J.J. Solari Note: What follows is a lampoon, a comedy, a sketch, a humor entity, a satire, a witty diversion, a parody, a spoof, a jocular moment, an amusement, a brief frolic in fiction, a delightful playtime vocabularic rondelay so to speak if I may? No one other than the composer of this whatever-it-even-is actually said any of this. Thank you.___jjs






“Hi! I’m Jochen Zeitz, the CEO, or as I like to say the Creative Energy Originator, of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle company or as I like to call it New Sustainopolis. Ha ha,

I know what you’re saying, ‘Are you not actually Matthew McCaughnahey or most certainly Tom Cruise?’ Ha ha, thank you, you’re very kind. IF ONLY!! Can you imagine me as Tom Cruise? I certainly can! Oh my God. Is he something or what!! Whew!

WHERE THE HECK WAS I?? Oh yes, we were talking about me and my vision for Harley-Davidson and whatever it is they do. While I am depicted here with my two-wheeled cycle of manly mayhem, you will notice I am not actually riding it. And the animals and the birds have come to me to ask ‘Good sir, canst thou not defile our sacred home with thine fumes?’ And to this I say ‘consider it done!

I shall merely pose with this monster of manliness: I shall not actually start it up! The forest shall be safe!’ And speaking of not starting things up, this accoutrement to my portrait does not actually have an engine. It is a prototype of what I hope will become the future of Harley- Davidson: engine-free coasting cycles. Noise, smoke, gasoline, decimated rubber forests, asphalt, bugs in the face……these nightmares, under my leadership and guidance, shall be eliminated, to be replaced by happy animals safely crossing non existing roads, bluebirds chirping happily on the ends of our outstretched index fingers, green grass and pine trees reclaiming once again their rightful ownership of the planet.

I believe it was Agent Smith of The Matrix who said something like, or close to it, “Humanity is an unnatural aberration, a foul virus that eats its way through everything in its path, leaves a wasteland and moves on, a parasitical infection that excels in corpse creation.’



He said something like that. I had Agent Smith’s little speech to Morpheus memorized once, I found it to be a poetic source of personal internal energy, my own internal combustion engine, if you will, if I might make that analogy if I may. I found his merry and whimsically potent expository on the voracious nature of homo sapiens to be a kind of spiritual tonic. A relaxing spiritual massage in an aromatic setting of candles, verandas, greek pillars, meandering entities in translucent tunics, lyre music, bowls of fruit, and windowless overlooks of gardens stretching to the early-evening horizon.

I feel Agent Smith is the central focus, the overarching impetus to my fixation on the stench of engine exhaust. Do you see the bluebird in this picture? You will sniff that gentle rascal for a very long time, my friend, before you will detect anything even close to resembling a stench emanating from off its skin. Or layering. Or whatever it is birds have.



In addition to Agent Smith, I have one other icon of attitude and behavior that I use as a guidepost, a kind of Virgil to my Dante, if you will, guiding me through the murky underworld of industrial pollution: Robert California of The Office. Now you may say that James Spader is pretending to be Robert California, but I would counter that, no, Robert California is pretending to be James Spader.

Robert California sees the larger view: he is not the head of an organization, he is part of a communal amalgam, part of an algae-bloom, if you will, if I may, whose destination and endpoint is not only not in sight, it is not even defined. Will not Nature decide the final outcome of Dunder-Mifflin? Rather than its staff and operating officers?

Robert California sees this. And I see the endpoint of Harley-Davidson. It is depicted here in this photographic tableau: a man – a smashingly dashing one at that…smashingly dashing, I kind of like that……and his product, an emasculated mantlepiece decoration for a large mantle that reflects in the manner of all government entities, the ‘governmentising of humanity” via this motorcycle: two wheels that don’t turn powered by an engine that it does not have. I see greatness there.

Do you like my outfit? I got it a Bros R Us. Thank you. Gaia bless you. Canape’?”

–J.J. Solari

SYNTHETIC FUEL COULD PARDON MOTORCYCLES FROM ELECTROCUTION
With governments around the world establishing firm deadlines for eliminating gasoline-powered vehicles, the technology that has driven transportation for more than a century isn’t ready to go the way of the dinosaur just yet, and combustion engines may be given renewed hope with the advent of synthetic fuels that are nearly as green as going electric.

Synthetic petrol, diesel and aviation fuels are all the subject of heavyweight pilot projects and are gaining interest fast as they eliminate the CO2 emissions from transport without the need for end-users to switch to new tech, according to motorcyclenews.com.

“While biofuels already offset their emissions to an extent, synthetic fuel takes a more direct approach by stripping CO2 from the air and combining it with hydrogen to create a petrol replacement,” explains MCN. “By using wind, solar or hydro-electric to generate the electricity for the electrolysis, the process is sustainable, and while engines using the fuel still emit carbon, the same amount is reabsorbed in the fuel-making process.”

The idea of using electricity to create synthetic petrol and then to burn that fuel in combustion engines might seem wasteful but the benefits are also significant, reusing existing infrastructures and giving new life to billions of combustion engines rather than reducing them to scrap. With similar power density to normal petrol, synthetic fuels also mean you don’t need to lug vast batteries around.

Several synthetic fuel projects are underway, including investments by Porsche and BMW, and the World Rally Championship is due to use 100% sustainable fuel as soon as next year.

While many governments seem keen on switching from combustion tech to all-electric vehicles in order to achieve carbon neutrality, “synthetic fuel could mean that more than 100 years’ worth of bikes have a future.”

MOTORCYCLE MANUFACTURERS STRUGGLE TO DELIVER NEW BIKES
Like other manufacturers struggling with supply chain breakdowns, due in large part to the COVID-19 restrictions worldwide, motorcycle makers are coping with shortages of raw materials and parts and an unreliable global transportation system to fill showroom floors.

Complications from the pandemic have affected many of the logistics and production constraints, but bike firms are facing other challenges in getting motorcycles and parts to customers, including a global shortage of semiconductors, fluctuating demand, unpredictable sales and international trade tensions. Supply-chain disruptions, transportation bottlenecks and labor shortages are now pervasive throughout the motorcycle industry and many others.

COVID’s butterfly effect on trade has also left empty shipping containers stranded in some parts of the world and a shortage of them where they’re needed, pushing up shipping costs and causing further delays.

One major manufacturer had complete motorcycles aboard the Ever Given, the cargo vessel that ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal shipping lanes, which was subsequently seized by the Egyptian government and remains officially impounded months later.

For consumers, a combination of increasing raw materials costs, shipping difficulties and problems securing parts could lead to price increases as firms battle to meet demand.

INITIAL HIGHWAY BILL CONTAINS MOTORCYCLE-FRIENDLY PROVISIONS
The Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America Act (INVEST in America Act; H.R. 3684), a half-trillion-dollar surface transportation reauthorization bill that sets the funding and rules for various ongoing U.S. Department of Transportation programs, specifically highways, transit and rail, has passed initial muster including pro-motorcycle provisions.

On Thursday, June 10, The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted 38-26 along mostly party lines to approve the massive funding measure, which includes three initiatives that would benefit motorcycle riders;

SEC. 3011: STOP MOTORCYCLE CHECKPOINT FUNDING, not only expands prohibitions on motorcycle-only checkpoints, but also prohibits law enforcement activities that “otherwise profile and stop motorcycle operators or motorcycle passengers using as a factor the clothing or mode of transportation of such operators or passengers.”

SEC. 3013: MOTORCYCLIST ADVISORY COUNCIL, reauthorizes the MAC to “advise the Secretary, the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration on transportation issues of concern to motorcyclists,” including “barrier design, road design, construction, and maintenance practices, and the architecture and implementation of intelligent transportation systems technologies.”

The entire 2021 highway bill will next be taken up by the House Ways and Means Committee before advancing to the full House floor.

OREGON GOVERNOR VETOES LANE-SPLITTING BILL
Despite resounding bipartisan support, Oregon Governor Kate Brown (D) has officially vetoed Senate Bill 574, which would have allowed motorcyclists to travel between lanes of slow-moving traffic under certain conditions.

