. Keeping track of two empty skulls is twice as hard as managing one. That’s why I don’t ride horses. Your hippobike might seem “really big” compared to a dirt bike, but it is a twig compared to a 15-hand, 2,200 pound horse. Try laying one of those babies down in an intersection. On the other hand, try going faster than 20mph for more than a mile on a horse. Talk about limited range between extended fuel stops, horses are barely better tranportation than shoes.

MMM's Last Issue

Way back in 1999, I met a pair of "kids" at a party for a long-defunct music magazine that, lucky for me, employed my daughter, Holly, as a writer/editor. I was introduced to Dan and Erin Hartman as a "motorcyclist," by the music magazine's publisher and we eyed each other suspiciously during the introduction. I was wearing the remains of my work uniform, a dress shirt, a loosened tie, slacks, and cowboy boots and they probably thought I was the prototype for Peter Mayer's "Brand New Harley Davidson." They were wearing black leather and I figured they were yuppie Harley posers with a trust fund to burn. We were, I think, both wrong and after discussing what we rode we hit if off well enough that our conversation went into the late night. Their complaint was that MMM was dying because advertisers weren't convinced anyone read the free newspaper. Nobody bothered to write the editors to complain about or praise their articles, editorials, and, most of all, ads. I offered to write an article that would absolutely get a response if they'd promise to publish it. The article, "What Are We Riding For?," appeared in the October, 1999 issue and I've been a regular columnist in MMM since.

As of the 2018/2018 Winter Issue, Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly will cease publication. The magazine hopes to maintain a presence on the web, MNMotorcycle.com after this "final issue" of the print version, but don't hold your breath. My favorite Euro biker magazine, Rider's Digest, went from paper to PDF to web-only a few years back and died a slow, discouraging death in mid-2016. The last "issue" is still there, August 2016, but advertising revenue just didn't happen for the on-line magazine. The UK, like the US, isn't a world leader in internet coverage, speeds, or even reliability. Being big believers in the "magic of the market," a good bit of the UK (like the US) is stuck in the late-90's technology-wise. The UK is a more motorcycle-friendly transportation culture, though, but that didn't help RD. It's possible that advertisers and readers will move to the webpage "magazine" and I really hope they do, but "plan for the worst and hope for the best" has been my motto for about 50 years.

Whatever the future may bring for MMM, I clearly failed in my job over the last few years. Hardly any of you are pissed off enough at something I've written to let the publisher know. Trust me, Victor loves to publish letters from people who want to fry the Geezer. If there had been letters, you'd have seen them. I almost managed to get 20 years of my silly shit in print with MMM. A few years back, Victor sent the MMM writers a really neat note saying that the Minnesota History Center had begun archiving the magazine and that's a pretty cool thing to know about the work we did with the magazine. It has been a good, long ride with MMM. I wrote 158 essays/rants the magazine published over 18 years, plus a bunch of bike, gear, and equipment reviews and a few trip articles. Most of the things I've done over my 70 years on this planet have had highs and lows. That wasn't true for MMM. It was all highs and even highers. I haven't loved everything I've written for the magazine, being my own most severe and least tolerant critic, but I have loved the opportunity and the experiences. I'm going to keep submitting crazy shit for the on-line magazine and as long as they'll take my stuff I'll be there.

Thanks for . . . everything.

HD Still Struggling with the Next Generation

The Journal Sentinal wrote this wide-eyed “analysis” of HD’s struggles with people who aren’t one foot in the grave, “Harley-Davidson unveils its largest-ever product development project.” As usual, there were bits I particularly liked (as in laughed at). For starters, “Harley-Davidson Inc. has unveiled its largest product development project ever: eight redesigned cruiser motorcycles for 2018, including bikes that have been a mainstay of the Milwaukee-based company for decades.” New paint? Sillier fenders? Easier to remove stock muffler, so the louder replacement can be snapped on?

“As part of the research, Harley-Davidson says it interviewed more than 3,000 riders for their views on cruisers — a versatile style of bike with a relaxed riding position, suitable for long-distance riding but more nimble than a big touring motorcycle.” Sounds like the same old crap in a new crappier package. “We were literally in people’s homes and garages, talking with them about their motorcycles,” said the guy with the goofiest job title yet, Paul James, product portfolio manager. WTF? Where else would you talk to motorcyclists about their bikes, in airports? Jones acts like he really discovered the marketing holy grail by chasing down actual customers. Of course, he should have been talking to people who bought the competitions’ bikes. Too hard? Sure, keep talking to grey hairs until they’re all dead.

“Four of the new Softails — Fat Bob, Fat Boy, Breakout and Heritage Classic — are available with a more powerful 114 cubic inch Milwaukee Eight.” Cubic inch? What is this, 1945?

“Up to 35 pounds lighter than 2017 models, Harley says all eight bikes have an improved power-to-weight ratio for quicker acceleration, better braking and handling.” Yep, “up to 35 pounds” will make a huge difference on an 800 pound hippobike.

Finally, “The company gave the bikes a healthy dose of classic cruiser looks — some of it vintage 1950s — while incorporating modern features such as anti-lock brakes, LED lighting, a digital instrument screen, keyless ignition, a USB charge port, mono-shock rear suspension and lockable saddlebags.” So, nothing changes except some badly implemented 1990’s ABS and a cobbled 1970’s suspension and a bunch of tacked-on Chinese electronics. Sounds really biggly to me.

