American Motorcyclist May 2023

WHERE R WORLD MEETS YOURS.

2023

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8 PERSPECTIVES

Editorial Director Mitch Boehm on wintertime rust buildup

10 FROM THE PRESIDENT AND CEO

AMA President and CEO Rob Dingman on the popularity of adventure touring

12 BACKFIRES

Membership feedback on recent issues

14 BACK IN THE DAY

Where the photos are blurry but the memories are clear!

28 COVER STORY: THE MOTHER ROAD, REVISITED

A look back at two stunning treks on Route 66 aboard Honda’s CB750

44 TRIUMPH: ON THE GAS

The reborn British brand is doing a lot of things really well

50 MOTO MOMS

A dozen racing mothers grab their own slice of the off-road racing pie

62 EVENT CALENDAR

AMA-sanctioned rides, races and events

70 AMA GARAGE

Tips, tweaks, fixes and facts: The motorcycle ownership experience, explained

74 LAST PAGE

The legendary 750 Four…in anger AmericanMotorcyclist.com

ON THE COVER:

In terms of motoring icons, you’d be hard-pressed to do much better than Honda’s first-gen CB750 and U.S. Route 66 — aka The Mother Road in John Steinbeck’s epic The Grapes of Wrath. The duo were all-powerful in their day, and while time has passed them by like a freight train, they remain important pieces of Americana.

Photo by Joe Bonnello.

EDITORIAL AND COMMUNICATIONS

Mitch Boehm Editorial Director

Todd Westover Chief Creative Consultant

Joy Burgess Managing Editor

Kerry Hardin Senior Graphic Designer

Keaton Maisano Associate Editor

Eliza Mertz Digital Content Manager

submissions@ama-cycle.org

Michael Kula Business Development Manager (949) 466-7833, mkula@ama-cycle.org

Lynette Cox Marketing Manager (614) 856-1900, ext. 1223, lcox@ama-cycle.org

All trademarks used herein (unless otherwise noted) are owned by the AMA and may only be used with the express, written permission of the AMA.

American Motorcyclist is the monthly publication of the American Motorcyclist Association, which represents motorcyclists nationwide. For information on AMA membership benefits, call (800) AMA-JOIN or visit AmericanMotorcyclist.com. Manuscripts, photos, drawings and other editorial contributions must be accompanied by return postage. No responsibility is assumed for loss or damage to unsolicited material.

Copyright© American Motorcyclist Association, 2021.

AMA STAFF

EXECUTIVE

Rob Dingman President/Chief Executive Officer

James Holter Chief Operating Officer

Jeff Wolens Chief Financial Officer

Donna Perry Executive Assistant to President/CEO

Danielle Smith Human Resources Manager/Assistant to COO

RACING AND ORGANIZER SERVICES

Mike Pelletier Director of Racing

Bill Cumbow Director of International Competition

Michael Burkeen Deputy Director of Racing

Ken Saillant Track Racing Manager

Michael Jolly Racing Manager

Jeff Canfield Racing Manager

Alexandria Reasoner Program Manager

Connie Fleming Supercross/FIM Coordinator

Olivia Davis Sanctioned Activity Specialist

Jensen Burkeen Sanctioned Activity Coordinator

Damian George Sanctioned Activity Coordinator

MUSEUM

Paula Schremser Program Specialist

Ricky Shultz Museum Clerk

Kobe Stone Museum Clerk

AMA BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Contact any member of the AMA Board of Directors at americanmotorcyclist.com/ama-board-of-directors

Russ Ehnes Chair

Great Falls, Mont.

Gary Pontius Vice Chair

Westfield, Ind.

Brad Baumert Assistant Treasurer

Louisville, Ky.

Jerry Abboud Executive Committee Member

Thornton, Colo.

Mark Hosbach Executive Committee Member Franklin, Tenn.

Hub Brennan

E. Greenwich, R.I.

Christopher Cox

Florence, S.C.

Tom Umphress

Jordan, Minn.

Faisel Zaman

Dallas, Texas

Shae Petersen Myrtle Beach, S.C. Clif Koontz Moab, Utah

Steve Drewlo Bismarck, N.D.

(800) AMA-JOIN (262-5646) (614) 856-1900 AmericanMotorcyclist.com @AmericanMotorcyclist @ama_riding

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS

Michael Sayre Director of Government Relations

Nick Haris Western States Representative

Tiffany Cipoletti Government Relations Manager, On-Highway

Erin Reda Grassroots Coordinator

MARKETING AND MEMBER SERVICES

Amanda Donchess Director of Membership Marketing and Services

Lauren Kropf Marketing and Advertising Specialist

Tiffany Pound Member Services Manager

Joe Bromley Program Development Manager

Pam Albright Member Fulfillment Coordinator

Bob Davis Program Volunteer Specialist

Stephanie McCormick Member Services Representative

Vickie Park Member Services Representative

Charles Moore Member Services Representative

Kelly Anders Member Services Representative

Sarah Lockhart Member Services Representative

Taylor Fluck Member Services Representative

Margret Baldwin Member Fulfillment Representative

John Bricker Mailroom Manager

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT

Shaun Holloway Director of Information Technology

Joey Brown Application Developer

Ed Madden Systems and Database Analyst

Rob Baughman Support Technician

It’s mid-March in Northern Utah as I type this, and the notion of actually riding my Ducati Multistrada hadn’t come up much this winter. We’ve had record-approaching snowfall along the Wasatch front this season (800-plus inches at Snowbird and Alta so far), and while skiing has been truly off the charts, riding a streetbike — or, for that matter, a dirtbike — has not.

(I’m imagining all the amusement from those of you in the lower tier… bring it on! I can handle it!)

So when temperatures finally got into the 40s this past week, and the seemingly nonstop river of snow and rain flowing from the West coast finally let up a bit and was replaced by sunshine and high pressure, that little let’s go riding lightbulb suddenly lit — and I dug the Duc out of the garage to see what was what.

I’d warmed Mr. Multi up a couple times during the deep freeze and kept the battery tender lit the whole time, so it started almost immediately and, thanks to the wonders of fuel-injection, even the crap, ethanol-laced fuel didn’t muck things up.

For me, and maybe some of you, too, the first ride of the season is always a bit…well, weird. I’ve been a full-time motorcyclist for 50 years now, and have ridden on road, track and trail in every one of those years…but throwing my leg over the Duc yesterday felt a bit alien, as if it’d been a decade since I’d done it.

Even gearing up felt funky, though I’m guessing the change from Nordicas to SIDIs, and from lightweight ski

PERSPECTIVES RUST NEVER SLEEPS

BY MITCH BOEHM

helmet to modular full-face had something to do with that.

After reacquainting myself with the Multi’s multi-dimensional instrument screen, which always takes a while for a tech dinosaur like yours truly, I took off for a brisk, 40-degree ride along the Wasatch foothills…and dang if I didn’t notice some immediate riding-skills and -awareness rust.

This bothered me more than a little, and maybe it’s an ego thing, but I have been riding for 50 years and there’s no flippin’ room for rust in my repertoire! Right?

Actually, I should know better, as living (and riding) in SoCal, as I did for 30-some years, is a different animal than doing so in the Rockies. It’s that upper- vs. lower-tier thing.

around you does and might do is a key element of street survival, and when you’re not processing all this data quickly and efficiently, you put yourself at risk.

Down there I never had much of a riding layoff, maybe a week or two at the most, but certainly not the four- or five-month break in play here. It’s actually similar to racing (on- or off-road) or doing track days; you’re almost always a dork in the first session, even if you ran at the track a month earlier. Your timing, smoothness, flow and braking points are all wonky, and it takes a session or two to reset and get back that muscle and mental memory you had earlier.

Same on the street, really, as yesterday’s ride pointed out. All those little things you learn over time that keep you out of harm’s way (or mostly so) have a layer of rust on them.

My scan, for instance, was lazy; I wasn’t keeping up with things going on around me, and was reacting rather than being in charge of the situation. Watching and anticipating what traffic

I was also not riding the motorcycle very well...shifting clumsily, not in the proper gear, all sorts of stupid stuff. “Dude,” I mouthed to myself at one point, “what is your deal?”

Of course, it’s sunny again today, and it’s Saturday, and I will almost surely jump back on that big red Duc again later this afternoon when it warms up, and I’ll be smoother, smarter and just plain better this time around.

And to those of you in the lower tier who can ride all year long? We love ya, but it’s like Han says to Chewie in Episode 4: “Laugh it up, fuzzball!” We upper-tier folks are gonna ignore your good-natured catcalls and smirks, ’cuz one or two rides into our shorter-thanyours season we’ll be good to go!

Mitch Boehm is the Editorial Director of the AMA and a long-time member

For me, and maybe some of you, too, the first ride of the season is always a bit...well, weird.

Mr. Multistrada, emerging from the chilly darkness of the Boehm garage for the first time in months. A week earlier there was two feet of snow in the driveway.

ON THE GAS! GET

CHECK IT OUT!

Versatility to the max to ensure every ride is an enjoyable one! Explore remote trails, enjoy mixed-surface adventures, or simply add a little more fun to your daily commute, the GASGAS ES 700 is a playful, do-it-all dual-sport performer. Mixing high-quality, street-legal performance with proven offroad capabilities, the ES 700 proudly brings the playful and vibrant GASGAS attitude to the street. And with its 13.5 liter fuel tank, comfortable riding position, high-spec equipment, and proven single-cylinder motor, there’s nowhere the ES 700 won’t go. How far you take it is up to you!

#GetOnTheGas

Photos: Sebas Romeo, Mitterbauer H.

The popularity of adventure motorcycling today is undeniable, and as the category continues to be the fastest-growing segment in motorcycling, it’s rapidly become my favorite kind of riding.

My first bike was a 1989 Yamaha XT350. When I got it I was really more interested in off-road than street riding, but living just outside of Washington, D.C., I was too far from the closest riding area and didn’t have a truck or a trailer to haul a proper dirt bike, so the most practical thing was a dual-sport.

Dual-sporting opened the door to street riding for me, as I found I rode that XT more on-road than off — and before I knew it I’d become more of a street rider than an off-roader. That led to the purchase of a bigger street bike (in addition to the XT, not as a replacement), and so the motorcycle addiction began. Eventually I graduated to a sport-tourer and then ultimately a Gold Wing. Since those XT days I’ve nearly always had a dual-sport in the garage, even if it was just a barely-street-legal dirt bike with a plate.

Not quite ten years ago, when adventure riding was really taking off, I bought a 2014 Triumph Tiger 800XC — and discovered the versatility of adventure bikes. Although not as comfortable as the ’Wing, I could still do long distances on the Tiger. But what I couldn’t do on the Gold Wing was ride off road. Don’t get me wrong; there are lots of places I love to ride my Husaberg FE450 where I wouldn’t dream of riding my Tiger, but the Tiger is remarkably capable offroad, especially with the right tires.

I have ridden a number of AMAsanctioned organized adventure

From the President and CEO ADVENTURES ’R’ US

BY ROB DINGMAN

rides, and highly recommend participation in the Revzilla AMA National Adventure Riding Series. Until last year, most of my adventure riding had consisted of day trips or adventure rallies that start and return to the same point each day.

As you may have read about in our December 2022 issue, I finally got the opportunity to do a true, multiday, point-to-point adventure ride. I rode the Mid-Atlantic Back Country Discovery Route with BDR President Tim James, BDR Co-Founder Bryce Stevens, BDR Ambassador Wendy Naessens, AMA Board Chair Russ Ehnes and AMA COO James Holter.

The ride was amazing, and I cannot say enough about the whole BDR experience. The BDR organization has mapped out amazing routes all over the country, with more being added all the time, and provides them free along with all manner of planning tools. You can learn more about Backcountry Discovery Routes online at ridebdr.com.

A great thing about adventure bikes is the nearly unlimited options for customizing. My bike has hard luggage (saddlebags and top box), engine and radiator guards, headlight protection, upgraded skid plate and hand guards, bar risers, an aftermarket windshield, and a throttle lock. I have also tried a variety of tires, always searching for the best traction off-road without sacrificing too much on-road grip.

I discovered on the MABDR trip that my hard bags were a bit bulky off-road and decided to replace them with soft panniers from AMA Member Benefit Partner Nelson Rigg. AMA members get an exclusive 20 percent discount from Nelson Rigg on all its products, making the bags I bought

incredibly affordable. They mounted easily to the racks I already had for my hard luggage. They look great, and I can’t wait to try them out.

I also ordered a smaller windshield after going on that trip, as my 20-incher was a bit much off-road. On some day trips I’ve ridden without the shield, but on cold mornings it’s nice to have some protection.

It is easy to see why adventure riding has grown so rapidly. My Tiger is suitable for long-distance trips on asphalt, but it’s also versatile enough for the backcountry. I’m not planning to get rid of my dirt bike anytime soon, as I still enjoy riding trails that the Tiger would be a bit much on, but my Tiger can take me places that would have been less enjoyable on that XT350.

Adventure bikes have opened up so many more opportunities for fun on a motorcycle. I highly recommend checking them out!

Rob Dingman is the President and CEO of the AMA, and a Charter Life Member

My Triumph Tiger 800 is definitely not a lightweight dirtbike with lights, but it can get the job done off-road when necessary, especially with quality adventure-bike tires fitted.

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Arai’s mission has always been the protection and comfort of every person who chooses an Arai helmet. Our foundational principles of protection first, exceptional quality, and rider comfort have never been forgotten in over six decades of helmet design and manufacturing. This is Arai Helmet.

BACKFIRES

PAKISTAN ADVENTURE

Great experiences, riding and culture with the people of Pakistan in the March edition. Very emotional article, and one that made me think how nice we have it in America. Looking in my home with more than we need, and peeking in the garage with plenty of toys, we are spoiled for sure. Giving those Honda 150s to the girls and seeing their excitement was fantastic, as well.

The Pakistani people seemed so appreciative of your group. The riding and views looked a bit harrowing, but exciting and fantastic! Thank you for sharing in American Motorcyclist!

Adam Clark Gallagher

BURNSIE’S BACK

It’s a treat to have John Burns contributing (April issue), and mentioning Peter Egan, as well. As a 75-year-old motorcyclist who started riding on a Bridgestone 90 Sport in 1965, I have been laughing and riding with Boehm and Burns (and Egan) nearly forever. This week I’m selling my cherry Yamaha SR500 because my worn-out right knee can’t get the thing to fire without a lot of painful lurching about. I will be content to push the starter button on my Ducati ST-3 for the time being. I look forward to reading The Butcher’s opinions on all things two-wheeled, and Burnsie’s slant on all things, too. Best wishes, my old friends.

Al “Seagull” Pickering AMA Member and old fighter pilot

Enjoy that button, Al! And thanks for your service. —Ed.

AUTONOMOUS ANGST

While I appreciate what you’re saying about the dangers of sharing the road with autonomous vehicles, I must ask, “How long have you been riding America’s highways and byways thinking/assuming the

person behind the wheel sees you and your motorcycle?” I have been riding 50-plus years and have never assumed a driver sees me or in any way holds me in any regard. I take action based on the action of the vehicle in my proximity. I don’t assume the driver is going to stop or wait to change lanes or wait to

pass because I may be between them and their line of sight. So while I’m not anxious to share the road with autonomous vehicles, I ride now and always have as if the vehicles on the road are and always have been autonomous.

Whit Springfield St. Augustine, Fla.

LETTER OF THE MONTH

ALPS TOURING AND AMA BENNIES

ust a note to let you know I’m signed up with Edelweiss for the Alps Challenge II in August along with two friends with whom I did an Edelweiss self-guided Stelvio Pass tour in 2018. I’d been considering going back for another (outstanding) Alps experience, and after sharing your Alps Challenge stories from the past two years with my friends, we decided now was the time. As an AMA Charter Life member, it got even better when I discovered in a recent AMA newsletter that members get a 3 percent discount on the tours. I emailed Edelweiss immediately with a copy of my membership card and received the discount! I’m hoping Mitch will be on that Challenge II tour for at least a few days, as I’d love to meet him in person. I’ve followed and enjoyed his articles since his days with Motorcyclist magazine, and every one of those vintage motorcycle stories brings back memories of growing up in a small western Pennsylvania town. Keep up the great work with the magazine, and I hope to see you in August!

John Weicht Hanover, Pa.

I will be there, John. Not many spots left for those thinking about what will likely be the best ride of their lives! —Ed.

to the editor are the opinions of the AMA members who write them. Inclusion here does not imply they reflect the positions of the AMA, its staff or board. Agree? Disagree? Let us know. Send letters to submissions@ama-cycle.org or mail to American Motorcyclist Association, 13515 Yarmouth Drive, Pickerington, OH 43147. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity.

Good advice, Whit, and something — riding as if no one can see you — we write about and practice all the time. —Ed.

Mitch Boehm’s analysis of the self-driving vehicle madness was great…and scary to read. The degradation of vehicle operator skills and the ease of getting licensed has turned our roads into death traps. I, too, saw the insane advertising of singing and clapping morons barreling down the road in a 3-ton rolling disaster. And I have had the unrivaled pleasure of watching some weaving, phone-addicted idiot attempt to operate a vehicle. My wife’s car has a screen and map mode and we use it, but we drive the car, not the other way around. Our other cars don’t even have cup holders. They are both British, and you are required to know how to drive those. I still ride (Buell and Ural), too. My closing request is not meant for the readers of

this magazine but for those asleep-atthe-wheel who need a car that drives itself…please hang up and drive, shut off your autopilot, do your office work in your office. Pay attention. And if you really want to experience the road, get a motorcycle. We will all be safer if you do. Cheers…

Hans Bertelsen AMA Life Member

Though I couldn’t agree more with your perspective and comments on the lunacy of autonomous vehicles, I wasn’t pleased with your introduction that started off with a list of current “conservative” talking points. A simple “with all the numerous critical issues facing the country” would have sufficed.

Larry Cohen Waltham, Mass.

My Dad always told me growing up: Don’t mix social issues with work. Turns out he was right (about a lot of

NEW for 2021-23 Yamaha MT-07

things). I regret the aside and apologize to anyone it offended. —Ed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MALCOLM SMITH!

Interestingly, Malcom Smith’s birthday is the same as my mother’s, my grandmother’s, one of my aunts, and my older brother’s. March 9 would also be my wedding anniversary if my wife were still with us.

Carl “MotoGrandad” Atamanczyk

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BACK IN THE DAY

Where the photos are blurry but the memories are clear!

As a teenager in Ireland I rode a 1958 BSA B15 (250cc) and, later, a 1959 B31 (350cc) to commute to and from work in all weather, and for pleasure on weekends. That’s me in 1962 at age 17 aboard the ’59 B31.