Gov. Brown sent a letter to the House and Senate on May 26 informing them of her decision to veto S.B. 574; “I have several concerns with the bill as currently drafted, particularly related to public safety and noncompliance,” Brown wrote in her veto message.

Under S.B. 574, motorcyclists would have been permitted to travel between lanes on multi-lane highways with a speed limit of at least 50 mph, but only when traffic had slowed to 10 mph or less on those roads. Motorcyclists riding between cars could travel no more than 10 mph faster than the flow of traffic.

Proponents said the bill was a compromise from past attempts to legalize lane splitting in Oregon and drew a distinction between the proposal and the law in California, where riders can travel in between cars at faster speeds.

Supportive motorcyclists testified in favor of the bill in droves, arguing the policy would help riders avoid being rear-ended in stop-and-go traffic, and would help clear congestion. Many pointed to a study from the University of California, Berkeley, that concluded lane splitting can be safe under certain conditions.

California has long allowed lane splitting, and Montana recently passed a law similar to Oregon’s failed proposal. Utah now allows riders to “filter” through traffic stopped at an intersection, while Hawaii permits motorcyclists to utilize the shoulder when traffic is congested.

MOTO INDUSTRY REPORTS MOTORCYCLE SAFETY AT AN ALL-TIME LOW
With industries leading the way into a newer, brighter, cleaner future for transport, a new report from Forbes released a series of studies carried out by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) demonstrating that fatality statistics have been fluxing in favor of automobiles and trending against motorcycle safety.

According to the studies cited, motorcycle fatalities have increased to 21.46 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles driven when measuring intel gathered between 2009 and 2018, meaning that motorcycle riders’ risk has been increased by 15-21% — and equating to 22 times that of automobile drivers.

By contrast, automobile fatalities are at an all-time low, with 1.11 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles driven stated for the same time frame.

Data like this contributes to creating the Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessments (HARAs), used to determine Functional and Technical Safety Concepts, which guides design requirements for a new vehicle and in turn creates a safer product.

– developing standards for stability control systems for on-road motorcycles.”

SEATBELTS FOR MOTORCYCLES
A new patent filed by Italdesign reveals a Smart Seatbelt System for motorcycles, describing all-new technology that they believe to be the answer to road safety for riders.

Of course, in the event of accident, riders are frequently taught to let the bike go. Disconnecting from the vehicle can reduce the severity of injuries, as the rider avoids entanglements with the machinery. To suit the seatbelt harness system for such unplanned dismounts, engineers at the Italian design firm equipped the software to detect when it’s best to detach the apparatus.

For instance, if the rider t-bones another vehicle, the onboard computer could determine that it’s best to lock the user in place, avoiding an additional collision with the vehicle itself. However, that doesn’t save the rider from tipping over with the motorcycle or scooter, as two-wheeled vehicles aren’t self-balancing. Conversely, in a high-speed crash, the system may eject the rider to decrease the likelihood of injury.

It all sounds a little James Bond-ish, but its inventor hopes the novel idea could attract non-riders, though the system may restrict passenger accommodations and slightly resembles a child’s car seat.

A THIRD OF MOTORCYCLISTS WOULD STOP RIDING IF ELECTRIC REPLACES GAS
A new survey conducted by the Motorcycle Action Group (U.K.) has shown that nearly a third of motorcyclists would give up riding rather than switch to an electric-powered motorcycle, reflecting strong opposition to governments’ plans to electrify transportation and phase out gasoline engines.

The British government is currently working towards an ambitious plan to end the sale of petrol and diesel powered four-wheel vehicles in 2030, and it is presumed the ban will eventually cover all modes of transport.

The participants were asked whether they would be prepared to accept a full ban on petrol-powered motorcycles in future. Of 4,805 respondents, just 8% said they would, while 31% would be prepared to quit riding if their choices were limited to electric models.

For now, motorcycles have been a little forgotten in the government’s crusade to get petrol banned, but it likely won’t stay that way forever as 55% were ‘completely opposed’ to the idea of a future without gas-powered motorcycles, while a huge 83% wanted to see groups come together to oppose a ban on petrol and diesel.

FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR NCOM CONVENTION IN DES MOINES
With the 36th annual NCOM Convention in Des Moines, Iowa just weeks away, plan NOW to join with hundreds of like-minded biker’s rights activists from across the country, July 23-25, 2021 at the Holiday Inn Des Moines – Airport, located at 6111 Fleur Drive.

In addition to agenda items covering legal and legislative issues of concern to all riders, from helmet laws to lane-splitting to anti-profiling, this year’s Convention will feature a presentation on “The Demise of Gas-Powered Vehicles” by the NCOM Legislative Task Force.

Reserve your hotel room at (515) 287-2400, and mention NCOM for Special Room Rates.

Registration fees for the NCOM Convention are $85 including the Silver Spoke Awards Banquet on Saturday night, or $50 for the Convention only. For more information, or to pre-register, call the National Coalition of Motorcyclists at (800) 525-5355 or visit www.ON-A-BIKE.com.

QUOTABLE QUOTE: “When an old man dies, a library burns down.”
~ African proverb

ABOUT AIM / NCOM: The National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM) is a nationwide motorcyclists rights organization serving over 2,000 NCOM Member Groups throughout the United States, with all services fully-funded through Aid to Injured Motorcyclist (AIM) Attorneys available in each state who donate a portion of their legal fees from motorcycle accidents back into the NCOM Network of Biker Services (www.ON-A-BIKE.com / 800-ON-A-BIKE).

Will Self-Driving Cars Push Motorcycles Off The Road?– Will there be a place on the road for motorcycles in a world with self-driving cars? FEMA’s Dolf Willigers takes a closer look at the future of our beloved bikes.

The question that concerns many motorcyclists is if there will be a place for them in a world with automatic and connected driving cars and other vehicles. Automated driving motorcycles is something that nobody seriously wants to consider. And be assured, despite some prototypes and views into the future, no motorcycle manufacturer has plans in this direction. But still, is there a future for us in an automated and connected environment?

Let’s start with looking what is already there and what we can expect. Cars are becoming more automated and connected. Every new car has some advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) on board. Think of adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assist, blind corner warning, advanced emergency braking, et cetera. In several years there will even be more systems.

– Advanced emergency braking (cars, vans)
– Alcohol interlock installation facilitation (cars, vans, trucks, buses),
– Drowsiness and attention detection (cars, vans, trucks, buses)
– Distraction recognition / prevention (cars, vans, trucks, buses)
– Event (accident) data recorder (cars, vans, trucks, buses)
– Emergency stop signal (cars, vans, trucks, buses)
– Full-width frontal occupant detection crash test – improved seatbelts (cars and vans)
– Head impact zone enlargement for pedestrians and cyclists -safety glass in case of crash (cars and vans)
– Intelligent speed assistance (cars, vans, trucks, buses)
– Lane keeping assist (cars, vans)
– Pole side impact occupant protection (cars, vans)
– Reversing camera or detection system (cars, vans, trucks, buses)
– Tyre pressure monitoring system (vans, trucks, buses)
– Vulnerable road user detection and warning on front and side of vehicle (trucks and buses)
– Vulnerable road user improved direct vision from driver’s position (trucks and buses).

Not all these devices are ADAS or automate part of the driving, but most of them are smaller or bigger steps towards automated vehicles. Next to this, many car manufacturers are already connecting the cars to your smartphone and to the factory with services like App Connect (Volkswagen), Mercedes Me Connect, FordPass Connect and Ford Sync 4A, BMW ConnectedDrive.

Of course, all these systems are very nice, but not every vehicle, let alone every road user, is fitted with them. Also, cars and other road users are still not connected with each other and full connectivity, where everything and everybody is somehow connected, will probably never exist.