Being Stereotyped

 One of the downsides of being a motorcyclist is that when people find out that I ride a motorcycle they immediately start stereotyping me. My 12 year relationship with Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly started out when I met a young couple at a music magazine party, who my daughter had introduced to me as "people who ride motorcycles." They were youngish, relative to me, dressed in black with a fair amount of leather in their ensembles, and pretty much fit in with the hipsters who were attending the party; although they had taken over a couch a corner of the house out of the line of party traffic. I have no clue how I was dressed. I'd driven my daughter, her year-old son, and my wife to the party, so I could have been wearing the "business attire" crap required for my corporate job or I could have been outfitted in my usual away-from-work worn jeans, long sleeve tee-shirt, and high-tops "fashion statement."

I don't like parties much, so I was mostly looking for a conversation near the door so I could pretend to be polite, say "hi" and "nice to meet you" and slip out the exit and take a long walk around the neighborhood until my family was ready or willing to let me get the hell out of there. Crowds of more than three people make me nervous and there must have been fifty people crammed into that house. I was not looking to strike up a friendship or even a long conversation. I got the feeling they were hoping our introduction wouldn't waste a lot of time, either. Troy Johnson and Erin Hartman were making similar assumptions about me that I made about them. When they politely asked, "What do you ride" in response to my daughter's introduction of me as a "biker, too" they were clearly surprised when I replied "an 850 Yamaha TDM." To them, I was an old guy and they had made the logical assumption that I would be pirating along on some sort of Hardly or a Hardly look-alike. Likewise, I had made similar assumptions about them.

After we reassembled our interior stereotypes, we actually had a conversation that resulted in Troy's complaining that nobody who read the magazine ever bothered to write in with either agreement or complete disgust about anything published in the magazine. I offered to write an article that I guaranteed would create response. They offered to publish it for a nominal fee if it was any good. That article ended with "We’re, on average, a freakin’ nation of posers and squids and we aren’t worth the effort it takes to run an EPA test." The next few weeks, Troy and Erin fielded more letters to the editor than they had received "in the history of the magazine." I've been a columnist for MMM since that first brief October 1999 shot across the bow of what passes for motorcycle journalism and community.

The point, of course, is that even motorcyclists assume the worst about people who ride motorcycles. And, usually, they are right. Be honest. You are hanging out at a restaurant and this guy rides up with similar looking buddies, puts a kickstand down, and waddles into the building. What are you thinking? I know I'm going to wrap up my meal and get the hell out before one of those characters sights in on my helmet and Aerostich gear and decides to have a conversation with me. If I'm lucky, they haven't kicked over my WR or V-Strom in a little-boy "rice burner" exhibition of stupidity and bullshit fake patriotism and I can get the hell out of there without any sort of incident. For all I know these guys are all lawyers and doctors dressing up as bad boys, but I'm not looking for poser friends, ever, and there is nothing about any of the possibilities that is worth testing the waters.

When I showed this guy's picture to my wife, she said the guy who did the welding for a theme park project she designed 20-some years ago looked just like him. I looked at the early assembly of that stuff and mentioned to the project manager that they might want to hire an independent welding inspector before the frames were covered up with fiberglass artwork. I wouldn't trust my kids to something that guy had welded. I've known a few great welders and they were all as personally meticulous as they were professionally picky. If it looks like a slob, acts like a slob, and sounds like a slob, I'd assume it is a slob in all areas of life. Her "welder" was just another shop guy who'd fooled some ignorant management moron into believing he could weld "good enough."

On the other hand, I know several brilliant musicians, a few genius college professors (physics, sociology, electrical and mechanical engineering, philosophy, music, and neurology PhD's and MS's), more than a few technicians and engineers (mechanical, alternative energy, and electrical engineering), and a couple lawyers who have all of the above biker's physical and sartorial attributes except for the excess lard (although I know a brilliant Colorado lawyer who could wrap himself in that biker's "gear" without much discomfort). The problem with stereotypes is that they don't allow you to pick out the one-in-some-large-number exceptions. The reason we naturally create stereotypes ("profiles") is because they are more often than not accurate. They save us time, energy, and create some safe margin of distance from people who are often dangerous or useless.

One of my favorite recreation-reading authors, Minnesota-ex-patriot John (Camp) Sandford, is pretty typical in his "civilian" outlook on motorcyclists. In his newest book, Mad River, Sandford has one of his state cop main characters', Lucas Davenport, thinking about where you look to find criminals: "Davenport had spent the best part of two years building a database of people in Minnesota who . . . knew a lot of bad people. He had a theory that every town of any size would have bars, restaurants, biker shops, what he called 'nodes' that would attract the local assholes."In a list of three places in all of society where you might find the worst criminals "biker shops" makes the grade. Something for all of us to be proud of? Pound your chest and whine "that's not fair, we're not all assholes" as much as you like, but you know Sandford is just writing what everyone is thinking. By "everyone," I'm including us, even we think most bikers are assholes.