After emigrating to the U.S. and while serving with the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, N.C., I bought a 1968 Norton Commando, which I had to sell before being sent to Vietnam. Later, Army assignments in Germany and the Middle East made buying a motorcycle difficult, so it

was not until retirement from the Army and later from the Department of Defense that it became feasible.

In 2015 I acquired a restored 1969 BSA Thunderbolt, and later a restored 1974 Norton Commando. At 77, I have to put the Commando (no electric starter) on the centerstand and use all of my 170 pounds to start it. That’s me with the Commando in the second photo, with my brother Jim standing with the Thunderbolt. I will continue to enjoy riding as long as I am able.

John Dullahan

I love the BITD posts and always look forward to them. I came across a couple of photos recently while cleaning out my parents’ home.

In the first photo, that’s me on a 1968 Suzuki 80cc street bike and my brother on our uncle’s Yamaha 125 Enduro. Our dad bought the Suzuki to hang on the back of our camper for our many camping trips. My brother and I would ride up and

down the alley behind our house and on the adjacent vacant lot at the end of the alley for hours on weekends.

In the second photo, here we are in that alley after one of our day trips to the SoCal desert. That’s my dad and brother (no shoes), each on Yamaha Enduros. I’m on the stripped-down Suzuki 80, and my brother made those completely outrageous handlebars in highschool

metal shop. My brother still has my dad’s 1969 DT-1 250, and it is in pretty good shape still, although not restored, and has the original paint and most of the original parts.

Last, the third photo is me in 1978, I believe. After high school and starting a full-time job, I spent nearly every weekend out at Indian Dunes riding my ’77 Suzuki RM250.

Bruce Bluemm

That’s me on my 1974 Yamaha GT80 in Bangor, Maine, when I was 12 years old. My buddies and I would spend hours riding our bikes on the snowmobile trails, sometimes ending up many miles from Bangor and having a blast. We never told our moms where we went, fearing they would ground us. Today, I ride a 2007 Yamaha V-Star 1100 and I’m still having a blast of a time.

Brian Price

That Maico (left, no helmet) was my second bike, not my first. The first was a Yamaha DT125 at the age of 15…stripped of everything that made it street legal. Great fun! As the years went by I followed a common path: Dirt bikes, UJMs, sportbikes, cruisers and now a big Harley-Davidson touring rig. Being retired affords me the freedom to go on long, multi-day rides. As I age and look into the future, I see another dirt bike…a small enduro, perhaps.

Louis Brouillard

The first photo is me and my mom in early fall 1982. I already had my first bike, a 1978 Honda GL1000, for over five years and was looking for some cool factor when I bought this rig – a 1982 GL1100 Aspencade with Vetter Terraplane sidecar installed by my Honda dealer a month after I bought the bike. Had to wait for the matching paint job. It was the first and probably only one they ever did.

I grabbed my latest ride over 10 years ago — a new-to-me 1983 GL1100 Interstate. Bought it from the original owner without even starting it. It took 10 minutes to replace the starter, and I was on the road. Now in my mid-60s, the two-wheel dresser was getting a bit heavy. With fewer than 600 Terraplanes ever built, there aren’t many available for sale these days, much less road-ready ones, so I was lucky to find three in the summer of 2020 to choose from. Took a road trip to upstate New York, bought one of them, and after almost $200 of nuts and bolts and a couple of days I had my Terraplane-fitted Interstate running down the road.

For those of you who’ve never experienced the thrill of three wheels, it’s like a 90-mph tractor. Just like riding your first bicycle, you never forget how…or the cool factor.

Rick Johnson

BACK IN THE DAY

4As I made my way through the pages of the October 2022 issue you can imagine my amazement when I read that Raymond Bennett won the Grand Marshal’s award at last year’s AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days. You see, I grew up in Cherry Valley, a small town near the village of Cooperstown, N.Y., and purchased some of my first motorcycles from Raymond’s father, Ray Sr.

The first photo is of me just about to get air on my 1968 Honda CT90. We originally bought this bike (from Bennett’s) for my twin brother, but he gave up riding to finance his ham radio hobby. It was my second motorcycle and much more off-road capable than the Honda CS65 I started riding on.

The second photo is me on my 1973 Rickman 125 ISDT, also purchased from Bennett Motors. I was irrevocably smitten by this bike after taking a couple of laps on it around the backyard of the dealership during a high school field trip. Later, when I went to college, I used a student loan to buy one!

The Rickman was one of the most beautiful dirt bikes ever manufactured. From the fiberglass fenders to the perfectly welded nickel-plated frame, you could pass it off as a show bike. It was just that gorgeous. Sadly, its little 2-stroke motor was peaky and it struggled in deep mud, and the 1.9-gallon fuel tank didn’t hold enough gas, as I never managed to make it to the gas check during the three enduros I entered on it.

Bennett Motors played a significant role in the formative years of my motorcycling life and I was elated to see that Raymond Bennett won the Grand Marshal’s Award at the 2022 VMD. Way to go Ray!

Mark Miller

3This first photo is of my brother and me from about 1973 with our 450 Honda choppers. Motorcycling has never left me. I am a Charter Life member of the AMA, my ABATE of Oklahoma membership number is 3, and I am an active motorcycle rider coach. The second picture is me on the shore of Lake Superior last year on my 2017 H-D Ultra. Rode to AMA Vintage Days last year, but don’t have a good picture.

Eddie Briggs

Here I am on my 1977 Husky CR250, which I had recently restored. The photo was taken in Riverdale, Wash., years ago. I’ve been riding and racing for a little over 60 years, both on road and off. My wife and I have ridden a BMW R1200GS for 13 years and have logged somewhere north of 200,000 miles two-up. At 78 years of age I’m still at it. I tell my friends that when I let the clutch out, I am ageless.

Al Banta

It’s a good way to be, Al! – Ed.

up to speed

News, notes, insight and more from the motorcycling universe

2023 Triumph Street Triple RS and R

T. Wolff turned loose in Spain and around Circuito Jerez

BY THAD WOLFF PHOTOS COURTESY OF TRIUMPH

You got a peek at the new Triumph 765 Street Triples — R, RS, and Moto2 — in the Feb. issue, but lucky me got the call to go to Jerez, Spain, for the riding intro: one day on country roads followed by another on the legendary Circuito de Jerez Angel Nieto. Let me check my calendar… Day One is chilly and damp from overnight rain, but the sun is out and I’m toggling through my RS’s multitude of ride mode settings — and decide that Sport is the way to go. As we take off from base camp at the track it’s nice and easy going through small villages with roundabouts and iffy wet spots and uneven pavement. My first impression is one of absolute comfort on the bike. Everything felt just right, so smooth and precise from throttle hand to what the bike was doing beneath me. Rain mode? No necesito Fuel injection has been around for some time now, and I’ve ridden a lot of motorcycles that haven’t got that transition from off to on quite right. But Triumph did. As the road was drying I began to think how the bar keeps getting raised higher with the bikes we are so lucky to ride lately. Good competition will do that (even though Triumph

FIRST RIDE

STREET TRIPLE RS

STREET TRIPLE R

is the sole engine supplier to the Moto2 series). Now with lean-sensitive ABS and traction control courtesy of an Inertial Measurement Unit, you have to try pretty hard to fall off.

The bars on the Street Triple RS are raised higher than the above-the-crown Moto 2 bike’s clip-ons, and set at a mid-rise position that is a perfect compromise of sporty and racy. For this almost 64-year-old ex-racer who prefers a comfortable riding position, the bar combines with footpeg placement and an incredibly comfortable saddle to feel “just right.” Those two words keep coming back to me.

As the pavement dries, the fun meter rises. After a leisurely Spanish lunch, I switch to the lower spec R. Basically it’s the same machine, but for $2,600 less, it’s a Showa rear shock instead of an Ohlins. Both get Showa forks, but the RS gives you the upscale Big Piston version. The beautiful Ohlins does make for a very nice overall ride out back, but I must admit the difference between the two is not as significant as you might think; I don’t think you’ll hear much complaining from R owners.

The RS gets Brembo Stylema calipers and a radially mounted Brembo MCS master cylinder, which I can already tell are going to work great on the track tomorrow — but the R’s binders are way more than adequate for the street. Actually, at first they feel like they work too well on slick streets, a little on the touchy side. I used one finger

and tidy in a sculptured, purpose-filled aluminium frame. Now for a little wine, a large paella, and a good night’s rest so I can be back at the Circuito Jerez racetrack to really ride this machine.

DAY 2: THE TRACK

Waking up, my dream continues: I’m waved out of pit lane just like a real MotoGP rider on brand new Pirelli Corsas right off the warmers. Into turn one I go. Easy does it, Wolff. I have to learn this track, but the bike felt so good yesterday that that confidence carries forward to the track, x2! By lap two I’m beginning to push it, thanks to that feeling you only get when everything seems just right. I’m not here trying to set the world on fire, but as an old AMA Pro Superbike rider, I do want to hold my own against a few younger and very fast riders. As I rolled to a stop at the Triumph guy after my first session, with the Pirelli tech looking at my rear tire, I had a big smile inside my Shoei. I hadn’t done track laps on a modern bike in a while; on this Triumph it’s almost too easy.

I asked the Pirelli guy, “what do you think?”

“You’re riding fast!”

Session 2 is about hitting all my marks and making no mistakes. The bike is so forgiving that when you do come in a little hot or run a little wide, it’s not a problem. Just make your correction, and the tires comply with a “you’re on rails” feel. The Pirelli guys threw me a bone in the form of a new rear for my third session. It all came together with me, the bike, and Jerez: My arms and hands weren’t even getting tired, another sign of a good-working machine. (Bonus content: The flag guy said I’d done the longest wheelie out of pit lane all day; shouldn’t there be a trophy?)

in the beginning and two soon after. Once you are used to them they’re awesome — and of course there’s ABS. The up/down quick-shifter transmission and slipper clutch work together in synchronized harmony as well as any bike I have ever ridden, and I’m anticipating banging gears on the track tomorrow.

On we ride through the Spanish countryside, at times picking up the pace, and effortlessly becoming more and more at one with this machine. Parked back at the track, I step back and stare at what is a very good-looking sport bike. Minimal bodywork. Three compact cylinders nice

Whether you’re on the bike or poking your head over the pit wall as a Street Triple howls by bouncing off the rev limiter, the exhaust noise is glorious. The Triumph race tech standing with me said, “you should hear 30 Moto 2 racers coming by all at once!” Well, we didn’t ride the Moto 2 bike, but for me the RS makes a great track bike, and actually feels so very similar ergonomically to the GS1000 superbike I campaigned in the ’80s against AMA Hall of Famers Lawson, Rainey and Cooley. If you could only have one bike, any of the three Triumph 765 could be the one for your stable. It’s just right.

On the street (far left) or track (here, at Jerez), Triumph’s newest Street Triple is a sublime package.

up to speed

GIFT OF A LIFETIME

A wife’s gracious offering continues to resonate

DEAR AMERICAN MOTORCYCLIST STAFF:

BITD EXTRA

I wrote this story almost 20 years ago, intending to send it to the magazine in hopes Peter Egan (of Cycle World fame) would see it, but never got around to mailing it. I think he has since retired. I thought he would have been interested in it because a number of years ago I read a story of Peter’s wife Barb surprising him by buying him a 350 Honda shortly after he graduated from college – and it reminded me of my experience years ago. I hope you find this story, though delayed, still of some interest. I’ve included a few photos. Hopefully, Peter will have the opportunity to read this between his motorcycling adventures on the road and as he enjoys his retirement.

Paul Biglin Eustis, Fla.

BY PAUL BIGLIN WITH SON-IN-LAW MIKE HAAKE

The year was 1962. The place, Galion, Ohio, a day in May. Seemed like just another day, but on my arrival home from work my wife Peg greeted me at the door, holding our tax return check, which she’d already signed. She said, “Here, go buy yourself a motorcycle. I’m tired of your expression whenever you see one pass by on the road.”

As background, I was 23 years old and had sold my NSU Supermax three years earlier so that we could get married. At the time there were many things we needed much more than a motorcycle, such as building up our savings for our growing family, but she would not relent in her offer. I must admit that I protested only mildly.

I had always liked singles after riding my brother’s Norton ES2 and my friend’s 500 Matchless. I went shopping and the third place I stopped, gripping that check, was Dick Klamfoth’s shop in Groveport, Ohio. I had watched Dick ride his Gold Star on the dirt tracks in the area and knew he was well liked and

respected. After explaining what I wanted, Dick asked if I intended to race, and I said that I just wanted a nice street bike. I had been racing scrambles and short track in Ohio, and though my racing days weren’t over, the hobby was on hold. Life has a tendency to redirect one’s priorities, so that day I was not in the market

for a racing machine. Dick said to me “You don’t want a single, then. They vibrate, they’re temperamental starting, most leak oil, and don’t even ask about Lucas electronics. Have you ever considered a Honda?”

Ever the expert as anyone who has been 23 can attest, I said rather indignantly, “I don’t want a damn Jap bike.” Those old enough to remember Japanese products of the post-war time know that they mostly had a reputation for cheap throwaway goods. Dick stopped my protest, saying, “Hey, hey, hey! I’ve been around bikes all of my life and I don’t sell junk. Come on, you’re going for a ride.”

He brought out a 305 Superhawk. It wasn’t a very big bike, yet he took it past 80 mph with me on the back, and at the time, not all bikes in the 500cc range were even capable of doing that. He said, “Here’s a shop manual. Take it home and see how well they are made, and you’ll want one. But don’t take too long. I have three coming in and they won’t be

Here and below: Me and Peg, back in the 1960s on that original Superhawk, and in the 1990s.

here long.” I took the manual, and two days later called and bought one of the two that remained. He laughed when I called back and said, “I told my wife, Bev, that you would be back!”

Through the years I’ve owned many bikes and spent nearly 20 years on three different Harley FXRs, but as I grew older, I knew that crashing a big motorcycle wouldn’t be good. It so happened that my brother had a 1965 Superhawk in his barn that he had parked permanently in 1978 after nearly being taken out by a drunk driver. So 10 years ago I bought it and began working on it, and had it running after a couple of months. It’s no trailer queen; I build my bikes to ride and to enjoy, not sit in the garage to polish and pose with.

To me, the nicest thing about the older bikes is their simplicity. No computers, no fuel injection, no traction control, no ABS, etc. The

her every day for being such a huge part of my life and understanding me so well. I have had a lifetime of motorcycle enjoyment, motorcycle therapy, and fellowship with many other riders. Look at me now, Babe!

Several years ago, I saw Dick Klamfoth again at a swap meet in Daytona, where he was signing posters. I told him of my purchase from him years ago, and he said, “Oh, in Columbus?” I told him I’d purchased it in nearby Groveport. He said, “I was only in Groveport a few months, so you must have been one of my first customers!” He graciously signed a poster for me, which I still treasure.

Last summer, about 63 years after that first 305 purchase, I bought my second new Honda. Yep…another 300! It’s a very good, capable, and lightweight bike, particularly great for someone my age that still has a passion for riding. Still, I know the experiences I’ll have on it won’t match the excitement and the thrills I had on that first Superhawk… Change is a constant.

rider controls it all, with the “CPU” in his or her brain, as I think it should be. Best of all, if it decides to quit, I can make it go again. I like that security when I go for a ride.

Cancer took my beloved Peg in 1995, but whenever I ride the 305, which can be daily here in Florida where I live now, all of my fond memories of her and that particular day come flowing back. And I thank

I’m not sure if you all feel this worthy of publishing in your magazine, but I felt that my experiences may resonate with many of your older readers. I am still fortunate to enjoy riding, and I am delighted when I chance to meet other “mature” riders or former riders, who still have an overt passion for this pastime.

Maybe there is some small truth to the adage that “you don’t stop riding because you get older…you get older because you stop riding.”

My sincere thanks to the late Dick Klamfoth for taking the time long ago to direct me to that Honda purchase, and for being such an outstanding gentleman and dealer. —PB

Yet another 300cc Honda for me, this time a CB300R. Funny how life repeats itself.

up to speed

RIGHTS Roundup

What’s trending in government relations and legislative affairs

BY AMA GOVERNMENT RELATIONS TEAM

RIGHT

TO REPAIR BILL

REINTRODUCED IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

The Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair Act, or REPAIR Act (H.R. 906), was reintroduced in the House by representatives Neal Dunn (R-FL-2) and Brendan Boyle (D-PA-2), and

would ensure access to repair information along with tools and parts for on-highway motorcycles and other motor vehicles. The bill also ensures that the vehicle owner has control over their vehicle’s data, an area of growing concern in the automotive industry, especially on the heels of Stellantis’ announcement (Stellantis is the parent company of brands such as Fiat Chrysler) announcing the creation of a new business unit, Mobilisights, from which the auto conglomerate expects to generate $20 billion via data-related services by 2030.

The Repair Act already has momentum with eight bi-partisan cosponsors, including Co-Chair of the House Motorcycle Caucus, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI-5) and freshman Rep. Marie Glusenkamp Perez (D-WA-3), who herself owns and operates an independent auto repair shop along with her husband.

The REPAIR Act is supported by the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), a close ally of the AMA, as well as the Autocare Association, the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, and the Consumer Access to Repair Coalition. The AMA will be pushing hard to pass this critical piece of legislation, and has an action alert on the AMA’s Action Center (AmericanMotorcyclist. com/action-center) for members who want to urge their member of Congress to support this bill.

AMA WORKS WITH LOCALS ON LATEST OREGON LANEFILTERING EFFORT

AMA Western States Rep. Nick Haris recently traveled to

Salem, Ore., to offer AMA support for Senate Bill 422, which would allow lane filtering in limited circumstances. The hearing, held in front of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, included numerous references to similar legislation that has been passed in previous sessions, most recently in 2021 when OR SB574 was unexpectedly vetoed by then-Governor Kate Brown. This most recent attempt has since been passed out of the Senate by a vote of 27-2 and is awaiting referral to the appropriate committee in the House. Stay tuned.

MARYLAND ANTI-OFF-ROAD BILL ON HOLD

The AMA has been actively fighting Maryland HB928, a bill that would require counties or municipalities in Maryland to collect a registration fee for all off-road motorcycles. Introduced by delegates Regina Boyce and William Wivell, the bill’s goal is to deter offhighway motorcycle use on road, but ultimately this legislation would do nothing to create safer roads and will

only serve to punish law-abiding offroad motorcyclists.