So, cars that are fitted with ADAS and safety devices must be able to recognize not only other connected vehicles but also – and perhaps more importantly – other road users that are not connected. People can look ahead for kilometres and react to obstacles that are away.

Human drivers will spot a tow truck or a van from a road assistance service with warning lights long before they are near them and can react in a proper way by shifting one or more lanes and reducing speed. Present cameras, radar and lidar sensors and their software still cannot. This has been illustrated several times by accidents with Tesla’s that did not react to stationary vehicles on the roadside. Also complicated situations with traffic lights, bad or even not existing road markings, pedestrians and cyclists, most of the time giving their own interpretation on traffic rules, provide an environment that automated vehicles cannot deal with.

A very simple example of failing sensors was given by a preliminary test of the Netherlands Vehicle Authority (RDW) in 2017, after complaints from FEMA and two Dutch organizations, showed that all the adaptive cruise control systems of the tested cars did not recognize motorcycles that rode on the edge of the lane. We wrote about this in March 2018.

As a result of these tests RDW and FEMA agreed to work together to have a mandatory test with motorcycles for these kinds of systems. This resulted in a clause in the (still draft) revision of the UN ECE Regulation 79, in which – among other things – is regulated that cars can in future have an automatic lane changing assist system. This is the first step in the legislation for automated vehicles. Part of the regulation is also that new devices must be tested with motorcycles.

Connected vehicles

Connected is one of the buzzwords in present and future mobility. What exactly does it mean? There are several ways in which a vehicle can be connected:

IoT – The Internet of Things. This means that a car, or any other device, is connected with the internet with a smartphone, the network of the manufacturer, et cetera. These days, central heating, refrigerators and many other devices can be controlled from a distance by your smartphone or computer.

When you have a car with internet connection, you can see on your smartphone where you have parked it, whether it needs servicing, you can control the heating system, but also: the manufacturer can look with you. Data from your car is sent to the server of the manufacturer. Think of: where you are (and have been), how fast you drive and brake, the mechanical condition of your car, your music choice, even the content of your smartphone (addresses, agenda, the lot) when it is connected by Bluetooth with the car can, and often will be, downloaded. Manufacturers consider this as valuable information which they can use and sell to third parties. This already happens. In general, this information is not used for road safety purposes.

V2V – Vehicle to vehicle. There are several ways to connect a vehicle to other vehicles and exchange information on the kind of vehicle, position, direction, speed, braking, obstacles, road condition, priority vehicles announce their presence, et cetera. In principle, the vehicle is permanently sending this information. This information is used for road safety purposes. Several applications of the Connected Motorcycle Consortium are based on V2V connection.

V2X – Vehicle to everything. The vehicle sends permanently information to sender/receivers along the road and to other vehicles. Again, on kind of vehicle, position, direction, speed, braking, obstacles, road condition, et cetera.

It also receives information from and about the infrastructure, traffic lights, obstacles and from other road users about the same things it sends information. This is information that is used for road safety and again several applications of the Connected Motorcycle Consortium are based on V2X connection.

Also, eCall can be seen as V2X technology, but here the connection only is established in case of an accident.In the context if the article, connected means V2V and V2X connection.

Only a few years ago, between 2015 and 2018, CEOs of car manufacturers, politicians and the like were convinced that the real automated car (level 5 on the SAE scale, which is the highest level) were imminent and the first automated vehicles could be expected on the public roads as soon as 2020.

In 2016 the European Ministers of Transport signed the Declaration of Amsterdam that was supposed to make it possible to use automated vehicles on public roads and cross-borders. The declaration stated that “Cooperative, connected and automated mobility is becoming a reality for EU citizens.” In these years, senior officials from research and development departments of the same manufacturing companies already told that we should not reckon with two or three years, but with two or three decades. This has never been picked up by the press.

Also, around that time, I attended a presentation by the Dutch new mobility professor Carlo van de Weijer. He showed a video clip of a typical street in Amsterdam. Pedestrians, cyclists, cars, a tram all swarmed on the street, everybody with his own interpretation of the traffic rules.

Van de Weijer concluded that in a situation like this “the Google (automated) car would park itself within three minutes and start crying.” Now we can see that projects to develop automated vehicles have been stopped, goals were adjusted, budgets are limited. Predictions are adjusted to ten to thirty years.

One can even wonder if automated cars for consumers will ever exist. They will probably be very expensive. Not only to purchase them, but also in taxes, maintenance and repair costs. With the growing number of sensors maintenance and repair will be much more expensive in future than we are used to. This also has an effect on the insurance fees.

Motorcycles do not need to be fitted with the above-mentioned safety devices yet, and several of them would probably do more harm than good. Nevertheless, suppliers like Bosch and Continental are developing ARAS (Advanced Rider Assistance Devices) especially for motorcycles.

We have written about that extensively in December 2019, so I will not go into much detail about that. You can read the article here. The devices of Bosh and Continental take the specific dynamics of motorcycles into account and, although their function is sometimes the same as with cars, they work differently.

More important is the work of the Connected Motorcycle Consortium (CMC). In this BMW, Honda, KTM and Yamaha, together with some other partners, work together on a connection of motorcycles with other vehicles in a harmonized way. The consortium has recently published its first Basis Specification. They develop new applications and set standards to let motorcycles, cars and other road users communicate which each other.

The CMC has already developed sixteen different applications, especially for motorcycles. Examples of these applications are Motorcycle Approach Warning (MAW), Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Left Turn Assist (LTA), Approaching Emergency Vehicle Warning (AEVW) and Broken-Down Vehicle Warning (BDVW). A complete overview you can find here.

The motorcycle manufacturers, united in the European Motorcycle Industry Association ACEM have agreed in 2014 that in 2020 every member would have at least one model equipped with C-ITS (Connected Intelligent Transport Systems) technology. That goal has been achieved.

Motorcycles may not be automated, but soon will be connected, and as we just saw on some occasions already are. This is the first step towards a situation where motorcycles will be part of an environment of automated and connected vehicles.

More of this is to be expected from projects likes SAFE-UP, where sixteen large participants will try to enhance road safety for all road users, inclusive vulnerable road users (VRUs) as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists by proactively designing and analyzing safety-critical scenarios in a highly automated and mixed traffic environment by integrating traffic accident data and future traffic conditions. By the way, although FEMA is not a participant in these projects, we are involved in them.

‘The self-steering motorcycles we see on YouTube were developed for research purposes and not as predecessors for real automated motorcycles.’
Will motorcycles indeed not be automated as I wrote above? Well, you might have seen the videos of a self-steering BMW without a rider, a slow-moving Honda following a person or the racing Yamaha that tried to beat Valentino Rossi.

Yes, these are examples of self-steering motorcycles. And at the same time, they are not. They just followed a set and learned course on a track. The BMW copied exactly the movements of the rider, the Honda just followed its ‘master’ and the Yamaha was programmed to ride the racing track. None of them sought their own way or made decisions concerning other road users. They were developed for research purposes and not as predecessors for real automated motorcycles.

I doubt if there will ever be a market for automated motorcycles as we know them. Still, I foresee a growing need for small L-category vehicles for transport of people and goods. Costs like parking fees and tolls will rise when city councils discourage the use of cars in urban areas. We can already see the focus on public transport, cycling and walking when it comes to urban transport plans and policies. Action groups and in their wake city councils and politicians on all levels ask for a transition from the space that is now used by moving and parked cars to other users, for example cyclists, pedestrians and playing children. It is to be expected that in future there will be just no room anymore for private cars in the cities.

We can also see a growing resistance to delivery vans for reasons of road safety and pollution. One can also question the efficiency and economic feasibility of big, heavy busses in the cities. The more when they are nearly empty outside rush hours, which is about 90% of the time.

The answer to all the questions could well be small and light automated vehicles on two, three or four wheels for goods, personal and public transport. In several places in the world pilots are already running and in Wuhan (China) small, automated shuttles are already used to deliver medical supplies, using public roads and negotiating with traffic. Also, outside the cities a growing need for small vehicles is to be expected.