Another Minnesota Motorcycle Company

Who knew these guys were still around? (Rokon, not this pack of 'roided up geezer Hollywood freaks.) The last time I saw a Rokon I was getting booted from a Kansas enduro for riding too fast. I was just keeping up with the Rokon factory team, but didn't realize they'd left 20 minutes earlier than me. I guess any advertising is good, but I'd want to comment on that sticky throttle if I were in Rokon's marketing department; that better be optional ("Helicopter killing, stuck throttle - optional equipment").

Dream Bike, Irritating Song

I will absolutely admit that there was a time when "Born to be Wild" seemed like a cool song. Fortunately for me, I had heard Steppenwolf's song before it was misused in Greasy Rider or I'd have never thought it was cool. I suspect the last year I tapped my foot to Mars Bonfire's only big hit was around 1968. After that, the song was always attached to some damn Fortune 500 product and has been a signature of girly-boy admen since.

On the other hand, The Yamaha XT660Z Ténéré has been around for a while (since 2008) and it is the kind of bike that we may never get in the USA. The 660 was preceded by the XT600 Ténéré that was sold in Europe/Japan from '83 to '96 and Yamaha only taunted us with the DP XT600.

The Supermoto Is Dead

My first hint was the absence of the WR250X at the Yamaha booth. One of the Yamaha dealers manning that outpost complained that Yamaha had dumped the "only 250 that I can sell." The WR250R and the XT250 remain in the 2012 lineup, but the WRX is gone. Those two bikes look exactly like they have for the last three years. Supposedly, Honda still has some of the 2009 CRF230M supermotos left to sell, but that model has been gone from their US line for 3 years. Suzuki never offered anything in the supermoto line. Kawasaki offered the KLX 250SF SuperMoto in 2009 and 2010, but still had those models in the warehouse all last year, so it is a dead model in the 2012 lineup.

So, the only supermoto options available in the US are from BETA, Husaberg, Husqvarna, or KTM. None of those options are bad, but none of those companies is a good bet for long-term parts availability. I guess the good news is, I got mine. The bad news is that the coolest little bikes ever didn't make it in the US. I hate to say goodbye, but . . . goodbye to a good idea. You guys don't know what you missed.

An upside is that one of the coaches I teach with said the WRX's are impossible to find now; used or new. Dealers scrapped them out of their inventories last summer and the folks who have them, love them and plan on keeping them. It could be this bike will end up like great mis-marketed bikes such as the Transalp, Pacific Coast, Honda Hawk GT, Yamaha 550XTZ Vision, and the host of great motorcycles nobody wanted in their own time but are now highly sought after by people who figured it out too late.

Marketing = Engineering/Invention?

This sort of off-topic, but . . . live with it. It's my blog.

All the media hand-wringing about Steve Jobs, "the 21st Century's Thomas Edison," is going a long way toward explaining to me why the country is going down the tubes. To be sure, it's a sad thing when a relatively young (55) man dies of a terrible disease (pancreatic cancer). However, I can't help but get a little cranky when a marketing guy whose claim to fame is based on his response to colors and rounded corners is regarded as a brilliant inventor. Even worse, when that marketing guy is getting credit for "inventing the personal computer" (not even close), being first to produce a portable digital audio device (not even in the running), and for creating a whole new market for "smartphones" (again, Apple was practically last to the market). This is a guy who lied to his partner about the payment for an early product design assignment with Atari, took credit for doing the design work when he was only the delivery boy, and cheated his partner (Steve Wozniak, the real founder of Apple and the only genius of the two Apple founders) out of $2,250 of the $5,000 contract.

Really? This is what passes for a great man in what's left of the United States of America?

"The Woz," as always was exceptionally generous about his memories of his "friend" when interviewed yesterday. I met Steve Wozniak in the 80's and thought he was one of the coolest, nicest, most humble brilliant and rich guys I've ever met. Another corporate CEO I knew pretty well at the time was a Jobs-worshiper, which was all I needed to know at the time about Steve Jobs. This guy was a lazy, credit-absorbing, blame-shifting shark and anything he liked I was probably not going to want to be near. Later, I got to know a few design engineers who had worked for Apple and they had been trashed and burned by Jobs at Apple and had nothing but bad things to say about the guy and nothing but hero worship for Wozniak.  Wozniak's analysis of Jobs was that he "was a good marketer and understood the benefits of technology." I think that's a near-perfect analysis of Jobs' contribution.

But that's not my point. The point is the boys and girls (none competent enough to described in adult terms) of our mass media no longer know the difference between inventors, engineers, scientists, and the people who take advantage of those skills. If perception has become that knowing how to sell crap is the same as knowing how to make it, what's the point in going through the effort to learn how to do actual productive work? Obviously, this is the conclusion young people make when they blow off science, engineering, and technology and take the easy route to business and finance degrees.

When a character like Keith Wandell, who can barely be described as a rider let alone a motorcycle engineer,  can be put in charge of a genius like Eric Buell and can conjure up the gall to shut down the only progressive division of an otherwise backwards, failing, obsolete product line, we are heading for membership in the long list of failed empires. Wandell isn't fit to take on the task of being Buell's secretary, but that's not the way business works in the declining US of A. Secretaries are running the asylum and inventors are sidelined as an unnecessary evil in a country that imagines product invention, R&D, design, and manufacturing can be farmed overseas and the easy part, marketing, will remain a US-only task.