The AMA strongly supports a userpay/user-benefit model as it relates to off-road motorcycle access, but this would create no benefits for off-road riders and simply generate additional fees which would go towards a County’s general fund. Partners such

as the Maryland Off-Highway Vehicle Alliance and B-360 came together with off-highway enthusiasts from across the state to voice their opposition during a recent Environment and Transportation committee meeting. We are pleased to announce that through these efforts, the bill failed to make it out of committee. We expect a similar bill to arise in future legislative sessions and the AMA will continue to oppose efforts to require county-level off-highway motorcycle registration.

AMA PRESENTS AT TEXAS MOTORCYCLE SAFETY COALITION FORUM overnment Relations Manager

GTiffany Cipoletti was invited to San Marcos, Texas, to present on the current state of autonomous vehicles and advanced driver-assist systems, policies and research on how they interact with motorcycles. The event was hosted by Texas A&M Transportation Institute and

included presentations from Texas DOT, NHTSA, and other state agencies focused on improving motorcycle safety in the state. The Texas Motorcycle Safety Coalition was created to bring multidisciplinary motorcycle safety stakeholders to address motorcycle rider safety issues.

AMA ATTENDS DAY AT THE DOME

At the invitation of ABATE of Arizona, the AMA attended a motorcycle awareness event held at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, located across the street from the State Capitol in Phoenix, Ariz. The event included representatives from AMA, ABATE, MMA, MRF and many local clubs. Topics covered included the recently adopted lane filtering legislation (2022), and plans for future efforts to increase motorcycle awareness and driver training opportunities in local high schools.

RIDING ROUNDUP up to speed

Take a Kid Dirt Biking

Turning young riders into life-long riders

BY JOY BURGESS

May is Take a Kid Dirt Biking Month, and everyone can get involved! As part of its mission to promote the motorcycle lifestyle and protect the future of motorcycling, the AMA’s nationwide campaign focuses on cultivating the next generation of passionate riders.

The AMA is working with its racing and recreational riding organizers to take this campaign to the dirt, so check with your local AMA organizers and clubs to see if there’s an event near you.

But you don’t have to attend an organized event to get involved in all the fun.

Parents, all you need to do to get your kids involved in the AMA’s Take a Kid Dirt Biking Month is take them riding sometime during the month of May, whether in your backyard, on trails or on a track. You can register for the event on the AMA’s Facebook page, and then post your photos or videos on social media with the hashtag #AMAKidsRide. You can also tag @AmericanMotorcyclist on Facebook or

@ama_riding on Instagram.

Photos or videos can also be submitted directly by visiting https://americanmotorcyclist.com/ kids-dirt-biking-month-form/ or scanning this QR code.

Kids who post a photo on social media and tag the AMA, or submit a photo or video directly through the submission form, will be entered to win prizes throughout the month. By sharing their story, kids also have a chance to be featured on the AMA website as well as in American Motorcyclist magazine.

Be sure to watch the AMA’s social media channels for the latest details on Take a Kid Dirt Biking Month, as well as some exciting videos from some of your favorite riders. Now get out there!

up to speed

Racing Roundup

What’s what in the world of AMA amateur competition

HillPreppin’ Pooch

John Radke’s 6-year-old pit bull has become District 14’s beloved mascot, and a staple of hillclimb events

Atypical hillclimb event involves fans looking up as riders brave hills that reach toward the sky, but spectators in District 14 occasionally find themselves looking down and asking a simple question: “Where’s Heywood?”

Heywood can be found at national hillclimbs and other motorcycle events, where he steals the show with four paws rather than two wheels. Event promoter John Radke adopted the 6-year-old pit bull rescue in the spring of 2021 from the Humane Society of West Michigan, and nearly 25 racing events later, Heywood has adjusted quite well to his new motorcycle-centric lifestyle.

“The first week I had him, we were prepping for the Ironman at the Muskegon Motorcycle Club,” Radke said. “He fit right in and hopped up in the backhoe that I was running. He

rode around in the backhoe with me while we were prepping the hill and going around in quads just like it was something he had always done!”

As quickly as Heywood accepted his new life, his newfound community welcomed him just as fast. Following an abusive upbringing that left his face scarred, Heywood was in need — and certainly deserving of plenty of love from his new family and friends.

“They just love him,” Radke said. “The weekend of nationals at Mount Garfield he just spent the weekend going trailer to trailer and everybody was feeding him and petting him. They just really enjoy him because he’s a dog that doesn’t cause no issue with other dogs and just wants to be petted — petted or fed.”

“Everybody knows him from all the districts, and they all love him just the same,” Radke continued. “Once you meet him, you’re a buddy of his.”

So next time you find yourself at a national hillclimb event, make sure to ask for Heywood. And be prepared to provide him with plenty of treats.

—Keaton Maisano

Serving as event promoter John Radke’s copilot for all of his trips, Heywood travels the full D-14 hillclimb schedule and goes to AMA grand national locations.

RACER SPOTLIGHT Walker Morris

Despite getting a start on his brother’s dirt bike when he was 3 years old, Walker Morris’ early childhood was filled with football, baseball and wrestling rather than motorcycle racing.

However, his athletic landscape changed in seventh grade when he got cut from the baseball team. Morris said the situation was difficult and brought about a focus shift to motorcycle racing, and he turned the hard time into hardware, winning local championships in the Virginia Championship Hare Scramble Series (VCHSS) Mini Overall, VCHSS 250 B and Virginia Cross Country Series 250 B.

Becoming the first in his family to race, Morris said he enjoys the individual aspect of racing.

“I like not having to have people depend on me,” Morris said. “If I make a mistake, it’s on me, and I don’t have to rely on other people. And I like to go fast.”

Now 17 years old, Morris has decided to fully commit to racing the AMA Grand National Cross Country Series in 2023.

“I can’t go big in local series,” Morris said on the decision. “I may not make it one day, but I would like to try.”

In prior years, Morris had competed in AMA GNCC events that were close to his home in Virginia, but as the series ramped up and moved farther away, he would no longer compete.

Participating in the schedule fully this year, he said one of the biggest adjustments has been the travel. However, Morris has quite the group of support to help him make the transition.

“My mom, dad and girlfriend — and sometimes my friends — will come,” Morris said. “[My mom] takes the pictures, so that’s a great support from her. It’s always great seeing the pictures after races.”

Morris credited his mom — who originally asked Morris if he wanted to get into racing after he was cut from the baseball team — for making his racing dreams possible, adding, “I wouldn’t be able to do it without her.”

As for his goals, Morris is looking to make a career out of his riding ability.

“My long-term goal would be to have a team and be sponsored,” Morris said. “My short-term goal is just to get a first place in the GNCC by the end of the year.”

—Keaton Maisano

HISTORIC AMA

NATIONAL AMA

GYPSY TOURS

...got their start more than 100 years ago at places like Weirs Beach near Laconia, N.H., and Harley-Davidson Motor Co. in Milwaukee, Wis.

AMA Gypsy Tours have always been about riding and sharing the camaraderie of two wheels with like-minded enthusiasts at great destinations.

And that continues with the 2023 Gypsy Tour schedule, where riders can meet, share experiences and even grab their collectible AMA National Gypsy Tour pin dated with the year.

REMAINING EVENTS

Laconia Motorcycle Week

JUNE 10-18

Thunder in the Valley

June 22-25

AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days

July 21-23

Four Corners Motorcycle Rally

Aug. 31 - Sept. 4

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

www.americanmotorcyclist.com/gypsytour

JANE MORRIS

BY MITCH BOEHM PHOTOS: JOE BONNELLO

MOTHER ROAD THE REVIS

ITED

30 YEARS AFTER A FIRST TREK ON LEGENDARY ROUTE 66 ABOARD HONDA’S

WORLD-CHANGING CB750, THE AUTHOR TAKES A FRESH LOOK AT TWO OF MOTORING’S BIGGEST ICONS

Iremember the moment from 2009 like it was yesterday, proving the point yet again that time really does fly when you’re having fun.

Photographer Joe Bonnello and I had just crested the rim of a lovely desert valley somewhere in the Eastern Mojave just before sundown, and plunged downhill onto a long, lonely and arrow-straight stretch of Old Route 66 — Bonnello on his Cagiva Grand Canyon adventure bike, and me on my first-year Honda CB750 with just 2,000 original miles on the clock.

My then-40-year-old Honda hadn’t run much in the previous decades, but I was curious how it’d behave when pushed really hard, and seeing a totally empty road in front of us, I figured I’d find out. Fifteen seconds later we were running 90 mph or so, the CB’s tacho needle wavering drunkenly between six and seven grand.

I glanced over at Bonnello, who was just a few feet to my left, and nodded while pointing to my speedo, flashing “one, zero, zero!” with my left hand, and then tucked in a little, twisting the CB’s hard-plastic waffle grip to the stop. As the speedo needle inched slowly toward the ton, I wondered briefly if I was being stupid running a bike this old and valuable this hard. But then I flashed on Mr. Honda’s grin and, knowing how bulletproof these things were, ignored the thought.

A few seconds later we inched past 100 mph, both of us then sitting up in the windblast, my Candy Ruby Red 750 Four humming solidly as it decelerated back toward

a CB750, even back in my Northern Ohio days as a kid tearing up the fields on my SL70 Honda. A guy at the end of our street had an aqua-blue 750 Four, and every day he’d roar past our house on his way to and from work, the crisp, magical wail of those four exhaust pipes ricocheting through the neighborhood. The image of that bike and the sounds it made were powerful stuff for a 10-year-old just discovering motorcycling, and they had stayed with me since.

So I yelled to Editor David Edwards in the next office. “Hey David, wanna buy a ’69 Honda 750?”

At the time, Edwards had a pretty solid collection of neat old motorcycles, and way too many for his garage, so I didn’t expect much of a reply. But a minute later he was in my office reading the ad, and a minute after that we were scheming like, as I wrote at the time, “a couple of 12-year-olds in a tree fort.”

highway speeds. Bonnello gave me a thumbs up, and that rush of adrenaline was about as good as I’d gotten.

“Yep,” I remember thinking, “this bike’s solid” — and not at all like the CB750 I rode on this very road 17 long years earlier for a feature in Cycle World’s May 1993 edition called “West By CB750.” That was a very different motorcycle, and a very different trip…

That whole business started with a sarcastic quip, really. While leafing through a copy of Walneck’s Cycle Trader in the CW offices in late 1992 (I was Managing Editor at the time), I spied an ad with an out-of-focus photo that read thusly: “(2) 1969 Honda CB750s. 1 red, 1 blue. Both original and nice. Trades or offers.”

The classified was from Thomas L. Smith of central Illinois, and while I remember thinking the Land of Lincoln was a long way to go to buy any motorcycle, let alone a sight-unseen one, these were, after all, a pair of genuine 1969 Honda CB750s — one of the most important models in history — in supposedly decent shape.

I’d always thought of one day owning

“Here’s what we’ll do,” he said almost conspiratorially. “We’ll fly back there, buy

“Here’s what we’ll do...We’ll fly back there, buy the bikes, and ride ’em home on Route 66. It’ll make a great story. I’ll shoot photos, and you can write it.”

DAVID EDWARDS

the bikes, and ride ’em home on Route 66. It’ll make a great story. I’ll shoot photos, and you can write it.”

And boom…There it was.

Smith wanted — and got — $4,000 for the pair, which seemed like a lot of money for a couple of tired, 23-yearold Hondas. (Interestingly, today they’d command north of $20,000, even in their well-worn condition.) Still, the plan — foolish and risky as it was — had appeal. This wasn’t just a chance to traverse Route 66, the most legendary two-laner in America, the road John Steinbeck called “the mother road, the road of flight” in his epic The Grapes of Wrath; it was a chance to grab a first-year 750 Four, the bike that helped fire my lifelong attraction to motorcycling, and arguably the most important Japanese motorcycle ever made.

I didn’t know much about Route 66 at that point, but by the time we landed in St. Louis and made our way to Mr. Smith’s humble Illinois digs, I’d read enough to begin to get a feel for what 66 meant — and had meant — historically since the route was first established in the late 1920s: a route West for desperate dust-bowl farm workers during the Great Depression; an avenue for those looking

for jobs and opportunity in California during WWII; and a main highway for midwest and great plains vacationers in the ’50s and ’60s.

Mostly, though, 66 came to capture the imaginations of Americans looking for adventure — the small hotels, mom-’n’-pop shops, fuel stations, restaurants, unique roadside attractions and small-town-America feel contributing mightily — in addition to its LA/Pacific Ocean end point — to “getting your kicks” on Route 66.

It was precisely this adventure element that Edwards and I were after with this trip, and we’d get plenty of it on what turned out to be a long, 10-day tour filled with plenty of angst to go along with the fun and historical grist.

But first we had to get the bikes running, which highlighted the fact that we weren’t dealing with particularly well-maintained or -conditioned machinery here. Besides needing healthy coaxing before it would fire, my candy red 750 sounded noisy and loose, as if it had three times as many miles as the

Left: Scenes from 1992, and that first Cycle World trip: The bikes, loaded up and ready to go (top), and the Farr’s Cycles techs yanking my CB750s engine in Tulsa. The late (and great) Route 66 artist and historian Bob Waldmire did this customized map for that CW story. Epic stuff.

I glanced over at Bonnello, who was just a few feet to my left, and nodded while pointing to my speedo, flashing “one, zero, zero!” with my left hand, and then tucked in a little, twisting the CB’s hard-plastic waffle grip to the stop.

24,000 on its clock. It had also been repainted, which pissed me off since I’d been told the paint was original.

Edwards’ aqua blue 750, with about half as many miles, sounded tighter and looked better aesthetically, though neither bike appeared eager to deal with the journey we had planned, even after mounting the new tires we’d sent ahead from California.

Once we launched, the angst took the form of rain, and lots of it, as we slogged southwest in cold temperatures from central Illinois toward Missouri and Oklahoma. While our rainsuits flapped in the wet gusts, whoever was behind the other got misted with a layer of oil, as both bikes were leaking plenty of the

stuff. Pretty quickly, the luggage and rear tires of both bikes were coated, and when you add all that to the chilly temps and mechanical clatter from my red 750, you can imagine how lovely our 10-hour ride to Tulsa, Okla., on day one was.

We knew we needed serious mechanical help, so it was a blessing to run into a guy named Jerry Burrell the following morning while gassing up. Burrell led us to the only dealership within 100-plus miles that was open on Mondays, a Suzuki/Kawasaki shop owned by pro dragracers Marshall and Vicky Farr. Burrell told us the folks at Farr’s were not only good people, but good with the wrenches, too.

And boy was he right, especially young technician Jerry Post, who turned out to be a veritable CB750 wizard who’d rebuilt dozens of single-cam 750s as a teen. Edwards’ bike, it turned out, had wrongly routed oil-breather lines — a relatively easy fix. Mine, however, was far more flawed, the top end so worn that combustion pressure was blowing past the rings, pressurizing the crankcase and pumping oil out the breather tube.

Even worse, one of the piston crowns was literally crumbling, and only after scouring the Tulsa area for a new-ish cylinder and a set of used-but-reasonableshape pistons and rings were we able to get the old Honda running right. “I’m amazed the thing even ran!” Post said as he, myself and Edwards took in the crippled engine on the bench. “There’s no way this bike would’ve made it to California.”

It took three days to make it right with help from Jerry and the Farr’s folks, but we were finally on our way. Again.

So far we’d seen scant trace of the legendary 66 I’d read about and imagined prior to the trip, but as we trekked westerly from Tulsa through small towns with names like Sapulpa and Chandler, the Mother Road’s magic began to come into focus. The meandering two-laner connected small country towns,

It can be easily argued that Soichiro Honda’s CB750 is the most important motorcycle of all time; for the possibilities it represented; for the engineering roadblocks it easily hurdled; and for what it forced the entire industry to do.

each, it seemed, with a filling station, a church and a Main Street lined with cafes, antique shops and motor inns. Oldtown America, in other words.

What must it have been like to travel this road back in the ’30s or ’40s, before Interstate 40 appeared during the 1950s? Buddy Marion, an older gentleman we spoke to at Farr’s, told us of his travels on 66 as a kid in the ’30s. “Back then,” he said, “66 was the only way to get to Oklahoma City, or anywhere else west. Going to OK City [roughly 100 miles away] was a big deal back then. My dad would spend a whole day checking over our ’38 Ford.”

We stopped for lunch at the Sweets ’n’ Eats Café in Stroud, Okla., owned by Elmer and Peggy Williams. Peggy cooked, and if you were willing to listen, Elmer told stories. “Back then the road was mostly sand and gravel,” he told us. “I went west on 66 in 1936; musta had 40 flats on that trip, and we broke an axle somewhere in Texas.”

Despite the cozy towns and neighborly people along the old route, you couldn’t ignore the slow but continuing erosion of civilization there, especially as we rode into the flat and dry regions of Northern Texas. In places like Texola and Shamrock, homes and businesses were boarded up, and it was eerie to think that each of these abandoned filling stations, tourist courts, homes and cafes were once thriving businesses, a key part of someone’s life and work and dreams.

You can credit Interstate 40 for most of that, the steady march of progress that always seems to have a downside we must live with. Built during the 1950s, I-40 took a toll on the old

“Back then the road was mostly sand and gravel...I went west on 66 in 1936; musta had 40 flats on that trip, and we broke an axle somewhere in Texas.”

ELMER WILLIAMS

route as soon as it was finished, funneling a majority of highway traffic and travelers onto the four-lane — and leaving 66, and the businesses along the way, to wither on the vine.

Folks we spoke to on that 1992 trip were often bitter about it. They missed the old days, when business and life were simpler, and mostly better. In Grants, N.M., an uranium-mining boom town that flourished until deregulation cut the guts out of the U.S. uranium business, we met up with Pete Chandis, the son of Greek immigrants who had come to Grants back in ’55 and operated a café called the Western Host Restaurant. In the old days, Chandis, who was 71 when we met him, was open 19 hours a day, employed a dozen people, and had a line of people waiting impatiently at the door when he’d open up every morning. By 1992 it was just him; host, waiter, cook and cashier.

“Those were the good old days,” he told David and me as we ate the breakfast he’d cooked for us. “I was open 5 a.m. to midnight every day. But the interstate killed us. The day I-40 opened it was like an atomic bomb hit this town.”

One of Chandis’ few regular customers, Colonel Bill Loughnane, a sharp, West Point grad in his 70s who had flown P-47 Thunderbolts in WWII, F-86 Sabers in Korea and F-4 Phantoms in Vietnam, agreed. “Eisenhower’s buddies didn’t make enough on the

war,” he quipped with a smile, “so he had them build the interstates.”

Breakfast finished, we gave Chandis a big tip, thanked him and the Colonel for the conversation, and walked out to the bikes. As we put on our gear, I couldn’t help but grin at the sign out front: “Yoo-Hoo…Eat here or we both starve. 34 years. Breakfast always.” Like the road he lived his life on, Pete Chandis was a survivor.