Cars will be more expensive in the future. Already many manufacturers like Volkswagen, Citroen, Opel (Vauxhall) have stopped building small A-class cars or have announced that the present models will not be succeeded. The reason is that it is becoming too expensive to develop and build cars like this and the margins are just too little.

In some cases, they are replaced by electric models, but these are in general too expensive for the consumer. For travel from transport hubs like bus- and train stations to home or another destination, I foresee a shift from cars to, again, small electric L-category vehicles. That could be motorcycles, but also three- or four-wheeled private vehicles or automated shuttles. Of course, automated or not, all these vehicles will be equipped with safety applications as described above.

To conclude: there will be a future for motorcycles in a world with automated and connected vehicles. The future is to light and small vehicles, both in urban and rural areas. They can be automated too, although this is not to be expected for two-wheelers. However, the keyword here is connection. To ride safely in an environment with automated and connected vehicles, motorcycles must and will be connected too.

More than three years after President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, we’re back in.  On Biden’s first day in office on January 20th, one of his first priorities was to sign an executive order to re-enter the global pact to slow climate change.  Rejoining the accord was simple; the next step gets harder: How can the world’s second-largest polluter shrink emissions 45-50% by the end of this decade to comply with the deal?

One of Joe Biden’s campaign promises was to “Transition away from oil” and create a “carbon pollution-free power sector” by 2035, as part of a $2 trillion investment to build back the economy by investing in green infrastructure.

The Paris Agreement does not prescribe exact methods for eliminating emissions behind global warming, but establishes binding targets for avoiding worrisome temperature thresholds.  Research conducted by the German Aerospace Centre, says that passenger car engines as we know it need to be completely phased out from new sales before the end of the next decade in order for Europe to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the most ambitious part of the Paris pact’s “well below 2 degrees Celsius” overall aim.

GM SETS 2035 TARGET TO PHASE OUT GAS-, DIESEL-POWERED VEHICLES GLOBALLY

General Motors has set a 2035 target date for phasing out gasoline and diesel powered vehicles from its showrooms globally, among the first major auto makers to put a timeline on transitioning to a fully electric lineup.

DOUBLE-DIGIT MOTORCYCLE SALES INCREASE DURING WORST YEAR THIS CENTURY

In spite of the economic and health uncertainty posed by the Coronavirus pandemic for the bulk of 2020, the powersports sector experienced an 18.4% increase in sales for the year.

The double-digit growth was owed largely to a big bump in off-highway bikes and ATVs, which jumped 46.5% & 33.8% respectively, but new-model motorcycle and scooter sales were also up 11.4% over 2019, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council Retail Sales Report.

“Overall, the industry had a good year under difficult circumstances,” noted Erik Pritchard, president and CEO of the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC), stating; “The COVID-19 pandemic forced all of us to be nimble and to make the changes we needed to survive.  In the end, many in the industry saw strong growth, and now our opportunity is to keep all of these new riders riding and to inspire even more people to join us on two, three, and four wheels.”

ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE BUYERS GET A U.S. TAX CREDIT THROUGH 2021

If you’re thinking about buying a new electric motorcycle this year, and you live in the USA, here’s some good news: the federal tax credit that went into effect for new electric bike models at the end of 2019 has been extended until January 1, 2022.

Any electric motorcycle that can go at least 45 mph is eligible for a 10% tax credit, up to $2,500.

Electric motorcycle owners new and old should also know that, at the same time that electric motorcycle credit got extended, the 30% EV charger installation credit was re-upped by the federal government as well.  For 2021, you’re eligible for a credit up to $1,000 for home installations and up to $30,000 for business installations on new EV chargers.

“The electric motorcycle industry is rapidly responding to our country’s need for affordable and environmentally responsible transportation,” said Zero Motorcycles’ CEO Sam Paschel, adding that “These tax credits represent an investment in a cleaner energy future, and also effectively create jobs in the ever-growing electric vehicle industry.”

 

VR COULD ALLOW CONSUMERS TO ‘RIDE’ MOTORCYCLE PROTOTYPES

It seems virtually unreal, but Virtual Reality is starting to fulfill futuristic promises, and it’s even forged a place in the real-world development of motorcycles.  VR has long straddled the line between sci-fi and sci-fact, with crazy promises made in movies from ‘Tron’ to ‘The Matrix’, but the tech is coming of age and moving from the living room to Yamaha’s boardroom.

Far from VR computer gaming, Yamaha VR opens new doors to improve product development, and possibly expanding consumer marketing.

Masayuki Miki, a member of the joint research team in the Fundamental Technology Research Division at Yamaha’s Technical R&D Centre, explained to Cycle World, “Yamaha has been using riding simulators built around actual motorcycles for some time.”

“Since VR allows us to ‘ride’ a wide range of products on all kinds of road environments we’ve created, our simulators and VR equipment play an important role in our research into rider–machine dynamics.  It also goes toward achieving our Jin-Ki Kanno development ideal [which is about bikes providing fulfillment as well as transport].”

FIRE GUTS LACONIA MOTORCYCLE WEEK HEADQUARTERS

A catastrophic Christmas Day fire tore through the offices of the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association, destroying decades-old memorabilia and rally archives detailing the history of the nearly 100-year-old event, often referred to as the Oldest National Motorcycle Rally with roots dating back to 1916 when a Gypsy Tour gathered for several days at Weirs Beach on the southern shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.

“It was absolutely terrible,” executive director Charlie St. Clair told Ridin’ On.  “We lost almost everything.  We lost all of our memorabilia.  Photos and archives from more than 50 years.”  All Motorcycle Week-related stuff “is pretty much all gone” including their entire inventory of just-arrived 100th anniversary T-Shirts and promotional apparel.

“It was literally a museum in itself,” said St. Clair, much of it irreplaceable, estimating the total loss will be in the “hundreds of thousands” of dollars.

In calling for help from the public, in terms of rebuilding and gathering new Laconia Motorcycle Week artifacts and collectibles, St. Clair said they would welcome donations of such items and reports a GoFundMe page was also launched by Friends of Laconia Motorcycle Week at (www.gofundme.com/f/we-love-laconia-motorcycle-week).

 

DAYTONA BIKE WEEK IS A ‘GO’!

By a 6-1 vote on January 20, the Daytona Beach city commission endorsed plans for the 80th annual bike rally, scheduled for March 5-14.  Daytona Bike Week’s organizers feared they might have to pull the plug on the 2021 rally, due to a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the event is a huge economic driver for the region, and with this year being the 80th anniversary, businesses were especially looking forward to the needed financial boost.

AMERICADE POSTPONED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS

This year’s Americade Motorcycle Touring Rally, typically held in June in Lake George, N.Y. each year since 1983, has been rescheduled to Sept. 21-25 due to Coronavirus concerns.

 

BILL COMMEMORATES ROUTE 66 CENTENNIAL

Federal legislation was signed into law on December 23, 2020 to establish a commission to recommend ways to commemorate Route 66’s upcoming 100th anniversary. The first all-paved U.S. highway was completed in 1926 and ran from Chicago to Los Angeles.

The new 15-person commission is to include representatives from the states through which the highway ran: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

FUTURISTIC AUTOMATIC DE-ICING ROAD CONSTRUCTED IN FRANCE

Roads as we know them have been around since 4,000 B.C., but though those first paved tracks may seem a million miles from the blacktop of today, it doesn’t seem like road-building has kept up with the times.

That could be about to change, reports visordown.com, as a French company named Eurovia announces a new type of tech that allows a road to heat itself in winter to clear snow and ice.

The road is built around the fairly basic principle of a heat exchanger and is not dissimilar to the pipes you find in under-floor heating.  A fluid is passed through the pipes and depending on the road’s ambient temperature energy can either be taken from or sent to the road’s surface layer.

Because of the natural propensity for roads to absorb heat — being black and facing directly upwards — the system can also take in heat during the summer, store it and then release it in the winter.  This could either be to help clear obstructions like ice or snow, or the energy could be diverted into heating nearby homes or buildings.