In my experience, if you can do the hard parts you can do the easy parts. IBM discovered that when they shipped PC production to Japan and, suddenly, produced a truckload of competitors for themselves. Apple doesn't build anything these days. If you can find a "Made in the USA" sticker on anything with an Apple logo, I'd like to see it. If you can't make it, you can't design it. If you didn't design it, you're just a salesman and salesmen are a dime a dozen.

What Honda's Thinking

Bill Bassett from Motoprimo had his curiosity piqued by my comments about the CBR250R's tool kit. So, he called Honda to ask "What's up?" The response was funny enough he had to call me about it.

It turns out that Honda thinks motorcyclists are a lot lamer than most of you anticipated. And most of you anticipated that we're pretty incompetent, as a buying crowd. Honda's policy is to included only enough "tools" to allow the user to get to the battery. So, the CBR250R's kit includes one 5mm Allen wrench because you have to remove the seat to get to the battery. The Goldwing's battery can be accessed without any tools. So, guess what's in the Goldwing's "tool kit?"

Bill said Honda is, so far, alone in its low opinion of customer mechanical capacity. Yamaha and Kawasaki, for example, still include a reasonable collection of marginal quality tools with their bikes.

Despicably Cool

The 1997-2011 Honda VTR250 is one of the hippest motorcycles ever built. The faired, sportbike version of the VTR was imported into the US from 1988-1990, but it was too small (layout-wise) for most US riders and the 1989 pink graphics turned off anyone who didn't carry a purse. Being a lifetime courier bag kind of rider, I owned a 1989 VTR for several years and loved the bike.

I sold it to my brother and he went on to put even more miles on the little guy. He hasn't forgiven me for neglecting to warn him about the pink lightning bolt, though.

Honda intermittently imports the VTR to Europe and Australia, but their Asian sales of the little Monster-clone keeps the production line busy enough without bothering with EPA/Euro 1-5 export/import issues.

For my money, the red paint/black frame 2002 model is the coolest looking version of the bike, but I'd go for any iteration if it ever became available here. 2009-and-newer models have fuel injection, which makes them at least 200% hipper.

When Honda Did Marketing

What could this man of god do with a supermoto?

Missing the Point, Harley Style

Hardly's newest ad, "No Cages, Free Yourself," demonstrates the Company's legendary ability to completely miss the point and piss off much of the public at the same time. Hell, lots of motorcyclists call Hardly's hippobike "cages" because of their legendary inability to travel anywhere the road isn't cut and planed perfectly flat and straight. So, the following is funny and clueless:


I'm all for convincing cagers to abandon their gas-guzzling, road-hogging, resource-abusing single-occupant rolling houses (or cages, if you like). However, depicting peds (a means of transportation that we all use) and the 1.7-4.5 million commuting cyclists in cages is silly, even by Hardly's deranged standards.

When I'm touring the country's backroads, the only people I'm even a little bit jealous of are the bicyclists. As much as my motorcycle makes me feel like I'm "out in it," I know the bicyclists are that much more in the world around them. Hikers are even more free of society's restrictions and technology's crutches.

The fact that Hardly's uncaged motorcyclist is the noisiest vehicle in an already noisy environment didn't seem to register in the Hardly marketing department's little mind. Obviously, the Hardly rider should be in an acoustically isolated box, which wouldn't be a huge improvement from the screeching of the cages. An electric bike company ought to reshoot this video, including the Hardly, all wrapped in soundproof plexi boxes showing how the would would be improved with noiseless vehicles. 

In Pursuit of Quality

All Rights Reserved © 2010 Thomas W. Day

The most recent owner/manufacturer of the Norton label claimed that he's only going to be capable of making 2000-4000 bikes a year because "Nortons are essentially going to be handmade . . . you simply can't maintain that level of quality and control with large-scale production."

Funny. Nortons have never been particularly famous for "quality," unless oil puddles, unreliability, and no competitive advantage in power, handling, or any other performance category has become a quality value. The definition of quality this corporate goof is using is one that is mostly centered around cosmetics and no-expense-spared handiwork. That's a definition that only the richest folks can appreciate.

2010 Norton Commando 961 Cafe Racer

An old manufacturing maxim directs the fruitcakes in marketing and the delusional loonies in sales in the reality, "Quality, price, or delivery. Pick two." Modern American and Brit motorcycle manufacturing blew off the option making that decision and appears to be happy with going for the appearance of quality without caring a lot about price or delivery. That appears to be the tact Norton's new owner is going to take with the long-abused marquee. That kind of business model only works when a sufficient number of customers are dumb enough to cough up buckets of money for a mediocre product. It's probably a pretty good short-term tactic, assuming those rich, dumb customers aren't actually going to ride their new toy.

For the rest of us, the modern manufacturing standard of quality will have to do: a quality product meets its customers' expectations. That's it. Japan practically perfected this standard and changed everything in the world of manufacturing in the process. Before the quality revolution of the 1960's and 70's, middle-class customers expected products from Detroit, American electronics manufacturers, and their appliances to have "personality." Personality means defects, glitches, and high maintenance. Most of us have places we want to go, people we want to meet, deadlines and schedules, and bucket lists. We don't have time for vehicles with personality, so we settle for real quality instead of the cosmetic kind.