Our bikes were survivors, too. Like 66, the golden years of the iconic CB750 were decades past, but they could still get you from point A to B in comfort and style, and still can if the joy of riding a wonderfully tactile and visceral motorcycle trumps the high-tech gadgetry and functional perfection of today’s modern bikes. They weren’t overly quick, had gotta-pull-hard brakes, and offered a loose, distinctly “old bike” feel. But considering their age and the low-maintenance life they’d led, they worked surprisingly well — and still do if maintained properly.

We got into more mischief outside of Santa Fe, N.M., when we stopped at the Santo Domingo Trading Post, a neat little mercantile that had attracted the likes of John F. Kennedy and the editors of Life magazine to its doors in the early 1960s. The bikes looked particularly brilliant in the afternoon sun, so we rolled them onto the train tracks just in front of the trading post to take a photo or two, and then backed up 50 or 60 feet due to the long lens Edwards was using.

Out of nowhere came one of Amtrak’s best, barreling around a 90-degree bend in the tracks a half-mile away at maybe 70 mph. Caught off guard by both the appearance and speed of the train, we sprinted to the bikes, pushed them off their centerstands and rolled them off the tracks maybe five or six seconds before the train thundered by. The adrenaline damn near made me throw up.

We ginned up some more adventure outside of Oatman, Ariz., an old mining town in the hills. On a steep, switch-backed grade near Sitgreaves Pass, David’s bike’s chain threw its master link, the links jamming up against the crankcase and busting open a hole big enough that we could see the transmission — a not-uncommon occurrence with early Honda 750s. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere in the late afternoon, and with little traffic, it looked like it’d be a while before we’d get things repaired.

We’d fix the hole temporarily late that evening after

Right: The infamous Cajun and Wanda, who helped rescue Edwards and me after David’s aqua blue Honda’s chain spit its master link on Oatman Hill in Arizona, cracking the crankcase wide open. Cajun had a single master link clipped to his boot — and it fit! — though he charged us $10 for it. Nice guy.

“Those were the good old days. I was open 5 a.m. to midnight every day. But the interstate killed us. The day I-40 opened it was like an atomic bomb hit this town.”

PETE CHANDIS

limping back to Kingman using a scrap of aluminum and some JB Weld, but it was how we got to Kingman that was the craziest part of the story, and maybe the whole trip.

There we were, stuck on a desolate Sitgreaves Pass, when out of nowhere comes this outlaw-looking couple riding a Harley Softtail with leather bags and lots of miles on the odometer. They were Cajun and Wanda, not their real names, they told us after they’d stopped, but could they help? We mentioned needing a master link, never thinking they’d have such a thing, especially in the correct size, but after a few seconds, Cajun reached down and unclipped a master link off his well-worn cowboy boot and held it up. “Like this?” he drawled.

While Wanda pulled a probably warm Budweiser from one of the saddlebags, Cajun agreed to sell the link after dickering a bit on price, and snatched the $10 bill from David’s hand. “You guys are lucky,” he said. “We usually don’t stop for Jap bikes.” What Cajun didn’t know, and what we didn’t tell him at the time for fear he’d pull a gun and force us to give the master link back, was that the link he’d sold us had D.I.D. (Daido Kogyo Co. Ltd.) machined into its side — a

IWorld piece. “The original path of Old 66 went another 75 miles, all the way to Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean. Very little is left today, and neither of us had much enthusiasm for finding it. For us, the real end of 66 — The Mother Road — was here; ending this inspiring trek on the crowded and dirty streets of L.A. would be somehow sacrilegious.” ended up selling that first CB750 a year or so after that Cycle World story, understanding that a restoration — which it needed badly — would take more money and time than I had available. I went without a replacement for years, right until I got a chance to buy the very special and low-mile Honda I wrote about in the opening of this story — a first-generation 750 Four with just 1,860 original miles on its clock. Its unbelievably low mileage would keep me from riding it as much as I might have wanted, but I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to own a bike that cool, that perfect.

I rode it very little over the next several years, afraid I’d crash it in some freak accident or somehow decrease its value with extra miles. But age and experience — and the passing of my parents in 2007 — gave me a new perspective on life’s frailty, and when Bonnello and I ginned up the idea to do that ride in 2009, I saw an opportunity to revisit a motorcycle and a road I’d gotten to know intimately so many years ago.

This time around we’d do a partial trek, LA to New Mexico and back, basically the western third of 66. Pre-launch I had San Diego’s Kon Tiki Motorcycles go through the CB750; they checked the valves, and cleaned and synched the carburetors so well the bike started immediately and idled perfectly once warm. They also spooned a set of newly-minted-but-period-spec Dunlop K70s on the 750’s wheels.

very Japanese chain company. Ironically, we’d brought extra master links for just such an emergency, though they’d been machined incorrectly and didn’t fit.

Two days later, after crossing the Mojave through Needles, Amboy, Barstow and Victorville, we rode down the Cajon Pass, which would funnel us into the Los Angeles basin on a neat old section of original 66, which paralleled I-15 yet rarely saw traffic. Then, just before it dumped us into smoggy San Bernardino, Route 66 suddenly dead-ended.

“David and I stopped, killed the engines and just sat there, staring off past the barricade,” I wrote in that Cycle

Leaving Victorville and heading east toward Yucca Valley I recalled how much I dig riding in the desert; it’s lonely and spooky and romantic all at once, and watching the chapparal and sun-baked ruins float by I can almost see and hear the ghosts of folks who made this desolate place their home during prohibition, the Depression and WWII.

We stopped briefly at Dead Man’s Point, home of an old MX track by the same name (and ridden for years by “Rocket” Rex Staten), then continued on through Joshua Tree and past Marine Corps-dominated 29 Palms, where we waved to soldiers in trucks going the opposite direction.

We turned north on Amboy Road and, 20 minutes

DAVID EDWARDS

Right and middle right: More D. Edwards snaps from the 1992 trek. Below: The author bunking with his low-mile CB750 during the 2009 Route 66 adventure (bottom image).

later, our tires rolled on actual Route 66 pavement on the outskirts of Amboy. After being kicked out of Roy’s Motel and Café by the elderly jerk who runs the nowcrude tourist trap for trying to snap a photo of the place, Bonnello and I headed over to the railroad tracks 400 yards away for another photo. About the time we got the bike set up next to the tracks we spied a light in the distance and felt the rumbling of a freight train soon after – and I was instantly transported back 17 years to the near-miss Edwards and I had with one of Amtrak’s best just outside of Santa Fe, N.M.

We were way out into the Mojave National Preserve by that point, 100 or so miles southwest of Las Vegas, with only scrub vegetation, lizards, rocks, spiders and sand for company. I was loving the quiet of the desert at dusk; it’s as if the plants and animals paused for

a breath after the scorching sun and hot winds took their toll all day. Bonnello and I stopped along a lonely stretch of 66 for another photo session, and as I rolled that beautiful motorcycle into position, I marveled at what I was riding, and what that machine had meant to motorcycling at large.

As I wrote in the inaugural issue of Motorcyclist Retro in early 2008, “It can be easily argued that Soichiro Honda’s CB750 is the most important motorcycle of all time; for the possibilities it represented; for the engineering roadblocks it easily hurdled; and for what it forced the entire industry to do — and respond to.

[Consider Kawasaki’s 903cc Z1.—Ed.] It not only created an entire aftermarket industry previously unknown, with names like Vetter, Yoshimura and others. It formed the basis for what became known as the UJM

“The Honda 750 Four handles like a roadracer, is comfortable, and has fantastic brakes. If you don’t care about any or all of those qualities, a lesser bike may be what you need — maybe what you deserve.”

GORDON JENNINGS

— the Universal Japanese Motorcycle, a concept that held powerful sway over the U.S. market for decades.”

“Such a thing — an inline-four production streetbike — didn’t even seem possible at the time,” wrote longtime motorcycle journalist Charles Everitt in the same issue, “especially at that level of performance and sophistication. There’s no possible way to overstate the CB750’s impact and importance. It changed everything. Every other manufacturer instantly knew it had to step up to the CB’s level of performance and quality or get left behind — and a lot of them got left behind.”

The late Gordon Jennings, writing in Cycle magazine’s August 1969 issue, wrote this: “The Honda 750 Four…

handles like a roadracer, is comfortable, and has fantastic brakes. If you don’t care about any or all of those qualities, a lesser bike may be what you need — maybe what you deserve.”

The CB750 was more than the final and sharpest nail in the coffin of the British motorcycle industry; it solidified Japan’s position as a world-class builder and marketer of motorcycles; it ushered in the era of the superbike; and by virtue of its superb design and durability, it was a streetbike that could be ridden to the store one day and across the state the next without a thought of breakdown. Suddenly, I was honored to be standing next to the thing as Bonnello snapped away.

I could hear the cars and trucks roaring by on I-15 a hundred feet above us, and the disparity between us on this scarred and sacred pavement, and the modern, Interstate-dominated world above, was palpable.

This is what owning a vintage bike was all about, I remember thinking.

After a couple days of eastward movement we turned around and headed back toward the coast, and on one long stretch of two-lane 66 we traded bikes, and I got a chance to finally see my Candy Ruby Red jewel from a distance. The CB750 is handsome on the move, with a well-muscled engine and tank surrounded by an almost dainty rear and front end. The pipes cut a beautifully classic swath, and the crisp wail coming from their business ends is absolutely musical.

We finally found ourselves chasing the sun toward LA while once again ripping down the Cajon Pass in fading sunlight. My goal was that stretch of two-lane 66 that runs parallel to Interstate 15 — and which ended so abruptly — where Edwards and I had stopped back in 1992.

When we arrived and got ready to shoot in the rapidly fading light. I could hear the cars and trucks roaring by

on I-15 a hundred feet away, and the disparity between us on this sacred pavement, and the modern, Interstatedominated world above, was palpable. The scene was pretty much the same as back in 1992, but it certainly wasn’t like it was back in the early 1950s, when there was no freeway.

You can’t change the inevitable march of time. It happens, with all the connected upsides and downsides. But you can get back to that sacred place and time on occasion, and motorcycles and roads such as the CB750 and Route 66 are the perfect time machines to do it on.

These two continue to be indelibly linked in history: Both had been the only game in town at one point; the best and most popular in their respective fields. Both had gotten old, decayed, and been somewhat forgotten. And both have experienced a bit of a renewal, or rebirth…as our 2009 trek brought into focus.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Time really does fly when you’re having fun. AMA

From nearly extinct to thoroughly modern, from retro to tech-o …and now onto motocross, England’s number-one motorcycle manufacturer is still hard at it

BY JOHN BURNS PHOTOS COURTESY OF TRIUMPH USA

Feel free to join one of the many zombie debates as to whether John Bloor’s “new” Triumphs count as “real” Triumphs, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. If the jury was out for a few years after the English coal miner’s sonturned-real-estate baron resurrected the storied manufacturer from the grave in the late 1980s, we can now say for certain Mr. Bloor succeeded beyond probably even his own wildest expectations.

Not only is Triumph again one of the world’s most important motorcycle manufacturers 120 years after the first one was built, some would say — given recent developments — it’s one of the preeminent ones. A third of a century after its revival, Triumph is hard on the gas.

Triumph

On the gas

Bloor only wanted the ground the original Meriden factory sat on to build a housing development, but wound up obtaining the Triumph name and rights along with the property, circa 1983. By 1985 he’d assembled an experienced R&D team in place along with the mindset that had made him so successful as a house builder: Do it right, or don’t do it at all — a business philosophy diametrically opposed to that of the previous, chronically underfunded Triumph.

By 1990, a new, 150,000-square-foot factory in Hinckley was up and running. At that factory, that same June, Triumph revealed its new line of inline 3- and 4-cylinder motorcycles to a stunned motorcycle press. That September, it showed six new bikes to the world at the Cologne Motorcycle Show, ready to be produced as 1991 models: Trident 900 and 750 naked roadsters, Daytona 1000 and 750 sportbikes, and Trophy 1200 and 900 sport-tourers.

COMING TO AMERICA

Another smart thing Bloor and crew did was to originally sell their new motorcycles in Europe only, with Germany as the first test market. The reasoning must have been that if there were problems (and with nearly any new product there are bound to be), they’d be fixed before the bikes made their way to what’s always been the world’s biggest market — the U.S. — where a reputation for questionable reliability would precede any new motorcycle called Triumph.

Also, we’ve always done things a bit differently in

America, haven’t we? Observing Harley-Davidson’s booming 1990s from across the pond, Triumph decided it needed some sort of custom cruiser. What it came up with, to put its best foot forward in the Colonies, was the 1995 Thunderbird…29 years after the original had left the building. The new T-Bird used the same liquidcooled DOHC 885cc triple as other new Triumphs, but with extra cast-in cooling fins to look the part — also wire-spoke wheels, peashooter mufflers and Triumph’s classic mouth organ/garden gate tank badging. Bullseye The bike looked kind of old, but rode like new. Wherever you stopped, old guys would ask, what year Triumph is that? Motorcyclist magazine even named it “Cruiser of the Year.” (Hey wait! That was me and Mitch…)

NO ONE EXPECTED THAT…

After that came a barrage of motorcycles that were ripe for the moment. The T-509 Speed Triple and T-595 Daytonas introduced Triumph’s second-gen, aluminumframed motorcycles, which were a big step forward in style and performance. The nakedly naughty Speed Triple was a bit over the top for some, but not Motorcyclist (yes, us again), which named it “Hooligan of the Year.” When a new and improved Nuclear Red version appeared in 2002, we got aboard that pink bandwagon, as well.

When the new Bonneville twin appeared circa 2001, it was as if the Harley/ Triumph wars had never ended. So why not launch the world’s biggest-engined motorcycle, too? The Rocket 3 first appeared in 2004, and the latest 2019 version’s 2.5-liter longitudinal triple is a literal tour

STREET TRIPLE RS

TIGER 1200 RALLY

de force, complete with a Supermarine Spitfire-inspired exhaust manifold among a sea of many more beautifully turned-out parts that makes it one of the world’s most desirable, ahhh…is it actually a cruiser?

All the style and innovation in the world would be for naught, of course, if everything we’ve ridden from the Hinckley factory hadn’t been so well-sorted. Bloor’s men understood from the start that great products are built by great people, and that includes a cadre of engineers and test riders down through the years who will sell no Triumph before its time. When you go on a Triumph product launch, you know you’re in for a ride — because it’s usually one of Triumph’s testers you wind up chasing across the countryside.

MOTOCROSS? WHY NOT!

Apart from the orange bikes from Austria, no European manufacturer has seriously challenged Japanese offroad dominance since the Triumph desert sleds of old were rendered obsolete by the buzzing hordes of twostrokes that took over our native soil in the late 1960s. Now, Triumph intends to restore the correct

hegemony, with new 250 and 450cc four-stroke MX bikes of its own.

Development is well underway on a pair of new 250s to compete in round one of the 2024 MX2 division of the FIM Motocross World Championship — and the 450 version is planned to be ready for the big-boy MXGP class the following season. Both bikes are being developed concurrently, and both in partnership with the highly successful, Holland-based team of Thierry Chizat-Suzzon. All competition now falls under the Triumph Racing department, headquartered in Hinckley with the rest of the main factory.

Meanwhile in America, the plan is for the official U.S. Factory Race Team, under Bobby Hewitt, to compete in both East and West 250 AMA Supercross classes in 2024, as well as AMA ProMX 250. Just like in Europe, Triumph’s 450 is scheduled to enter the AMA ProMX 450 crucible in 2025.

What’s that we said about hiring the right people? From the get-go, our favorite GOAT (and AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer) Ricky Carmichael has been consulting as Triumph’s Global Off-Road Ambassador. Triumph says Ricky’s been “a major contributor to direction on product development and the structure of

SCRAMBLER 1200 XE TIGER 1200 PRO

its race program and personnel, to ensure it will have a winning product and team from the very beginning.”

We’ve heard those kinds of bold statements before from other manufacturers. We wouldn’t be surprised if Triumph actually executes.

When Triumph dropped this bombshell last September, Carmichael said: “Since the start of this project with Triumph, I have been amazed at just how hard everyone has been working. It must not go without mentioning, the whole R&D and engineering group that have been a part of the development of the motorcycles have done an absolutely incredible job. From the first stages of the prototypes, I was really taken back at how well the performance was, since then, being in the UK testing the newest developments, I can tell you that it has the capabilities of winning at the highest level and I personally believe the riders, from professional to amateur, across the entire range of off-road models, will really like what has been developed!”

JEFF STANTON ADVENTURES

Speaking of AMA Supercross champions, AMA Hall of Famer Jeff Stanton’s

six AMA Moto and Supercross championships all came on Hondas, but that didn’t stop Triumph from signing Stanton as its first Triumph Accredited Adventure Partner in North America. That means Stanton and the instructors at his adventure school/tour facility in Michigan have adopted the curriculum from the Triumph Adventure Experience Global Training Academy in Wales, along with a fleet of Triumph Tiger and Scrambler motorcycles.

One lucky American Motorcyclist contestant (me!) has been chosen to attend a Stanton tour the first week of May. Along with the training comes a variety of one-, two-, and three-day adventure tours designed to showcase the natural beauty of Northern Michigan – Stanton’s stomping grounds since birth — in a way he says is best experienced by motorcycle. The current fleet includes the all-new Tiger 1200 Rally Pro, Tiger 900 Rally, Tiger 900 GT, Scrambler 1200 XE, and Scrambler 900s.

All Jeff Stanton Adventures tours and training sessions start from Two Hats Ranch in Big Rapids, Mich., not too far from Grand Rapids Airport. Big Rapids is probably also a good place to test a new motocross bike away from the prying eyes of the public; Ricky Carmichael has been spotted in the area. Not only is the MX Triumph on the way,

“From the first stages of the prototypes, I was really taken back at how well the performance was”

RICKY CARMICHAEL

THRUXTON RS CHROME EDITION

SPEED TWIN

there are also rumors of a dual-sport machine in the works as well. Stanton is sworn to secrecy about all of it, but is more excited about the dual-sport than the MX bike. Supply-chain issues are delaying the roll-out, but both are coming...

Adventure bikes being what it’s all about lately, fourtime World Enduro Champ Ivan Cervantes, who’s been campaigning a Tiger 900, is also on the Triumph payroll. In the last couple of years, Triumph’s ADV range has expanded, lost weight, and significantly improved in quality to challenge for best in category in both the middleweight and heavyweight classes: New Tiger 900 and Tiger 1200 models come in GT and Rally versions to meet the specific needs of their riders — the Rally models being among the most hard-core off-road ADV bikes available.