This project has advanced beyond the drawing board, with Eurovia already building an actual working version of the new “Power Road” tech, located along a 120m stretch of road recently opened in Égletons, France.  The region has seasonal hot and cold weather, making it a perfect urban environment to try the road out… and it didn’t disappoint.  With some flurries of snow over the festive season, the automated road managed to clear snow and ice before it reached such a level that vehicles would have been inhibited.

 

MOTORCYCLE TAXI INDUSTRY CAUSING KIDS IN AFRICA TO QUIT SCHOOL

Difficult times have forced African youngsters to put their studies aside in favor of making a living driving motorcycle taxis.  Many people rely on motorcycle taxis to go about their daily lives, and this unconventional means of public transportation fuels the livelihood of many individuals in developing countries like Asia and Africa, with lots of people making a living solely from ferrying people around aboard their motorcycles.

Now, the unfortunate global disaster caused a massive shutdown of nearly all schools, giving kids a lot of idle time as laborers were left jobless and without a stable income to support their families.  So, students have begun dropping out of school and instead are getting into the motorcycle taxi business.  As it turns out, kids would rather spend their time outside working, and ferrying food deliveries or people from point A to point B, rather than stay at home taking online classes.  Idleness paired with affordable Chinese motorcycles has lured kids as young as fifteen to buy their own bikes as an investment to earn a living.

 

ABOUT AIM / NCOM: The National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM) is a nationwide motorcyclists rights organization serving over 2,000 NCOM Member Groups throughout the United States, with all services fully-funded through Aid to Injured Motorcyclist (AIM) Attorneys available in each state who donate a portion of their legal fees from motorcycle accidents back into the NCOM Network of Biker Services (www.ON-A-BIKE.com / 800-ON-A-BIKE).

Riding a powerful and dangerous machine is, let’s face it, in many ways a young person’s game. That, along with the fact that bikes are generally more attainable than cars and are relatively easy to store, makes them very popular among millennials.

Yet misconceptions about young motorcycle collectors persist. As a millennial collector myself, I’ve heard them all: Younger buyers only want an easy electric-start bike. They only want Japanese bikes—the Honda RC30s, Suzuki RG500s and GSXR-750s, and Yamaha FZR750Rs of the world. Turns out, that’s all wrong.

More than one in three millennial motorcycle collectors calling Hagerty for an insurance quote (37 percent) are inquiring about a Harley-Davidson. That makes it the most popular marque for millennials, ahead of Honda. No other brand comes close. Not only that, millennials generally pay more for a given vintage than older collectors.

Motorcycle quote data generally show a lower correlation between the age of the collector and the age of what they’re buying than we see in the car world. A millennial motorcycle collector, for instance, is nearly twice as likely to be interested in a 1940s motorcycle than a millennial car collector is in a 1940s car. The opposite is also true: Pre-boomers are far more interested in recent motorcycles than they are newer classic cars.

A big factor here is price. As I’ve noted previously over at Insider, the cost of entry is much lower for collectible motorcycles than for cars—the 15 most expensive motorcycles ever sold at auction are worth less, combined, than the single most expensive car. That means even a cash-strapped young enthusiast can afford to broaden their taste.

What we have then, is a relatively even playing field in which older and younger motorcycle collectors seem to be interested in largely the same eras. And everybody it seems, still loves Harleys.

In 2007, BRP put its three-wheeled Can-Am Spyder on the market and sold 2500 units in the U.S. By 2015, it had sold 1 million units globally. In 2017, it estimated the U.S. three-wheel industry to be good for approximately 40,000 sales a year, and that industry includes competition from historic names like Harley-Davidson and Morgan. Some bikers scoff at the three-legged mechanical portmanteau called an autocycle, but they’re here to stay; in 2020, BRP more than doubled its 2019 volume in the U.S.

Maybe you’re considering joining the growing crowd but aren’t sure which saddle to throw a leg over, here is a brief history of three-wheelers and the people who love them.

Indian Dispatch-Tow: Indian created its three-wheeler to help a Packard automobile dealer who didn’t want to send two mechanics to deliver customer cars; he needed something a single mechanic could tow behind the customer’s car, then ride back to the shop.

The Dispatch-Tow went on sale in 1931 with a 45-cubic-inch V-twin and a claimed top speed of 65 miles per hour. Produced intermittently until 1952, they’re usually found in museums or rotting in barns. Dispatch-Tow owners are inclined to bushy mustaches and riding in loafers. They also own an Airedale named “Champ,” and a bank.

Harley-Davidson Servi-Car: Trying to outdo Indian as well as lure buyers during the Great Depression, Harley created the Servi-Car in 1932. The 45-cubic-inch, 24-hp three-wheeler was instantly successful, toiling as utility vehicles for 41 years for everyone from the military to drug store delivery boys.

The Reboots

Lehman, Motor Trike, and Roadsmith Trikes: Instead of turning a Beetle drivetrain into a three-wheeler, these companies started with the front end of a motorcycle and created kits to add a two-wheeled rear end. Lehman is no more, but Motor Trike and Roadsmith still convert tourers and cruisers produced by the major motorcycle brands.

The modern equivalent of owning a Bricklin kit car in the 1970s, owners keep shelves full of Yacht Rock CDs, are adored by their nieces and nephews, and have a backyard grill that costs as much as a good used car.

Harley-Davidson Tri-Glide and Freewheeler: Harley returned to the trike fray in 2009 with its Tri-Glide models. Available with a 114- or 117-cubic-inch V-twin and up to 125 pound-feet of torque, the Tri-Glide yokes a Street Glide-looking front end to a living room sectional. The Freewheeler debuted in 2015 with cruiser looks and “mini ape hanger” handlebars. Aimed at those seeking the Harley experience without having to keep 800 pounds upright, owners have easy manners, a ton of dad jokes, excellent prescription drug benefits, leather chaps over acid-wash denim, iron butts betrayed by back and knee pain, and friends who ride the two-wheelers these trikes are based on.

The Outsider

Yamaha Niken: A motorcycle version of the Piaggio MP3 500 scooter, Yamaha took its Tracer 900GT two-wheeler and put two scooter-sized 15-inch wheels up front, spaced only 16 inches apart. An 847-cc inline-three drives a normal-sized rear wheel by way of a six-speed manual trans. The roughly 600-pound Niken rides like a motorcycle, leans like a motorcycle, and will fall over like a motorcycle if you don’t put a foot down at a stop. The extra contact patch up front provides superb grip in wet conditions, the front suspension keeps both front wheels planted even on nasty ground. The Niken is best for those who regularly ride in rain, on the pro cycling World Tour, or in conflict zones, and who crave being asked, “What is that?” 38 times a day.

BRP Can-Am: The Can-Am Spyder debuted 14 years ago and we tested one because, well, that’s what we do and we rode the updated F3 when it launched in 2016. It’s a three-wheeler laid out and operated like the snowmobiles BRP also makes. The Can-Am lineup now counts three models in ten trims, Rotax engines ranging from a 600-cc with 50 horsepower and 37 pound-feet to a 1.3-liter with 115 horsepower and 96 pound-feet. Feels sorta like a motorcycle up high, rides sorta like a car down low. The base transmission in the Ryker model is a CVT, but the uplevel F3 and RT models come with a 6-speed automated manual. All the braking is done with a single foot-operated control. Owners want gnats in their teeth, but also stability and tons of storage, and have a fetish for 12-in-1 appliances like the Bacon Press & Griddle.

Morgan 3 Wheeler: This one ends production in 2021 while Morgan tools up a new version with a European-emissions-compliant engine. We’re including it because it, like all three-wheeled machines, offers a very unique experience and Morgan is the king of the old school, having built three-wheelers from 1909 to 1953, then resuming the trade in 2011. The model from Malvern, England came with a scone and a flat cap, and was the only three-wheeler that allowed a white-scarfed driver to say, “Tut tut!” and not be ignored or beat to a pulp.

