by Alan Cathcart from https://www.motorcycle.com

Riding Royal Enfield’s cruisers through the Indian countryside

Five years on from the 2018 launch of its first ever twin-cylinder models to be made in India, since when over 400,000 examples of the Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650 have been sold around the world, Royal Enfield has now added the first of a much-anticipated series of spinoff models to its range. Unveiled at last November’s EICMA Milan Show and already in production at RE’s Chennai plant for global deliveries to commence in March, the Super Meteor 650 is available in two versions targeting different slices of the middleweight cruiser market. Named after Royal Enfield’s first 100mph model launched back in 1955, a 700cc breakthrough bike marketed as a go-anywhere mile-eater which was available for the first time from any manufacturer with its own array of optional touring equipment, these are both powered by the same air/oil-cooled eight-valve 648cc parallel-twin engine with central chain-driven SOHC equipping the Interceptor and Continental GT. Developed at Royal Enfield’s UK Technology Centre at Bruntingthorpe, the company’s first twin-cylinder engine for the modern era measures 78 x 67.8 mm and carries a single gear-driven counterbalancer to reduce vibration. The 270º crankshaft is a forged one-piece item for extra strength and durability, and it’s so over-engineered you can well imagine it was built for eventual use in larger capacity motors – only not just yet. The fuel-injected engine employing a Bosch ECU and a pair of 34mm Mikuni throttle bodies produces a claimed 46.33 bhp at 7,250 rpm at the crankshaft, so is A2 license compliant in Europe, while maximum torque of 38.57 ft-lb is delivered at 5,650 revs – 400 rpm higher than on the earlier 650 twins. However, RE’s Chief Engineer Paolo Brovedani states there are no mechanical changes to the engine in the new models, only that the Super Meteor’s airbox and exhausts are all-new, which coupled with revised mapping for the ECU delivers a Cruiser-friendly wider spread of torque, with 80% of that peak grunt already available at just 2,500 rpm. The unchanged six-speed transmission features a slip/assist clutch, with a heel-and-toe shifter pedal as standard on both Super Meteor variants, while the modest 9.5:1 compression ratio denotes a relatively low state of tune, most likely to ensure it runs well even on poor-quality fuel. This now well-proven engine is carried as a fully-stressed component in an all-new composite steel duplex open cradle spine frame consisting of diverse forgings, investment castings, pressings, and extrusions which was developed at the UK Technology Centre in conjunction with RE subsidiary Harris Performance, and incorporates a new cylinder head mount for additional stiffness. Showa has now replaced Gabriel as suspension supplier for Royal Enfield’s twins, and the Super Meteor comes with an upside-down fork for the first time on any RE model, albeit a non-adjustable 43mm Big Piston item carried at a 27.6° rake with 4.7 in. of trail, offering 4.7 in. of wheel travel. At the rear, the extruded steel swingarm delivering a rangy 59.0-in. wheelbase carries twin Showa shocks, with 5-step preload adjustment and 4.0 in. of travel. There’s a 19-inch forged aluminum front wheel and 16-inch rear, shod with Indian supplier CEAT’s new Zoom Cruz tubeless tires especially created for the Super Meteor duo, replacing the Pirellis fitted to the two existing Royal Enfield twin-cylinder models. Brovedani says his R&D test team, led by Aussie former 500GP racer Paul Young, has covered over one million kms. on test tracks, Belgian pavé cobblestones, and the highways, byways, towns, villages, and city centers of India, the UK, and Spain, in subjecting a model whose customers are likely to clock up serious mileage to the most rigorous of test programs. Braking on the Super Meteors is supplied by the same single 320mm front disc as on the earlier 650 models, but it is a much larger 300mm rear brake disc (up from 240mm), both gripped by twin-piston calipers from Brembo’s Indian subsidiary ByBre, with dual-channel Bosch ABS fitted as standard, permitting Euro 5 compliance for both variants of the bike. The Standard version of the Super Meteor is claimed to weigh in at 531 lb. with oil and a 90% full 4.1-gal. fuel tank, equating to circa 507 lb. with oil/no fuel. That’s quite a bit heavier than the 445 lb. similarly quoted for the Interceptor twin with the same motor. But there’s no confirmed weight available for the Super Meteor 650 Tourer variant, which comes with a wind tunnel-developed windscreen, LED indicators front and rear, and a larger, even better-padded seat with extra room for a passenger, who also benefits from an abbreviated backrest. A 29.1-in. seat height is quoted for both models, ensuring almost any rider can put both feet flat on the ground at rest, with forward footrests and a tall, wide touring-style handlebar featuring adjustable clutch and brake levers, despite the cable operation of the oil bath clutch. There’s a single round instrument cluster combining an analog speedo with an inset LCD digital panel showing gear selected, fuel level, time, odo and twin trips, and a USB socket located beneath the left side panel. Royal Enfield’s free-to-use TBT/Turn-by-Turn Tripper navigation pod developed in collaboration with Google and introduced two years ago on the Meteor 350, which links to the rider’s smartphone via Bluetooth, is included as standard for the first time on an RE twin-cylinder model. Sorry, but there’s no holder for your phone – you must buy one from the large selection of dedicated Super Meteor accessories. Both a side stand that’s very easy to flip out while seated on the bike and an equally easy-access center stand come fitted as stock. All-new satin-chrome aluminum switch cubes are stylish and practical, despite looking slightly bland owing to the absence of any electronics other than EFI and ABS on a bike with a cable throttle. Hence devoid of ride by wire technology’s buttons and switches, they look well-made and substantial, while the ergonomically shaped barrel-profile handlebar grips incorporating the Royal Enfield logo nestle easily into your hands, as they’re specifically shaped to do. The LED headlamp is another first for Royal Enfield, matched to an LED rear light. Build quality is excellent with self-evident attention to detail, such as the way the oil cooler and hoses match up perfectly with the down tubes of the frame. The fully-spec’d nature of the Super Meteor duo hasn’t bumped up their price unduly, despite these now being Royal Enfield’s top-of-the-range models. Taking ride-away UK list pricing (including 20% local tax) as the example, and incorporating a three-year unlimited mileage manufacturer’s warranty on both models, there are two groups of pricing for the Roadster variant, depending on the color chosen. [No official US pricing has been released at this time, and remember, there is no VAT Stateside. —EB] The Astral trio of Black, Green and Blue cost £6,799 ($8,425) on the road, with the Interstellar Grey and Green tints £200 ($247) more pricey at £6,999 ($8,673). Conversely, the Super Meteor 650 Tourer is available in two distinctive two-tone finishes, namely Celestial Red and Celestial Blue, each with a Cream tank top, costing £7,299 ($9,045) – again, on the road. This compares to current UK pricing of £6,199 to £6,699 ($7,682-$8,802) for the Interceptor and £6,399 to £6,899 ($7,930-$8,549) for the Continental GT, again depending on chosen paint scheme. Those keen prices for a well-equipped middleweight twin confirm that Royal Enfield is continuing its established tradition of offering a huge amount of motorcycle for the money. OK, they look good, the pricing is great – but what are they like to ride? To discover that, I was asked to join a 40-strong press group from all over the globe invited to spend two days in India’s largest but most sparsely settled state, Rajasthan, which is as far west as you can go in the country, riding both bikes for more than 375mi over almost every single possible type of road condition. These ranged from town centers protected by viciously steep but frequently unmarked speed bumps, all choked with people and animals, cars, vans, trucks, and coaches in various states of decrepitude, and motorcycles, motorcycles, motorcycles everywhere, to narrow, winding rural roads which last saw a repair crew sometime in the last century. They went from well-surfaced but often traffic-clogged arterial highways lined with cattle which have taken on board the fact they’re impervious to harm, and thus wander freely around even fast four-lane toll roads without a care in the world, to deserted but beautifully made freeways out in the middle of nowhere, which compare well with anything built in the USA or Europe. Those latter roads were undoubtedly built with the military in mind, since our riding base in the city of Jaisalmer was in western Rajasthan, as close as you can get 75 years on from the horrors of Partition, to the 1,800 mi.-long politically sensitive Pakistani border, one of the most heavily guarded international boundaries on the planet, which is only open to civilian traffic in one location a day’s ride away from our base. But on our second day traveling 280 mi. due east from Jaisalmer to the 16th century Khimsar Fort www.khimsar.com near Jodhpur (yes, where the horse riding pants come from) that’s been turned into a 68-bed luxury hotel, we rode through the Great Thar Desert in a high-speed caravan of Enfield twins running in line astern at speeds up to 100 mph. Passing just 2.5 mi. away from Pokhran, where India joined the Nuclear Weapons club in 1998, followed two weeks later by Pakistan, the great mile-eating capabilities of the Super Meteor were laid out in full as we hightailed it from west to east on a glorious winter morning with not a cloud in the sky. But I wished our test bikes had some heated grips fitted: Setting out at dawn at 46° F with no handguards, my fingers soon felt frostbitten at those speeds, before the sun got higher and the desert temperatures rose! But this is a super-stable motorcycle that’ll be happy to cruise at high speeds all day long on German autobahns and the like, and that’s especially true of the Tourer version fitted with the really effective screen that Paolo Brovedani confirms was the subject of heaps of wind tunnel time to get just right, as evidenced by the Tourer’s total stability with no trace of a wobble round long, fast 80-mph sweepers. At 5’10” in height, I found myself completely protected from any windblast, with zero undue turbulence hitting my helmet and also no noise, nor any distortion looking through the screen. That possibly came about partly because the Tourer’s seat is quite different than the Standard bike’s, with a notably narrower stepover which allows you to tuck your knees in tighter to the tank (too bad it doesn’t have indentations in its flanks for them, like on the other 650 twins), and a shape which has you sitting more within the bike than on its sister model. Moreover, you’re seated a little less upright than on the Roadster variant, so leaning slightly forward as the handlebar invites you to do sees the base of your spine no longer in contact with the softer upholstery of the seat – Brovedani says the Tourer seat has a different density which makes it feel more luxurious. Nice. But I’d spent the previous day at much lower speeds aboard a Standard model exploring the Rajasthan hinterland, visiting the ghost village of Kuldhara, whose inhabitants deserted it overnight in 1828 in protest against the steep taxes being levied on them by the rapacious ruler of Jaisalmer. Its deserted stone-built houses are often used today as a Bollywood movie backdrop, and to get there, we traveled southwest from Jaisalmer, to go as close as you can get to the Pakistan border without entering the minefields lining the frontier. The often bumpy roads provided an excellent test of the Super Meteor’s Showa suspension, with the settings for the raked-out, non-adjustable fork well chosen; even with the bike’s extra weight compared to an Interceptor or Continental GT, it didn’t bottom out via weight transfer under heavy braking descending into a dip in the road but kept on damping out road shock from the uneven surface. The rear suspension was rather surprisingly even better, with the middle preload setting on the 5-way adjustable Showa shocks damping out the worst of the bumps – I could honestly feel the rear wheel following the road surface as the shocks compressed and released. They’re a considerable step up from the Gabriel units on the older 650 twins, whose twin-shock rear end’s much ‘drier’ damping makes them skip around a fair bit over bumps, underlining why progressive rate links and monoshock rear ends replaced such a format decades ago. That’s not the case with the Super Meteor’s super compliant Showas, whose well-chosen damping delivers enhanced ride quality over broken everyday road surfaces. The Standard bike’s riding position has the pulled-back handlebar, mounted on curved 80mm risers cast into the upper triple clamp, combining with the mid-position forward-mounted footrests to deliver a reasonably relaxed, albeit pretty upright, stance. With the quite wide stepover and flatter-feeling seat compared to the Tourer, it seems you’re sitting more on the bike than in it, and pillion space is less spacious, also. I’d have liked to try a version with the footrests moved back 100mm/4 in or so: I reckon it might be a more rational riding position that way that’d be worthy of the true neo-Classic Roadster you get the impression is trying to escape from the Cruiser styling, but – hey, looks are important in this neck of the market, so put up with it. As it is, you must always use the heel-and-toe gearshift as designed to shift gear, because unless you have size 49 feet the gap between the left footrest and the toe lever is too great for you to shift up with your toe – you must remove your boot from the footrest to do so. The actual shift action is flawless, just that achieving it can be awkward. As with the existing 650 models the Super Meteor’s twin-cylinder engine is definitely the star of the show in terms of riding satisfaction, for this is a middleweight motorcycle that thinks big. It’s been intelligently developed to be all things to all riders, so that the less experienced can ride around town all day in fourth gear, and the hyper-flexible engine will let them do so without any hiccups or transmission snatch. But at the other end of the performance scale, it’s a willing companion for a blast through the wide open roads of Rajasthan. You never forget that it’s ‘just’ a 650, because it doesn’t have the torque or power of a 900cc twin or even a 750 – but that’s OK, because the Royal Enfield motor invites you to work hard at making it go fast, as it will. Just make maximum use of the light action slip-assist clutch and smooth, precise gearshift to keep it revving, and you’ll be rewarded with quite impressive levels of performance. It’s a willing partner in making both new Super Meteors a ton of fun to ride hard. The engine’s key asset is the great mapping of the Bosch ECU, especially the response from a closed throttle, which is ultra-smooth with no snatch or jerk. That’s especially so after braking deep into a turn and then getting on the throttle again to drive out of the apex – there’s just a liquid-smooth but no less immediate reaction to what your right hand is doing, and the response from closed to part or even full throttle is ideal. This again makes the bike an ideal mount for less experienced riders, as well as for use in India, where stop/start riding in heavy traffic is a fact of everyday life on two wheels. On the Super Meteor twins, you just twist and go, with a flawless pickup and a totally linear build of both power and torque. The power delivery is impressive for a mid-sized motor, coupled with the abundant torque which is ideally spread throughout the rev range, providing a predictable and controllable surge of acceleration as soon as you twist the throttle to exit a turn. Top gear roll-on is impressive, too – running at three-quarter throttle at 75 mph in India on a deserted toll road in the overdrive sixth gear still leaves sufficient unused torque for the Super Meteor to surge forward noticeably if you crack the throttle wide open. For a 650cc motorcycle, this is a very autobahn-friendly device. The counterbalancer removes every trace of vibration all the way to that hard-action 7,500 rpm limiter, so that instead of the shake, rattle and roll of any parallel-twin, the Super Meteors were completely free of vibration, while the sound from the stock exhaust is a muted semi-angry burble that’s inevitably similar to a 90º V-twin, thanks to the 270º crank. The operation of the single front twin-piston brake caliper and 320mm disc is just about adequate, with good feedback through the lever that’ll help you keep the ABS from kicking in too often on India’s dusty road surfaces. But both Super Meteors would definitely benefit from extra bite from the front brake, making you glad you’ve got the hefty 300mm rear brake that stops the bike better than its larger front partner. Thanks to the Super Meteor’s extra weight you must use both brakes hard to stop from any speed. These new Royal Enfield Super Meteors are sufficiently different from each other that despite sharing the same mechanical platform, they’re essentially two distinct new models – mid-capacity Cruisers that are enjoyable to ride thanks to being blessed with a great engine, and super handling. And when the low price point is taken into consideration, then very likely Royal Enfield CEO Siddhartha Lal will have yet another hit on his hands. For since Triumph walked away from the middleweight retro twin-cylinder sector it had carved such a successful niche in, Royal Enfield has had that segment of the market to itself. So there is indeed nothing else available even remotely like these new 650cc Cruiser twins, and certainly nothing else giving comparable performance at such a low price – well, for the time being, at least, until a Chinese manufacturer like Voge or CFMoto decides to come after the Cruiser segment, however unlikely that might presently be. Until then, Royal Enfield’s twin-cylinder range incorporating these latest two extensions has the field to itself in going back to the future by combining a modern SOHC middleweight parallel-twin engine design, with traditional styling and accessible performance. As Siddhartha Lal said in launching them, “These new Twins carry forward the Royal Enfield legacy into the 21st century. While in essence they retain old-school design and character, they have all the underpinnings of a modern machine, combining agility, usable power, excellent ergonomics, and style, all in an unintimidating manner. However, each is more than the sum of its parts – they’re great fun to ride and bring a smile on your face every single time. The engine has been designed to offer the right balance between power, torque, and usability, so as to ensure a smooth and unintimidating riding experience. They offer a broad spread of torque which makes the motorcycle easy to ride, without frequently shifting gears.” After covering some serious distance aboard the latest two examples of this product philosophy during our Rajasthan Raid, I can’t argue with that.