If you are going to make that choice, your only option is to go for "large-scale production" products because that's where practical quality usually lives. One of the beauties of large-scale production is large-scale consumer feedback. Even in our age of passive consumers, a noticeable percentage of consumers still make the effort to complain when they get ripped off. That percentage might be less than 1%, but 1% of millions is still a pretty large collection of complaints. 1% of "2000-4000' is easily ignored. NTSHA might ignore 10 irritated Norton owners, but even a federal government agency pays attention to 20,000 complaints.

More importantly, the large manufacturer has the motivation and manpower and talent to squeeze failures down into the six-sigma territory. Although quality is largely taken for granted in modern products, the reason for that expectation is that modern products are largely very reliable. The reason that is true is because designers and manufacturing engineers have the resources and the skills to anticipate and resolve product reliability problems. A group of shade-tree mechanics working for a rich kid who is intent on burning up his trust fund won't be so inclined or gifted.

So, I'll just stick with boring, machine-made, engineer-designed production motorcycles and it won't even cross my mind that I would be happier with a boutique one-of-a-kind handmade bike. Besides, I'd have to decide between having a home or owning a rare piece of art and I'm not that interested in two-wheeled art.

Following the Leader

"If all your friends jumped off a bridge then would you too?" I must have answered this question a million times when I was a kid, followed by asking my own kids the same question two decades later. In a recent column, Kevin Cameron despaired at ever again seeing new technology because all of the good ideas in motorcycle engineering have been polished and repeated on every brand of motorcycle and, now, every bike has every good idea incorporated in its design.

I just got home from a week trip to meet my new grandson. When I opened the kitchen door, I discovered a red, gory, bloody smear all over my kitchen floor.

As we were leaving the house, my wife or I did something in the refrigerator and when we closed the door the pressure cracked open the freezer door. During the week, everything in the freezer thawed and melted and distributed itself all over the kitchen. This is a fairly new refrigerator, purchased a couple of years ago by my wife with absolutely no input from me. She got a deal on it, but the several hundred dollars of food I tossed probably wiped out any savings she might have realized.

It's a Maytag and like all of the Maytag appliances we've ever owned, it is a piece of crap. My bet is, if the Maytag repairman really doesn't get much work, it's because his phone number is unlisted. All he'd need to do to get busy would be to do a Google search on the words "Maytag sucks" and 44,400 hits later he'd be occupied for several generations. The door gaskets on the refrigerator are magnetic and they are worthless; dissolving into cracked plastic junk in the first year. The temperature varies like a Minnesota spring. The shelves are fragile and expensive. After a year, the only real "feature" the refrigerator provided--quiet operation--vanished and the damn thing sounds like an electric Harley. The appliance claimed to be energy efficient, but I have found no evidence of that. Pissed off and ready to impulse buy, I went to the local appliance store looking for a real refrigerator with real door latches. There are none. Every idiot engineer on the planet has decided that those weak-assed magnetic gaskets serve as perfectly sufficient latches. I couldn't find a single refrigerator at any price that uses a mechanical latch. So, I'm stuck with my POS Maytag until I find an alternative.

This experience started me questioning how well motorcycle and other engineered devices have sorted themselves out through the "never reinvent the wheel" philosophy of design. For example, in my other field of employment pro sound systems have all gone the way of small speaker, array systems with compact and high-power-absorbing sub-woofers and lots of electronics to compensate for the flawed theory behind arraying speakers for efficiency. Everyone in the industry makes these systems and they all sound like crap. If you have been to a large venue rock concert in the last decade, you have experienced the wonder of array speaker design. If my car system sounded as bad as the best of these aural disasters, I'd yank it out and sing to myself for entertainment. Rather than sound quality being the goal, sound companies lusted for light weight and small transportation requirements and the result is an industry that is driving its customers away in droves.

Engineers aren't all brilliant. I had that fact reinforced during my stint in medical devices. Some are barely capable of cutting and pasting someone else's design into their company's drafting format. Some can't rise to that low bar. Companies are even lazier. Instead of nurturing young engineers and developing a corporate culture of design and creativity, most engineering companies simply raid the engineering departments of their competitors for solutions. This results in an industry with carbon-copy products and "inventive" design departments that wrangle over color combinations and the cosmetics of bend angles rather than actual engineering issues. Many of these engineering departments are more like dress designers than product inventors. "Alright, Mr. Wiseguy," said Douglas Adam's marketing girl when his character complained about how long it was taking to release the wheel for use, "if you're so clever, you tell us what colour it should be."

This isn't a problem I'm proposing to resolve. In fact, I'm heading toward retirement and entropy as fast as I can gather the momentum. However, it does make me suspect that a good deal of invention is left to be done. I don't think many large corporations are up to the task, but maybe a good old fashioned long-term depression will rectify that serious error in cultural design. In the meantime, I'm buying a pair of childproof latches to keep my crappy Maytag refrigerator's door shut.

Taking the Cat by the Horns

British Petroleum should take a lesson from Agip, the manufacturer of Hello Kitty synthetic oil. Agip's corporate logo, that six-legged cat at the bottom right of the can, is a brilliant advertisment for renaming problems as solutions. Microsoft and Apple have been telling us that software bugs are "features" for 30 years, it's not much of a leap to move air and water pollution into the same category.

"Yeah, our oil causes birth defects and a million other environmental problems, but look at the cute six-legged cat. Gotta love that, don't 'cha?"

And we probably do.

Why Not?