Vanderhall: The Provo, Utah company puts out three-wheelers named after iconic California locales, no doubt in part because a three-wheeler requires no special license in Cali.

Built on an aluminum chassis, the Venice and Carmel are powered by GM-sourced four-bangers, either a 175-hp 1.4-liter or a 194-hp 1.5-liter. The electric Edison is motivated by two 70-hp electric motors. Owners played water polo in college, still wear sun visors, have Yellow Labradors with matching goggles, and both owner and dog are named “Chip.”

Polaris Slingshot: If the Slingshot had one more wheel, it would be close to a KTM X-Bow, but without the carbon-fiber tub. Infinitely customizable and so low it could “high center on a hickory nut,” as one commenter put it, Polaris unveiled plenty of updates for 2021. These include a new, in-house 2.0-liter inline-four producing up to 203 horsepower and 144 pound-feet and an optional automated manual with paddle shifters. Slingshot owners are the Lamborghini buyers of the three-wheeler world, therefore they have never met a neon hue, an aftermarket mod, or one-piece jumpsuit they didn’t like. Someone somewhere is working on a scissor-door kit for this; doors too, we suppose.

Campagna T-Rex: The T-Rex line features Italian carbon-fiber bodywork, a Japanese engine, and intergalactic prices. The 2021 T-Rex RR, which is powered by a Kawasaki-sourced DOHC 1.4-liter inline-four making 208 horsepower and 117 pound-feet of torque, starts at $65,999.

If the Slingshot is a Lamborghini, this is three-wheeled Bugatti. Owners have a lot of money, too many cell phones, a tequila collection, an infinity pool just for their pet alligator, a suite at a hotel in town, and sixteen copies of Scarface.

Elio Motors and Aptera: Both were founded more than ten years ago promising vastly efficient three-wheelers, both have never sold a vehicle. We’re not saying they won’t ever sell vehicles, but prospective owners do tend to have pockets full of Pokémon cards and believe Pikachu is real.

–from www.CarandDriver.com

And no, they are not destined to take over the world. A brother in the Widows Sons riding association contacted Bikernet recently. David Dolph told me, “We are a Masonic Riders Association and a group of Master Masons who have come together to promote Freemasonry within the motorcycling community and help introduce motorcycling to our non-riding Masonic brothers. Our first priority, is to aid & assist widows and orphans of Master Masons.”

We agreed to research their organization and were surprised to find out the origins of Freemasonry.

Freemasonry or Masonry consists of fraternal organizations that trace their history to the local fraternities of stonemasons from the end of the 14th century. They regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients. Freemasonry has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories throughout the years. Modern Freemasonry broadly consists of two main recognition groups:

Continental Freemasonry is now the general term for the jurisdictions that have removed some, or all, of these restrictions.

The basic, local organizational unit of Freemasonry is the Lodge. These private Lodges are usually supervised at the regional level (usually aligned with either a state, province, or national border) by a Grand Lodge or Grand Orient. There is no international, worldwide Grand Lodge that supervises all of Freemasonry; each Grand Lodge is independent, and they do not necessarily recognize each other as being legitimate.

The degrees of Freemasonry retain the three grades of medieval craft guilds, those of Apprentice, Journeyman or fellow (now called Fellowcraft), and Master Mason. The candidate of these three degrees is progressively taught the meanings of the symbols of Freemasonry and entrusted with grips, signs and words to signify to other members that he has been so initiated.

We asked David some questions about his association starting with: Tell me how the association began and the history?

The logo and concept of the Widows Sons International Motorcycle Association, was conceived by Bro. Carl Davenport from Chicago, IL.

One rainy Sunday morning in 1998, Bro Carl awoke with the words “Widows Sons” deeply implanted in his head. The words evolved in his thoughts for several weeks and eventually coalesced into the image of a beautiful woman with a pale look on her face.

Bro Carl then started to research information on the Widows Son. As he thought more and drew on his Masonic experiences he understood what the image represented.

When a Master Mason is called to the Grand Lodge above, his widow always has a deep look of pain and at the same time is full of fear because of the unknown journey she will now undertake alone.

She was obviously the Widow. And he decided she was the widow of a Master Mason because of his affinity for the Fraternity.

Bro. Carl had always wanted to form a Masonic riding association. He thought it would carry well across the fraternity. He very soon had a list of Masons and Masonic riders.

One day he was having a conversation with a fellow Brother from the Philippines and discussing motorcycles and Masonry and how Grand Lodges might view Masonic motorcycle organizations. They decided they needed two things numbers (members) and a cause.

It was at that moment that the entire concept including the logo came together. The motorcycle club should be called the Widows Sons (no MC) and they should aid and assist the widows of Masons.

Since that day the Widows Sons International Motorcycle Association has grown with chapters active and forming in more than 11 states in the U.S. and 5 countries outside the U.S.

The riding association is open to Masons who ride a street or highway-legal motorcycle and are in good standing in the records of their blue lodge.

What’s the mission?

To aid and assist the Widows of Master Masons…
To promote Freemasonry in the world of motorcycles…
To promote motorcycles in the world of Freemasonry…
To support the local charities…

How many members, their demographics and are they local or spread out.

There are chapters all across the world and the United States, but here in Ohio there are 23 chapters with 640 members.

Our Chapter in Middletown, Ohio has 23 members.

Who is the leader? How long? Tell me a little about him?

Every chapter has a set of officers: President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, Sergeant at Arms, Guardian of Membership, Chaplain and Trustees.

Also, every state has a Grand chapter with the same type of officers.

Major events or functions?

Every chapter puts on benefit runs throughout the year. Our chapter “Brazen Pillars” will have a benefit run on Saturday June 5th and another one in September.

Tell me how women and kids fit in?

Women and children cannot be a Widows Sons (because Widows Sons are Masons) but women can be companions of the Widows Sons. Companions can attend meetings and help, but they won’t be able to vote on topics/subjects. The proceeds from our benefit runs go towards organizations that help women, children, first responders etc…

There you have it. If you are interested in this organization you can contact David below:

Name: David Dolph
Phone Number: 937-536-9575
Email Address: david.dolph@gmail.com

And now, ladies and gentlemen, fresh from the White
House and into the Bandit’s Cantina and Shopworn
Showgirls’ Fandango here in the Trump Tower in Las Vegas…….Donald
Trump!! Let’s hear it for ‘im!!

“Thank you. Thank you. You’re all terrific. Biden? Not so
much. But he’s not here. He’s in the 300 year old
extremely smelly White House… and I’m going to one or
the other….or maybe all of them!….don’t really
know!…..Maybe all of them!…… I’m going into one of my
skyscrapers. That smell nice.

Speakin’ o’ smells, how about that election, uh? A guy
whose whole political platform was “Wear a mask” beats a guy who made America great for 4 years. Who the hell would want to wear a mask instead of making America
great. Apparently a majority of Americans would……… if
you believe the first mandatory-mail-in vote in American
history.

Two days after the Senate tore up the first
impeachment load a mandatory mail-in Presidential
election is concocted.

Speakin’ o’ cocks, how about that Ted Cruz, uh? I mean
the guy’s so clueless he’s actually almost worth the price
of admission to watch him work. Which price, of course, is your liberty. Small price to pay, we don’t have much left.

Am I right? You right there, nodding your head, you know
I’m right, right?

So Texas gets hit with the Global Warming deep-freeze of the century….I mean, even people pulling down the statues of the Confederacy are at this point feeling sorry
for Texans….and their fucking SENATOR goes to Cancun.

I mean he fled faster than Congress did when guys in
Apache paint entered the Capitol building. Apparently
Senators can flee even faster than Congressmen! But
then they ARE at a higher rate of pay. So it makes sense.

So it makes sense, right? You agree, right? Thank you.

So he’s in fucking goddamn Mexico with his belly sticking
out over his Speedos, hoping to get lucky with that frustrated wife o’ his and staring at all the skimpy-bikinied hotties that swarm to the place hoping to score some coke, and that’s with a small c.