Hi! Do you ever wonder, as you hear the news of the day….. or find out about it via the guard at the supermarket telling you, you can’t go inside in order to handle the fruit with your bare hands without a mask on…..do you ever wonder why everything just gets crazier and worse? And not saner and better? There’s a reason! And you’re partly why!! That’s right! It’s not just them! A lot of it is you! It’s kinda BOTH of you!…..you and them! Working together! As an idiot team!

Sure, you’re upset at me right now but I have good news! I am actually going to explain to you why you…and the OTHER people causing all the trouble…..are actually a team! That’s right! This ain’t just them! It’s also you! That’s right – two groups of totally batshit inhabitants of Fairyland – working together to make things worse and worse and worse. And all the while – the BOTH of you are refusing to ask each other…..”Why are we doing this?”

Oh!….. and not only are you both doing it and not puzzling why….. you’re both doing it over and over and over again…..and expecting that this NEXT time things will be GREAT! That this will all get fixed!

It won’t. It will all just stay crazy if not get actually crazier. You know what this is called, right?…..doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results every time? That’s right. It’s called being nuts. It’s called being crazy. It’s called being a fucking idiotic fuckhead asshole stupid dumbass fuck.

You should be fucking pretty goddamn excited I showed up at this point. Otherwise, you might just stay stupid forever! That’s not gonna happen. We’re gonna fix that, you and me.

You will notice that there is a news-item link at the top of all this. Maybe it’s at the bottom. Who the fuck knows. At any rate, the news item featured in the link is what triggered what is going to be for you a huge favor!

That’s right. Thanks to this news item… I had what I can only call a Saul Of Tarsus Moment!! I mean, I read looney news items every day. I get routinely infuriated. I yell at the ol’ lady, the neighbor kids, the neighbor dogs and people on Fuckbook and then move on to the next infuriating item. It’s what I DO. I’m like fucking Geico.

But this above news-item created a different reaction. There was no anger. There was no outrage. There was no yelling at the ol’ lady. There was just a kind of silent strangeness of, like, something snapped inside my head. All was quiet. I saw all of reality as a jumble. And off in the distance there was an empty plain.

I said in my mind “I must leave this jumbled reality and go over the empty plain yonder. I must seek the answer not in this reality: but in a different reality. Where my vision will not be intruded upon by this reality. I must go over to the emptyness over there.” I said that.

And I went there in my mind. All was quiet and empty over there. And then it was, very calmly, very unchaotically, very Saul Of Tarsus-like, like I could see! It all made sense! The blindness was gone!

I went back over to where the craziness of reality was and I was no longer affected. Because I understood why it was all so crazy.

But I see it all clearly! You know like the song?…..”I can see clearly now the rain has gone…..duh DUH… duh-DUH-duh duh DUH…….” Yeah, you gut it! That’s the one!

So, I am therefore going to explain to you now why we are at this point. At this continual point of crazy. And it’s actually partially your fault!

There we go. Now, as long as I gut you here and since you’re drinking on me I’m gonna be totally fair with you just so you know: just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean that you did this to yourself and on your own. No. Someone else – a lotta people actually, most people actually – went out of their way to GUARANTEE that you would end up stupid.

I have good news. Yeah, drink up, want another one? Here. Have another one. Pretty good, uh?

Ahem.

So: regarding this article. We as Americans are now at the point where one idiot – the “Democrat” idiot in the article – is saying we need to put Kotex in the girls’ and boys’ bathroom at the mandatory-brainwashing facility called “school”….. while a different idiot, a “Republican” idiot, is saying no, we don’t need to do that, we just need to do it in just the girls’ bathrooms. The boys’ bathrooms don’t need Kotex. It’s the girls’ bathrooms that need the Kotex.

Now, under ordinary circumstances, assuming any of this can be called ordinary, under ordinary circumstances you would never even know about any of this. Fear not. A failed novelist called a journalist, along with his editor, a failed writer on all levels, along with an entire upper management crew at Fox, (upper management being defined here as understanding how to avoid being fired) got wind of this toilet/Tampax/Kotex/leakage/vaginal/bloodspatter incident and decided to tell YOU about it via their monumentally huge information-dump called “The News.”

Let’s walk down this section of instructional pathway one more time: someone you don’t know heard about this incident, which I think as incidents go could justifiably be called an insane one…..and then needed to tell you about it. And for this he got a paycheck enabling him to pay his rent: for telling you about this totally insane upheaval of quarreling sides involving bleeding vaginas and whether bleeding twats should be prepared-for in the men’s room. Not just in the ladies’ room. And these aren’t really men and ladies here: these are kids. Should Kotex dispensers be in the boys’ bathroom: that’s the looming question here: should Kotex be available to boys. In the boys’ lavatory. At school. Where these machines won’t last ten minutes when one of the Normal boys kicks it to pieces while laughing.

This of course is not anticipated by the Democrat. And would not occur to the Republican. And certainly, would not be brought to anyone’s attention by the hack. Unless the hack was me of course. No, he just brought the nonsense to everyone’s attention. Why? Because he KNEW it would be energetically “debated” by people engaging in “conversations” about it.

So: here’s what happened in even more detail and also an explanation of WHY it happened. You’ll actually learn the WHY of it all. Unlike what you will learn from fuckyfuck and his editor at Fux News.

So, the Republican was the first Asshole Fucking Idiot to propose this Kotex rule. The Republican office holder just dreamed this idea up. Probably while thinking about high school girls going to the bathroom. And his daydream PROBABLY did not involve Kotex at the time. Or bleeding twats. Or urine. He probably just figured, “You know what?….as long as I’m daydreaming about high school girls’ twats, why not make my daydream PUBLIC under a disguise or a ruse or a politically-correct act of ‘caringness’ because you know what?….that will be funny: here I am thinking about teenage twats and I manage to transform it into fucking ‘noble and caring virtue and saintliness and selflessness.’ Or, in other words, the exact opposite of what is really going on, which is me just thinking about teens’ twats.”

So, this Republican decided it would be a good idea to command into existence menstrual-blood collectors in the girls’ bathroom. He’s getting paid god only knows what to do something that is not specifically spelled-out as a job requirement other than “making things better” and this is what he comes up with to make things better: Kotex in the school bathroom.

Okay. So, there’s that guy. That’s what HE’S doing. Dreaming of twats and Kotex and menstrual blood and somehow making his daydreams public under some crazed guise of caring about teen twats, not just daydreaming about them but CARING about them. He’s getting 200 grand a year of your money to talk about teen twats’ blood-leakage publicly….and get away with it. Because he doesn’t want to FUCK their pussies, no of course not. He wants to protect them from stains and odor. That’s all.

I should mention, fair to say, that this notion – which when bureaucrats have notions they become “bills” – this “bill“ which this asshole dreamed up likely will not actually involve Kotex Brand cunt-stanchers. Unless Kotex is now headquartered in China, then, who knows. But will more likely involve, if a specific cunt-blocker is written into the bill, be more like something called “Happy Kunt PeePee Leakee-Leakee Brand Poison-Oak Clusters From North Korea.” Or Afghanistan. I mean my FIRST question would be does this guy own stock in twat-blankets? Because who thinks of this shit just outa the fucking blue.

So anyway, this doesn’t end with Senyore Republican coming up with this emergency protocol for a non-existent anything, forget emergency, no, not at all, here’s where the Democrat cunt got involved with her objection to all this. Do you think her objection was “This is stupid”? No. That was not her objection.

Her PROBLEM with all this is that the Republican wanted the twat-drainage rags…… to be provided just in the girls’ room. To repeat, the Democrat’s PROBLEM with this idiotic idea wasn’t that it was an idiotic idea. The problem was it wasn’t idiotic ENOUGH. It needed to be stupider. I WILL give Democrats this: they can improve upon ordinary stupid and elevate it to monumental-level stupid as though they were born to it.

Let that sink in: the imbecile Republican with time on his hands wanted the free, probably pre-moistened with jizz just for laughs, sanitary napkin cunt blockers designed for use on cunts’ cunts exclusively……he wanted them just in the girls’ bathroom.