All Rights Reserved © 2008 Thomas W. Day

"I have attention deficit disorder. Can I ride a motorcycle?"

Sure, why not.

"Will I be safe in freeway traffic?"

Probably not. I expect you'll get killed or maimed in your first week in traffic.

"That's not fair"

You have attention deficit disorder. Motorcycling is a high concentration activity. Get used to it. Life is like that. In fact, nature intended life to be only for the fit.

"I have dyslexia, can I ride a motorcycle?"

"I weigh 400 pounds and can barely lift a coffee cup with out experiencing chest pains, can I ride a motorcycle?"

"I am blind in one eye and can't see out of the other, can I ride a motorcycle?"

"My little (22 year old) boy is dumb as a post, irresponsible, and couldn't find his own nose with a 1x12, should I buy him a motorcycle?"

Sure, why not? All of you should take out a second mortgage and buy the biggest, ugliest hippobike you can find. Slap some loud pipes on it, for safety's sake, and slip that big monster into heavy traffic. Do your bit to solve overpopulation. Why not?

We live in a victim-based, entitlement-sheltered, litigious culture where everyone is not only "created equal" but where many believe the legal system can overrule the laws of physics and common sense. My home state once attempted to legislate pi to 3.00 (actually, 3 without decimal places to keep the concept simple), for convenience and orderly-ness sake. Pi, however, remained its unruly self and the universe remained inconveniently hostile to simple minds. The universe is a really big place and, in the overall scheme of it, we're insignificant as a planet, of no notable consequence as a species, and totally non-existent as motorcyclists. We can make all the dumbass laws we want without making the slightest dent in the effects of gravity, velocity, mass, acceleration and deceleration, centripetal forces, entropy, or mortality.

Outside of being a tiny part of a really big picture, the problem with a motorcycle is that, regardless of our distaste for the inconvenience, a motorcycle will remain a two-wheeled vehicle with minimal safety features and a high skill requirement. You can be dyslexic, ADD-afflicted, uncoordinated, physically incapacitated, and a total moron and public transportation can, probably, still help you to your intended destination. At the least, a cage will surround you in a shock-absorbent, crash enclosure that will probably shield you from your inabilities and indiscretions. A motorcycle will spit you off, fling you into fast moving traffic, and--if you time it carefully--add insult to injury by landing on top of you after other obstacles have had their way with your mangled body.

Even if you are in the prime of life, at the peak of human capacity and a nuclear-physicist-brain-surgery-performing-rocket-scientist, a motorcycle, Murphy, and Mother Nature can still find a way to maim or annihilate you. If astronaut John Glenn can practically kill himself stepping out of a shower, zipping down the highway on two wheels at 100 feet-per-second has to be pushing the limits of reasonable activities. Of course, that also applies to flying an airplane, hang gliding, sky and scuba diving, bicycling, playing most sports, running, climbing or descending stairs, jumping rope, and talking about religion, love, or politics in public.

Many high risk activities have restrictive entry requirements. To rent or fill scuba tanks, for example, you have to successfully complete accredited scuba diving training. Before you're allowed to jump out of an airplane, you have to suffer through hours of closely monitored instruction. Motorcycling is less carefully controlled. Like getting a driver's license, the state's licensing program is designed to hand out certifications in Cracker Jack boxes. If you can't meet the current requirements for getting a motorcycle license, you might not be safe outside of a padded room.

Regardless of the state's low standards of acceptance, we humans ought to exercise a little uncommon sense. If your legs are broken, don't run marathons. If you're blind, don't waste your money on computer aided design college classes. If you can't sing, don't expect Simon Whatshisface to say nice things about your voice. If you aren't physically and mentally able to deal with the demands of managing a motorcycle in heavy traffic, if you can't control your panic reactions, if you don't have the self-discipline to constantly work on your riding skills, stay away from motorcycles. Yes, you can "ride" all of the motorcycle video games you like, but don't touch real iron. You'll create even more enemies for an otherwise perfectly useful mode of transportation. You'll add to our already miserable statistics. You'll get killed. We'll end up with more moronic laws, more employment for useless lawyers, and you'll still be dead.

I've changed my mind. No, you can't ride a motorcycle.

The Kind of Marketing the MSF Should Do

This ad is from the Norsk Motorcykkel Union. It's funny, professional, and makes the point. And to reinforce the point, my wife had to watch it twice to see the motorcyclists in the ad. I don't know what to say about that.

Thanks for sending me this, Andy and James!

Getting Clean

My editor recently sent a reply to my volunteering to review anything but another cruiser (after the Hyosung POS debacle, I don't think anyone wants more of my opinions of that sort of machine), "I may have to assign a cruiser, every other review, to all parties as that is 50% of what is sold and 50% of what we get to review. Want to to pay your m/c reviewer debt and be 'clean' for your next non-cruiser assignment?" 

Help me out, folks. What does "getting clean" mean in this context? I suspect it means I have to write something nice about something I really dislike. This is the kind of "clean" that has put me off of practically every technical publication in every industry in which I have worked. The fear of irritating advertisers has made impotent every magazine from Cycle World to Mix Magazine to Physics Today. 

It seems like a lifetime ago, but I can barely remember editors like Rick Seiman with Dirt Bike and the old REP (Recording Engineering and Producer) Magazine from the 70s whose writers often trashed products when those designs didn't live up to expectations. There was a time when reading a product review actually provided some information about the product. Not anymore. A "shoot out" among a wide range of products usually results in four winners and an also-ran.

