Hey,
It’s already Easter and we’re scrambling on the Bikernet Blog and the Sunday Post. I’m just about finished with the VL wiring, and a buddy is stopping by with his Sportster. The rear brakes aren’t functioning. There’s air in the lines.
I’m just about to wrap up a book proposal for Motorbooks. Plus, more features are flying at Bikernet. Fortunately, last night we found a bottle of Jack Daniels and a new broiled Salmon recipe. A brother stopped over and told me he just finished my first Chance Hogan book, Harbor Town Seduction. He couldn’t put it down, and he doesn’t read books. Made my night. Let’s hit the news:
THE TEXAS BIKERNET GIRL CONNECTION– I just have shots of some of the lovely ladies I am working on for the St. James Restaurant and Cabaret, I do not think they would mind a little extra publicity. Let the folks know if the visit Houston where the the best club in Houston is, damn I miss that place!
Just got back from riding the FLH, now I need to finish up the CD for the club of all these cute girls, got a little side tracked with the magazine cover stuff.
I did put 140 miles on the rigid yesterday running around the freeways and while not tons of miles, riding a rigid frame in Houston is like riding a bull, you just go and hold on! So needless to say, I was sore at days end.
–RFR
Interesting editorial from Wayne Wuschke, but it’s full of fiction– First, there’s the AMF myth. The fact is, if not for AMF, H-D would be a footnote in American history. Second, shortly after the Willie G.-and-friends buyout from AMF, the fledging eagle was literally hours away from crashing and burning because of financial insolvency.
Wayne says Harley was “…able to capitalize on their rebel image.” Sorry, but it wasn’t Harley’s image, nor was it one H-D coveted and appropriated until after the buyout. Virtually every recent innovation, be it public image-related or technology-related, that H-D has ever implemented was lifted (some would say stolen) from the outlaw and aftermarket communities. The Softail, Harley’s best-selling line of bikes, is just one example, and the rebel image is another.
The American v-twin market is a “pseudo market?” I don’t think so, Wayne, and it was around long before the dawn of the 21st century.
Is Harley-Davidson privately lobbying the feds as Wayne claims? Perhaps; in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me. Back in the early 20th century, Harley collaborated with Indian to illegally manipulate prices and drive other motorcycle manufacturers out of business. On the other hand, federal EPA mandates are darn near as tough on the MoCo as they are on Wayne’s pseudo market.
Then there’s Wayne’s claim that used bikes are being deliberately withheld from the market. But walk into any H-D dealer and you’ll find a substantial inventory of used Harleys.
It’s true the some H-D dealers (but not all) refuse to work on Harleys more than 10 years old, but there are plenty of independent shops that do. And 12-18-month waiting lists for new Harleys? That was true almost a decade ago, but not today.
A sidebar, Wayne: You can still buy a brand-new Evo engine direct from the factory. And if you have a 10-year-old twin cam that’s getting long in the tooth, you can return it to the factory to be remanufactured.
Finally, Harley did scale back production, but it was in response to declining demand and sales in a depressed economy.
–Bruce Snyder
Colorado Springs, CO
MOONEYES SUPPORTS CATCH-A-DREAM CHARITY BUILD– Southern California based specialty equipment manufacturer, Mooneyes, is on board and has donated a 3 qt. Chopper oil tank with mounting brackets for the Catch-A-Dream charity bike. Mooneyes products and logo are an indelible part of Hot Rod nostalgia easily recognizable to gearheads and novices alike.
Mooneyes produces Moon tanks, discs, and valve covers on site in California. They also supply various items for hot rods, rat rods, kustom creations and have an expanding line of motorcycle products.
–Robby Smith
BUCKSHOT PROJECT BIKE– Got ’em all stuck together and took ’em up the road today!