It’s at this point that this other idiot, the Democrat one, pipes up and says “That of course is something all us adults should be thinking about, teenage girls’ twats. But let’s not forget that there are teenage girls who are declaring and announcing that they are actually teenage boys. And these declared-males with twats will be allegedly squatting, maybe standing, maybe doing cartwheels, it’s really none of my business, they will be in some crotch-related configuration in the boy’s room taking a piss out their twat vaginal cunt-pussies….. and they will need a Chinese crotch-mask too! Maybe. I really don’t know. I’m just guessing. I mean, it could be the case.

I’m speaking in the context of an abundance of Kotex. I mean of caution. OR….. they might have penises but identify as girls. And might want a fake Chinese imitation Kotex up their asses. Because maybe their asses identify as twats. So yeah: this is a great really stupid idea but it needs to be made a lot stupider.”

This then is the matter that is under actual serious discussion such that Fox needs to calmly report on it. Remember, as far as these people are concerned and the journalist and his editor and the CEO of Fox are concerned….. this is not a topic that should have everyone involved in talking about it sent to Siberia to die in the cold. Oh no! Oh contrair. This is in fact a topic that should of course properly have a bonafide journalist discussing it objectively, like it’s a real thing.

And by all means Democrat office holders and Republican office holders should be actively engaging in the ins and outs and the pros and cons of this vital topic that has attracted even the mighty overseers at Fox News so that once the decision is made regarding this extremely important matter of what to put in what bathrooms of the mandatory teen-prison-attendance facilities it will create, as do all government actions, the exact opposite of its intent. Not that we actually know what the intended intent actually is in this case. Which is good.

The nuttiness of this, however, goes way beyond the issue under discussion. The issue itself is the very least of the problems of this situation. Because the issue is being created by something even crazier than the issue itself called “representatives” – who have jobs that have no actual job description other than “representative.” Even though no one in particular is being represented.

The representative’s “job” is representation. But not of anyone in particular. Just representationalism for its own sake. Your representative represents representness. NO “representative” actually has met even one one- millionth of the people he is “representing.” So, he’s not actually a representative. No one has access to him, nor does he want anyone accessing him. So, he’s basically nothing. And yet he is expected to “do” things. But why would he know how to “do” things when his job has no things to “do” IN its job description. Which it also doesn’t have: a job description. So, what is he supposed to DO? HE doesn’t know. YOU don’t know. Nobody knows.

Well, since he knows on some level that he doesn’t know what his job is as representative of people he doesn’t know, he asks OTHER “representatives” and THEY don’t know either. So, they band together and decide amongst each other like comrades, “Well, we’ll do what we want until someone tells us to tone it down a bit. Then we’ll tone it down a bit until it’s safe to ramp it up again.”

And there are no punishments for coming up with idiocy. Or passing it into law, so that EVERYBODY has to become an idiot. Like their non-representative representatives are. Except stupid as they are we’re not as stupid as the people they are representing since what they have is Job Security without even having a job! Kinda like a Mob job on a construction site!

So, you have two piles of representatives who are not representing anyone….. agitating the people they are not actually representing into demanding that not only should the non-representational representatives create more mandatory edicts but that there should be even more frequent replacements of non-representational representatives than are currently being replaced at the present pace at which they are not being replaced at.

Meanwhile the huge hordes of people who they are supposed to be representing even though they are not actually representing them or even know who the fuck they are – these people are busy yelling at each other that one pile of non-representing representatives is 100% wrong in their non-representational decisions and opinions while the other pile (there are only two piles) while the other pile of non-representing representatives is 100% right in their non-representational decisions and opinions.

So you have two piles of representatives who are not actually representing anyone and an even larger pile of people who are convinced they are actually being represented by the people they keep electing into representative posts who they never met or if they did meet just got a smile and a handshake and a “Hey, good to see you, hope I get your vote”…..which therefore which is three piles of malarky or delusion-filled people: two groups of which have “jobs” that require no product other than non-representational representation, a third group that insists the first two groups are absolutely necessary to prevent chaos and then you have a fourth group called “reporters” who REPORT on all this as though it is actually some sort of functional aspect of civilization. Rather than something fucking batshit as hell.

Let’s review AGAIN because I think it’s necessary: There’s four groups of people in America ACTUALLY running things, despite what the flat-earthers tell you, all of them batshit: there’s two groups of representatives who do not represent anyone and who are at odds with each other exclusively since they are the only people they ever see on a day to day basis in the “workplace” unless it happens that they are NOT at odds with the opposition, namely other non-representational representatives who they are in agreement with unless they are in disagreement with them: there’s a group of people who “have” representatives who do not actually represent them since they never met them, talked to them, came over the house, swam in their pool, chatted with them on the phone, and then there’s a fourth group who MONITOR the other three groups and intrude opinions or suggestions or attitudes or observations into their reports on the other three groups to either suggest one of the three groups is more right or less wrong than one or the other of the other groups, and they’re kind of like some sort of batshit independent crazed weird fuel-onto-the-fire kind of berserk outlier pretending or claiming to be indifferent onlookers only interested in the other three groups getting along as much as possible. Even though they’re lying.

So, you have “representatives” who basically are not representatives. They’re just people with an imaginary “job.” It gets worse: they would not be IN their imaginary jobs unless the imaginary job actually existed beforehand. And the reason the imaginary job exists is because the people being imaginarily represented insisted that the imaginary jobs be created. So you have people in jobs that are not jobs, representing no one as representatives of other people who insisted the imaginary representational jobs be created, so that eternally-rotating selected individuals who often self-selected themselves to “run for office” as imaginary representatives of people they will never meet or know or recognize in a crowd…can order the crowd around…..at the insistence of the crowd itself which demands that someone represent them in an imaginary capacity.

And now you know why everything in America is nuts. It’s because that’s what everyone actually wants. Welcome to ”our sacred democracy.”

–J.J. Solari

Grand National Roadster Show

The Grand Daddy of Them All

Some of the coolest vehicles around are in the Suede Palace at the 2023 O’Reilly Auto Parts Grand National Roadster Show!

Sponsored by “Rod and Style” as well as “Speed and Kulture”

Great Entertainment All Weekend!

CLICK To Buy Tickets Online
or get your discounted tickets at your local O’Reilly Auto Parts by clicking here

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE GRAND NATIONAL ROADSTER SHOW

Vehicles Competing for prestigious awards like America’s Most Beautiful Roadster and the Al Slonaker Memorial Award

Plus, hundreds of vendors, entertainers and food options

So join us at Fairplex in Pomona this February!

SHOW HOURS

FRIDAY FEB 3
12 PM – 8 PM

SATURDAY  FEB 4
10 AM – 8 PM

SUNDAY FEB 5
10 AM – 6 PM

About Rod Shows : Based in the automotive cultural hub of Southern California, Rod Shows produces the West Coast’s premier indoor hot rod and custom shows including the Grand National Roadster Show and the Sacramento Autorama. Its professional show management team sets the highest standards for top quality competition and displays with every show and personally visit the country’s top automotive coachbuilders and events throughout the year, ensuring the Best of the Best participate in its events. For more information, visit www.rodshows.com.

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5-Ball Racing Shop presents you distinct style. Ride to your favorite Motorcycling Events….Have a look at the 5/8 leather Jak shirt, our ballistic nylon vest, the one & only Bandit’s bedroll and get inspired by World’s Fastest Panhead book for your own Bonneville Salt Flats Land Speed record !!!

Visit https://5-ballgarage.com/

by Anuj Mishra from https://www.msn.com/

2023 will definitely be an eventful year for the Indian two-wheeler market as a lot of new bikes and scooters are expected to debut on our shores. Amongst these products, the one we are quite excited about will come from Bajaj-Triumph’s joint venture. Over the last few months, a lot has been written about this partnership accompanied by a bunch of spy shots doing rounds online.

While the buzz has already been sparked, there are a few important questions that need to be answered. When are these bikes officially launching? And what will be their engine capacity? What body styles are we looking at? And what price range will they fall into? Well, we are glad to report that we have gathered some information on these fronts from our reliable sources and here’s what they have divulged.

Expected line-up
Bajaj-Triumph partnership is expected to roll out bikes with four different body styles – a modern-classic roadster, a scrambler, a café racer, and a flat-tracker. We have already seen the former two in spy shots, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Now, talking about the displacement, Bajaj-Triumph is working on two different engine capacities including 250cc and 400cc, both in a single-cylinder configuration with liquid cooling. So, if the company introduces four body styles with each of these engines, it’s a total of eight motorcycles. However, the flat-tracker might come only with the 400cc engine because these bikes need a strong low-end punch and a 250cc motor might be underpowered for this genre.

Bajaj-Triumph is expected to go the Husqvarna way and launch only the 250cc models in India and introduce the 400cc offerings in the international markets. Needless to say, the demand for 250s is higher than 400s in our country. We have seen the 250cc segment grow over the years and some of the quarter-litre bikes have been doing decently well in terms of sales.

Design
Amongst the four different body styles we mentioned, a modern-classic roadster and a scrambler have already been spotted a couple of times. In all likelihood, the India-bound 250cc iterations of these bikes will be called the Scrambler 250 and Street 250 as Triumph follows a similar nomenclature for its bigger 900cc motorcycles.

As can be observed in the pictures, these offerings clearly look promising and desirable. While the main bodywork and hardware look identical, there are certain differences between them. The scrambler has a small fly screen, knuckle guards, conventional round mirrors, a ribbed-pattern seat, block-pattern tyres, and a dual-barrel exhaust setup. Whereas, the roadster looks more conventional and minimalistic as it misses out on a fly screen, knuckle guards, and ribbed seat. What it incorporates instead are bar-end mirrors, a single exhaust canister, and road-biased tyres.

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Engine and hardware
Concrete details about the engine specifications of these bikes aren’t available yet. However, if we are to speculate, both the 250cc and 400cc engines will be quite potent and tractable. We believe these engines will deliver oodles of torque in the low and mid-range, typical of modern-retro offerings, while packing a decent amount of power. The torque curve might be flat which will make them extremely easy to ride. As per our guess, the 250cc motor will produce power and torque in the ballpark of 25-30 bhp/Nm while the 400cc unit might be good for 35-40bhp and similar torque output. The exhaust note should be different for all the variants and match their respective genres.

As for the cycle parts, from what we can decipher from the spy shots, the roadster will come equipped with 10-spoke alloy wheels with a diameter of 17-inch. However, the scrambler trim was evidently seen running a larger front wheel. The suspension setup will comprise premium upside-down forks and a monoshock with varying travel for springs based on their body style. Stopping power, meanwhile, will come from a single disc at both ends, presumably with switchable dual-channel ABS.

The suspension setup is unlikely to be adjustable for the India-bound models as that will bump up the pricing substantially. Similarly, we don’t expect these bikes to come with mind-blowing features like a traction control system, cornering ABS, and quick shifter. Since the pricing needs to be aggressive, Bajaj-Triumph might only incorporate elements which are a norm these days like full-LED lighting, a digital console with Bluetooth connectivity and navigation, and a slipper clutch.

Launch timeline
The Bajaj-Triumph motorcycles were expected to be unveiled at the 2022 EICMA show in Milan but that has been postponed. Now, their official debut will mostly take place in the first half of 2023. Also, we might see the India-bound 250cc line-up come out first, followed by the unveiling of the 400cc models at a later stage. Coming to the pricing, the 250cc offerings for India will be priced quite aggressively for the kind of package they’ll bring to the table. And that means the ex-showroom price should be between Rs 2-2.3 lakh. Now, we might bring you more details about these motorcycles as we get closer to the launch. Stay tuned to BikeWale.

by Dennis Chung from https://www.motorcycle.com

Streetbike for Asia and a Riding Academy bike for the US

Harley-Davidson held its big 120th anniversary reveal last week, and for the most part, the announcement included the bikes we expected, such as the Nightster Special, and the return of the Breakout with a Milwaukee-Eight 117ci engine. What we also expected to come for 2023 but was not included in the announcement were the X350 and X350RA. Still, despite not being part of the big Jan. 18 announcement, we managed to get our hands on some information confirming more details of the Chinese-built models.

The X350 is the product of Harley-Davidson’s partnership with China’s Qianjiang Motors that was first announced in 2019. After some regulatory delays, the QJ-built X350 is finally close to production as a small-displacement model for Asian markets. The X350 and an X350RA variant appeared in Vehicle Information Number data submitted by QJ to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and as we recently reported, Harley-Davidson included the X350RA in its 2023 model year VIN information.

