On our recent Baja trip, I asked Devin Biek, one of the Janus co-founders, about the meaning of the Janus name. Devin explained that Janus was the Roman god of the road, a god that was looking to the future and to the past. That’s what the Janus logo, formed of the letter J facing forward and rearward to form an M (for motorcycle) suggests.
As Devin explained all of this, I remembered that somewhere I actually had a photograph of Janus. The Roman god, that is. I had taken it on a swing through Rome in 2007, and I’m pretty sure it was in the Vatican.
A quick peek at several Internet references shows Janus to be the god of passages, transitions, doorways, time, beginnings, and endings. I like the Janus name, the symbology associated with it, and the Janus motorcycle…a modern machine with vintage styling, looking to the future, and based on the past. It’s all very cool.