Meanwhile people in his home State are literally
freezing to death in their homes. Why? Because Cruz’s
State power supply is run by people who can’t plug in a
toaster ANNNNDDD who won’t let anyone compete with
them. Because as you know competition in the utilities
industry will lead to shortages and chicanery and price-gouging.

Meanwhile no one in Texas has any utilities and
they are getting bills for 20,000 dollars for using the
electric toothbrush. Meanwhile Cruz is in the serene Mexican sunshine, hacking his nuts and jizzing in his hand while gawking at all the chick-eetas.

It gets worse: he then blames his kids for him being in
Mexico. Ya know what’s unfair?….that any penis can
create a kid. It don’t fucking MATTER who the penis
BELONGS to. It can belong to Ted Cruz!!! The penis don’t care. It has a job to do and it does it. Let the kids it makes worry about how to handle the penis’s owner
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So, he blames his kids, which they now have to contend
with from all their classmates forever, them sayin’ “Your dad must really hate you, uh?” They gotta put up with that now. I mean even kids can see Ted’s a piece of work. Not the voters though. They’ll put him right back in there.

Fucking reets.

So he blames his kids because as you know ALL
American kids aged 12-and-under routinely go to Cancun
during pandemics and Arctic snowstorms and when they
do they want Daddy there with them most of all! So, what
could he do? And I think he actually said that: he put on a
sombrero and said to one of the news cameras in a faux
Mexican accent while shrugging, “What can I do? Du Ju
no whut I’ne sane?” I think one reporter laughed. The
other reporters wrote scathing stories about Cruz. And
also about the reporter who laughed.

But Cruz ain’t done yet! No!!! No sooner does this shitload of shit hits the fan but what does Cruz do for damage control? He hurries back home to arrange a photo-shoot where he’s handing out water and probably memorabilia from Cancun to people who may or may not be interns for him and who may or may not be his
fuckhead colleagues.

“I can fix this, I’ll give this hobo a fucking Fossil wristwatch and that will make everything cool. Maybe my ol’ lady will give me a reach-around. Hey, there, freezing starving fellow Texan, whew, some tough times here for ya this week, ey, my friend? Bet you wish you were in Cancun right now, uh? I know I do. What’s Cancun?

Here, I gut some pictures here on my phone, check this out, lookit the tits on that consuelo cutie right there. She’s wondering where the hell I went! Turns out I’m here with you, my fellow American, handing out small bottles of water you actually paid for with your tax dollars because you have no water or power or heat or food because you actually elected me to run your life. How’m I doin’?????”

Fuckin’ Cruz. Even Oralcasio-Cortez is on his case. I
mean if she’s comin’ after ya that means you are a total
fucking douche. You don’t see her comin’ after Trey
Gowdy, do ya. Fuck no. But she’s comin’ after Cruz. Because she knows he’s stupid. And he’s not just Ordinary stupid. I mean he’s, like, AGGRESSIVELY stupid.

He actually works at it. He puts his back into it. He’ll
compound the first stupidity with an immediate Gattling
gun back-up of brand-new stupidities to make the first
stupidity look relatively minor by comparison. That’s how
he does damage-control on his fuck-ups: by compounding them to such a degree you forget about the first stupidity altogether. That’s, like, Reverse Genius.

Fuckin’ wife o’ his has to lay awake at night staring at the
ceiling and wondering “Is a life of Free Money From
Taxpayers really worth living with this idiot?” That’s gotta
be a pussy ripe for fuckin’. Imagine having to have grointo-groin sex with Ted Cruz. His dick and her eggs actually created more people. That just shows ya that Nature is more interested in quantity than quality. Let the quality work itself out later after we get some head-count goin’ is Nature’s way. First the quantity….then let the idiots and the geniuses fight it out on the battlefield.

Well, ya know we didn’t come here tonight to hear me talk natural philosophy regarding the Ted Cruz family tree of fucked-up DNA. We came here for the jokes.
Are ya all havin’ fun here in Vegas tonight?

Hey, relax, I’m kidding, there’s no fun with Sisolako’backbone as governor, uh? Ya like that name? Sisolako’backbone?

Better than the name on his drivers license – “Sisolak” –
ain’t it? I should be the Official Namer of People. I
shouldn’t be too hard on the guy for having no backbone, I mean he didn’t elect himself, did ‘e. Ya get what ya deserve. He single-handed turned the greatest most exciting city on earth, Las Vegas, into a fucking ghost town. By threatening to de-license anyone who disobeyed his genius medical expertise on how to keep people from
getting the fucking flu. Like not getting the flu was worth all this.

I mean, look at me, I’m outside of my own goddamn
skyscraper here in Las Vegas in this adjacent empty lot,
standing on a shitty plywood stage, doing standup to an
audience of 5 people in goddamn fucking Chinese surgical masks that are growing more bacteria with every breath than five Wuhan biological warfare labs in overdrive creating fake pandemics. Fuck me running.

Speakin’ o’ Steve Wynn: I had this dream about him.
Naa!…..not a gay dream, I wan’t suckin’ his dick or
anything. Not that I would. I mean, I’m vain but I’m ugly
enough just on my own. I don’t need to pay to be made
uglier. I mean, whose doin’ the facework on him and
Wayne Newton and Kim Novak, Edward Scissorhands?
Jesus.

So anyway, I have this dream about Steve Wynn: he gets kicked off his own empire in Las Vegas – which actually happened …..and suddenly no one gets to gamble in Las Vegas? Because of the flu?

So, in the dream I’m talkin’ to Steve and I say “So what’s
the deal, you behind this flu hoax? You can tell me.” He
says “Go fuck yourself, Don.” Rude man. Very rude man.
But what the hell, I went and fucked myself. I’ve had
worse.

Hey, you’ve been great, if you get a chance if you walk on over to the west side of the Trump building here you’ll notice there’s a long line o’ strip clubs running north and
south along Industrial Avenue, literally a fucking stone’s
throw by Greta-The-Geek Thunberg away from my
building. It’s not an accident. There’s a reason my building is still filling up with rich executives while every other hotel on the Strip is boarded up. That’s right, pussy, baby.

Pussy. Go on over there and have some fun, THANKS

I’m in the process of moving to Sturgis, South Dakota from a 9,000 square foot building including a shop, 17 motorcycles and 17 years of history. It’s crazy, but brothers and sisters all over the country are moving to the Badlands. Jason Mook from Deadwood Custom Cycles made 13 trips pulling a trailer from North Carolina. At times I need to tell my dust-covered self that brothers all over the country have done this.

I’ve moved the same tools for 50 years from woman to woman, from place to place, from one adventure to another. As I open every drawer, every box or study each shelf, I’m pondering the memories parts remind me of and deciding what to keep and what to toss. I had four wooden book shelves in my shop/office, two were 10-foot tall. They were all overflowing with books, catalogs and of course magazines. They had to go. I must keep telling myself, we are downsizing. I’m trying.

So many of these magazines I wrote for, created or edited. Some bring back memories. I remember the time when we decided to hire a new associate editor. We finally made a decision and he flew out. I believe on his second day he was riding down Kanan Road when a couple of drug addicts ran over him, and I was put in the position of calling his mom the next day.

Then a bunch of us, including Kim Peterson, the long time, extremely devoted editor of In the Wind, Riparoo, two more staffers and I attended the Harley Rendezvous in New York. Produced by a father/son team, who with success went to war and split up. The father took our staff to dinner at a posh regional seafood restaurant. During dinner the son beckoned me to leave the dinner and meet him in the bar.

On the edge of his seat, he looked at me wide-eyed and told me 40 Hells Angels were riding out of the hills to his event. Could I do something? I immediately thought his descriptive concept would make a terrific David Mann centerspread.

I told him I would look into it. We finished dinner and returned to our motel room. Natch, there was but one option, roll a doobie and pass it around the room. “We better head over,” I said and coughed.