A friend of mine writes for a live sound magazine, FOH, he's their technical editor. I once complained that I couldn't tell a quality difference between a Midas console and a Peavey console, based on his comments in reviews. His response was, "You have to read between the lines. The truth is in there, you just have to know how to look for it."

My response was, "Between the lines is white space. If that's the truth, why do I need to read your words?"

Success breeds contempt, I guess. Or success breeds fear of failure? When an industry is in the infant stage, competition is fierce, passions are high, and "the truth" is a valuable thing. Once an industry becomes mainstream, there is more to lose, less to gain, and the result is the definition of "conservative."

In my long, meandering life, I've managed to become something of a Jack of Many Trades. The downside to that is, I don't have anything resembling expertise in any area. The upside is I don't have all of my chips invested in any one game. So, I don't have much to gain from any of the many things I do for profit, entertainment, and employment and I don't have much to lose if one of those activities becomes impractical. My habits are modest. My interests are diverse. I get pissed off easily. I'm naturally solitary, so it doesn't bother me much if others are offended by my opinions. In fact, if 99.99...% of the population decided to move to another planet, that would be more reason for me to stay here. Top it all off, I'm old. I'm not "building a business," here. I have a business that I'd be happy to be rid of. I don't want another. The beauty of something as pointless as a blog is that I can say what I want to say without worrying about who I disappoint or offend.

All of that makes me cranky, opinionated, a little distant from the pack, and unlikely to collect a bunch of loyal advertisers on this blog. Weirdly, with all this attitude the blog site has attracted 1,400 visitors this month. I appreciate your interest, whoever you are. I'm going to keep adding product and motorcycle reviews to this site and I won't always be fond of the things I'm reviewing. That means I pay for what I review, or borrow it and return it in sad condition. The high price of being able to say what I think.

The Repercussions of Having an Opinion

This summer, I reviewed a bike that put me in an ethical bind. I really liked the folks at the dealership, although they were clearly not motorcycle people. The dealership was a hardware store trying to get into the exciting, high-profile, profitable scooter and motorcycle market. Yes, I'm joking about the characteristics of our market but I'm not joking about their expectations for that same business. They were almost childishly anticipating a flood of cash from their entry into American motorcycling. I thought they should have been a little more cautious, since they had only recently dropped Polaris' and were still trying to offload their inventory (two bikes) of last years' It turned out that the bike was, largely, junk. 

 You can read the review linked to this column for a mild-mannered opinion of that motorcycle. Not only was the quality and design short of modern standards, it was overpriced, unreliable (based on my short and uncomfortable experience), and possibly dangerous. For example, the clutch grabbed so severely that it would intermittently yank the bike several yards on engagement and disengaged a fair distance from the misnamed "friction zone." The dealer admitted they had experienced this before, the factory offered a "fix" that didn't work, and I still have no idea if the bike can be made safe due to this defect. 

When my review hit the stands, I got a few calls and emails from Hyosung owners describing their experience with the clutch problems and asking if there was remedy. Since the dealer had decided to toss fuel and a lit match on our relationship, the best I could offer the Hyosung victims was a phone number and web-link for the NHTSA recall hot line. 

In my review I tried to briefly describe many of the bike's defects as accurately as possible. There is, or should be, a public service aspect to product reviews and I take that seriously, having been burned a few times by half-honest product reviews. It is hard to be critical of a motorcycle that has been handed over with the expectation of unbridled love, but that's a critic's job. Of course, the basic design was pretty funny on its own, which added an aspect of humor that was out of my control. The Korean manufacturer went for a really weird and retro chopper look and a totally stupid riding position, which was a regular source of entertainment by everyone who knows me and saw me on the bike. 

 To be blunt and honest, I hated the bike and think it is the worst representation of the style I've ever ridden. But, I'm no cruiser expert. I do my best to stay off of the damn things and have yet to ride one I'd consider owning. The article says as much. In a form-follows-function world, cruisers have lost their way. The Hyosung was the worst representative of a terrible motorcycle style that I've ever suffered. My review didn't reflect even half of my dislike of the Avitar. As toned-down as it was, the resultant article received the following comments from the manufacturer's sales department:

• ". . . You assured both myself and [names deleted], our National Sales Mgr. that you just wanted to do a fair, light hearted review on some of Hyosungs models and that no matter how bad the bike or scooter may turn out to be (should that be the case, which it is not), neither you nor your writing staff would be overly hard or in anyway unfair on said unit and would emphasize the strong points of the model more so than its weaknesses. . .
• "Well I can assure you that if this lop sided, closed and narrow minded, cruiser hating editors article hits the newstands as written, I will personally guarantee you that you will never ever review one of our bikes, scooters or anything else we manufacture again either. Did the same Jackass that wrote this article happen to ride the HD too?
• "I am shocked that you call yourself a motorcycle magazine and that your reviewer considers himself a motorcyclist at all least of all an motorcycle editor? . . .
• "However to send a person to test a motorcycle that openly admits to hating any and all types of a certain style of motorcycle (in this case cruisers) is just plain stupidity and completely unethical and can only lead to an uninformed and uninspiring review!
• "Also, how small is this reviewer that he doesn't fit on the GV650? We had women that stood all of 5ft 4 inches tall and weighed 105 pounds soaking wet sit on it at the show, easily pull it up off the sidestand and feel very comfortable doing so? In fact, its neutral riding position along with how well it carries its weight low . . .
• "He has no business testing ours or any other manufacturers products because he does not carry anything remotely close to unbiased, fair or ethical writing skills...or dare I say any writing skills at all. . .
• "There are so many holes in this article that I couldn't plug them with all ten fingers and toes...but I digress, if this is what you call a review in your magazine, then please don't bother to ask to "review" our products in the future. . . "

