Motorcycles, Scooters, Guns, Adventures, Opinions, and More
No sooner had I written that blog a day or two ago about branding partnerships (in which I mentioned an earlier, expired linkup between Harley and Ford for a Harley-themed F-150 pickup), and this pops up…
You can read the story here in Maxim magazine. Harleys. F-150s. A marriage made in…where? Milwaukee? Dearborn?
When I was a kid (and that’s reaching back into the 1950s), there was no finer automobile than a Cadillac. That’s the way it was back then, and even though I’ve never owned a Cadillac, I’d like to someday. The thought that a Cadillac is the best stuck in my mind.
Today if you’re snooty it’s all about BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Infiniti, and maybe one or two others. All foreign stuff. I don’t know if foreign cars are really better or if tastes just changed, but back in the day, a sure sign of success was driving a Cadillac. Mercedes was a weird one in the 1950s, and nobody in America had heard of BMW. Lexus and Infiniti were way in the distant future, and if you were to tell somebody you had a Lexus back then, they would most likely assume it was a medical problem.
I still think the 1959 Coupe de Ville was one of the best-looking cars ever made (anywhere, at any time), but that might be because it’s what I knew as a kid. Let’s see, I would have been 8 years old in 1959. Yeah, those big fins and bullet tail lights were cool.
So I grew up knowing that Cadillac meant the best something could be (as in “the Cadillac of…”). Cameras, guns, bicycles, whatever…fill in the blanks, and if it was really, really good, it was “the Cadillac” of that product line.
Sooooo…….when I saw a series of early Caddies at the Nethercutt last Saturday, I was all over them. The Nethercutt had fabulous cars of all kinds, but the Caddies really did it for me.
I had been there just a few weeks earlier, we had company in from out of town who wanted to see the Nethercutt, and I was prepared. I had my Nikon D3300 walking-around camera, I had my 16-35 lens (it’s bigger than the camera), and I had enough light to dial in ISO 1600 and get me some Caddy photos.
So there you have it. The Nethercutt Museum has about 250 vintage automobiles, of which 150 are on display at any time. I’m guessing they have a few more Caddies stashed away, and that gives me a reason to go there again (and I will). If you’re ever in So Cal, you don’t want to miss the Nethercutt. It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. You might even say it’s the Cadillac of vintage auto collections.
When I was 13 years old in Florida you could get a restricted permit at age 14. The restricted permit was a driver’s license that allowed you to drive as long as an adult was in the car with you. Assuming he/she wasn’t suicidal, the adult was supposed to keep an eye on your driving and coach you. An adult would help you pick up the nuances of parallel parking, rude hand gestures, and, in Dade County, gun fighting after minor traffic accidents. Needless to say, having an aged, creaking burnout sitting in the car fouling the air with the smell of stale urine cut down on motoring fun quite a bit.
There was a motorcycle loophole in the restricted permit system. If a motorcycle was less than 5 horsepower, and if you stayed off the major highways and didn’t ride at night, you could ride solo without adults helicoptering over your ride. It was wonderful. Obey these few rules and a kid could ride his motorcycle anywhere he pleased.
Motorcycles between 50cc and 90cc were right in the 5-horsepower wheelhouse but your average traffic cop couldn’t tell a 175 from a 50. Many bikes were rebadged to appear smaller displacement than they were. I never knew anyone in my circle of friends that got busted for riding a bike too big. Of course, you had to be reasonable about the subterfuge. A 50cc badge on a Kawasaki 750 wouldn’t fly.
Two months before I turned 14 the state upped the age for a restricted permit to 15 years old. The world ended that day. Massive volcanic eruptions, cataclysmic earthquakes, a steady rain of nuclear weapons bombarding the United States, nothing was as devastating to me as Florida’s stupid statute change.