FOR THOSE WHO PREFER PAVEMENT

Well, Triumph’s never left it. From the earliest days at the Isle of Man TT to back-to-back Daytona 200 victories under Buddy Elmore and Gary Nixon in 1966 and ’67 — and another 200 victory just last year by Brandon Paasch on a Street Triple — Triumph has always been in the mix.

Falling under Triumph Racing at Triumph HQ in Hinckley, along with the new motocross machines and everything else, the factory Dynavolt Triumph team competes in both the British Superbike and Supersport World Championships.

Triumph’s 765cc inline Triple has been the choice of MotoGP’s Moto2 underclass since 2019. The direct line that runs between racing and product development isn’t much clearer than the one between that engine and the new-for 2023 Street Triples R, RS, and Moto2. (Read Thad Wolff’s review on page 18). Triumph’s more pragmatic approach to racing has always emphasized putting resources where they’re more likely to enhance the product than the corporate ego.

BRAND ID

There’s plenty of corporate ego in place at Triumph these days, an element that helps keep the marketing pressure on at all times: Brand partnerships with The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride (raising funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and mental health), Breitling watches, Gibson guitars, James Bond, and Triumph’s original cool guy Steve McQueen — whose Boys Republic high school for challenged boys continues to benefit to this day.

Stanton is sworn to secrecy about all of it, but is more excited about the dual-sport than the MX bike.

Triumph’s latest Hollywood endeavor, One Fast Move, is scheduled for release in 2023: This one will be a drama focusing on a father/son relationship, both competing in American roadracing — and of course including a cameo with the 2022 Daytona 200 Champion and a Street Triple.

Meanwhile, it goes without saying the motorcycle range continues to evolve and expand: For 2022, for those who see motorcycles as art, almost all Triumph’s “classic” models offered a Goldline Edition, to celebrate the craftsmanship of its pinstripers. For model year 2023, a 10-model Chrome Edition showcases the factory’s new chroming capabilities by creating chrome fuel tanks, each of which requires five hours to produce. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s also a relationship with Bajaj, in India, to develop a range of inexpensive small-displacement motorcycles. Triumph continues to invest in and research electrification: “Project TE-1,” with major partners in battery and engine technology including Williams Racing, has successfully completed development and testing. OSET Bikes, a premium electric Trials bike brand, has also been acquired by Triumph.

RECORD GROWTH

With all that’s going on, you can’t fault Triumph for being proud of its recent performance. U.S. Marketing Director Adam VanderVeen says Triumph closed 2022 with record-breaking global sales results. Since 2020, he says, sales have increased by a record 31%, with 83,389 riders worldwide purchasing a Triumph motorcycle in 2022, breaking every Hinckley-based previous retail-sales record, and is on course to do it again in 2023. During that same period, Triumph’s premium dealer network has increased to more than 740 dealers worldwide, representing a 6% growth over 2021.

PUFFERY?

Our apologies if we’re veering here at the end into what reads like a Triumph puff piece, but you really do have to give credit where credit is due. And it’s hard not to be excited at the prospect of seeing a British motorcycle return to motocross, since Great Britain is where it was born. Happy Birthday, Triumph, and many more to come. AMA

“There’s a lot of deliberate energy being put into developing every aspect of the company,” says Triumph USA’s Adam VanderVeen (above), “with a focus on quality in every area to ensure that growth doesn’t come at the cost of Triumph’s premium brand reputation. We’re experiencing growth in product, partnerships, racing, dealers... Since 2020, sales have increased by a record 31%, breaking every Hinckley-based previous retail-sales record, and we’re on course to do it again in 2023. During that same period, Triumph’s dealer network has increased to more than 740 dealers worldwide, representing a 6% growth over 2021.”

ROCKET III TOURING

THRUXTON RS TON UP EDITION

ADAM VANDERVEEN

Twelve racing mothers grab their own piece of the racing action in the AMA-sanctioned Virginia Cross Country and Virginia Championship Hare Scramble Series

BY JOY BURGESS

May 14 is Mother’s Day, of course, so we’d be remiss if we didn’t thank all the moms out there who’ve supported their kids and spouses in their riding and racing…cleaning leathers, making lunches, keeping things organized, helping finance the effort, cheering from the sidelines, and much, much more.

But International Female Ride Day also falls in May, and Jessica Riddle — whose family has an AMA Family Membership — recently introduced us to a pretty badass group of moms on the East Coast who’ve taken Female Ride Day much more literally…by competing in the AMA-sanctioned Virginia Cross Country Series (VXCS) and Virginia Championship Hare Scramble Series (VCHSS) along with

PHOTOS: JANE MORRIS, JUAN JARAMILLO AND DENISE KIGER

their families.

These ladies decided that they wanted a piece of the racing action for themselves, and it’s a special thing when you’ve got dads, moms and kids all out there racing toward the checkers.

After all, says racing mom Brianna Sowers, “Moms who support their racing families are awesome…but moms deserve to join all the fun, too!”

We couldn’t agree more.

Brianna is one of only two moms in the tight-knit group to begin riding as a child. “I was 8 years old when I got my first dirt bike for Christmas,” she told us. “I remember my parents showing me the Crusty Demons videos, and I wanted to be as cool as all those guys. Some of my best and

earliest memories are from the long track and trail days with my brother.”

Lanie Taylor’s start to riding was similar. She started at age 8, riding on the weekends on a family farm with lots of friends. “I was so scared of the hills as a child,” she said, “and loved having help from the boys — one of which I later married — to get me through those trails.”

But the rest of the group never threw a leg over a motorcycle until far later in life.

“I started riding and racing at age 39,” Jess Riddle said, “and I’d never even heard of dirt bikes until a year or so before that when my husband — an avid mountain biker — purchased a dual-sport to ride to work and on the trails. I was afraid of that bike…I

didn’t even feel comfortable walking by it parked in the garage!”

“I still remember my first impressions of hare scramble racing,” she continued. “I was shocked at the fields of campers — I had no idea this was a thing families did. And every time a bike rode by in the pits, I jumped, startled at the noise. But after my husband started racing, we bought our son Bodie his first dirt bike, and we slowly became a dirt bike racing family. I found it increasingly difficult to stand on the sidelines, so I purchased a used Yamaha TT-R 230 and started racing.”

Jess first raced at VXCS, then took on a VCHSS race that generally has around 250 competitors. “I don’t even know how I got around the track,” she remembered, “I must have pissed off so many guys out there. And I remember

“That first year of racing, it wasn’t pretty, but my girls — Sadie, Josee and Kallie — cheered me on like it was Christmas morning. I would have never related to my daughters on this level if I didn’t give it a shot.”

MEGAN DANIELS

asking a now-retired racing mom on the start line how many laps she planned to do. She looked at me like I had two heads and said, ‘As many as I can until I get the checkered flag.’ I was so clueless. But I went on to win the VCHSS Senior Women Championship in 2022!”

Katie McKeithan decided to start riding to make sure she didn’t get left out of the story…or left with all the work. “I started riding in 2020 in support of family time,” she told us. “When my husband and kids — Alison and Samantha — started racing, I didn’t want to be left out of the story or the one doing all the packing, cooking and cleaning. So I put on my gear and

joined them in a sport far outside my comfort zone.”

For Ari Heemstra, it was her son that pushed her to start riding…at age 50! “I always like to say that my son, Nathan, ‘whined’ me into doing it,” Ari said. “He really put the pressure on!” But it was getting hooked as a spectator of the sport that finally pulled Staci Griffin to race. “My husband Jim told me stories about riding as a kid,” she remembered, “and in the early 2000s he wanted to start racing hare scrambles. He told me how much of a family event the races were, so I started going as a cheerleader, and got hooked as a spectator. I think I was more excited

than anyone when they yelled ‘10 seconds!’ for each class. It made my soul sing.”

“Everyone at the races became family,” Staci continued. “I learned to jump in with the kids and help pick up bikes, get them started, and began to understand the training, skill and endurance it takes to ride and race. Finally, in 2009 when I was 38, my husband talked me into getting my first bike, a Honda CRF100. It didn’t come naturally to me, I was scared to death, and the beginning was rough. I stalled the bike a million times, had a mental block on making right turns — the perfect NASCAR driver [laughs] — but I started practicing. I remember

Along with racing the Virginia Cross Country and Virginia Championship Hare Scramble Series, many of the moms also compete in the AMA Feature Sprint Cross Country Series (pictured), which runs primarily in Maryland and West Virginia.

the best part was going down our halfmile-long gravel driveway. What a rush. I kept thinking, “I’m on a dirt bike! OMG, I’m on a flippin’ dirt bike!’ That feeling — as well as seeing my husband and son racing — was exactly what made me want to do it again.”

Passing along the love of racing, Staci played a big part in getting Jessica Bakken to start racing along with the group.

“I got my first dirt bike — a Yamaha TTR125 — in 2015, deciding to ride since my husband Chad and my son Dash both raced,” Jessica said. “I was

Despite losing an hour of sleep the night before, freezing temperatures and snow falling, the moms still made it out early in the morning to race Round 1 of the AMAsanctioned Virginia Championship Hare Scramble Series in Arrington, Va.

hooked! I started racing when VCHSS added the Women’s Trailrider class, and Staci was a big influence on my decision to race. She always has a smile on her face after a race, no matter the conditions. We started talking about me racing, and she supported me and wanted me to start racing with her.”

Setting an example for her girls was the biggest thing for Megan Daniels. “My husband got our first daughter Sadie on a Strider, STACYC and then a PW50, and seeing her out there giving it her all against all the boys made my momma heart happy,” she

said. “My husband encouraged me to give it a try and bought me a Kawasaki KLX140 that gave me the opportunity to putz around behind my daughters as they rode.”

“That first year of racing, it wasn’t pretty,” Megan added with a laugh.

“But my girls — Sadie, Josee and Kallie — cheered me on like it was Christmas morning, and watching them look up to me and give me advice let me know the impact I was having on them. The challenges you overcome in a race are far more intense than I imagined, and it really builds a sense of courage and commitment I never dreamed

of. I would have never related to my daughters on this level if I didn’t give it a shot.”

Of course, when the entire family is racing, that makes for a hectic race day…or weekend.

“Race days are typically race weekends,” Jess told us. “Meal planning and preparation begin well in advance.”

“It’s pretty much controlled chaos,” Sheri Caccamo added.

Katie echoed that, adding that it’s always crazy getting everyone to the line on time, especially with everyone riding in different classes throughout the day.

“I have my morning anxiety attack on race day,” Jess said with a laugh, “compounded by coffee, of course. In the past, if Bodie had a bad experience during a race, I’d go have a mom cry in the camper while gearing up for my event. But when he moved up to a big bike, he raced in the morning event with me, which was cool because he’d lap me, and I got to cheer him on as he blew by.”

Staci’s morning starts a little differently. “My alarm goes off at 6:15 a.m.,” she said, “and I quietly get

up while everyone else is still sleeping. I prep everything the night before so I can sneak around the camper quietly. I eat breakfast, stretch — I’m 52 and stretching is required both before and after getting on the bike — gear up, check my tire pressure, and when the clock strikes 8 a.m., warm up my bike.”

Despite how hectic it is — often moms are lining up just as kids are coming to the finish line — the families all use each other for encouragement and strength to keep going.

“It’s often high stress in the mornings,” Brianna told us, “but watching my daughter come through

the finish is an indescribable feeling. It’s at that moment that I know I’m doing the right thing as a race mom.”

Riding together, spending the weekends engaged in the teamwork of getting bikes and gear ready, and cheering each other on through all kinds of racing conditions — good and bad — has a profound effect on these families.

“Although riding is an individual experience,” Sheri said, “it’s always better when you have a crew to share it with. And when it is your family…it’s priceless. It’s also an awesome way to spend time together as a family on the weekends, even when it isn’t cool to hang out with your parents anymore.”

“My mom inspires me to ride faster so I can lap her! I like being able to teach my mom when we go on rides so one day she can be as fast as me.”

DASH BAKKEN, 12 YEARS OLD

Having a common connection is powerful for the families, too. “No matter what else we do separately in life,” Lisa Morten, whose 21-year-old daughter Hailey races with her, told us “we have our love for dirt bikes that brings us together.”

“Riding together as a family gives us this incredible bond of adventure, joy, challenges, excitement and teamwork,” Staci added. “We cheer each other on, pull each other up when things get frustrating — trees can jump out in front of you, a bike can get wonky, someone can get

if you’re not good…especially if you’re not good. Model the behavior you want your kid to have. Show your kids how to lose, how to be a good sport about it, how to work your tail off to get better, how to hit your goals that don’t include first place, and then how to hit those goals and maybe even get a first place along the way.”

Age doesn’t matter, either.

at this sport,” she said. “I used to be absolutely horrible. I would crash on flat ground for no reason! But I refused to quit. Now I teach everything I know to other women, and it’s been so rewarding to help other ladies while honing my own skills.”

At the end of the day, it’s the support and friendships that keep bringing these women — and their families — back to the races.

stuck in the mud while the entire group of racers goes by, etc. — and we help each other grow. I get so excited to share our experiences at the end of a race. I live for those moments of ‘Mom, do you remember that gnarly hill?’ or ‘How did you like that crazy creek crossing?’”

By sharing their stories, these ladies hope that more moms will join the fun on two wheels.

“For any woman interested in racing,” Jess said, “find us! We’re here, and we love to ride with novice women riders. You will find some of your best friends.”

Jess also suggests advocating for a women’s class that runs with the minis in your local series. It’s a great way for women riders to learn the ropes of racing with less traffic to worry about, and it’s something they’ve done in the VCHSS series. And don’t be worried about being good before you get started.

“Just go!” Katie exclaimed. “Even

“I’m 52 years old,” Staci told us, “and I’m a beginner racer. I’m not fast. In all honesty, I suck at this. But it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life! You’re never too old, and it’s never too late to learn how to ride or start racing. Get out of your box, throw a leg over a bike, and as Bobby Bones says, ‘Fail, until you don’t!’”

Fifty-three-year-old Charity Kuebler, who races with her grandson Caden — the only Nanny and grandson racing team in the group — agrees. “I have to work

“The support system and friendships gained from the other women I’ve met through this sport is unmatched,” Lanie said. “And the friendships your kids will make through racing will be some of the best in the world.”

And while these moms are out there racing, in part, to inspire and encourage their kids, it’s often their children who influence them.

“My son Nathan is really the one who inspires and influences me,” Sherri told us. “Even when I’m not feeling my best, he encourages me to participate anyway. The best encouragement came during a race when I was on the struggle bus, and I heard a loud voice coming up behind me saying, ‘Come on, Mom, you’ve got this!’ just before he blew past me. It reminded me how lucky I am to experience this challenging sport with my family.”

With my family. It’s a key part of all this. But so is actually riding and competing. And these moms — along with moms all over the country — seem to have that part nailed.

You go, gals! AMA

Left to right: Staci Griffin, Jimmy Griffin, Katie McKeithan, Ari Hermstra, Charity Kuebler, Kim Gabrielle, Samantha McKeithan, Jessica Riddle, Caden Deans, Bodie Riddle, Dash Bakken, Jessica Bakken, Alison McKeithan, Nathan Caccamo, Sheri Caccamo, and Kelly Deans.

MAKE IT YOURS

The AMA offers a variety of card types and designs for members. In addition to our standard card, we offer a number of themed cards that identify you as belonging to a specific group or speak to your passion as a motorcyclist.

DEALS AND DISCOUNTS

THE ESSENTIALS

Lodging

Save 15% at participating Choice Hotels Properties.

Up to 10% off at Motel 6.

Use code: M64AMA

20% discount off available rates, call (800) REDROOF and use the code VP+ 503343. To make reservations online use code: VP+ 503343 in the field labeled “VP+/ID#”

AMA Roadside Assistance Roadside assistance coverage for eligible members. Car Rentals

Up to 25% off at any Avis or Budget. Avis Code: D388100 Budget Code: Z942000

Motorcycle Shipping Call Federal Companies at (877) 518-7376 for at least $40 off standard rates.

AMA members receive $50 off each bike one way or $100 off round trip or $50 each, multiple bikes, same addresses. AMA Gear Find patches, pins, T-shirts, hats and more.

PRODUCT DISCOUNTS

EagleRider

For Club EagleRider AMA members receive 2 free rental credits. Use code AMACLUBER Evans Cooling System 25% discount on Evans Coolants and Prep Fluid. Use code AMAFUN at evanscoolant.com.

EVS Sports

10% discount and free shipping on all orders. Use code AMAEVS20

Gryphon Moto

Blendzall AMA members can save 20% at blendzall.com. Use code AMA20 at checkout.

AMA members receive a 15 percent discount on Gryphon Moto orders at gryphonmoto. com. Use code AMA at checkout.

Haynes

Save an additional 15% on all Haynes & Clymer print and online repair manuals. Use code AMA15

Medjet

Air medical transport and travel security protection – visit Medjet.com/AMACycle or call 1.800.527.7478, referring to American Motorcyclist Association.Annual rates are reduced by 20% and start at $235.

MotoAmerica

20% off 2-day and 3-day passes at select MotoAmerica events. Use discount code AMA20

Motool

AMA members can save 10% at motool.co. Use code AMASAVE20 at checkout.

MX Boot Repair

Butler Maps AMA members receive a 20% discount at butlermaps.com. Use code AMAMEMBER

California Dual Sport

Heli

Helix Racing Products

AMA members save 20 percent on all products at helixracingproducts.com. Use code AMA20 at checkout.

Cardo Systems

20% discount online with valid AMA membership card. Use code AMA20

Helite Moto AMA members get 15% off every order at helitemoto.com. Use code HELITEAMA

HertzRide

AMA members save 10 percent on rentals in all locations globally at hertzride.com/us/ promo/American-motorcyclistassociation-1065 or use code AMA10

Legacy Track Dayz

15% discount on Legacy Track Dayz events. Use code AMARideLTD

Liberty Sport Eyewear

30% discount on all “motorcycle collection” frames. Discount code AMA30.

10% discount. Use code AMADISCOUNT

MX Mounts 10% off on our mounts Use AMADiscount at checkout

MYLAPS

20% discount off MSRP or current sales price on weborders or orders coordinated by the AMA. Use code AMA-789HJK

Nelson Rigg 20% AMA Member Exclusive Discount on all products! Use promo code AMA-NR20

The Quail MC Gathering AMA members recieve a discount on tickets using the code AMA2023

Quin Design Helmets 10% off crash detection, SOS beacon, Bluetooth communication & more with your new intelligent helmet. Use code AMAQUIN10

Rider Magazine

AMA member exclusive discount: $19.99 for 1 year (12 issues) + 1 extra free issue.