Where the marketing doofus got the idea that I'm an "editor" is a confusion. He also appears to think my first or last name is "Jackass," which I suppose is more likely than me being an editor. While his own "writing skills" would make most text messengers blush in shame, he seems to feel pretty confident in his ability to blast mine which makes for entertaining reading. It is interesting that he conveniently chose to forget that MMM had not signed up to review the cruiser. In all the magazine's negotiations, the bike we were anticipating for review was the Hyosung GT650R; a Korean attempt at copying the Suzuki SV650. I was signed on to the review because I ride a Suzuki V-Strom 650 and previously owned and enjoyed an SV650 for 50,000 miles. Neither Sev, Victor, or I would have even considered putting me on a POS cruiser from any manufacturer under practically any conditions. If the goofball sales doofus had done any research, he would have known that MMM, in general, is not fond of cruisers and I, in particular, think they are clown bikes. 

Until the Avitar was rolled into the dealer's driveway and my wife had driven away in my escape vehicle, I had no idea that I would be test riding a Shriner vehicle. I would have dressed appropriately, had I known: protective bandana, butt-less leather chaps, Doc Martins, and the usual Harley comedy accessories. As it was, I arrived in full Aerostich gear, helmet, boots, and all. I was as appropriately dressed as a riot cop at a Grateful Dead concert. If I weren't cursed with a Midwestern inability to say "no," I would have recalled my wife and simply left after explaining to the dealer why they did not want me reviewing the Avitar. 

As it was, the dealer had spent all of the magazine's lead time prepping the bike, delivering it almost two weeks after they had promised it would be ready. Two of the four possible reviewers had dropped out of the pool of writers because of the near deadline and the poor timing. It would either be me and Steven Heller or Steven alone. It probably should have been Steven alone. So, I can't disagree that with the marketing doofus' basic premise that I was bound to dislike the Hyosung cruiser. A more adventurous manufacturer might have taken my position as a challenge and accepted any level of approval as an accomplishment or an opportunity to fine tune a vehicle that clearly needs critical design input. So it goes and Hyosung was already on record as being "sensitive," since they had burst into indignant flames over Cycle World's mediocre review a few months earlier. I admit it. I hated the bike. 

Riding the Hyosung Avitar was almost a crippling event and it felt unsafe at all but in the slowest, least traffic critical situations. My neck and back hurt for a week after escaped the Avitar experience. And the bike is butt-ugly. I did my best to picture it in the best light, including a pretty flattering (in my opinion) picture of the abomination next to a lake on a dirt road upon which only a masochist would venture with a machine so limited in capability. I gave it my best shot, but we were doomed to hate each other. 

Obviously, I didn't rave about the bike's glorious features and that was, apparently, a crime. Even I can only lie so much in 1,200 words. I do apologize for the "uninspiring" quality of the review. The best I could do was to reach for "funny." When I look back at the pictures of myself on the Avitar, I think we both accomplished funny. I still take crap from friends who posted a collection of pictures of me on that damn bike with my feet extended in the gynecologically-correct cruiser position and the rest my body so uncomfortably positioned that vacationing Guantanamo prison guards were taking notes as I rode by.

 In the aftermath of this experience, I've been relegated to finding my own bikes for review because MMM is growing gun shy of sales and marketing department backlash. Every once in a while, I feel a tinge of jealousy when the other writers get to play with cool bikes like the BMW F800ST (and I was on the list for that review before the Avitar fiasco) or the 2008 Aprilia Shiver. But I missed out on the H-D FLSTSB Cross Bones and the Can-Am Spyder, so I'm not all that injured. 

Successful humans almost always become more conservative and, no matter how you play games with the meaning of that word, that means we become less adventurous, courageous, and less willing to challenge the status quo. Believe it or not, I can remember when FM radio was adventurous. I can even remember when National Public Radio produced radically entertaining and informative programs. Way back in the dark ages of motorcycle publications, Dirt Bike Magazine actually performed shoot-outs that ended up with clear winners and losers. I wonder if Newsweek and Time Magazine had a golden age? I think the reason so many of us get our news and information from the Internet instead of magazines and newspapers is that the World Wide Web is still largely economically unsuccessful. Until the money starts pouring into blogs and web news sites, there are still ways to get attention on the Web without much financial incentive, so there is nothing to lose in telling the whole, nasty story. Once money creeps into the equation, the story's motivation changes. It's human nature. That doesn't make the occurance any less disappointing, though. Mostly due to a lack of patience, I'm going to post more product reviews on this blog in the future. I like the fact that I can say exactly what I think here without having to worry about offending whoever I'm likely to offend. It's easy enough to simply not read a blog if you don't like the writer.