I would have to wait an additional 365 days and I’d only lived 5000 days in total. The year dragged by. Endless days were followed by endless nights only to be repeated one after another. I had to attend yet another grade in school. I couldn’t wait to be done with public conformitouriums anyway and this stolen year of motorcycle riding made it all the more aggravating. The drip, drip, drip of time counted my heartbeats, counted my life ebbing away. I was inconsolable, miserable and the experience placed a chip on my shoulder for government that I have not shaken off.
Begrudging the failed clutch on my Husqvarna the other day I came to the jarring realization that I have owned the bike 9 years. I swear, I bought this thing not more than a couple days ago. I degreased the countershaft sprocket area to gain access and removed the clutch slave cylinder. From the inside of the slave I pulled out an aged, creaking o-ring that smelled of stale urine. The leak had allowed the clutch fluid to escape into the crankcase. Except for the missing 9 years the clutch repair went well.
Einstein was right; time is relative. From my 14-year-old perspective a year was an eternity. Now, as an adult I’m scared to close my eyes for fear that another decade will have passed by at light speed. Or worse yet, I won’t be able to re-open them at all.
I guess I should start this piece by explaining I’m not even sure what the Clifton Club is. After spending several minutes on Google researching it, all I could find is that it’s either a wedding and Bar Mitzvah venue in Lakewood, Ohio, or a series of bling pieces from high-end watch maker Baume and Mercier. I’m going to go with Door No. 2 on this one. It’s the only explanation that makes sense in the context of what follows.
Let me back up a step. Yesterday I chauffeured the ladies to Fashion Island in Newport. It’s a very trendy shopping mall in a very trendy part of So Cal (think Neiman-Marcus, Nordstrom’s, French poodles, BMWs, and the like). For me, a visit to any shopping mall is torture, but it keeps me in good graces with the rest of the clan and builds up goodwill points for the next collectible firearm purchase, so it all works out.
Anyway, while the girls were shopping I wandered into a high-end watch store (think Rolex and armed guards) and I noticed, of all things, a motorcycle. A new Indian, to be precise, in the middle of the store. I’ve never ridden an Indian (new or vintage), but I always thought they were beautiful motorcycles (again, both new and vintage). I’m not a big cruiser guy, but if I was, I think I would buy an Indian. They are good-looking motorcycles, and my buddies Joe Gresh and Duane both hold them in high regard (and that’s a powerful endorsement).
While I was admiring the Indian, a sales guy approached me (my new good buddy Eduardo…Eduardo, I think, is a particularly elegant name). Eduardo saw my confusion (a motorcycle in a jewelry store?), and he explained that Indian had a marketing partnership with Baume and Mercier, a high-end Swiss watchmaker. It all centered on Burt Munro and his record-breaking land speed record activities. Indian. Baume and Mercier. Burt Munro. Ah, it all came together.
Do these marketing partnerships work? I suppose they do. More than 20 years ago, Ford teamed with Harley to offer a special limited edition F-150 pickup with Harley decals. As near as I could tell, the decals were the only thing special about that truck, and the only thing limiting the edition was how many they could sell. I had a lot of fun teasing a friend of mine who owned both a Harley Bad Boy (yep, they actually had a model with that name) and the limited edition truck. I drove a ginormous Tahoe and I rode a Suzuki TL1000 in those days. I told my friend I was going to put Suzuki decals on the Chevy and call it a TL-Ho. Good times.
Anyway, the Baume and Mercier watch I saw yesterday was cool (at $3900, it should be), and the Indian was beautiful. I hope the deal works out for Baume and Mercier, and for Indian. I pondered the Harley and Ford partnership mentioned above; I’m guessing nothing came of that, as the two companies seemed to have parted ways. Then I remembered that Bentley, the luxury British carmaker, has a partnership with Breitling (Breitling is another expensive Swiss watchmaker).
I wondered…what’s in it for the companies that strike up such partnerships, and what’s in it for their customers? I don’t think there’s any kind of pricing advantage or free gear package, so what would be the attraction? Is it simply living a branded lifestyle (you know, for insecure rich folks who need something more in their lives)? Or is it somehow making a statement about one’s wealth? Look at me! I drive a Bentley and wear a Breitling!