Following the Jan. 18 announcement, Motorcycle.com has secured a copy of the X350RA’s official owner’s manual, plus a single image of the model, with clear proof it is intended for use for Harley-Davidson’s Riding Academy. We’ve also briefly got a look at the official parts catalog, confirming some of the differences between X350 and X350RA.

The image above briefly appeared on Harley-Davidson’s Service Information Portal, showing a roadster with neutral riding ergonomics and, tellingly, bright orange bars bolted on to either side of the radiator.

The owner’s manual includes an illustration of the X350RA from the rider’s perspective, and it offers another view of the radiator guards. The added protection further confirms our suspicions that the “RA” version of the X350 is intended for the Riding Academy.

The owner’s manual further confirms some specifications of the X350RA. The bike is powered by an eight-valve liquid-cooled Parallel-Twin engine displacing 353cc. The engine isn’t entirely new but a larger version of the engine employed by the QJ-built Benelli 302S. The X350’s 45.2 mm stroke is the same as the Benelli’s, but its 70.5 mm cylinder bore is larger than the 302S’ 65.0 mm. The X350’s 11.9:1 compression ratio is just slightly off the 12:1 ratio of the Benelli 302S.

The X350 reportedly claims an output of 36 hp, but the Harley-Davidson VIN information confirms the X350RA will only claim 23 hp. An executive order issued by the California Air Resources Board further confirms that the RA model has been restricted, as it certifies the X350 and X350RA alongside a “derating removed” version of the RA which would presumably offer its full power output.

The owner’s manual further confirms the X350RA will have a circular instrument module with an analog speedometer and a small digital screen displaying mileage, time or engine speed.

The manual provides instructions for adjusting the damping on the inverted fork and rear shock. Also present are ABS and dual petal-shaped disc brakes, which is a bit of a surprise as many of Harley-Davidson’s larger, more powerful models still only use a single front disc brake.

The X350RA runs on 17-inch wheels, front and back. Pirelli supplies its Angel CT tires with a 110/70-17 up front and a 150/60-17 at the rear. From the parts catalog, we can confirm the non-RA model will have larger tires, with a 120/70-17 up front and 160/60-17 at the rear.

According to the owner’s manual, the X350RA claims a running weight of 440 pounds,with its 3.6-gallon fuel tank at 90% capacity. We expect the non-RA model to come in a bit lighter as it lacks the protective bars. The X350RA also has a 55.5-inch wheelbase, 5.6 inches of ground clearance, and a 30-inch seat height.

We don’t expect to have much longer to wait before Harley-Davidson officially announces the X350 and X350RA. While we thought there was a chance it would have been part of the Jan. 18 announcement, we can see how a small-displacement Chinese-manufactured Riding Academy model would stick out in an event focused on Harley-Davidson’s 120th anniversary. Harley-Davidson likely has a coordinated launch plan with Qianjiang for both the X350 and X350RA

Track Day x February 5th @ Fox Raceway

We are so excited to finally bring back our annual track day at our home track, Fox Raceway in Pala, CA. This event is for the entire fam and there is no event sign up or extra cost to attend other than the track fee you pay upon arrival if riding. But hey.. we got so many deets, let’s go ahead and dive into it

Want more info on the track and camping options? Tap HERE

Fox Raceway opens at 8AM and first ladies only moto starts at 9:00AM sharp on the vet track. At the top of the hour, ladies only (15+ up) will have 30 min motos on the vet track which will flow like this…

Regulated Ladies Only Moto Times on Vet Track

• 9AM-9:30AM
• 10:00AM-10:30AM
• 11:00AM-11:30AM
• 12PM-12:30PM
• 1PM-1:30PM
• 2PM-2:30PM
• 3PM-3:30PM

In between those times above, anyone can ride the track (including dads and dudes). Rider under 15 & true beginners who are learning the clutch and brake should stay on the kids track only.

Track Fees

• Rider fee at gate $20 for 65cc and under & $30 for 85cc and bigger
• Spectators are free

Fun Stuff

• Free Husqvarna demos on the 2023 models (can you smell the 2 stroke?!) for the ladies on a private husky only track (85, 125, 250s)
• AEO Powersports on site checking your sag and high fiving
• Free Husqvarna x Stacyc demos for all kids (bring your own gear + helmet etc.) in a private secure area
• Free USMCA coaching on site provided by Husqvarna for the ladies that are new to moto (perfect for ladies who have never ridden before or have had limited seat time)
• Free USMCA coaching for the kids on the closed Stacyc area
• Hospitality + snacks and coffee provided by Fox Racing crew
• Free Motion boot demos from Fox Racing
• 805 hospitality area, come properly chill with us!
• Babes in the Dirt hanging and riding along with you
• Professional photos of you ripping
• Bring the entire fam, we want everyone to enjoy a day ripping!

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Tell ’em Bikernet.com Sent Ya !!! Sign up for info on more fun events and bike shows, click here.

Fort Worth TX – January 26, 2023 – The Tucker Powersports team (https://www.tucker.com/) is running at full throttle in preparation for the industry’s premier event, AIMExpo, in Las Vegas next month. Staff and exhibit planners are creating an experience on the Tucker “campus” that rivals other events the company has done in both number of activities and dealer interest.

AIMExpo 2023 runs from Wednesday, February 15 to Friday, February 17 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Dealers and Media can register by CLICKING HERE.

“We’re working hard to be ready for a record number of dealer attendees and a building that’s jam-packed with great products,” said Tucker VP of Marketing Lesley Madsen. “I’m excited to feel the energy in the hall this year. We all want the world to get back to normal, so now let’s get back to business.”

The Motorcycle Industry Council, producer of AIMExpo, reports that registrations from dealer attendees is at the highest level in the show’s ten-year history. With several companies recently signing on as exhibitors, the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center is virtually sold out.

A big portion of the exhibit space has been claimed by Tucker, which is creating an experience highlighting the distributor’s “owned” brands as well as several of the products which are exclusively distributed by Tucker. Tucker’s exhibit space will be in the center of the show and will offer easy access to many of Tucker’s partner companies, to the New Products stage and to other presentation areas as well. Not only will Tucker be showing its latest products, but the company will also highlight Tucker University, the company’s training program, which allows dealership staff and Tucker field reps to stay “in the know” for the latest news and information on Tucker-distributed products.

All of the Tucker sales reps will be in Las Vegas participating in product training and helping their dealers who are attending the show. The company will offer show specials on orders submitted by dealers while in Las Vegas.

“This year’s show is a huge step forward in delivering exactly what our customers need,” continued Madsen. “It’s a gathering place for dealers and the industry, an opportunity to learn about the changing marketplace and to celebrate the tremendous innovation we are seeing in the powersports aftermarket. Only 50% of the dealer attendees are identified as Tucker dealers, so we think we have an opportunity to bring more dealerships into the Tucker family at the show.”

“As the excitement for the upcoming show continues to build, we want to thank Tucker and the hundreds of other exhibitors for the commitment they are making with us to create the powersports event of the year,” said Andre Albert, director of marketing and events, Motorcycle Industry Council. “I for one can’t wait to see all the new products Tucker is unveiling at the show.”

Tucker will highlight several products that have never been shown to the public before, including Forcite Helmets, the newest products from Dainese and Answer Racing’s 2023 product lineup. The company will also announce several new products and new partnerships at the show.

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GET AHEAD IN YOUR GAME — GRAB THE FREE BIKERNET WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, CLICK TO GET GOING

Hey,

Hopefully, in the near future colleges will teach a course about this last troubled 20 years and how the lack of free speech nearly destroyed this country. Teachers will point out when it started and how a seemingly positive notion turned into a fight for control based around lies that could not be contested.

Here are two of the backlashes of this behavior. With power comes overt punishment for the wrong things. They wrongly think oil and oil power is bad, so everything associated must be punished. Now, we have wars on cars and motorcycle bans are considered.

Second, if we’re lied to by the government, what does that mean to society. Does that mean it’s okay to be an outlaw? Why obey the laws, the government and its agencies don’t? Hang on!

Let’s hit the news:

The Bikernet Weekly News is sponsored in part by companies who also dig Freedom including: Cycle Source Magazine, the MRF, Las Vegas Bikefest, Iron Trader News, ChopperTown, BorntoRide.com and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.

THE PUNISHMENT EXAMPLE—

While there is definitely an issue with people who operate vehicles under the influence of substances I remember back to the days of fighting the Mandatory Helmet law, 55 Mile Per hour Speed limit and Blood Alcohol Limit of 1.4.

 They keep lowering it and there are a lot of people and agencies making a lot of MONEY from it.

A DUI is very expensive lawyers, mandatory schools, probation, breathalyzer fee etc. Wanting to install breathalyzer in all new vehicles, that could be a real nightmare for motorcycles.

Click here for that news

Wash. bill would lower legal blood alcohol limit.

A bill under consideration in Washington would make it the second state in the country to lower the legal limit for a driver’s blood alcohol content from 0.08% to 0.05%.

State Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, is Senate Bill 5002’s primary sponsor. The former state trooper and former Snohomish County sheriff said this week that of the more than 700 people killed on Washington roads last year, over half were DUI-related.

‘Our roads are not as safe as they should be, and they are definitely not as safe as they could be,’ Lovick said. ‘I see driving behavior that is beyond anything I could have imagined when I started as a state trooper over 40 years ago … It is very clear to me that drunk driving is impacting the safety of our communities, and it is time that we do something.’

Across the country and currently in Washington, the legal blood alcohol content limit for most drivers is 0.08%, but limits vary by state for commercial drivers or drivers with past DUI convictions.

Josh McDonald, executive director of the Washington Wine Institute, spoke against the bill this week, saying a change to 0.05% blood alcohol content could turn a ‘reasonable, modern consumption experience, for both the customer and winery, into a very serious concern,’ KUOW reported.

Washington is the second-largest wine producing state with more than 1,000 wineries, according to the Washington State Wine Commission.
Julia Gorton, with the Washington Hospitality Association, also spoke against the proposed change, arguing that there is ‘no discernible way to recognize signs of intoxication’ at the 0.05% level.

Utah’s Legislature voted in 2017 to decrease the legal limit to 0.05% despite similar concerns. Since it went into effect, the number of crashes and fatalities have fallen even though drivers logged more miles, according to research published last year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The National Transportation Safety Board recommended last year that all new vehicles in the U.S. be equipped with blood alcohol content monitoring systems that can stop an intoxicated person from driving, saying alcohol-related crashes were one of the biggest causes of highway deaths. The agency encouraged states a decade ago to drop their blood alcohol content levels to 0.05%.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signaled his support for the bill Thursday, saying he’s convinced the change would cause people to moderate their drinking and driving behavior.

The bill, which is also sponsored by about a dozen other lawmakers from both parties, moved out of the Senate Law and Justice Committee on Thursday after it was changed to take effect in late December this year, instead of July. It goes next to the Senate Transportation Committee for consideration.

‘It is very clear to me that drunk driving is impacting the safety of our communities, and it is time that we do something.’

State Sen. John Lovick

–Lisa Baumann
ASSOCIATED PRESS

–from Rogue
Senior Editor
Bikernet.com™

COMMUNITY NEWS FRON THE LAW TIGERS GROUP—

Community Highlight
Arizona Burn Foundation Benefitting Camp Courage

Sunday, February 5

The Arizona Burn Foundation’s mission is to help improve the quality of life for burn survivors and their families in Arizona while promoting burn prevention advocacy and education.

Law Tigers is presenting the “Live with Courage” Camp Courage Extravaganza.

What is Camp Courage? The Arizona Children’s Burn Camp, “Camp Courage,” is put on by the Arizona Burn Foundation. Kids that have suffered traumatic burn injuries are allowed to forget about the surgeries, procedures, and hospitals and just have fun in the cool pines of Prescott, Arizona for one week each year.

Provided to Youth Burn Survivors, this summer camp is funded through donations to the Arizona Burn Foundation. For more than 50 years, Arizona Burn Foundation has provided high-quality support programs for Arizona children and adult burn survivors and their families.

Where: Cottonwood AZ, Mainstage- Becca’s Bar

Yavapai Broadcasting Co. will be broadcasting LIVE with fire trucks, food trucks, poker puns, live auctions, silent auctions, raffles & more.