Rockwell Time

Save 20% on select products. Rockwelltime. com. Use code AMA20

Spot LLC

Exclusive service credit on SPOT Gen3, SPOT Trace or SPOT X device

STKR Concepts 15% off products at stkrconcepts.com. Use

Third Eye Design

10% discount on inView, a wireless brake and signal light. Use code AMA at thirdeyedesigninc.com

US Chrome $30 discount on cylinder plating and dealer pricing on Wiseco, Wossner, ProX and Vertex piston kits.

Warm & Safe 20% discount. Use code AMA

For more information and the most recent listing of AMA Member Benefit Partners and discount codes visit americanmotorcyclist.com/deals-and-discounts

COMING EVENTS

Be sure to check the event website or call the organizer for the latest information, including postponements or cancellations.

CALIFORNIA

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 6. Landers. AMA District 37 Desert Scrambles 1, Checkers MC, 760-252-6020, blm_ca_ba_srp@blm.gov

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 6. Landers. AMA District 37 Desert Scrambles 2, Checkers MC, 760-252-6020, blm_ca_ba_srp@blm.gov

Motocross: May 7. Rancho Cordova. Road to Mammoth Round 5, 2X Promotions LLC, 559-5005360, www.2xpromotions.com

Enduro: May 7. Georgetown. Fools Gold Enduro, California Enduro Riders Association, 925-413-2434, cerarider@gmail.com, cera.org

Flat Track - Short Track: May 12. Lodi. 2023 Lodi Cycle Bowl Night Before the Mile, Lodi Motorcycle Club, 209-368-7182, lodimcemail@gmail.com, lodicyclebowl.com

Motocross: May 13. Pala. Fox Raceway Southwest Area Qualifier, 2X Promotions LLC, 559-500-5360, www.2xpromotions.com

Desert Scrambles: May 13. Red Mountain. Badgers Cop-Out Dual European Scrambles Race #2, Badgers Motorcycle Club, www.blm.gov

Desert Scrambles: May 13. Red Mountain. Badgers Cop-Out Dual European Scrambles Race #1, Badgers Motorcycle Club, www.blm.gov

Motocross: May 14. Pala. Road to Mammoth Round 6 LCQ, 2X Promotions LLC, 559-500-5360, www.2xpromotions.com

Dual Sport: May 17 - 20. Randsburg. Operation Mojave Moto, Dawson’s Peak, 205-365-7643, dawson@dawsonspeak.org

Flat Track - Short Track: May 20. Santa Rosa. Big time Sonoma 3, Big Time Speedway Presents, LLC, 925-786-3263, bigtimespeedway@aol.com, www. bigtimespeedwaypresents.com

Dual Sport: May 20. Ventucopa. CCMA Dual Sport Ride, Central Coast Trail Riders Association, 805-440-7830, hadleyosran@gmail.com, www. pozoriders.com

Dual Sport: May 20. Nevada City. 2023 NCWR

Dual Sport, Nevada County Woods Riders, Inc., 530-274-9943, jdpellizzer@ymail.com, woodsriders. clubexpress.com

Dual Sport: May 20 - 21. Rodeo. Sheetiron 300 Dualsport, Oakland Motorcycle Club, 510-534-6222, snyderbt@comcast.net, https://oaklandmc.org/ sheetiron-300

Dual Sport: May 20. Banning. Palms to Pines Charity Ride, Orange County Dualies, 714-404-1963, ocdualies@gmail.com

Desert Scrambles: May 20 - 21. Lucerne Valley. RUTS Meltdown, Racers Under the Son, Inc., 949689-5078, scott@ruts.org, RUTS.org

Motocross: May 26. Pala. Fox National - Amateur Day, 2X Promotions LLC, 559-500-5360, www.2xpromotions.com

Flat Track - Short Track: May 27. Lodi. 2023 AMA/ D36 Dirt Track Championship Series, Lodi Motorcycle Club, 209-368-7182, lodimcemail@gmail.com, lodicyclebowl.com

Flat Track - Short Track: May 28. Lodi. 2023 AMA/ D36 Dirt Track Championship Series, Lodi Motorcycle Club, 209-368-7182, lodimcemail@gmail.com, lodicyclebowl.com

COLORADO

Observed Trials: May 6. Howard. RMTA Series

Event #2, Rocky Mountain Trials Association, 719239-1234

Observed Trials: May 7. Howard. RMTA Series

Event #3, Rocky Mountain Trials Association, 719239-1234

Motocross: May 21. Ordway. RMRA Motocross, Lakeview Motosports Park, 719-320-5720, larrywhite1967@gmail.com, lakeviewmotosportspark.com

Observed Trials: May 27. Canon City. NATC/AMA MotoTrials Series, Rocky Mountain Trials Association, rockymountaintrials.org

Observed Trials: May 28. Canon City. NATC/AMA MotoTrials Series, Rocky Mountain Trials Association, rockymountaintrials.org

Motocross: May 29. Brush. RMRA Series, Cactus Promotions LLC, 970-768-0518, sweneymx@gmail. com, www.brushmx.com

CONNECTICUT

Adventure Ride: May 20 - 21. Colebrook. Berkshire Big Adventure, Berkshire Trail Riders Association, 203-725-8439, djboiano@gmail.com, mudslinger. org/bba-2023

Dual Sport: May 21. Colebrook. Berkshire Big Adventure Dual Sport, Berkshire Trail Riders Association, 203-725-8439, djboiano@gmail.com, mudslinger.org/bba-2023FLORIDA

DELAWARE

Flat Track - Short Track: May 27. New Castle. Airport Short Track, Heart and Soul Racing

GEORGIA

Motocross: May 6. Dalton. Lazy River MX Southeast Area Qualifier, LRMX, Inc., 706-278-2868, teamsyd@aol.com, www.lazyrivermx.com Road Race: May 6 - 7. Bloomingdale. 2023 WERA Motorcycle Roadracing, WERA Motorcycle Roadracing, Inc., 770-720-5010, wera@wera.com, wera.com

Motocross: May 7. Dalton. Lazy River MX Southeast Area Qualifier, LRMX, Inc., 706-278-2868, teamsyd@aol.com, www.lazyrivermx.com

Motocross: May 13. Union Point. Durhamtown MX Series, Durhamtown Off Road Park, 706-486-0091, robin@durhamtown.com, www.durhamtown.com

Motocross: May 14. Washington. BIG/SAS Series, Aonia Pass MX Motocross: May 20. Union Point. Durhamtown MX Series, Durhamtown Off Road Park, 706-486-0091, robin@durhamtown.com, www.durhamtown.com

Road Race: May 26 - 28. Braselton. 2023 WERA Motorcycle Roadracing, WERA Motorcycle Roadracing, Inc., 770-720-5010, wera@wera.com, wera.com

IDAHO

Road Ride/Run: May 6. Boise. Awareness Rally, Idaho Coalition for Motorcycle Safety, 208-5734191, stixplatt@gmail.com, www.idahobikerrights. com

Road Ride/Run: May 20. Kamiah. Annual Bun Cooler, Concours Owners Group, jimsher70@gmail. com, https://concours.org/

ILLINOIS

Road Rally: May 4 - 6. Crystal Lake. Midwest Women Riders GYGO 2023, Midwest Women Riders NRP, 815-566-9192, mwriders@aol.com, https://

midwestwomenriders.com/events

Motocross: May 7. Casey. Thor Showdown Series, Lincoln Trail Motosports, 217-932-2041, drew@ lincolntrail.com, www.ridelincolntrail.com

Observed Trials: May 7. Pearl City. Pearl City Trials Event, NITRO-Northern Illinois Trials Riders Organization, 815-703-6555, warrenlange@yahoo. com, www.nitrotrials.com

Trail Ride: May 7. Ottawa. Egg Hunt, Variety Riders Motorcycle Club Inc, 815-434-3669, varietyriders@ yahoo.com, varietyriders.com

Motocross: May 20 - 21. Du Quoin. Indian Hills MX North Central Area Qualifier, Indian Hills MX LLC

Grand Prix: May 20. Wedron. Fox Valley Off Road Series, Moto Pro Inc., 815-884-9361, megatraxs.com

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 21. Wedron. Fox Valley Off Road Series, Moto Pro Inc., 815-8849361, megatraxs.com

Motocross: May 27 - 28. Walnut. AMA ATV Motocross National Championship Series, 4P Promotions, Inc., 815-379-9534, jan@sunsetridgemx.com, www.sunsetridgemx.com

Flat Track - TT: May 27. Neoga. TT Race, Central Illinois M/C, 217-246-7154

Flat Track - TT: May 28. Neoga. TT Race, Central Illinois M/C, 217-246-7154

Motocross: May 28 - 29. Casey. Thor Spring Shootout, Lincoln Trail Motosports, 217-932-2041, drew@ridelincolntrail.com, www.ridelincolntrail.com

Flat Track - TT: May 29. Neoga. TT Race, Central Illinois M/C, 217-246-7154

INDIANA

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 6 - 7. Crawfordsville. Grand National Cross Country Series - Hoosier, Racer Productions, Inc., 304-284-0084, info@gnccracing.com, www.gnccracing.com

Motocross: May 13 - 14. Crawfordsville. AMA ATV Motocross National Championship Series, MX Sports, Inc., 304-284-0084, info@atvmotocross. com, www.atvmotocross.com

Hillclimb: May 21. Middlebury. Spring Hill Climb, Goshen Iron Horsemen, 574-825-3399 jdcole15@yahoo.com, facebook.com/goshenironhorsemen

Charity Event: May 21. Columbia City. Safe Place Charity Event, Old Fort Motorcycle Club, 260-5046388, francerichard@netscape.net

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 21. Columbus. Stoney Lonesome Harescramble Series, Stoney Lonesome Motorcycle Club, 812-343-4411, info@stoneylonesomemc.com, www.stoneylonesomemc.com

Motocross: May 26. Pierceton. Reads Racing Motocross - Night Race, Reads Racing Unlimited, Inc., 574-893-1649, reads1@myfrontiermail.com, www.readsracing.com

Motocross: May 27. Pierceton. Reads Racing Motocross - Night Race, Reads Racing Unlimited, Inc., 574-893-1649, reads1@myfrontiermail.com, www.readsracing.com

Motocross: May 28. Pierceton. Reads Racing Motocross - Day Race, Reads Racing Unlimited, Inc., 574-893-1649, reads1@myfrontiermail.com, www.readsracing.com

Motocross: May 28. Pierceton. Reads Racing Motocross - Night Race, Reads Racing Unlimited, Inc., 574-893-1649, reads1@myfrontiermail.com,

www.readsracing.com

Motocross: May 29. Pierceton. Reads Racing Motocross, Reads Racing Unlimited, Inc., 574893-1649, reads1@myfrontiermail.com, www. readsracing.com

IOWA

Motocross: May 7. Garwin. The Corn Belt Battle, Oak Ridge MX, 641-844-4849, oakridgemx@gmail. com, www.oakridgemx.com

KANSAS

Drag Race - Asphalt: May 6. Girard. Abate of Kansas District 3 Rally & Races, ABATE of Kansas, harleytower@aol.com, abateks.org

Motocross: May 13 - 14. Maize. 2003 Area

Qualifier, Bar 2 Bar MX Park, LLC, 316-744-5283, bruce@bar2barmx.com, www.bar2barmx.com

Grand Prix: May 28. Florence. Florence Kansas Grand Prix, Flint Hills Bent Rims MC, 620-382-6759, bruce@flinthillsbentrims.com, flinthillsbentrims.com

MARYLAND

Dual Sport: May 7. Little Orleans. Wild Bill Memorial Ride 2023, Western Maryland Motorcycle Association, 43-605-2938, westernmarylandmotorcycle@ gmail.com

Road Ride/Run: May 19 - 20. Cumberland. Spring Fling Rally, Concours Owners Group, cog62@ kaplitz.com, https://concours.org/

MASSACHUSETTS

Hillclimb: May 7. Monson. Season Opener, Quaboag Riders Inc, 413-267-4414, qrmc1944@ gmail.com

Motogiro: May 20 - 21. Berkshires of MA. MOTOGIRO USA, United States Classic Racing Association, 603-321-7271, race-uscra@yahoo.com

MICHIGAN

Trail Ride: May 6. Vermontville. Vermontville, Vintage Trails, Michigan Ontario Trials Association, 574-386-4061, mont@jeffersondentalcenter.com, www.moratrials.com

Road Race: May 6 - 7. Belding. 2023 WERA Motorcycle Roadracing, WERA Motorcycle Roadracing, Inc., 770-720-5010, wera@wera.com, wera.com

Enduro: May 7. Mancelona. 10 Pines Ranch - Sprint Enduro, 10 Pines Ranch LLC, 10pinesranch@gmail.com, 10pinesranch.com

Observed Trials: May 7. Vermontville. MOTA Championship, Michigan Ontario Trials Association, 574-386-4061, mot@jeffersondentalcenter.com, motatrials.com

Family Enduro: May 20. Lake City. Knotty Pine, Lansing Motorcycle Club, 517-490-8714, barclays@ michigan.gov, ansingmotorcycleclub.org

Motocross: May 20. Buchanan. RedBud MX, RedBud Recreation, Inc., 269-695-6405, info@ redbudmx.com, www.redbudmx.com

Observed Trials: May 21. Flushing. MOTA

Championship, Michigan Ontario Trials Association, 734-355-0637, fangnam70@hotmail.com, motatrials.com

Motocross: May 21. Buchanan. RedBud MX, RedBud Recreation, Inc., 269-695-6405, info@ redbudmx.com, www.redbudmx.com

MINNESOTA

Motocross: May 7. Cambridge. District 23 Motocross

COMING EVENTS

Be sure to check the event website or call the organizer for the latest information, including postponements or cancellations.

Series, BCMX Adventure Park, 612-280-8939, bcmxllc@hotmail.com, www.bcmxadventurepark.com

Observed Trials: May 7. Theilman. UMTA 2023 Events, Upper Midwest Trials Association, 651-2615977, bobbywarner@gmail.com, umta.org

Motocross: May 13 - 14. Little Falls. Little Falls Raceway North Central Area Qualifier, RM Promotions, 218-894-2826, motocity-rnr@hotmail.com, www.motocityraceway.com

Motocross: May 14. Brook Park. District 23 Motocross Series, Berm Benders Incorporated, 320-279-2238, bermbendersraceway@outlook.com, www.bermbendersraceway.com

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 14. Millville. Spring Creek/Larson’s Cycle/KTM Hare Scramble, Hi-Winders, 507-753-2779, springcreekmxoffice@ gmail.com, www.springcreekmotocross.com

Flat Track - Short Track: May 20. New Ulm. Flat Track Races, Flying Dutchmen Cycle Club, 507388-1671, dutchman65.as@gmail.com, flyingdutchmenmotorcycleclub.com

Motocross: May 21. Brook Park. District 23 Motocross Series, Berm Benders Incorporated, 320-279-2238, bermbendersraceway@outlook.com, www.bermbendersraceway.com

Flat Track - Short Track: May 21. New Ulm. Flat Track Practice, Flying Dutchmen Cycle Club, 507388-1671, dutchman65.as@gmail.com, flyingdutchmenmotorcycleclub.com

Motocross: May 21. Mankato. District 23 Motocross Series, Kato Cycle Club, 507-380-0428, katocycleclub@gmail.com, www.katocycleclub.com

Motocross: May 28. Millville. Super Series Round

3 sponsored by ProKart Indoors & Meehan’s Juice Plus/Donny Schmit Memorial, Hi-Winders, 507753-2779, springcreekmxoffice@gmail.com, www. springcreekmx.com

Motocross: May 29. Millville. Super Series Round 4 sponsored by Hot Kote, Hi-Winders, 507-753-2779, springcreekmxoffice@gmail.com, www.springcreekmx.com

MISSOURI

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 7. Park Hills. Leadbelt Hare Scrambles, Missouri Mudders, 636639-6373, michael.silger@momudders.com, www. momudders.com

Adventure Ride: May 20 - 21. Bixby. Show Me 500, Midwest Trail Riders Association, 314-409-6936, ridemtra@hotmail.com, ridemtra.com

Dual Sport: May 20 - 21. Bixby. Show Me 200, Midwest Trail Riders Association, 314-409-6936, ridemtra@hotmail.com, ridemtra.com

Motocross: May 21. Huntsville. HLR Motorsports, HLR Motorsports, Inc., 660-263-4321, hlrmotorsports@gmail.com, www.hlrmotorsports.net

Road Race: May 22. Loudon. USCRA Vintage GP, United States Classic Racing Association, raceuscra@yahoo.com, www.race-uscra.com

NEW JERSEY

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 6 - 7. Millville. Ormond Farms Hare Scramble, Competition Dirt Riders, 609-319-7496, davebostrom@comcast. net, www.eceacompetitiondirtriders.com

Motocross: May 7. Millville. Field of Dreams MX Field of Dreams MX, LLC, info@njmpfod.com, www. njmpfod.com

Motocross: May 20. Englishtown. Raceway Park Motocross Saturday Night Lights Series, Raceway

Park, 732-446-7800, racewaypark1965@gmail.com, www.racewaypark.com

Motocross: May 21. Englishtown. Raceway Park Motocross, Raceway Park, 732-446-7800, racewaypark1965@gmail.com, www.racewaypark.com

NEW MEXICO

Road Race: May 6 - 7. Deming. ASMA Championship Series, Arroyo Seco Motorcyclist Association, 575-494-4794, roger@asmaracing.com, asmaracing.com

Motocross: May 20 - 21. Moriarty. Moriarty MX Southwest Area Qualifier, J-Land MX, LLC, 505306-7269

NEW YORK

Motocross: May 6 - 7. Wallkill. Walden MX Northeast Area Qualifier, Walden MX, admin@waldenmx. com, www.mxwalden.com

Observed Trials: May 7. Erin. D4 Observed Trials, District 4 Trials Committee, 607-846-0829, bejaminelectrict247@yahoo.com, d4mototrials. weebly.com

Motocross: May 7. Greig. High Voltage Hills MX, High Voltage Hills MX, 315-725-0368, nzielinski74@ gmail.com, www.highvoltagehillsmx.com

Flat Track - Short Track: May 13. Ballston Spa. AMA Vintage National Flat Track, Echo Valley Riders Club/Steve Flach, sflach@camppinnacle.org, albany-saratogaspeedway.com

Flat Track - Short Track: May 14. Ballston Spa. AMA Vintage National Flat Track, Echo Valley Riders Club/Steve Flach, sflach@camppinnacle.org, albany-saratogaspeedway.com