–Buckshot
MRF ATTENDS MOTORCYCLE SAFETY NETWORK MEETING IN WASHINGTON, HORSEPOWER IS BAD?– Recently the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) held the spring meeting of the Motorcycle Safety Network. The Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) has been a regular participant in this meeting since its inception over five years ago. This meeting was also attended by the American Motorcyclist Association, Motorcycle Safety Foundation, Motorcycle Industry Council, Harley Davidson, American Honda, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, National Association of State Motorcycle Safety Administrators, Accident Scene Management Inc, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Insurance Data Institute, and just about every transportation-related government entity. The all-day meeting covered just about every aspect of motorcycle safety.
Early predictions by government statisticians are claiming that overall traffic fatality numbers for 2009 will be down almost 10 percent over 2008. There is no breakout for motorcycles yet, but one thing is sure to be true; simple math demonstrates that each year that we have more motorcycles on the road than the previous year, we can expect the fatality and injury numbers to rise accordingly.
No real update was available on the federally-funded motorcycle crash study. Although the feds continue to defend the reduction of the sample size from 1200 to 300 crashes as statistically sound, we at the MRF call into question the end result of such a small number of samples. The recently-concluded pilot study report is due out this May.
The Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) gave a lengthy multimedia presentation on their goings on. First off, they are going global with plans to pitch or implement their training curricula in Italy, Germany, Jordan, Israel and China. The most noteworthy progress is being made in Jordan, where up until the adoption of the MSF course, only the King and his friends could ride motorcycles! The MSF had to write new sections of the class to incorporate sand and gravel roads because in some parts of the country the pavement just stops. Also announced at the meeting was the MSF’s plan to withhold the $3 million they were going to donate to the federal crash study and instead do their own study. They rolled out plans to partner with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to do a study using cameras and instrumentation mounted on numerous bikes for 6-18 months. The idea is to see what riders are doing to avoid crashes instead of the feds approach of waiting for a crash and then going to see what happened. It’s a laudable effort by the MSF, and the MRF supports them in what is likely to be the world’s first large-scale naturalistic motorcycle riding study.
The MSF also rolled out information on a few new classes that will be available. First is the CORE class – a single afternoon class designed for returning riders, or for people who know the basics and can keep a bike up but just need a little more polish. The second is a set of actual road classes that have an instructor student ration of 3-1 or 4-2. They ride in 15-minute bursts through various locales, with a blackboard session before and after each ride.
The insurance industry had multiple representatives to announce their publication entitled Riding is Risky Fun, which came out on the day of the meeting. From the incredibly biased title to the bunk statistics churned out by the insurance industry, the whole publication has little, if any, factual base. The only people who could believe the pamphlet are its authors. As expected, the insurance industry continues to pile on the garbage rhetoric of motorcycle crashes being so much more expensive than auto crashes. For instance, their hired guns insist that rider education fails to reduce motorcycle crashes, and that having ABS reduces your chances of crashing by 37 percent.
The report largely focuses on the super sport bike, which the insurance industry has been trying to all-out ban for decades. Horsepower is bad; cheap horsepower is even worse was the phrase that the insurance industry kept using throughout their presentation. We here at the MRF could not disagree more. You can read the whole concocted publication on their website, http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4503.pdf
The Marine Corps ended the day on positive note by rebuking the insurance industry’s notion that rider education does not work. The Corps has seen their motorcycle fatalities reduced by half over the last year, and they give all the credit to their rider education program. Hats off to the Corps for doing its best to keep our mean, green, fighting marines in shape!
SAVE THE DATE! Don’t forget May 20th will be the MRF’s second Michael Boz Kerr Bikers in the Beltway Motorcycle Awareness and Lobby Day. The MRF has secure, free motorcycle parking just steps from the Nation’s Capitol. Ride to DC for what is sure to be a spectacular event.
BIKERNET CRIME LAB REPORT– Two Mexican detectives were investigating the murder of Juan Gonzalez.
‘How was he killed?’ asked one detective. ‘With a golf gun,’ the other detective replied. ‘A golf gun! What is a golf gun?’ I don’t know. But it sure made a hole in Juan.’