ANOTHER PUNISHMENT EXAMPLE—

Motorcycles are mentioned in this article numerous times and in the past we have heard some wild things from NY and their enforcement.

 $800 – $2,625 FINES Again is it about noise or making money?

Refer news article by clicking here

Traffic cameras listen for loud vehicles
Pilot program tickets noisy neighbors in NYC

NEW YORK – After the relative quiet of the pandemic, New York City has come roaring back. Just listen: Jackhammers. Honking cars and trucks. Rumbling subway trains. Sirens. Shouting.

Over the years, there have been numerous efforts to quiet the cacophony. One of the latest: traffic cameras equipped with sound meters capable of identifying souped-up cars and motorbikes emitting an illegal amount of street noise.

At least 71 drivers have gotten tickets so far for violating noise rules during a yearlong pilot program of the system. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection now has plans to expand the use of the roadside sound meters.

‘Vehicles with illegally modified mufflers and tailpipes that emit extremely loud noise have been a growing problem in recent years,’ said City Council member Erik Bottcher, who heralded the arrival of the radars to his district to help reduce ‘obnoxious’ noise.

New York City already has one of the most extensive noise ordinances in the country, setting allowable levels for a host of noisemakers, such as jackhammers and vehicles.

A state law known as the Stop Loud and Excessive Exhaust Pollution Act that went into effect last spring raised fines for illegal modifications of mufflers and exhaust systems.

Because police officers often have other priorities, offenders have gone their merry, noisy way. The new devices record the license plates of offenders, much like how speedsters are nabbed by roadside cameras. Vehicle owners face fines of $800 for a first noise offense and a penalty of $2,625 if they ignore a third-offense hearing.

City officials declined to reveal where the radars are currently perched.

A year ago, Paris, one of Europe’s noisier cities, installed similar equipment along some streets.

 ‘You listen to the noise out there, it is nonstop – the horns, the trucks, the sirens,’ New York Mayor Eric Adams bemoaned during a recent news conference. ‘Noise pollution makes it hard to sleep and increases the risk of chronic disease.’

Nearly a decade ago, one of Adams’ predecessors, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, launched a war on noise, releasing 45 pages of rules that covered chiming ice cream trucks and how long a canine can continuously yap (five minutes during the wee hours of the night, 10 during most of the day) before its owner gets in the doghouse.

In 1905, the New York Times had declared the metropolis ‘a bonfire of sound that is rapidly spreading beyond control of any ordinary extinguisher.’ The article asked: ‘Is there any relief possible?’

A global pandemic more than a century later answered that question. For a few months in the spring of 2020, the roar of vehicles on city streets stopped as people stayed in their homes.

The silence allowed people to hear birdsong again – though it was often interrupted by wailing ambulance sirens and, at night, bursts of illegal fireworks.

‘As quiet as it was during the lockdown, it was a very uncomfortable quiet. It was a scary quiet because it carried a lot of implications with it,’ said Juan Pablo Bello, the lead investigator of Sounds of New York City, a New York University endeavor to study urban noise.

Bello and his team initially hoped to collect data on the dissonance of routine urban life but the coronavirus intervened. Instead, they monitored the acoustical rhythms of a city under lockdown.

The number of noise complaints actually grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, but some experts say that was a symptom of homebound people becoming hypersensitive to their uneasy environments.

Complaints over noisy neighbors nearly doubled in the first year of the pandemic. Many other complaints were attributed to cars and motorcycles with modified mufflers.

Still, some people say efforts to quiet loud vehicles go too far. Phillip Franklin, a 30-year-old Bronx car enthusiast, launched an online petition to protest the state’s noise law.

‘The majority of us live here in New York City, where noise is a part of our daily lives,’ said his petition, which asserted that quiet vehicles pose dangers to inattentive pedestrians.

‘Fixing potholes is a lot more important than going after noisy cars,’ Franklin said…

‘I think people developed an appreciation for the fact that it’s a messy, noisy city,’ said Bello, the NYU researcher. ‘We like it to be active, and we like it to be lively. And we like it to be full of jobs and activity, and not this sort of scary, quite unnerving place.’

New York City already has one of the most extensive noise ordinances in the country, setting allowable levels for a host of noisemakers, such as jackhammers and vehicles.

–Bobby Caina Calvan
ASSOCIATED PRESS

–from Rogue
Senior editor
Bikernet.com™

ARE CONCERTS TOO LOUD?—

Country Newcomer Whitney Miller Releases New Single “15 Minutes of Fame”—

“15 Minutes of Fame” Premiered By People.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Country music singer-songwriter Whitney Miller is excited to release her new single “15 Minutes of Fame,” premiered by People.com.

The former Miss Texas and Miss United States, kickboxing commentator and MMA fighter is no stranger to hard work and dedication. Never one to shy away from difficult topics, Miller has taken the pain from a broken relationship and turned the experience into a lifelong lesson that most can learn from.

With lyrics like “When it comes your time, I’ll bring the wine and we can make a toast to the next girl in line,” it is clear that she isn’t looking back for one second. In a short period of time, Whitney Miller is already making her mark in country music with several new singles and a debut album slated for 2023, proving to the world that she isn’t going to settle with just “15 Minutes of Fame” in a man or her music!

“This last year, since moving to Nashville, has been a wild roller coaster ride,” shares Miller. “There are times I have to pinch myself to make sure this musical journey isn’t simply a dream. In a way, this new song finally allowed me to say, or sing at the top of my lungs, all the things I was too afraid to say out loud. It was my own type of therapy and not only written from my own experience but also for anyone who has felt or watched their ex do the same thing, different day, different girl. ’15 Minutes of Fame’ is a sassy little truth teller and one of the best things that came from getting my heart broken.”

“Whitney Miller is a force of nature in many ways! Raw talent, work ethic, and a desire to make a difference on this planet, make her a great new addition to the country music arena!” – Bernard Porter / PCG Nashville

For more information on Whitney Miller and her schedule, visit her website, or follow her on social media:

https://www.whitneymillermusic.com

BUILDER OF THE WEEK—Kutty Noteboom
Owner at Hippy Killer Hoedown and Owner at Hippy Killer Garage Co.

Hemet, California
Married to Jamie Noteboom

Hemet, California
Married to Jamie Noteboom

Hemet, California
Married to Jamie Noteboom

–Sam Burns
Feature Bike Editor
Bikernet.com™

Vance & Hines Shakes Up NHRA PSM Team—
Young Star Added to Team After Impressive Debut in 2022

Santa Fe Springs CA –Vance & Hines announced the members of the Vance & Hines/Mission/Suzuki NHRA ProStock Motorcycle (PSM) Team, which will feature four-time champion Eddie Krawiec and 29-year-old Gaige Herrera competing for the 2023 championship. The riders will be aboard Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycles. Six-time champion Andrew Hines returns as crew chief in 2023.

Gaige Herrera is a fourth-generation racer who has had success in XDA’s Pro Street and Outlaw racing classes, with race wins in both classes earned over the past several years. Herrera is no stranger to fast bikes, having numerous runs in the 6.30’s over 200 MPH. He is a long time Suzuki rider, holding the record for the fastest Nitrous Suzuki Hayabusa in the country. He’s also familiar with great equipment, since he’s been a customer of Vance & Hines for the past five years.

In 2022, Herrera competed in six NHRA events, his first taste of NHRA PSM racing. He qualified in four of the six races he entered. Herrera impressed the Vance & Hines team when he rode Eddie Krawiec’s Suzuki in a test following the Las Vegas round in October.

“This is such a tremendous opportunity,” said Herrera. “I never expected to get a call with an invitation to join the Vance & Hines team, and when I told my dad (long time drag racing fixture Augustine Herrera), he was as excited as me.”

“We love finding and supporting talented riders,” said Terry Vance, co-founder of Vance & Hines. “We have another guy on the team that we hired before he had ever qualified for an NHRA PSM race. That worked out really well.”

Eddie Krawiec’s success in PSM is unquestioned. A member of the Vance & Hines team since 2007, Krawiec has accumulated 49 NHRA PSM wins and four championships (2008, 2011, 2012, 2017). He was the first member of the team to enter the Denso 200 MPH Club with a current top speed of 203.49 MPH.

“This will be my second year on the Suzuki Hayabusa and I’m ready for a big year for me and for the team,” said Krawiec.

Andrew Hines, a six-time NHRA PSM champion, leads the team as Crew Chief again this year. Andrew is the son of Vance & Hines co-founder Byron Hines and has notched 56 race wins in the PSM class.

“I watched Gaige’s first run at the US Nationals and immediately knew this guy was something special, he’s a long-time Suzuki rider and it was easy to see how confident he was on the bike,” said Andrew Hines. “I can’t wait to help him develop into a championship level rider in PSM on one of our bikes.”

Suzuki continues its partnership with the Vance & Hines team and will have a significant presence at several of the stops on the 2023 schedule. The Suzuki display will host rider autograph signings at most races and Suzuki’s 2023 motorcycles will be on display for race attendees.

The 2022 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle season begins at the Gatornationals in Gainesville FL March 9-13, 2023. The PSM schedule includes 15 stops in 2023 with the finale at the In-N-Out Burger Finals in Pomona, California.

Learn more about the company’s history and products at www.vanceandhines.com.

For more information, visit www.suzuki.com.

THEY MAY BE COMING FOR YOUR CUP OF COFFEE—

Global coffee consumption has been increasing steadily for almost 30 years. With a daily average consumption of 2.7 cups of coffee per person, coffee is now Canada’s most popular drink. It is estimated that around two billion cups of coffee are consumed daily worldwide.

This demand has led to considerable diversification in the ways of preparing coffee as well, including the creation of coffee capsules. The popularity of these capsules has divided the public opinion because this method of preparation, which uses single-use individual packaging, is harmful to the environment.

As researchers working on assessing the environmental impacts of products and services, we often discuss coffee’s carbon footprint.

We decided to study the carbon footprint of several techniques used to prepare coffee at home, and it turns out that coffee capsules aren’t the biggest carbon culprits.

The life cycle of coffee

The pollution resulting from the preparation of coffee at home is just the tip of the iceberg.

Before you can enjoy a cup of coffee, it goes through several steps, starting from the agricultural production of the coffee beans, their transport, the roasting and grinding of the beans, right up to the heating of the water for the coffee and the washing of the cups it is poured in.

These steps, common to all modes of coffee preparation, consume resources and emit greenhouse gases (GHG).

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

https://theconversation.com/heres-how-your-cup-of-coffee-contributes-to-climate-change-196648

THE LATEST FROM THE PRISM GANG—

If you’re trying to keep your bike slim and looking clean, the Bristol Breather is for you.

Currently these are designed to fit S&S super E/G, CV, and Linkert carbs and come in either a tumbled or polished finish.

Contains all necessary stainless steel mounting hardware.

They are made of aluminum and consist of a stainless-steel mesh screen.

The back of the housing has a recess for mesh screen fitment.

Allows adequate flow’

The hardware for a CV is long enough to work with a carb support bracket.

Best of all – They are made in house, right here in Charlotte, NC.

BRAND New Bikernet Reader Comment!—

REPARATIONS BIKERNET WEEKLY NEWS for January 19, 2023

https://www.bikernet.com/pages/REPARATIONS_BIKERNET_WEEKLY_NEWS_for_January_19_2023.aspx

Enjoy reading “News” each week. Hal is everywhere and I am watching out for him by looking out for what happens to his art treasures. Enjoyed reading the messages I sent along with seeing “Chopper Power.” Old School Choppers are Old School Cool. They seem to be revived under the Old School Umbrella for some of us.

It’s super wet here in sometimes sunny CA and so I’m using mine. Bye for now.

— Ann Robinson
Long Beach, CA

THE GREAT FOOD RESET—

‘Lab-grown meat’ harvested in ‘massive steel vats’ edges closer to fed approval & U.S. dinner plates – As EU approves human consumption of worms & crickets

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano: “You Will Eat lab-grown ‘meat’ and bugs — and Be Happy. Or so the forces of the Great Food Reset believe. Bill Gates is gobbling up U.S. farmland (now the single largest owner) and the World Economic Forum pushes eating bugs, and the U.S. FDA and USDA edge closer to approving lab-grown ‘meat’ — Bon appetite?!