This was one of the first all-encompassing events, secured from the cops in a grassy compound. It held everything you needed to do anything you wanted, and nobody would fuck with you. It was a bikers’ dream at the time. Biker events were generally pushed around, over-charged, regulated without cause, and more often than not shut down.

We showed our badges and wandered into the late-night grounds. A band played, strippers danced and vendors partied with their customers. I studied the perimeter, checked the bike parking for new bikes and looked for patches, fights, or innocent folks being clubbed. I didn’t find anything. Finally, I found a member of the Hells Angels asleep in his lawn chair next to his vendor booth. He didn’t seem to be disturbed about anything.

I opened another drawer and spotted something that reminded me of the greatest bike show we ever produced on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, in 1989, until the Redhead spotted a member of a rival club approach a Hells Angel, draw a knife and kill him right in the parking lot next to the ship. Even from a distance she sensed the outcome wasn’t good and ran to find me.

I told her to take my young son, Frank, to my mother’s house not far away and check with me later. The cops shut the show down and that was the last time we ever had a show on the Queen Mary. Brothers brought bikes from all over the world. Later and for years, Jim Gianatsis held shows in the adjoining parking area right on the water. They were amazing shows.

The Redhead became no stranger to death. We split up, and in 1992 she lived in North Hollywood with a mad artist. She resided down the street from the famous bank, when it was gang robbed by machine gun tooting mad men who fired thousands of rounds at the local cops. A couple of months later she was dressed to the nines and on her way to work, but she had to hit the old concrete Post Office built in the ‘40s to look like any ominous government building from the era, all concrete, tall steps and pillars.

Halfway up the steps, across the street from a park, she encountered a small homeless guy with an uncustomary bright smile and a twinkle in his eyes. He hit her up for spare change. She told him she could help him out her way out. She turned and noticed a larger than usual line at the counter pushing against the glass and steel framed doors.

As she reached the top step, she heard something and turned. She witnessed another homeless man approach and stab the little man and dart off, scrambling down the steps to the street below. Alison immediately returned to the man’s side, but he was already fading. He wore a stained white t-shirt, but now it contained a bloody slit on the left side of his chest.

The man’s girlfriend screamed from the street and ran after the assailant. The Redhead dash up the steps again and jerked open the door and hollered, “Someone call 911, a man  has been stabbed.”

A clerk respond, “Another one?” None of the patrons left their space in line. The scene was chaotic, and unreal to the beautiful Redhead in pleated crème-colored slacks as the homeless victim’s dog barked and screeched, police cars arrived and paramedics followed. She held the man until the thin man was loaded onto a gurney and the blaring ambulance sped away.

She couldn’t understand how the staff treated him, as if they were only interested in drug abuse and not the injury. She drove to the hospital and ran into the hallway in the ER as a doctor and a nurse came out of his room. They immediately shook their heads. “You’re not a relative?” The nurse asked.

“I was at the scene and wanted to know what happened,” Alison.

“That’s extremely compassionate,” the nurse responded. “You should consider working in the medical profession.”

I picked up a box of posters and opened one to find the shot of a babe with the ’92 Dyna Glide Jim Waggaman and Mike Maldonado modified for me without removing the engine and trans. They handled all the hand fabrications and mods and Ron Simms supplied the billet lightening Bolt Bling. The bike was bad to the bone.

The engine was stock except for Bartels’ shaved heads and a cam. Ultimately, I ran one of Carl Morrows carburetors which supplied tons of torque. I could hardly hang onto the throttle. It jumped to 90 horse and 90 pounds of Torque. For an 80-inch Evo that was flying.

That was the first bike I rode to Sturgis, though I cheated slightly. I flew to Vegas and someone delivered the bike. I partied with my Hamster brothers and rode the rest of the way to the Badlands. After the rally, I flew home and the silver Dyna was delivered to LA.

I want to make a comment about the Hamsters. I’ve never been a joiner. I believe I became a Hamster when I attended the Sturgis Rally for the first time in ’87. I sent Mike Lichter to cover it in ’78. That was the first year Easyriders featured the Black Hills Rally and changed it forever. The attendance doubled the next year, to 24,000 and so on to the 50th when it hit half a million.

At the time there was no Hamster initiation. If you rode with the small group of bike builders to Sturgis from Spearfish they gave you a T-shirt. It was up to you to follow up and become a member. Dave Perewitz called me the next week and asked me if I would truly want to be a Hamster. The group was made up of industry guys and builders, so I said yes.

Hamsters have taken some heat over the years for being rich guys, but I have got to say that I have received help from Hamsters for almost 35 years. I mean real help when a brother needed something, from structural steel, to a legal jam with the City of Los Angeles, to a brother Randy Aron helping with my gas tank on the blue flame on the way to Sturgis in about 2003. You name it, a brother always wants to help a brother. Tony recently helped with the Salt Torpedo.

I left the Hamsters for a few years after I left Easyriders in 1999 after the company was sold. I just couldn’t afford to attend events like I did in the past, so I stepped aside. Again, Dave Perewitz approached me and asked me if I would come back. That was the same year I was inducted into the Sturgis Hall of fame.

Speaking of Hamsters, one of my very best friends over the years has been Dr. Hamster, or Dr. Christian Reichardt. He’s a chiropractor and a very sharp guy. He’s also ridden with me to Sturgis numerous times and was with me on the trip in 2001 when I hit a deer just five miles from Thermopolis. A wild year, I customized a Buell, and it ran like a top. Geoff at Joker Machine helped with some of the custom aspects. Phil Statton, another Hamster custom painted it and off we went to the Badlands.

We rode north through Mamouth and then east to hook up with the Hamsters in Thermopolis. I had a Wyoming girl who I saw every year for 20 years. She owned hair salons and worked in corn fields as a kid while they crop dusted the fields. She ultimately hit the cancer button and died not long ago. My grandson got to meet her while she made runs to Salt Lake City for chemo.

She invited me to create a book signing in Worland, Wyoming, which I thought was just a few miles outside of Thermopolis. As it turned out it was 35 miles, no problem, right. After a successful book signing with local riders, I was bent on being true to Nyla and not spending the night with Deb. At midnight I mounted the Buell and started to ride back through open grass lands toward the Holiday Inn in Thermopolis.

I’ll never forget zipping along at about 80 mph and spotting a sign that said Thermopolis 8 miles, and I calculated that I would be there in five minutes. That’s when I spotted the first deer in my headlight maybe 25 yards ahead. I just started to back off the throttle when the next one was in my face. I slammed into the rear hind quarter, went over the bars and smacked deer in the ass and then fell to the pavement. Of course, it shit all over me and my Buell. I smacked my head and passed out.

I know I’ve told this story many times before, but the good Dr. Hamster helped me through that situation. I was in the hospital for four days with broken ribs and bleeding on the brain. Chris determined that the deer’s ass saved me from many more broken bones. “That deer’s ass was your air bag,” he said.

Every ride to the Badlands contains a story of wrecks, breakdowns, women, wild roads, whacky weather and beautiful scenery. I always told younger riders that my joy was always the ride to Sturgis, not so much the rally itself.

But the Sturgis stories are many and rich with outlaws, more women, characters, events, floods, hail and history. I’m currently reading a book by Louis L’Amour, the western book writer about writing, reading and his life. It’s interesting reading about his times on the road as a hobo. He talks about the depression and how the demographics of the wanderers changed. He said bums were local drunks who didn’t want to work and Tramps were wandering men who also didn’t want to work. But Hobos were wanderers who worked menial factory jobs and in the fields. Many of them started working the harvest in Texas and followed the ripening grain north through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska into the Dakotas. Much of the above changed during the depression.

We have been so ultimately fortunate to live in the best of times. Our bikes are more reliable than ever. Technology and medical care is amazing. Some folks just don’t get it.

Bikers do. We understand hard work and freedom.

Ignorant people often feel that they are treated unfairly and their talents are not appreciated.

Intelligent people often say that conditions are testing them,
and they can created their own future.

–Venerable Master Hsing Yun