That got me to thinking…would a marketing partnership work for other brands, and in particular, would such a partnership work for less expensive motorcycles and watches? You know, look at me! I ride an RX3 and I wear a Timex!
What if you could sell a new motorcycle and give away a free watch with it? I’m thinking of China bikes, India bikes (not Indian Moto, but bikes actually made in India), and maybe Thai bikes. It might work if you included a free watch with each new motorcycle, and it would cost essentially nothing. I visited the Canton Fair in Guangzhou last year and I’m on their email list now, so I get all kinds of offers from Chinese manufacturers. You can buy new Chinese watches for $0.62 each (and if you’re thinking they are low quality, you need to think again and maybe research where what you’re currently wearing is actually manufactured).
The branding and theming opportunities might be fun. KLRs are made in Thailand…suppose you got a free milk-crate-themed watch to match your KLR’s topcase? The KTM 390 is made in India; perhaps you could include a Taj Mahal themed watch with each new 390 (isn’t that what the “TM” in KTM stands for, anyway?). Think of all the marques with models, engines, or major components manufactured in Thailand, India, and China…Hawk, SWM, CSC, Royal Enfield, BMW, Harley-Davidson, Triumph, Honda, and more. You can see the possibilities.
Yeah, this could work.
Doug Turnbull Restorations is a cool company specializing in firearm restorations and new firearms treated with classic color case hardening. This video showed up in an email this morning…
Here’s another one that’s interesting…the restoration of an old axe. The video is well done and the finished products (both the axe and the video) are impressive…
I liked that Dream Bike piece Gresh did over the weekend about his fantasy bike, the Kawasaki 350cc Avenger. I like the concept: Articles on the ones that got away.
And as is always the case, if Gresh wrote it, I like it.
Can I say that on this blog? You know, Gresh and I do most of the writing, so am I allowed to say that about his stuff? Hey, I don’t care.
I’m guessing if you’re reading this, you have a dream bike. You know, one you didn’t buy but wish you had. We’d like to hear about it. Do a short piece on it with a photo or two and we’ll publish it here.
In the meantime, and because I like “the one that got away” concept so much, I’m going to do a short bit on my dream bike. One of them, anyway. It’s the 1983 Harley XR1000. Yeah, I know, I’m a guy who made his bones writing about small bikes (the CSC RX3, in particular), and the XR1000 is anything but small. But I like it.
The magazines of the era all panned the XR1000, and every once in a while one of them does a retrospective (and they still don’t like it). You know what? I don’t give a rat’s rear end about some magazine weenie’s opinion. I like the look, the concept, and the sound of the XR1000, and one of my few regrets in life is that I didn’t buy one new in ’83.
Not that I didn’t have good reason back then. I had bought a Harley Electra-Glide Classic, new, in 1979. It was the worst vehicle of any type I’d ever owned, and I swore I’d never buy another Harley. That was the principal thing that kept me from pulling the trigger on a new XR1000 in ’83 (I sold the Electra-Glide in ‘82, and the reliability reputation injuries it left hadn’t healed yet). But time heals all wounds (I wish I had that Electra-Glide now), and if I could find a clean XR1000 I’d be on it in a New York minute.
The magazines said the XR1000 vibrated (they actually paid folks to point that out on a Harley?), you could burn your left leg on the exhaust (duh), and the twin Dellortos hit your knee on the right side of the bike (seriously?). Not content with stating the obvious, one of the magazines actually wrote the bike had a predilection for turning left. A bike based on a flat tracker? A predilection for turning left? And folks wonder why the motorcycle magazine business fell on hard times.
Everything the magazines hated about the XR1000 made me want one more. It was a raw, muscular, asymmetric, no passenger, no compromises, in-your-face motorcycle. I still want one.
We spend a lot of time dreaming about motorcycles. See our other Dream Bikes here!