A food crisis and transformation are just the ticket for even more chaos that the WEF can exploit for their Reset agenda. The World Economic Forum is so eager to promote synthetic ‘meat’ that they are touting numerous ways to print up to 6 kilograms of the fake meat an hour. As part of this new coerced Great Diet Reset, the WEF has advocated eating bugs to save the planet. The Davos-based group has explained, “Why we might be eating insects soon.”

Our future is being planned by our overlords, load up on eating bugs to save the planet! It is a future that will happen, only if we allow it. It’s time for the Great Reject. Rise up and defy the Great Reset.”

–Marc Morano
Climate Depot

 

LIFESTYLE CYCLE DEAL OF THE WEEK—

2019 Harley-Davidson FLHC – Softail Heritage Classic for $19,995.00

SEE IT HERE: https://www.lifestylecycles.com/default.asp?page=xPreOwnedInventoryDetail&id=13266735

2019 Harley-Davidson HERITAGE CRUISER 124C.I. BIG BORE KIT with only 6901.00 miles!

Someone put a lot of money in this bike! Here’s what we know:

The motor has an S&S 124 big bore kit, HPI throttle body, performance cams, high-flow air cleaner, Two Brothers Racing exhaust and has been Dyno tuned.

It sounds and runs AMAZING!

It has the Race Tech G2-R front fork cartridges and Race Tech G3-S rear shock with remote reservoir! Saddlemen 2-up seat and other upgrades. and some of the features/Add-ons on this bike are

* M8 with a S&S 124 big bore kit Dyno tuned and a 6-Speed trans.
* TBR exhaust
* HPI throttle body
* Race Tech G2-R front fork cartridges
* Race Tech G3-S rear shock with remote reservoir!
* Saddlemen 2-up seat
* Hard leather bags
* Detachable windshield
* Dat maker lights

This bike is only $19,995.00

Plus license, $85.00 documentation fee, and local sales tax. NO HIDDEN FEES like some dealers. And we have no reconditioning or prep fees. This bike has passed Lifestyle Cycles rigorous 92-point safety/mechanical/structural inspection.This motorcycle has not been refurbished and does not come with any warranty expressed or implied!

EXTENDED WARRANTIES are available!

Fill out an online application today. We have EZ FINANCING

Lifestyle Cycles is located at 1510 State College Blvd,Anaheim,CA,92806. Open 7 days a week.

[page break]

BAKER DEALER OF THE MONTH–Maxx Cycle

BAKER Dealer Since 2021

Are you living near Vancouver and looking for a reputable shop for custom-performance bike work? Look no further, Maxx Cycle is the shop to go to! Dave Ladouceur, the owner of Maxx Cycle, has worked on Harleys for over 30 years and has been specializing in custom-performance bike work for the last 4 years.

He works with some of the top performance shops in the U.S. and has dedicated his shop to creating high-quality custom-performance bikes.

To ensure the longevity of his custom builds, his shop has dedicated its efforts to using only the highest quality brands. This means using Made in the U.S.A or Made in Canada parts!

Read Michelle and Dave’s interview to learn more about this premium shop!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT–US Government Ordered Twitter to Censor Free Speech

Elon Musk has released a staggering amount of evidence from Twitter showing that the US government ordered Twitter to censor incredibly important topics, including:

The 2020 elections
COVID-19 vaccines
COVID-19 virus information

These unprecedented actions by our government are covered in detail in the ground-breaking Twitter Files Infographic.

We cannot think of a more important time in American history to have access to real, factual news.

CORRECTION Bikernet Reader Comment!–
REPARATIONS BIKERNET WEEKLY NEWS for January 19, 2023

https://www.bikernet.com/pages/REPARATIONS_BIKERNET_WEEKLY_NEWS_for_January_19_2023.aspx

Bandit,
Your memory is definitely failing! Put the bourbon glass down and step back and try shake some of those dead brain cells out!

Panhead desk #3 was built by you, for me, while I was VP at Custom Chrome in 5/5/97.

When I left CCI the desk went to my Hollister H-D store then on to House of Thunder H-D in Morgan Hill.

It has a lot of miles on it and still runs like a champ. It lives in my home now. Still my favorite possession!

–Dangerous Dan
San Jose, CA

“I don’t know what I got wrong. Maybe I need more whiskey to clear the air.” –Bandit

HARLEY GOES ALL ELECTRIC ACCORDING TO THE BOSS—

American motorcycle company Harley-Davidson is transitioning to become an all-electric brand in a process that will take decades, explains its CEO Jochen Zeitz in this interview.

Harley-Davidson, which is known for its large-engine, heavyweight cruiser motorcycles, is currently undergoing a long-term transition with the aim of becoming an electric brand, said Zeitz.

“At some point in time, Harley Davidson will be all-electric,” he told Dezeen. “But that’s a long-term transition that needs to happen. It’s not something you do overnight.”

The company launched its first electric motorcycle in 2018, named LiveWire. According to Zeitz, electrificaction is the next logical step in the evolution of the brand that was established 120 years ago.

“If you look at the past 120 years, the company has always evolved, never stood still,” he said. “Now, like the founders did at the time by trying to reinvent or invent something unique, that’s obviously something that we as a company brand need to do as well.”

“What we’re doing is celebrating our past but also evolving the brand at the same time,” he continued. “It’s a natural evolution that needed to happen”.

According to Zeitz, the transformation of the iconic brand means focusing on people who may not typically ride large motorcycles and even those that do not ride at all.

“I believe in big transformational change for iconic brands, which is what I’ve always done in my life,” he said.

“We are targeting different consumer profiles – you have the traditional core customer, but you have a contemporary core customer, you have dreamers that aspire to ride or may just dream about the brand,” he continued.

“The brand is not just for inspiring for those who buy motorcycles, it’s inspiring for others, which is why we’re making such made such a big effort on apparel and accessories to really bring the brand to broader customer bases – customers that might or might not right one day.”

Although Harley-Davidson has begun producing electric motorcycles, Zeitz does not expect the company to abandon petrol in the near future.

Its planned timeline to become fully electric is longer than many other auto companies with several leading car brands including Volvo, Fiat, Mercedes, Buick, Bentley and Rolls-Royce, which recently unveil its first fully electric car, stating that they will be all electric by 2030.

“We are thinking: ‘how do we evolve if you think really long term’, as this will not be an overnight transition,” he said.

“It takes decades, right? But you have to also think in decades rather than just thinking about what year and the short-termism that everyone is exposed to as a public company. We have to think about the transition, and preparing for that transition is why LiveWire was born.”

As part of the latest evolution of the brand and to mark its 120th anniversary, Harley-Davidson is overtaking a revamp of its offices in Milwaukee. The first stage of this redevelopment will be the creation of a public park that will include an amphitheatre that can hold 700 motorcycles that will be designed by Heatherwick Studio.

—dezeen.com

WE OPENED THE OLD SALTS FILE—

My Grandpa Bobby (Robert Maragno) turns 80 years old today. Born in 1941 in New York. A Navy Vietnam Vet, and one tough Italian- who used to arm wrestle guys with his pinky & win!

Hardworking all his life & a long-lasting married man, since he fell in love with my Grandma Saundra “Sandy” in 1960 & Married 60 Years Now!

–Sam Burns

“Congrats brother and give dad my best!” –Bandit

SWEET HOME PENNSYLVANIA!!

LYNYRD SKYNYRD TO HEADLINE LOST HIGHWAYTM MOTORCYCLE SHOW & CONCERT

MAY 19-21 AT POCONOS PARK

Also appearing: The Marshall Tucker Band, Rick Monroe & the Hitmen, The Jess Zimmerman Band, and Seth Enslow, with more to be announced!

Tickets on sale Friday, January 27!
Sign up at LostHighwayShow.com for Thursday Presale!

Bushkill, PA (Lehman Township) — Lynyrd Skynyrd will headline the upcoming LOST HIGHWAY Motorcycle Show & Concert, slated for May 19-21, 2023 at the newly renovated, 200+ acre entertainment complex POCONOS PARKTM.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted group known for classic hits such as “Free Bird,” “Gimme Three Steps,” and “Sweet Home Alabama” will take the stage of the Amphitheater at POCONOS PARK on Friday, May 19, 2023 with direct support by fellow Southern rockers, The Marshall Tucker Band (“Can’t You See,” “Heard It In A Love Song,” “Fire on the Mountain”).

Rick Monroe & the Hitmen, The Jess Zimmerman Band, and Seth Enslow are also slated to appear on the outdoor festival stage throughout the day. Other great acts for Friday and Saturday’s music lineup, including Saturday’s headliner, will be announced in the future.

Early Bird tickets go on-sale this Friday, January 27, at 10 A.M. Eastern through www.LostHighwayShow.com and start at only $19.99 (plus fees) for general admission (elevated experience packages such as front row, standing pit, reserved seats, dinner on the lake, private cabanas, hotel packages, camping packages are available for an additional cost).

Fans who wish to purchase tickets on Thursday (PRIOR to tickets going on sale to the general public) should register for a Presale password at www.LostHighwayShow.com between now and Wednesday at Midnight. Those who sign up for the Lost Highway presale list will be entered for a chance to win a Simpson Motorcycle Helmet pinstriped by world renowned custom motorcycle painter Taylor Schultz from Schultz Designz and a pair of passes for the weekend.

LOST HIGHWAY Motorcycle Show & Concert will also feature daily activities including charity rides from Pocono Mountain Harley-Davidson, motorcycle giveaways, bike games, a cornhole tournament, line dancing in the Party Tent, and more.

There will also be two motorcycle shows: the Deadbeat Custom Clash Ride-in Motorcycle Show that will feature five categories of bikes (including Chopper, FXR/Dyna, Sportster, Bagger and Softail) and Speed-Kings Cycle Showcase that will exhibit the best bikes from custom builders from across the nation in conjunction with the Motorcycle Art Gallery curated by Strati Hovartos at the intimate Lake House at POCONOS PARK.

LOST HIGHWAY Motorcycle Show & Concert is also partnering with Poconos Mountain Harley-Davidson and Speed Kings Cycle Supply for a fundraising sweepstakes that raises money for The Warrior Built Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides vocational and recreational therapy to combat veterans and wounded warriors.

Participants may enter for a chance to win a VIP trip for two to see Lynyrd Skynyrd at Lost Highway Motorcycle Show & Concert, including flights, hotel, a backstage tour, and more, PLUS a 2023 Harley-Davidson Road Glide Special from Poconos Mountain Harley-Davidson customized by Steve Edgar from Speed Kings Cycle Supply! Donations will benefit The Warrior Built Foundation. Enter to win at www.LostHighwayShow.com.*

For more information, please visit PoconosPark.com.

Photo Courtesy of Francis Sapienza from Poconos Park. ©2022 All Rights Reserved

–Ken Conte
LostHighwayShow.com

LATEST FROM THE NASH MOTORCYCLE EMPIRE—

New Product: “The Buckhorns”

A traditional style handlebar with all the comfort you need! The Buckhorns are classic and comfy!

Grab a pair in Chrome, Copper or Powder Black!

CHECK THEM OUT TODAY!

THE DIME BAG REPORT—

Hey Bandit, received photo from Jack Deagazio with new leather seat on new build.

–Adam Croft
Founder and Master Craftsman
Dime Bag Leathers

GET OUT AND GET IT DONE: Wisdom Quotes

“Don’t be a prisoner to things you can’t change.” ~ Tony Gaskins

“It’s not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters.” ~ Epictetus

“Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.”

“You don’t have to be perfect to be amazing.”

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

“You can’t have a million-dollar dream on a minimum wage work ethic.”

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” ~ Maya Angelou

–Wayfarer
Editor
Bikernet Blog & Facebook Page

LOWBROW NEW PRODUCT— This well-engineered air cleaner is inexpensive but oozes style.

What else could you want?
The Louvered Air Cleaner fits:
1991 & later Harley Sportsters
2004-2017 Harley Dyna
1993-2006 Harley Big Twins with CV carburetor
Mounting hardware and gasket included.

Made in the USA

FRUSTRATED READER LETTER–

This came in from Alabama. At the end of the semester teachers are leaving over the school’s inability to “embrace the freedom of exchanging ideas,” says those that are pushing a disastrous climate narrative are “robbing” young Americans of their “ambition and their hope.”