OFFICIAL HARBOR TOWN SEDUCTION PRESS RELEASE– There’s no doubt Keith R. Ball’s, aka Bandit, aka K. Randall Ball’s impact on the biker culture around the world cannot be understated. He’s walked the walk and his hand penned novels, and technical writings reflect the trials, tribulations, excitement, brotherhood, thirst for true freedom and rejection of authority that go with the territory.
Ball’s latest tale, Harbor Town Seduction, opens the door to an ongoing series which will follow a young chopper rider, Chance Hogan, in his quest for romance and inner peace in a world full of intrigue and corruption.
In this first novel, Chance rolls the romantic dice and starts life over in the lurid, bustling seaside village of San Pedro, on the Los Angeles Harbor. Once you’ve turned the first page you’ll be hard pressed to put this one down as it has it all; Murder, Treachery and Too Many Women. Harbor Town Seduction makes for an electrifying literary ride from cover to cover.
This is a must on table tops and in saddle bags throughout the biker community and in the hands of millions who wished they’d gone down the freedom road the first time they encountered a pack of bikers jamming down the freeway, their menacing hair frantically dancing like flames in the wind.
Check it out: details here.
LATEST BUILD FROM INDIAN LARRY’S– Here are some photos about the new bike by Indian Larry Motorcycles from world class photographer, Ela.
We turned this project over to Johnny Humble, the Bikernet V-Rod, Bobber madman, from Houston. If he’s got a job, the bills are paid, and his wife, Salena, isn’t upset with him, we will perhaps see the feature toward the end of next week. That is, if he isn’t facing an eminent martial arts tournament.
Subject: The Mexican Maid Sponsored by Danni Ashe– The Mexican maid asked for a pay increase. The wife was very upset about this and decided to talk to her about the raise.
She asked: ‘Now Maria, why do you want a pay increase?’
Maria: ‘Well, Senora, there are tree reasons why I wan an increase. The first is that I iron better than you.’
Wife: ‘Who said you iron better than me?’
Maria: ‘Jor husband say so.’
Wife: ‘Oh.’
Maria: ‘The second reason is that I am a better cook than you.’
Wife: ‘Nonsense, who said you were a better cook than me?’
Maria: ‘Jor husband did.’
Wife: ‘Oh..’
Maria: ‘The third reason is that I am better at sex than you in bed.’
Wife: (really furious now) ‘Did my husband say that as well?’
Maria: ‘No Senora…the gardener did.’
Wife: ‘So how much do you want?’
–Irving Marsh
SCOOTER REVIEWS BLOG AND BIKERNET STUDIOS– I just wanted to drop you a note and let you know how much I am enjoying the blog and the Bikernet studio. You are doing an outstanding job of not only entertaining us but keeping us informed on issues that are near and dear to us … legal, performance and industry.
You have obviously embraced the new age and continue to lead us. I am very appreciative.
See you on the Salt.
–Scooter
www.ScooterShoots.com
BRASS BALLS MODEL 1 ROAD TEST CORRECTION– The Model 1S is now $17,995. January 2010 the Model 1 went to 16,995 and the 1S to $17.995.
–Jeffrey Najar
TIM FROM NEGOTIABLE PARTS CREEPS OUT OF THE CLOSET– “My best friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” said Tim. So he likes his dog, that’s cool. The fuckin’ thing is a monster. If you need used bike parts Tim is your man. The dog won’t maintain his popularity if he starts chewing tires.
–Bandit
negotiableparts@aol.com
HAPPY EASTER, GODDAMNIT– Sin Wu is baking a ham and boiled greens all night last. I’m making a list of articles due to be posted next week, including the Indian Larry Feature, my Sportster guide, a report on the SEMA PowerSports Action Group, which includes Motorcycles, and we have a behind the scenes article from Harley-Davidson on dealer marketing.
Plus, I’ve been working with an imprisoned biker, Scuzz, on his fiction. He’s a helluva writer and we finally dialed in the software program to scan one of his pieces. I will publish it next week.
If you plan to attend the Strokers Dallas show next weekend, the winners will receive bling and books from Bikernet. Hang on for a show report. Now let’s party.
Ride Forever,
–Bandit