I remember hot summer days mixing concrete with my father. I remember the two-holed hoe oozing mud like Play-Doh through a Fun Factory press. Back and forth you shoved the concrete with each hard pass plasticizing a frustratingly minor amount. The demand never ceased, more concrete was required all the time until the sun and the humidity and the sweat burning your eyes (combined with the resistance of the aggregate) lulled your body into a Zen state of denial. The only way to push on was to pretend it wasn’t happening. “I am not really here,” I’d tell myself.
“More mud!” Dumping another 80-pound bag of concrete into the wheel-buggy I quietly promised that I would never, ever, under any circumstances, become a concrete finisher.
With the $180 purchase of Harbor Freight’s 3-1/2 cubic foot concrete mixer I broke that promise made so long ago. I got mine at one of Harbor Freight’s closeouts. Or maybe it was a parking lot sale. Come to think of it, could it have been one of the 4357 tool disposals that brought my attention to the mixer? These events are held almost daily at Harbor Freight and if you ever pay full price at that store you’re no friend of mine. The mixer came out of the box in a million pieces and it took the better part of three hours to assemble the thing because I am not genetically disposed to look at directions.
I mixed about 400, 50-pound bags of concrete before the key in the larger of the two pulleys fell out. The parts landed inside the motor box so I stuck the key back onto the pinion shaft and swabbed a bit of lock tight onto the screw holding the key. I’ve since mixed another 800 bags with no further problems. In total, about 15 cubic yards of concrete have been run through the little mixer to date.
Maintenance on the HF mixer consists of lubing the drum pivots, greasing the large stamped ring gear and oiling the sealed drum bearing with whatever dregs of slippery stuff I have laying about the shed. I do all these things before each use whether I’m mixing 3 bags or 100.
The drum is sized for 150 pounds of concrete mix. Any more and the tilt angle becomes too vertical and the mixing action slows to a crawl. Depending on which size bag of pre-mix concrete is cheapest, I have mixed as high as 180 pounds in the thing but mixing performance suffered with each additional pound. These are nitpicks. I spent less than a week’s rental to own the HF mixer. I give it high marks.
It’s funny how life works out. I enjoy mixing and finishing concrete now. I love the smells and textures and the sound of a steel trowel scraping across a smooth burnished surface. These are simple motions that bring back sweet muscle-memories of working with my father and those hot summers when I was young and strong.
I didn’t know about Duluth’s cargo work pants 40 years ago. That’s how long I have crawled around in the bilges of boats and after many thousands of patella-miles my knees are shot. Towards the end it got so I’d have to work on my side, putting weight on my hips because my knees hurt pretty much all the time.
Sure, I tried kneepads. Every brand or style of pad cut the circulation to my legs or if they didn’t restrict blood flow they’d fall to my ankles as soon as I stood up. The best solution I could come up with was a chunk of packing foam and I kneeled on that sucker whenever I could remember to drag it into the bowels of the boat I was working on. Unfortunately, memory was the second thing to go in the boat-fixing business.
Duluth makes many styles of pants but the ones that caught my eye are the Ultimate Cargo Work Pants with kneepad inserts. By the simple act of sewing on a hook-and-loop-pocket large enough to hold a foam pad Duluth solved both the sore knee and the blood circulation problems in one fell stoop. The pants run $59 and you’ll need the pads (Not included? Why the hell not?) at $10. 70 bucks was a lot of money 20 years ago. Today, it’s the going rate for any heavy-duty work pants.
The things aren’t perfect. The pad pocket may slide off to one side or the other when you kneel down but it’s not a problem to re-situate them. The material is a stretchy, hot blend that will have you sweating in temps over 75 degrees. Still, it was a revelation to kneel down without pain. The pants put a spring in my knee and I had a newfound confidence in my ability to connect with floors and low-slung mechanical contraptions on a deeper, more meaningful level.
The Duluth pants would work great as knock-about motorcycle riding wear and I plan on using them for just that purpose as soon as it gets a bit cooler. If you are a tradesman or tradeswoman that must work from your knees don’t wait 40 years like I did. Let Duluth’s built-in pads cushion (and save) your knees and extend your career. If I had used these pants from the get-go I could have been one of the lucky ones who kept working on boats until their backs gave out.