University of Alabama professor says slamming school’s DEI, climate push has been ‘career suicide’ Dr. Matthew Wielicki, an assistant professor in the school’s geological sciences department, pushed back against the messaging of “vocal climate alarmists,” who he concludes are doing more harm than good when it comes to America’s youth. Wielicki said. “I mean, I go to these the talks, by some of the most vocal climate alarmists out there, and I noticed that they’re pushing a stroller with like a one or two-year-old in it. I’m like, wait a minute, do these people really believe that the planet is going to end in eight or 10 or 12 years? They clearly don’t believe that.

“I talk to my students [and] there’s a good chunk of them that really think that the planet is heading towards some sort of civilization collapse in eight, 10, 12 years,” he added. “What a terrible way to motivate young people. Like why? Why am I going to be a good steward of my planet? Why am I going to be responsible and sacrifice now so I can have a brighter future later on if I think that my future is doomed anyway? We’re robbing these young people of their ambition and their hope. And it’s the adults doing it. It’s the adults allowing this stuff.”

— Kenneth Burnett

SHOP OF THE WEEK–Doalotta Performance,
Port Huron, Michigan

–Sam Burns
Feature Bike Editor
Bikernet.com™

SONG PICK OF THE WEEK—Hope it’s not too loud

The theme for the decade, if we have to believe the past two years, is, it is gonna be B-B-B-B-Bad and we gotta be Bad to the Bone to survive it.

If you plan to ride to Sturgis, the Bikernet Blog this week gives you one more “good” reason to get there. George Thorogood & The Destroyers are gonna be performing Live.

From Buffalo Chip: Styx, REO Speedwagon, Whiskey Myers and George Thorogood & The Destroyers are the first of dozens to be announced as part of the Buffalo Chip’s diverse 2023 lineup that features rock, classic rock, and country rock.

You won’t want to be anywhere else this August. It’s the Best Party Anywhere.

Read it on Buffalo Chip website to believe it: Click Here

Meanwhile, let’s remember the fun of the boogie-blues of the 80s. Here is the song pick for the week:

Song: “Bad To The Bone”
Artist: George Thorogood

On the day I was born
The nurses all gathered ’round
And they gazed in wide wonder
At the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up
Said, “Leave this one alone”
She could tell right away
That I was bad to the bone

Bad to the bone
Bad to the bone
B-B-B-B-Bad
B-B-B-B-Bad
B-B-B-B-Bad
Bad to the bone

I broke a thousand hearts
Before I met you
I’ll break a thousand more, baby
Before I am through
I wanna be yours, pretty baby
Yours and yours alone
I’m here to tell ya, honey
That I’m bad to the bone

Bad to the bone
B-B-B-B-Bad
B-B-B-B-Bad
B-B-B-B-Bad
Bad to the bone

I’ll make a rich woman beg
And I’ll make a good woman steal
I’ll make an old woman blush
And I’ll make a young girl squeal
I wanna be yours, pretty baby
Yours and yours alone
I’m here to tell ya, honey
That I’m bad to the bone

B-B-B-B-Bad
B-B-B-B-Bad
B-B-B-B-Bad
Bad to the bone

Now when I walk the streets
Kings and queens step aside
Every woman I meet
They all stay satisfied
I wanna tell ya, pretty baby
What I see I make my own
And I’m here to tell ya, honey
That I’m bad to the bone

Bad to the bone
B-B-B-B-Bad
B-B-B-B-Bad
B-B-B-B-Bad
Woo, bad to the bone

Watch Music Video at: https://youtu.be/IyhJ69mD7xI

Thanks & regards,
Wayfarer
Editor
Bikernet Blog & Facebook Page

NEWS FROM THE MASTER OF LIGHT–Artist David Uhl

Quick note for all “Yahoo” mail users – it has recently come to our attention that emails from “greg@uhlstudios.com” may be going to your spam folder If you’d like to continue to receive emails from me, please follow these steps:

1 – Open the Spam folder (if you don’t see it, click “more” below the Sent folder)

2 – Select the email from greg@uhlstudios.com

3 – Click “Not Spam” to move the message to your Inbox. Future messages from us will be delivered to your Inbox.

*************************************

Now, onto our exciting news today!

If you own any of David’s older works (pre-2004) or if you’ve been waiting for incredible values to “join the family” here, please carefully review the following information from David Uhl. You’ll be glad you did!

——————————

David Uhl: “In 1998, upon completing my first-ever painting, “Change in the Weather,” I attended a meeting with Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee. They invited me to become one of their licensed artists and directed me to work with their established Art program publisher. I didn’t necessarily agree with the publisher’s business model but had no choice if I wanted to begin my journey to capture Harley-Davidson’s rich history in oil.

This publisher offered far too many options (and prints) with each of my new pieces. Edition sizes of 500 total prints in multiple sizes and media (paper and canvas) were not uncommon. Even with the heyday of Harley’s 100th Anniversary at the time, the editions were bloated.

In 2004, I became licensed directly with The Motor Company. With my first print release that year, I greatly restricted the edition size down from 500 to a total of 185. This reduction allowed my collectors who supported me early to realize an increase in the value of their investment in my first release, “Rose”. The opening price of the 34.5 x 26 was $1,850 and we sold the final print in that size for $4,650.

This is what I had envisioned for my Fine Art program. Keeping the number of prints down and rewarding my collectors who support me. And, over the years, I have continued this practice – – sometimes we offer as few as 12 prints!

****************************************

Now, going back to the print editions of 500 offered prior to 2004 – it is highly unlikely that we will sell all of them, leaving the people who bought them at the time languishing with pieces of art that have not appreciated in value for 20+ years.

2023 marks my 25th year as a Fine Artist and this issue has bothered me a lot over the years.

I think I have a solution…

For a limited time, we will offer these paper and canvas prints at unbelievable prices. Once done, I will retire the unsold prints in each of these editions (those numbers will never be produced or sold). Instant reduction of the edition. We will set aside 12 of each size/media to be sold at progressively higher prices as they are sold off in the future (which mirrors our model of the past 25 years). These 12 prints will allow for an increased value of each size/media to appropriate levels over time.

Each of these prints (whether paper or canvas) are being sold unframed only and will come hand-signed and numbered, with a Certificate of Authenticity.

These will be offered through Feb 5, 2023. At that time, we will officially retire the unsold prints in the edition and raise the prices for all of these pieces on our website.

[page break]

SPEAKING OF ART—

We sold out of my second book “OUTLAW JUSTICE.” I’m in the process of having it set up on Kindle, so I can print more. But I do have some posters of the cover art by Eric Herrmann. The next two-year Cantina Member gets a poster as part of his or hers bling package.

The poster is signed by me and Eric.

–Bandit

BIKERNET RELATIONSHIP COUNSELING CENTER, ALERT—

If you choose a working woman, you have to accept that she can’t take care of the house full time.

If you choose a housewife who can take care of you and handle the house fully, you have to accept that she doesn’t make money.

If you choose a humble woman, you must accept that it is up to you.

When you’re with a brave woman, you have to accept that she’s independent according to her own views.

Those who choose a beautiful woman must accept that jealousy must be controlled.

If you’re with a strong woman, it’s worth accepting that she’s gentle and fragile at a glance, but solid as steel.

If you choose an emotional, insecure woman, you must step up to make her feel safe and loved.

No woman is perfect and doesn’t have to be. Every woman has her own personality and values that determine who she is and that makes her special!

— Ray Russell
Australian Inspirational Correspondent
Bikernet.com™

SUPPORT GOOD TIMES—Supports Shovelhead riders.

New SGT Shovelhead Dead Tshirt by @moto76co just dropped.

Available worldwide at SUPPORTGOODTIMES.COM

UK to Ban Plastic Spoons—

This coming October, the UK intends to “ban several single-use plastic items, including cutlery and plates”.

“The European Union approved a ban on single-use plastic items in 2018, which went into effect three years later. England’s neighbors, Scotland and Wales, each banned a similar list of items last year.”

“Rebecca Pow, an environment minister, said in a statement, “Plastic is a scourge which blights our streets and beautiful countryside, and I am determined that we shift away from a single-use culture.””

“Steve Hynd, policy manager at City to Sea, an environmental organization based in Bristol, said the ban was welcomed but “these are very much minimum agreed standards.”

“The ban will help England catch up with other countries that already implemented similar bans years ago,” he said. “But for England to be true ‘global leaders’ in tackling plastic pollution like this government claims to be, we need them to go much further.””

I am a curious person (yes, both meanings). When a Brit orders a take-out curry which she intends to eat on a park bench or sitting on a wall overlooking the pebble beach, what is she going to use to eat her curry when the shop no longer gives her a nice plastic spoon or fork?

Since the E.U. has had a similar ban for more than a year, I queried a European colleague and asked the same question. Being the same sort of person as I, he didn’t know. But he has a daughter and he called her for the real scoop on the streets of Europe, who reports: “They use paper (for the fries), cardboard (for serving a burger), wooden spoons, forks, knives for eating a salad.” I can assume that they use the same wooden cutlery for our take-out curry.

Taken in historical context, Europeans (and other humans) have had spoons carved out of wood, ivory, flint, bone and horn. Later spoons were cast in pewter and other softer metals. But all of those (except the wood—even peasants could have a wooden spoon) were quite valuable and in various time periods, represented wealth and social position. Today, most household spoons are stainless steel. But these are not cheap enough to be given away.

New York’s famous food service automat, Horn and Hardart, offered customers metal cutlery which was meant to be returned at the end of the meal. My wife has one of those spoons, nicked by her mother sometime in the mists of history.

When I was child, the Ice Cream Man gave us simple wooden paddles as spoons for eating our little cups of ice cream. Enter the plastic spoon (and fork, and knife), costing less-than pennies apiece and readily given away with take-out food.

The problem appears to be that many of these cheap now-plastic items end up in the environment – not because they are plastic, but because people are not careful with their trash. The fact that they are plastic just means they will breakdown more slowly in the wild.

The declaration that “…plastic is a scourge” is nothing but an activist meme – something said to get positive attention but is not actually true. It is not “plastic” that is the problem – it is trash and litter, some of which is plastic, purposefully thrown into the environment or carelessly allowed to escape – such as blowing out of the back of a pick-up truck (very common in the United States) or off the back of garbage trucks.

–Watts up with That

QUICK, New Bikernet Reader Comment!–

The BOSS of THE CYCLE SOURCE EMPIRE steps up

https://www.bikernet.com/pages/The_BOSS_of_THE_CYCLE_SOURCE_EMPIRE_steps_up.aspx

Chris is a Great Editor of a Great Publication. We Need More Like Him!

–ROGUE
Palm Bay , FL

BIKERNET GUN NUT REPORT—from Associated Press

Florida Supreme Court upholds gun law banning restrictions

Florida lawmakers can fine local government officials who attempt to restrict gun and ammunition sales under a state law upheld by the state Supreme Court on Thursday.

Former Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and some municipalities sued the state over a law that preempts local governments from enacting gun sale restrictions, saying it goes too far because it also calls for fines against elected officials who voted for restrictions.

But justices on the conservative court disagreed in a 4-1 decision, saying local officials don’t have exemption from the fines.

“It is not a core municipal function to occupy an area that the Legislature has preempted, and local governments have no lawful discretion or authority to enact ordinances that violate state preemption,” the court wrote.

The preemption law was revised in 2011 to include the penalty provisions — and later challenged by several local governments who wanted to enact gun safety measures in the wake of the 2018 Parkland high school shooting that left 17 dead. Fried, who left office earlier this month after an unsuccessful run for governor, later joined the suit.

The law calls for a fine of $5,000 for officials who willfully violated the legislation. In his dissent, Justice Jorge Labarga said the punishment is “an impermissible judicial intrusion into the official’s legislative thought process, and it undermines the official’s ability to effectuate the constituents’ will.”

–By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
Associated Press

NEW HAMPSHIRE INTRODUCES BILL TO ADOPT INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE BAN—

DON’T DELAY! Please contact lawmakers to request their opposition on this bill:

Overview: Lawmakers in New Hampshire have introduced SAN-opposed legislation (H.B. 92) which would adopt California’s low and zero emission motor vehicle standards and ban the sale of new gas- and diesel-powered motor vehicles starting in 2035. The SAN believes that Californians should not be deciding what vehicles are best for New Hampshire. H.B. 92 will be heard in the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee on January 24th.