Trail Ride: May 20 - 21. Hancock. Spring Family Fun Ride, Bear Creek Sportsmen, 908-334-1637, bearcreeksportsmen@yahoo.com, bearcreeksportsmen.com

Road Rally: May 30 - Jun. 4. Lake George. Americade 2023, Americade, 518-798-0858, christian@ americade.com, americade.com

OHIO

Motocross: May 6 - 7. Nashport. Lorretta Lynn’s M.E. Area Qualifier, Briarcliff Motocross, LLC, 740-763-2047, josborn@briarcliffmx.com, www. briarcliffmx.com

Road Ride/Run: May 20. Ashtabula. RTE/OH, Hoagy’s Heroes, Inc, (440) 964-2273, hoagy@ hoagysheroes.org, hoagysheroes.org

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 20 - 21. Millfield. Grand National Cross Country Series - The John Penton, Racer Productions, Inc., 304-2840084, info@gnccracing.com, www.gnccracing.com

OKLAHOMA

Motocross: May 6 - 7. Wellston. Reynard Raceway South Central Area Qualifier, Reynard Raceway, 405-793-1049, reynardraceway@gmail.com, www. reynardraceway.com

OREGON

Trail Ride: May 6. Bend. Joker Poker Run, Central Oregon Motorcycle & ATV Club, 541-408-1304, dobhigh@bendbroadband.com, N/A

PENNSYLVANIA

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 6. Skippack. Blue Comet Spring Race, Blue Comet Motorcycle Club, 610-489-1240, bcmcnomad@verizon.net, bluecometmc.com

Flat Track - Short Track: May 6. York Haven. Vintage National & District 6 Race, Shippensburg MC, 717-503-8030, candybaer@comcast.net, baermotorsports.com

Motocross: May 7. Shippensburg. Doublin Gap - MDRA Series, Doublin Gap Motocross, Inc., 717-249-6036, doublingap@gmail.com, www. doublingap.com

Motocross: May 13 - 14. Birdsboro. Pagoda MX Northeast Area Qualifier, Pagoda Motorcycle Club, 610-582-3717, pagodamc@gmail.com, www. pagodamc.org

Trail Ride: May 13. Spring Grove. 3rd Annual Spring Trail Ride, White Rose MC, 717-229-2621, ysci76@aol.com, www.whiterosemc.org

Flat Track - TT: May 14. Parkesburg. Piston Poppers TT, E PA Piston Poppers MC Inc, 610-6560315, pistonpoppersmc@hotmail.com, pistonpoppersmc.com

Road Ride/Run: May 20. Oley. Round Robin Poker Run, Reading Motorcycle Club, Inc., 610-987-6422, ggritt@gmail.com, readingmc.com

Extreme Off-Road: May 27 - 28. Tamaqua. Tough Like RORR/US Hard Enduro Series East, Reading Off Road Riders, 844-440-RORR, jim.grafius@ gmail.com, www.rorr.org

SOUTH CAROLINA

Enduro: May 27. Carlisle. FGSE - RD4 Revolution MX Park, Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series, 919-2381627, info@fullgasenduro.com, sprintenduro.com

TENNESSEE

Motocross: May 27 - 28. Blountville. Muddy Creek Southeast Youth Regional Championship, Victory Sports Inc, 423-323-5497, jane@victory-sports.com, www.victory-sports.com

TEXAS

Motocross: May 6. Red Rock. 2023 Main Event Championship Series, EMX, LLC, 832-646-2455, EmxMoto@gmail.com, www.EMXonline.com

Motocross: May 13 - 14. Conroe. 3 Palms Track and Trail Spring Classic, E.S.E. We Make Tracks Inc, 936-321-8725, info@threepalmsesp.com, www. threepalmsesp.com

Motocross: May 20. Del Valle. 2023 Main Event Championship Series, EMX, LLC, 832-646-2455, EmxMoto@gmail.com, www.EMXonline.com

Motocross: May 21. Del Valle. 2023 Main Event Championship Series, EMX, LLC, 832-646-2455, EmxMoto@gmail.com, www.EMXonline.com

Motocross: May 27 - 28. Wortham. Freestone Raceway South Central Amateur Regional Championship, Freestone County Raceway LLC, 713-962-3386, freestonemx@gmail.com, www. freestonemx.com

UTAH

Trail Ride: May 19 - 20. Waitsburg. Sunset Cruise and Karen’s Ride, Waitsburg Celebration Days Association, 701-269-1133, waitsburgcd@gmail.com, www.waitsburgcd.com

Motocross: May 27 - 28. Washougal. Washougal MX Park Northwest Youth/Amateur Regional Championship, Washougal MX Park, LLC, 360-837-3975, www.washougalmxpk.com

VIRGINIA

Motocross: May 13 - 14. Axton. Lake Sugar Tree

Motorsports Park Southeast Area Qualifier, Lake Sugar Tree Motorsports Park, 276-650-1158, lakesugartree@gmail.com, www.lakesugartree.com

Motocross: May 13 - 14. Disputanta. MAMA MX Series, Middle Atlantic Motocross Association, Inc., 919-259-4890, vsecretary@mamamx.com, www. mamamx.com

WASHINGTON

Trail Ride: May 19 - 20. Waitsburg. Sunset Cruise and Karen’s Ride, Waitsburg Celebration Days Association, 701-269-1133, waitsburgcd@gmail.com, www.waitsburgcd.com

Motocross: May 27 - 28. Washougal. Washougal MX Park Northwest Youth/Amateur Regional Championship, Washougal MX Park, LLC, 360-837-3975, www.washougalmxpk.com

WEST VIRGINIA

Motocross: May 14. Hedgesville. Capitol Cup MX Series, Tomahawk MX, LLC, 304-582-8185, www. tomahawkmx.com

WISCONSIN

Motocross: May 6 - 7. Tigerton. Tigerton MX North Central Area Qualifier, Fantasy Moto LLC, 920-4192863, scottyb@fantasymoto.com, www.tigertonmx. com

Motocross: May 13. Lake Mills. Twilight Races, Aztalan Cycle Club, Inc., www.aztalanmx.com

Hare Scrambles/Cross Country: May 13. Mazomanie. 2023 Peat Bog Beat Down, Madison Motorcycle Club, 608-575-1775, speedy28x@gmail. com, madisonmotorcycleclub.org

Motocross: May 14. Lake Mills. District 16 Motocross Series, Aztalan Cycle Club, Inc., www. aztalanmx.com

Flat Track - TT: May 20. Barnett. District 16 TT, Beaver Cycle Club, Inc., 920-319-6889, facebook/ beavercycleclub

Motocross: May 20. Mountain. Motosplat Knats, Fantasy Moto LLC, 920-419-2863, scottyb@fantasymoto.com, www.tigertonmx.com

Observed Trials: May 20. Wauzeka. Wauzeka

MotoTrials, Wisconsin Observed Trials Association, 319-330-8016, nursehuber@aol.com, wisconsintrials.org

Motocross: May 21. Mountain. Motosplat Knats, Fantasy Moto LLC, 920-419-2863, scottyb@fantasymoto.com, www.tigertonmx.com

Observed Trials: May 21. Wauzeka. Wauzeka

MotoTrials, Wisconsin Observed Trials Association, 319-330-8016, nursehuber@aol.com, wisconsintrials.org

SUPERCROSS

2023 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship supercrosslive.com

Round 16: May 6. Denver, Colo. Empower Field at Mile High

Round 17: May 13. Salt Lake City, Utah. Rice-Eccles Stadium

Supercross Futures AMA National Championship supercrossfutures.com

May 13. Salt Lake City, Utah. Rice-Eccles Stadium MOTOCROSS

2023 Pro Motocross Championship promotocross.com

Round 1: May 27. Pala, Calif. Fox Raceway

COMING EVENTS

Be sure to check the event website or call the organizer for the latest information, including postponements or cancellations.

Round 2: June 3. Sacramento, Calif. Hangtown

Motocross

Round 3: June 10. Lakewood, Colo. Thunder Valley Motocross Park

Round 4: June 17. Mount Morris, Pa. High Point

Raceway

Round 5: July 1. Buchanan, Mich. RedBud MX

Round 6: July 8. Southwick, Mass. The Wick 338

Round 7: July 15. Millville, Minn. Spring Creek MX

Park

Round 8: July 22. Washougal, Wash. Washougal

MX Park

Round 9: Aug 12. New Berlin, N.Y.

Unadilla MX

Round 10: Aug 19. Mechanicsville, Md.

Budds Creek Motocross Park

Round 11: Aug 26. Crawfordsville, Ind. Ironman

Raceway

SUPERMOTOCROSS

2023 SuperMotocross Championship

https://supermotocross.com

Sept. 9. Charlotte, N.C. zMAX Dragway

Sept. 16. Joliet, Ill. Chicagoland Speedway

Sept. 23. Los Angeles, Calif. Los Angeles Memorial

Coliseum

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship, mxsports.com

July 31-Aug. 5. Hurricane Mills, Tenn. Loretta Lynn

Ranch

Northeast Area Qualifiers

May 6-7. Wallkill, N.Y. Walden Motocross.

May 13-14. Birdsboro, Pa. Pagoda MX.

Northeast Regionals

Amateur: June 9-11. Mechanicsville, Md. Budds Creek.

Youth: June 23-25. New Berlin, N.Y. Unadilla MX.

Southeast Area Qualifiers

May 6-7. Dalton, Ga. Lazy River MX.

May 13-14. Axton, Va. Lake Sugar Tree Motorsports Park.

Southeast Regionals

Youth: May 26-28. Blountville, Tenn. Muddy Creek.

Amateur: June 2-4. Alachua, Fla. Gatorback Cycle Park.

Mid-East Area Qualifiers

May 6-7. Nashport, Ohio. Briarcliff MX.

May 13-14. Sebree, Ky. Echo Valley MX.

Mid-East Regionals

Amateur: June 2-4. Buchanan, Mich. RedBud MX.

Youth: June 9-11. Millington, Mich. Baja Acres.

North Central Area Qualifiers

May 6-7. Tigerton, Wis. Motozone.

May 13-14. Little Falls, Minn. Little Falls Raceway.

May 13-14. Maize, Kan. Bar 2 Bar MX.

May 20-21. Du Quoin, Ill. Indian Hills.

North Central Regionals

Amateur: June 9-11. Millville, Minn. Spring Creek.

Youth: June 23-25. Casey, Ill. Lincoln Trail Motosports.

South Central Area Qualifiers

May 6-7. Wellston, Okla. Reynard Raceway.

South Central Regionals

Amateur: May 26-28. Wortham, Texas. Freestone Raceway.

Youth: June 16-18. Ponca City, Okla. Ponca City.

Northwest Regional

Youth/Amateur: May 26-28. Washougal, Wash. Washougal MX Park.

Midwest Regional

Youth/Amateur: June 9-11. Rancho Cordova, Calif. Prairie City OHV.

Southwest Area Qualifiers

May 13. Pala, Calif. Fox Raceway.

May 20-21. Moriarty, N.M. Moriarty MX.

Southwest Regional

Youth/Amateur: June 2-4. Pala, Calif. Fox Raceway.

AMA ATV Motocross National Championship Series, atvmotocross.com

Round 5: May 13-14. Crawfordsville, Ind. Ironman Raceway.

Round 6: May 27-28. Walnut, Ill. Sunset Ridge MX Round 7: June 17-18. Mechanicsville, Md. Budds Creek Raceway.

Round 8: July 1-2. Seward, Pa. Pleasure Valley Raceway.

Round 9: July 22-23. Nashport, Ohio. Briarcliff MX.

Round 10: Aug. 12-13. Hurricane Mills, Tenn. Loretta Lynn Ranch.

AMA Vintage Motocross Grand Championship amavintagemotorcycledays.com

July 22-23. Lexington, Ohio. Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

MAJOR EVENTS

Mammoth Motocross

June 16-25. Mammoth Lakes, Calif. Mammoth Mountain. (559) 500-5360. 2xpromotions.com

FEATURED EVENTS OR SERIES

Thor Spring Shootout

May 28-29. Casey, Ill. Lincoln Trail Motosports. (217) 932-2041. ridelincolntrail.com

Maine Event

Aug. 26-27. Lyman, Maine. MX 207. (781) 8312207. mx207.com

Baja Brawl

Sept. 1-4. Millington, Mich. Baja Acres. (989) 8713356. bajaacres.com

Yamaha All-Star Pro-Am/Cobra Cup/MDRA Series:

Sept. 9-10. Shippensburg, Pa. Doublin Gap MX Park. (717) 249-6036. doublingap.com

ChilliTown Classic:

Sept. 12-17. Chillicothe, Ohio. ChilliTown MX. (513) 266-2866. chillitownmx.com

47th Annual Race of Champions sponsored by Kawasaki:

Sept. 29-Oct. 1. Englishtown, N.J. Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. (732) 446-7800. racewaypark.com

The Motoplayground Race at Ponca City

Oct. 5-8. Ponca City, Okla. Ponca City MX. (816) 582-4113. poncamx.com

Top Gun Showdown/Mega Series

Oct. 15. Blountville, Tenn. Muddy Creek Raceway. (423) 323-5497. victory-sports.com

Cash for Class Scholarship Race

Nov. 11-12. Cairo, Ga. GPF. (810) 348-8700.

gpfmx.com

PRO-AM EVENTS

Pro-Am Schedule

AMA Area Qualifier *DOUBLE POINTS: May 7. Dalton, Ga. Lazy River MX. (706) 278-2868. lazyrivermx.com

The Corn Belt Battle: May 7. Garwin, Iowa. Oak Ridge MX. (641) 844-4849. oakridgemx.com

Spring Shootout MX Championship: May 28-29. Casey, Ill. Lincoln Trail Motosports. (217) 932-2041. ridelincolntrail.com

MAMA MX Series: June 3-4. Hedgesville, W. Va. Tomahawk MX. (443) 669-3007. mamamx.com

Mid-Minnesota Challenge/District 23 Motocross Series: June 4. Cambridge, Minn. BCMX Adventure Park. (612) 280-8939. bcmxadventurepark.com

Mammoth Motocross: June 16-25. Mammoth Lakes, Calif. Mammoth Mountain. (559) 500-5360. 2xpromotions.com

RedBud Amateur Day: July 2. Buchanan, Mich. RedBud MX. (269) 695-6405. redbudmx.com

Aztalan Cycle Club Pro-Am: July 9. Lake Mills, Wis. Aztalan Cycle Club. aztalanmx.com

AMA Tennessee State Championship/Mega Series: July 16. Blountville, Tenn. Muddy Creek Raceway. (423) 323-5497. victory-sports.com

MSC Championship MX Series: July 23. Carlisle, N.Y. Diamondback MX @ The Ranch at Carlisle (845) 554-8717. diamondback-motocross.com

MDRA Series: Aug. 13. Pine Grove, Pa. Dutchmen MX. (570) 915-4141. dutchmenmxpark.com

District 17 Motocross Series: Aug. 13. Walnut, Ill. Sunset Ridge MX. (815) 379-9534. sunsetridgemx. com

Maine Event: Aug. 26-27. Lyman, Maine. MX 207. (781) 831-2207. mx207.com

Baja Brawl: Sept. 1-4. Millington, Mich. Baja Acres. (989) 871-3356. bajaacres.com

Yamaha All-Star Pro-Am/Cobra Cup/MDRA Series: Sept. 9-10. Shippensburg, Pa. Doublin Gap MX Park. (717) 249-6036. doublingap.com

ChilliTown Classic: Sept. 17. Chillicothe, Ohio. ChilliTown MX. (513) 266-2866. chillitownmx.com

Travis Pastrana Pro-Am Challenge: Sept. 23-24. Seward, Pa. Pleasure Valley Raceway. (814) 3176686. pvrmx.com

AMA Georgia State Championship/Mega/BIG/ SAS Series *DOUBLE POINTS: Sept. 24. Dalton, Ga. Lazy River MX. (706) 278-2868. lazyrivermx.com

47th Annual Race of Champions sponsored by Kawasaki: Sept. 29-Oct. 1. Englishtown, N.J. Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. (732) 446-7800. racewaypark.com

The Motoplayground Race at Ponca City: Oct. 5-8. Ponca City, Okla. Ponca City MX. (816) 5824113. poncamx.com

Top Gun Showdown/Mega Series: Oct. 15. Blountville, Tenn. Muddy Creek Raceway. (423) 323-5497. victory-sports.com

Tony Miller Memorial Race: Oct. 21-22. Wortham, Texas. Freestone County Raceway LLC. (713) 9623386. freestonemx.com

AMA Texas State Championship: Oct. 28-29. Conroe, Texas. 3 Palms Action Sports Park. (936) 321-8725. threepalmsesp.com

AMA South Carolina State Championship/Mega Series: Nov. 12. Hamer, S.C. South of the Border

MX. (423) 323-5497. victory-sports.com

STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS

AMA Maine State Championship: June 4. Lyman, Maine. MX 207. (781) 831-2207. mx207.com

AMA Tennessee State Championship: July 16. Blountville, Tenn. Muddy Creek Raceway. (423) 323-5497. victory-sports.com

AMA Virginia State Championship: Aug. 13. Axton, Va. Lake Sugar Tree Motorsports Park. (276) 650-1158. lakesugartree.com

AMA New York State Championship: Aug. 19-20. Greig, N.Y. High Voltage Hills MX. (315) 725-0368. highvoltagehillsmx.com

AMA New Jersey State Championship: Aug. 20. Englishtown, N.J. Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. (732) 446-7800. racewaypark.com

AMA New York ATV State Championship: Aug. 26-27. Greig, N.Y. High Voltage Hills MX. (315) 7250368. highvoltagehillsmx.com

AMA Georgia State Championship: Sept. 24. Dalton, Ga. Lazy River MX. (706) 278-2868. lazyrivermx.com

AMA Kentucky State Championship: Sept. 24. Leitchfield, Ky. South Fork Motoplex. (270) 2302005. southforkmotoplex.com

AMA Maryland State Championship: Oct. 8. Mechanicsville, Md. Budds Creek MX. (443) 223-9171. buddscreek.com

AMA West Virginia State Championship: Oct. 22. Hedgesville, W. Va. Tomahawk MX. (304) 582-8185. tomahawkmx.com

AMA Texas State Championship: Oct. 28-29. Conroe, Texas. 3 Palms Action Sports Park. (936) 321-8725. threepalmsesp.com

AMA South Carolina State Championship: Nov.

12. Hamer, S.C. South of the Border MX. (423) 3235497. victory-sports.com

AMA California State Championship Series, 2xpromotions.com

Road to Mammoth Round 5: May 7. Rancho Cordova, Calif. Prairie City OHV.