As our generation ages off this mortal coil there seems to be a strong conservative trend among motorcyclists. By conservative I don’t mean politically, although most of my rowdy friends have settled on the putative conservative party. I mean in their actions and words.
Post a video of kids popping wheelies or burning up motorcycles and the comment section rapidly fills with sour, tsk-tsk and rote complaints about using proper riding gear, safe riding practices or endangering others. Quite a few commenters will wish death upon anyone not head-to-toe in safety gear. Organ Donors, an insult once used by straight citizens to describe motorcyclists in general, has been co-opted by ourselves and liberally used to describe riders not wearing hi-vis green, stifling gloves, helmets, boots and one of those silver blood-type/medication allergy bracelets sold in high schools throughout the mid-1970’s.
Realizing that the depressing safety-crats were doing the exact same wheelies when they were under 100 years old you have to wonder what changed. Responsibility to the group, to all road users or the prospect of injuring an innocent bystander is regularly trotted out by safety mongers. They sound like lower case communists instead of riders living free like it says on their belt buckles and t-shirts.
So is it fear or wisdom? With death imminent, I suspect fear. Our motorcycles are becoming sodden with anti-lock braking systems, rev limiters (God forbid we blow an engine!), traction control and power management systems. The price we are willing to pay for a motorcycle less inclined to kill us is in the tens of thousands of dollars. If we are so concerned about staying alive to drag down future economies with our failing bodies why not forgo motorcycles and drive a truck?
Our generation believes, as have previous generations, that we know best for the next guys. A do-as-I-say, not-as-I-did type of thing that must drive the young ones insane. We think a motorcycle with less than 100 horsepower is unrideable yet we expect others tap into maybe 50% of that power. If they actually twist the throttle then they become the irresponsible ones.
We are, in a nutshell, full of baloney. We rode without helmets, we rode in shorts and t-shirts, we popped wheelies on public roads, we drank and took drugs and then got on our motorcycles and crashed. We died and we were injured. We cost society money way beyond our true dollar value. And now like bit players in the song “Cats in the Cradle,” we sit behind our screens scolding others for being just like we were.
I admit, I went full geek on camera gear for a few years. I spent thousands of dollars securing professional-level gear and studied photography online with the fervor of a Bit Coin disciple. I bought lenses, flashguns, radio-controlled shutter releases, more flashguns that communicated with each other via optical signals. I bought tripods, then heavier tripods, then sexto-pods with so many legs it was like wrestling an octopus trying to set the things up.
My gear kept getting bigger and bigger, like modern adventure bikes. Cameras got so large and unwieldy I stopped carrying them. I can make a good picture now but it takes 50 pounds of gear and forty-five minutes to set up the shot. I wasn’t enjoying events because I was lugging camera junk around and photographing stuff instead of seeing stuff. I need to experience a thing to write about it and camera gear was adding a wooly layer of techno-neediness over my senses.
I’ve since downsized to a Canon Rebel XS with an 18-200mm zoom lens and nothing else. If I can’t get the shot with that setup I’ll take a picture of something else. Taking great pictures is not important to me anymore. I need photos that help tell a story but not become the story. I run Canon gear because it’s cheap (relatively) and plentiful on the used market. Owning a Canon is like driving a Chevy Malibu; it’ll get you there but no one will be thrilled to see you pull up in the thing. All the pros use Canon gear. I imagine it’s because they always have, not due to any inherent superiority of function.
A camera is a tool, like a hammer but not as sturdy. If you can’t hit a nail the best hammer in the world will not help your aim. Nikon vs Canon? Until those guys start making phones I’ll choose an Iphone. The thing fits in my pocket and is nearly indestructible. It takes pictures that would be considered unbelievably good twenty-five years ago. It shoots decent video and if it’s not windy the audio isn’t half-bad, a must in today’s multi-media, everything-all-the-time landscape.