–SEMA

UPDATE: VIRGINIA HOUSE ADVANCES BILL TO REPEAL INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE BAN

DON’T DELAY! Please contact lawmakers to request their support for this bill:

Overview: Lawmakers in Virginia have introduced SAN-supported legislation (H.B.1378) to repeal the law tying the state to California’s motor vehicle emission standards. Under current law, sales of new gas- and diesel-powered vehicles will be banned starting in 2035. The SAN believes that Virginians, not the government, should decide what vehicles are best for them and their families. The House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee passed the bill which now awaits consideration on the House floor.

–SEMA

NEWS FROM THE DICE OFFICES–

Giulio Miglietta AKA the Don is a long time mate of DicE Magazine and has appeared in numerous issues including on the cover of 83 wearing some of his incredible chain stitched work.

Yesterday we announced our huge collaboration with Iron heart Denim that our dear pal Giulio Miglietta is working on.

Check out the details and check out the interview about his work on the DicE Blog.

THE ESSENTIALS of Part 1 of Fossil Future, in my own words—

Ever wished you could get the “Cliff’s Notes” for a book that are written, not by “Cliff” but by the book’s author?

I have. Which is why I decided to create “Alex Notes” for Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less.

Those of you who are writers might be interested to know that these notes are based on the outline I used to write and edit Fossil Future. I am a fan of very detailed outlines when one is attempting to make a comprehensive, integrated logical argument.

Here are the Alex Notes for Part 1 of Fossil Future: Framework.

PART 1: FRAMEWORK

The “knowledge system” we are relying on to evaluate continuing fossil fuel use is operating on the anti-human, anti-energy “anti-impact framework” that will inevitably cause it to oppose fossil fuel use, ignore its benefits, and catastrophize its side-effects—even if continuing fossil fuel use is indispensable to human flourishing.

Chapter 1: Ignoring Benefits

Our “knowledge system”—the people and institutions we rely upon to research, synthesize, disseminate, and evaluate expert knowledge—engages in an irrational method of evaluation when it comes to fossil fuels and other sources of cost-effective energy: supporting their rapid elimination while ignoring their massive, life-or-death benefits.

 Save the World With…Fossil Fuels?

I am going to try to persuade you of something that might seem impossible: that one of the best things you can do to make the world a better place is to fight for more fossil fuel use—more use of oil, coal, and natural gas.

 Questioning the “Expert” Moral Case for Eliminating Fossil Fuels

My case for expanding humanity’s massive fossil fuel use might seem unworthy of even considering given that it totally contradicts what trusted sources tell us is the consensus of virtually all experts, but consider that 1) we know that sometimes what we’re told is the “expert” view turns out to be catastrophically wrong, and 2) the “expert” view that we should rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use is a radical and potentially disastrous change in how we use energy.

 How to Know When the “Experts” Are Wrong

We can often detect if there’s something wrong with what we’re told “experts” think by recognizing that we acquire “expert” views via a “knowledge system” consisting of four phases—1) research, 2) synthesis, 3) dissemination, and 4) evaluation—with 2, 3, and 4 being prone to distortion in general and, I realized after doing some initial research, in the case of fossil fuels in particular.

How Research Works

Research, the foundation of any knowledge system, involves highly specialized knowledge that is hard for us to evaluate, but one way we can spot something going wrong in the broader knowledge system is when some new claim is confidently attributed to all scientists, such as the specific prediction that a 2° C temperature increase from preindustrial levels will mean global catastrophe.

 How Synthesis Can Go Wrong

Synthesis, in which the near-limitless amount of specialized knowledge is organized, refined, and condensed, can go wrong through honest error or the manipulation of synthesizing bodies; one way to detect a syntheses error is when crucial variables or facts are omitted, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) omitting the rapid decline in climate-related disaster deaths.

 How Dissemination Can Go Wrong

Dissemination, in which the essentials of synthesized research are communicated to the public, is frequently highly distorted; one way to detect dissemination is to even briefly peruse the sources a disseminator is using and see if they are being accurately essentialized.

 How Evaluation Can Go Wrong

The task of evaluation, in which certain institutions and people evaluate what we should do about the disseminated conclusions in a different field, is often hidden by inane refrains such as “listen to the scientists,” but it is always at work and must always be questioned; two errors to look out for are 1) using an anti-human “standard of evaluation” and 2) failing to consider the full context—which there is the strongest evidence our “knowledge system” could be catastrophically failing to do, in the form of opposing fossil fuel use on the basis of its negative side-effects without considering its massive benefits.

 The Unique, Massive, and Desperately Needed Benefits of Fossil Fuels

I didn’t think our knowledge system was misevaluating fossil fuels until I learned 3 undeniable facts about fossil fuels’ benefits that are ignored or contradicted by popular portrayals of our knowledge system’s moral case for eliminating fossil fuels: 1) Cost-effective energy is essential to human flourishing; 2) Billions of people lack cost-effective energy. 3) Fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective source of energy, providing low-cost, on-demand, versatile, global-scale energy.

Fossil Fuels Are a Uniquely Cost-Effective Source of Energy

Fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective source of energy, providing energy that is 1) low-cost, 2) on-demand, 3) versatile, and 4) on a scale of billions of people in thousands of places—which is why they are growing around the world, above all in places that care most about cost-effective energy, such as China.

 Cost-Effective Energy Is Essential to Human Flourishing

Cost-effective energy is essential to human flourishing (our ability to live long, healthy, opportunity-filled lives) because the more cost-effective energy is, the more people can use the miracle of “machine labor” to produce vital material values such as food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.

 Billions of People Are Suffering and Dying for Lack
of Cost-Effective Energy

Billions of people lack cost-effective energy, such as the 3 billion who use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator, resulting in tragic amounts of suffering and death—such as premature babies dying because there is no reliable electricity for the incubators that could save them…

–Alex Epstein

ANOTHER, New Bikernet Reader Comment!—

Celebrating 120 years of the most desired motorcycle brand

https://www.bikernet.com/pages/Celebrating_120_years_of_the_most_desired_motorcycle_brand.aspx

A Chinese Harley-Davidson with a Benelli 353cc motor, whoever authorized that should be beaten like a baby seal. Lol

–James Ferrantelli
Tavares, FL

THE YEAR OF THE RABBIT 2023–This combination of the Rabbit zodiac and the Water element will bring good luck, patience, prosperity, and vigor to all.

But what does the Year of the Water Rabbit really mean to us?

According to Chinese astrology, the Rabbit represents peaceful and patient energy. The Rabbit is gentle creature known for thinking things through before acting.

This energy will encourage us to approach challenges and opportunities calmly and rationally.

–Ray Russell
Philosophy Correspondent
Australian Outback Temple
Bikernet Research Desk

TALLAHASSEE – A House Republican this week filed a proposal that seeks to prevent motorists from driving in the left lane on roads with speed limits of at least 65 mph.

Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, filed the bill (HB 421) for consideration during the legislative session that will start March 7.

It would bar motorists from driving in the left lane “except when overtaking and passing another vehicle, when preparing to exit the road, street, or highway, or when otherwise directed by an official traffic control device.”

–Rogue
Senior Editor
Bikernet.com™

WAS THAT TOO HEAVY?—Sorry, if the news got sorta out of hand. I try to roll with the vibe of the week.

I actually pulled J.J.’s piece about Kotex dispensers in men’s bathrooms. It was about 3,000 words. Hang on, I might run it as a stand-alone article on Bikernet.

Okay, let’s jump into shop projects and tech articles coming to Bikernet. Dan came over and we fought with the front wheel on the 1913 board track racer. We took off the front wheel and with tire spoons struggled to remove one side of the clincher tire, replace the tube and put it back together.

There’s nothing about doing this that you can handle in a hurry without damage to the rim, pinching the tube or busting the bead on the tire.

Then Dan greased new neck cup bearing and slipped them in the cups. This front end completed the first Cannonball run. Two guys ran that cannonball with board track racers sans brakes or transmissions. If they came upon a stoplight, they were forced to kill their engines, then pedal start them again.

For some reason the bottom race was gone from the neck. I think the race should have been installed before the neck was brazed into the bottom tree. We struggled with getting the hardened steel ring over the neck. Only about 2 thousands difference, but it wouldn’t go without some careful machine. Yep, we tried heat.

Another odd challenge this week. I bought a set of Nash Apes, but I wanted them taller and I wanted a bend that Nash couldn’t do, but their bars are all made to order. So, I machined slugs, and then was forced to bend them. Lots of heat and pressure, but got the job done. Welding next.

Speaking of J.J. Solari, the ex mousketeer and the funniest guy on the planet. He sent me an article about the National Park in Yosemite. I’m going to post it next week. Hang on, it’s nuts.

Dan sent me this image of a Lithium battery he mounted between two tanks on a 45 flathead to hide it. It’s less than 2 inches thick.

We will bring you an update from his shop projects in the next week or so.

We have a couple of new sponsors to support the content on Bikernet. Amsoil is being supported by one of its dealers, Huff Oil Group.

I’m meeting with Chief of the Sturgis Police and Woody from the chip next week to discuss test runs with the Salt Torpedo. I’ll report back.

I finished reading Denis Manning’s book about his ongoing history with motorcycle Streamliners. Next week I need to write a review. It’s a very motivating and informative book about running at Bonneville.

Gary Mauer and his wife Jules had major hands in building this racer for Larry. It’s on its way to the Grand National Roadster Show with the wrong engine, and then onto Bonneville in the Summer.

I’m working on the second VL, XA, S&S FL Knucklehead Winter project build story. It will cover the installation for a stock mechanical front brake, beautiful Black Bike Wheels, and a Hawg Halters rear Sprotor brake system, plus the Nash bars.

The South Dakota Weather Report brought to you by Wolfs Plumbing and heating. My Hamster Wolf connection keeps escaping to Arizona.

My granddaughter just got this tattoo. I found out later, my son Frank did it in Austin, Texas at All Saints Tattoo.

Here’s a shot of the Mecum Auction from Micah McCloskey, who is checking the action. We will bring you reports from the floor of the show next week. Two thousand bikes for sale, plus 60 bikes from Mike Wolf’s, As Found, Picker collection.

In the meantime, keep building oily motorcycles and riding free.

–Bandit

“Don’t let that feeling go….keep on truckin !!!”

Hey,

Your Bikernet Blog Editor got grounded from riding his bike out of city limits.

Well, actually, my mother has been sick consistently since she caught COVID-19 in January 2022. She has been in-and-out of hospital twice in past 30 days.

I needed to get some wheels rolling near my residence so that I am available for mom and also able to enjoy some outdoor excitement. I decided on a new adventure — a hobby for Skateboarding. How childish? Imagine your dad riding down the street on a skateboard.

Well, remove the stigma and join in.

Can you imagine anyone other than a lifelong motorcyclist doing something so crazy in his/her early 40s age? This skateboard is the only vehicular-thing with more than two-wheels that I own.

Below I present a few useful YouTube Videos I found that got me off to a “flipping” start. It’s not exactly a how-to but more of a how-others do it.

Do These 10 Things Make A Difference In Skateboarding?

How to Set Up a Skateboard for Beginners

HOW TO SKATEBOARD FOR BEGINNERS | HOW TO SKATEBOARD EPISODE 1

Both of these two YouTube Content Creators have done a good job — though you may find one more useful than the other when you visit their YouTube Channel….depending upon your skill level and natural aptitude.

Their Channels are:

1. Braille Skateboarding

https://www.youtube.com/@brailleskateboarding

Playlists

https://www.youtube.com/@brailleskateboarding/playlists

2. VLSkate

https://www.youtube.com/@VLSkate

Playlists

https://www.youtube.com/@VLSkate/playlists

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So hit the deck and get off to a rockin start this weekend!!!

Click Here to Read the Weekly News only on Bikernet.com

We sold out of my second book “OUTLAW JUSTICE.” I’m in the process of having it set up on Kindle, so I can print more. But I do have some posters of the cover art by Eric Herrmann. The next two-year Cantina Member gets a poster as part of his or hers bling package.

The poster is signed by me and Eric.

In the meantime, keep building oily motorcycles and riding free.

–Bandit

The Bikernet Weekly News is sponsored in part by companies who also dig Freedom including: Cycle Source Magazine, the MRF, Las Vegas Bikefest, Iron Trader News, ChopperTown, BorntoRide.com and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.

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