Road to Mammoth Round 6 LCQ: May 14. Pala, Calif. Fox Raceway.

TRACK RACING

2023 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship motoamerica.com

Round 2: May 19-21. Leeds, Ala. Barber Motorsports Park

Round 3: June 2-4. Elkhart Lake, Wis. Road

America

Round 4: June 23-25. Shelton, Wash. Ridge Motorsports Park

Round 5: July 7-9. Monterey, Calif. Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca

Round 6: July 28-30. Brainerd, Minn. Brainerd

International Raceway

Round 7: Aug. 18-20. Wampum, Pa. Pittsburgh

International Race Complex

Round 8: Sept. 8-10. Austin, Texas. Circuit of the Americas

Round 9: Sept. 22-24. Millville, N.J. New Jersey Motorsports Park

2023 Progressive American Flat Track americanflattrack.com

Round 6: May 6. Ventura, Calif. Ventura Raceway. Short Track

Round 7: May 13. Sacramento, Calif. Cal Expo. Mile

Round 8: May 27. Lexington, Ky. The Red Mile. Mile

Round 9: June 17. Du Quoin, Ill. Du Quoin State Fairgrounds. Mile

Round 10: June 24. Lima, Ohio. Allen County Fairgrounds. Half-Mile

Round 11: July 1, West Virginia Motor Speedway, Mineral Wells, Va. Half-Mile

Round 12: July 8. Middletown, N.Y. Orange County Fair Speedway. Half-Mile

Round 13: July 22. Bridgeport, N.J. Bridgeport Speedway. Half-Mile

Round 14: July 30. Peoria, Ill. Peoria Motorcycle Club. TT

Round 15: Aug. 6. Sturgis, S.D. Buffalo Chip. TT

Round 16: Aug. 12. Castle Rock, Wash. Castle Rock Race Park. TT

Round 17: Sept. 2. Springfield, Ill. Illinois State Fairgrounds. Mile I

Round 18: Sept. 3. Springfield, Ill. Illinois State Fairgrounds. Mile II

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

2023 Mission Foods AMA Flat Track Grand Championship americanmotorcyclist.com/flat-track-racing

June 14-20. Du Quoin, Ill. Du Quoin State Fairgrounds

AMA Vintage Road Race Grand Championship amavintagemotorcycledays.com

July 22-23. Lexington, Ohio. Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship facebook.com/MonsonMonster/

Aug. 4-6. Monson, Ma. Monson Monster

AMA Supermoto National Championship Series amasupermotonational.com

Round 2: June 3. Dacono, Colo. Colorado National Speedway

Round 3: June 4. Dacono, Colo. IMI Motorsports Complex

Round 4: Aug. 8. Sturgis, S.D. Jackpine Gypsies

Round 5: Sept. 24. Plymouth, Wis. Briggs & Stratton Motorplex at Road America.

Rounds 6 & 7: Nov. 4-5. Tucson, Ariz. Musselman Honda Circuit

AMA Super Hooligan National Championship Series superhooligan.com

Rounds 3-4: June 23-25. Shelton, Wash. Ridge Motorsports Park

Rounds 5-6: July 7-9. Salinas, Calif. WeatherTech Raceway. Laguna Seca

Rounds 7-8: Sept. 8-10. Austin, Texas. Circuit of the Americas

AMA Vintage Flat Track National Championship Series, americanmotorcyclist.com/flat-trackracing/

Round 5: May 6. York Haven, Pa. BAPS Speedway (Short Track). (717) 503-8030. baermotorsports.com

Round 6: May 13. Ballston Spa, N.Y. AlbanySaratoga Speedway (Short Track). (518) 727-0311. albany-saratogaspeedway.com

Round 7: May 14. Ballston Spa, N.Y. AlbanySaratoga Speedway (Short Track). (518) 727-0311. albany-saratogaspeedway.com

Round 8: June 10. Bloomsburg, Pa. Bloomsburg Fairgrounds (Short Track). (717) 503-8030.

baermotorsports.com

Round 9: June 16. Harpursville, N.Y. SDR Raceway (Short Track). (607) 725-3069. squaredealriders.com

Round 10: June 17. Harpursville, N.Y. SDR Raceway (Short Track). (607) 725-3069. squaredealriders.com

Round 11: June 23. Greenville, Ohio. Darke County Fairgrounds (Half-Mile). (850) 637-5838. darkecountyfair.com

Round 12: June 25. Greenville, Ohio. Darke County Fairgrounds (Half-Mile). (850) 637-5838. darkecountyfair.com

Round 13: July 22. Ashland, Ohio. Ashland County Fairgrounds (Half-Mile). (614) 856-1900. americanmotorcyclist.com/flat-track-racing/

Round 14: Aug. 12. Salem, Ohio. Western Reserve Motorcycle Club (Short Track). (330) 7605960. westernreservemc.com

Round 15: Aug. 31. Springfield, Ill. Illinois State Fairgrounds (Short Track). 270-442-7532. stevenaceracing.com

Round 16: Sept. 23. Cuddebackville, N.Y.

Oakland Valley Race Park (Short Track). (845) 219-1193. tristateclub.net

Round 17: Sept. 24. Cuddebackville, N.Y.

Oakland Valley Race Park (Short Track). (845) 219-1193. tristateclub.net

FEATURED EVENTS OR SERIES

AMA AHDRA Featured Series, raceahdra.com

Round 3: June 9-11. Thompson, Ohio. Kuhnle Motorsports Park

Round 4: July 28-30. Milan, Mich. Milan Dragway

Round 5: Aug. 6-8. Sturgis, S.D. Sturgis Dragway

Round 6: Sept. 8-10. Rising Sun, Md. Cecil County Dragway

Round 7: Oct. 27-29. Rockingham, N.C. Rockingham Dragway

OFF-ROAD

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

Grand National Cross Country Championship, gnccracing.com

Round 6: Hoosier – May 6-7. Crawfordsville, Ind. Ironman Raceway.

Round 7: The John Penton – May 20-21. Millfield, Ohio. Sunday Creek Raceway.

Round 8: Mason-Dixon – June 3-4. Mount Morris, Pa. Mathews Farm.

Round 9: Snowshoe – June 23-25. Snowshoe, W. Va. Snowshoe Mountain Resort.

Round 10: The Mountaineer – Sept. 15-17. Beckley, W. Va. Summit Bechtel Reserve.

Round 11: Buckwheat 100 – Oct. 6-8. Newburg, W. Va. CJ Raceway.

Round 12: Ironman – Oct. 20-22. Crawfordsville, Ind. Ironman Raceway.

AMA National Grand Prix Championship Series, ngpcseries.com

Round 7: May 19-21. Delta, Utah.

Round 8: Aug. 18-20. Preston, Idaho.

Round 9: Sept. 30-Oct. 1. Ridgecrest, Calif.

Round 10: Nov. 10-12. Lake Havasu, Ariz.

AMA National Hare and Hound Championship Series, nationalhareandhound.com

Round 5: Sept. 9. Panaca, Nev.

Round 6: Oct. 21-22. Lucerne Valley, Calif.

COMING EVENTS

Be sure to check the event website or call the organizer for the latest information, including postponements or cancellations.

AMA National Enduro Championship Series, nationalenduro.com

Round 4: Dragons Back National – May 14. Arrington, Va. (757) 357-5665. oakridgeestate.com

Round 5: Cherokee National – June 11. Greensboro, Ga. (770) 540-2891 cherokeeenduroriders.com

Round 6: Rattlesnake National – July 23. Cross Fork, Pa. (610) 883-7607. ber.us

Round 7: Little Raccoon National – Sept. 10. Wellston, Ohio. (740) 357-0350. adrohio.org

Round 8: Muddobbers National – Oct. 1. Matthews, Ind. (765) 998-2236.

muddobbersmc.org

Round 9: Gobbler Better National – Oct. 29. Stanton, Ala. (334) 267-2463. perrymountainmotorcycleclub.com

AMA/NATC National MotoTrials Championship, www.mototrials.com

Rounds 3-4: May 27-28, Canon City, Colo.

Rounds 5-6: June 3-4, Tillamook, Ore.

Rounds 7-8: July 29-30, Exeter, R.I.

AMA Vintage Hare Scrambles Grand Championship amavintagemotorcycledays.com

July 21. Lexington, Ohio. Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

AMA Vintage Trials Grand Championship amavintagemotorcycledays.com

July 23. Lexington, Ohio. Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

AMA US Sprint Enduro Championship, ussprintenduro.com

Round 7: May 27-28. Dilliner, Pa. High Voltage.

Round 8: June 17-18. Bristol, Va. Harleywood.

AMA West Extreme Off-Road Championship, ushardenduro.com

Round 5: June 17-18. Norden, Calif.

Round 6: June 22-24. Kellogg, Idaho.

AMA East Extreme Off-Road Championship, ushardenduro.com

Round 2: May 6-7. Little Hocking, Ohio.

Round 3: May 27-28. Tamaqua, Pa.

Round 4: May 29. Sugarloaf, Pa.

AMA/NATC East Youth/Women’s MotoTrials Championship, trialstrainingcenter.com

June 30–July 2. Sequatchie, Tenn. Trials Training Center.

AMA/NATC West Youth/Women’s MotoTrials Championship, trialstrainingcenter.com

June 16–18. Kingman, Ariz. Hualapai Mountain Park Campground.

AMA West Hare Scrambles Championship, westharescramble.com

Round 3: May 6-7. Prineville, Ore.

Round 4: June 3-4. Heppner, Ore.

Round 5: June 17-18. Bellingham, Wash.

Round 6: TBD

Round 7: Oct. 7-8 Washougal, Wash.

Round 8: Nov. 18-19. Wilseyville, Calif.

FEATURED EVENTS OR SERIES

AMA Florida Enduro Championship Series floridatrailriders.org

June 4. Greensboro, Ga. Cherokee Enduro Riders,

(678) 572-7260, hill6164@bellsouth.net.

NATIONAL RECREATIONAL

2023 Beta AMA National Dual Sport Series americanmotorcyclist.com/nationaladventure-riding

May 20-21. Show Me 200. Bixby, Mo. Midwest Trail Riders Association. (314) 409-6936 ridemtra.com

2023 AMA National Adventure Riding Series americanmotorcyclist.com/national-adventureriding

May 20-21. Show Me 500. Bixby, Mo. Midwest Trail Riders Association. (314) 409-6936 ridemtra.com

June 3-4. Durty Dabbers Great Adventure. Lock Haven, Pa. Durty Dabbers Motorcycle Club. (570) 748-9456 durtydabbers.com

June 10-11. Ride for Research. Wabeno, Wis. Wisconsin Dual Sport Riders. (920) 350-2030 widualsportriders.org

June 24-25. Big Bear Run. Big Bear Lake, Calif. Big Bear Trail Riders. (818) 391-3031. bigbeartrailriders. com

Sept. 9-10. Blue Ridge. Pineola, N.C. Appalachian Trail Riders. (704) 309-3271 carolinadualsporters. com/2023-pineola-blue-ridge-adventure-ride

Sept. 16-17. Buffaloe 500. Columbus, Ind. Stoney Lonesome Motorcycle Club. (812) 342-4411 stoneylonesomemc.com

Sept. 23-24. Big Woods 200. Wabeno, Wis. Wisconsin Dual Sport Riders. (920) 350-2030 widualsportriders.org

Sept. 29-30. Shasta ADV Rally. Redding, Calif. Redding Dirt Riders. (530) 227-1581 reddingdirtriders.com

Oct. 14-15. Fire Works and Fire Hoses. Langsville, Ohio. Enduro Riders of Ohio. (740) 506-1288. enduroriders.com

Oct. 28-29. Cross-Florida Adventure. Daytona Beach, Fla. Dixie Dual Sport. (727) 919-8299 dixiedualsport.com

Nov. 24-25. LA – Barstow to Vegas. Palmdale, Calif. AMA District 37 Dual Sport. (626) 684-2336 labarstowvegas.com

June 3-4. Durty Dabbers Great Adventure. Lock Haven, Pa. Durty Dabbers. (570) 748-9456 durtydabbers.com

June 10-11. Ride for Research. Wabeno, Wis. Wisconsin Dual Sport Riders. (920) 350-2030 widualsportriders.org

June 24-25. Baby Burr. New Plymouth, Ohio. Enduro Riders of Ohio. (740) 972-4214. enduroriders.com

June 24-25. Big Bear Run. Big Bear Lake, Calif. Big Bear Trail Riders. (818) 391-3031. bigbeartrailriders. com

July 15-16. Copperhead. Logan, Ohio. Hocking Valley Motorcycle Club. (614) 425-1943 hockingvalleymc. com

Sept. 9-10. LBL 200. Golden Pond, Ky. Thomas Brothers Promotions (KT Riders). (270) 350-6324. lbl200.com

Sept. 16-17. Buffaloe 500. Columbus, Ind. Stoney Lonesome Motorcycle Club. (812) 342-4411 stoneylonesomemc.com

Sept. 23-24. Mountain Madness. Flagstaff, Ariz. Coconino Trail Riders. (928) 225-5365 coconinotrailriders.org

Sept. 23-24. Big Woods 200. Wabeno, Wis. Wisconsin Dual Sport Riders. (920) 350-2030 widualsportriders.org

Sept. 29-30. Shasta ADV Rally. Redding, Calif. Redding Dirt Riders. (530) 227-1581 reddingdirtriders.com

Nov. 4-5. Howlin’ at the Moon. Prescott Valley, Ariz. Arizona Trail Riders. (602) 692-9382 arizonatrailriders.org

Nov. 4-5. Hammer Run. Port Elizabeth, N.J. TriCounty Sportsmen M.C. Inc. teamhammer.org

Nov. 24-25. LA – Barstow to Vegas. Palmdale, Calif. AMA District 37 Dual Sport. (626) 684-2336 labarstowvegas.com

Photo of Dave Roper by Bill Burke ©2022

AMA Trademarks

The following represents active, registered trademarks,trademarks and service marks of American Motorcyclist Association, Inc. (AMA). Usage of any AMA trademark or registered trademark without our permission is prohibited. Please contact jholter@ama-cycle.org for more information or assistance, (800) AMA-JOIN® • AMA Dragbike® •AMA Endurocross® • AMA Motorhead® • AMA Pro Grand National Championship® • AMA Pro Racing® • AMA Race Center™ • AMA Racer® • AMA Racing® • AMA Racing Land Speed Grand Championships® • AMA Supermoto® • AMA Supercross® AMA SX Lites® •

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Garage

Tips,Tweaks, Fixes and Facts: The two-wheeled ownership experience, explained

Surviving The Storm

Riding in the rain is challenging on multiple fronts. Here’s how to win.

BY MITCH BOEHM

Rainfall. It’s totally natural and happens over more than half the globe every single day — and we barely notice. It’s part of life.

But when it rains when you’re riding your motorcycle, all bets are off. Suddenly, the world becomes a more dangerous and much scarier place — for most of us, at least. Suddenly, traction is sketchy; your safety feels more tenuous; it’s often colder; and fear

becomes a dominating factor.

STREET SAVVY

It’s not so bad out in the country or on less-traveled routes. There you can move at a speed that matches the more limited grip you know is a reality, ride where you choose in the lane, and not be pushed along by traffic in front and behind you.

But in town it’s often ugly. There you’re dealing with cars and trucks in close proximity (few of whom feel the need to slow down much in the

wet, as their four-, six- or eighteen-wheel traction limits are far higher than yours); slippery painted lines; a layer of oil and grease on the tarmac; often-limited visibility; and all sorts of slippery little surprises, not least of which is folks not paying attention.

I commuted on a motorcycle daily in Los Angeles for the better part of 25 years, on surface streets and on the many freeways there, and while it didn’t rain that often, when it did it was truly diabolical. I learned a few things during

It’s most slick when it first starts raining thanks to oil residue from cars and trucks, so if you see drops, be extra careful.

er. Being wet and cold while trying to stay on top of things on the bike can be a big distraction, and one you don’t need when you’re dealing with the variables of a wet ride.

Your helmet is key to all this, and primarily the faceshield. You’ll want an anti-fog item, if possible, and a mechanism that allows an easy crack of the seal to keep any moisture from collecting.

RUBBER-SIDE DOWN

Quality and not-overly-worn tires are vital in any riding situation, but especially so in the wet. Touring, sport-touring, adventure-bike and most retro-bike tires are designed to deal with water dispersal, and if these are in good shape you’re ahead of the game when it comes to wet-weather traction.

Many sportbike tires, however, trade grooving for maximum slick-like surface area, which improves traction in the dry — a good thing — but does nothing for water dispersal, and can lead to hydroplaning when water’s part of the mix — a bad thing. Ever seen a road-racing rain tire? There’s a reason it looks more like a knobby than a slick.

SMOOTH & SILKY

Springtime here and many folks out riding in often-wet weather after the winter layoff, I figured I’d share some of them here.

GEAR MATTERS

First off, wear gear that’s not only highly conspicuous color-wise to other drivers in the rain and mist, but also bad-weather-friendly. Getting caught by a surprise downpour is one thing, but heading out into one from home without the right gear is quite anoth-

Riding smoothly and without herky-jerky inputs to the bars, controls and pegs are keys to going fast on the racetrack (that’s why the pros make it look so easy), but they take on supreme importance when it’s wet.

The reason for this, of course, is the limited traction your tires’ contact patches are dealing with in wet conditions, as abrupt movements can easily overwhelm that less-than-drypavement traction quotient and cause hydroplaning and an often-abrupt loss of traction.

It doesn’t help that there are extra-slick and -tricky elements to deal with, either. We’re talking things

like painted lines (crosswalks, centerlines, etc.), oil floating on the surface from everyday automobile droppings, manhole covers, leaves, puddles, asphalt ridges and potholes, etc. Intersections are extra ugly in this way.

The key to dealing with these issues (and there are many) is to focus on being smooth with every single control input you execute while on your motorcycle — again, there are many. That means, everything you do to affect the front end (steering, most braking, etc.) and rear wheel/drivetrain (acceleration, shifting, downshifting, braking, deceleration, etc.) of your motorcycle. It’s a lot of stuff.

We’ve written about optimal braking techniques and rev-matched downshifts in this space previously, but in the wet it’s even more important to do them smoothly and not break traction, as once lost it’s nearly impossible to regain.

The trick, then, is to roll the throttle on smoothly when accelerating; to squeeze (or push) the brake lever (or pedal) the same way…lightly at first to get the tire to bite, then progressively more firmly; to countersteer gently at first, and try to limit lean angle during cornering; to upshift smoothly, with a minimum of driveline lash; and to match revs when downshifting, releasing the clutch lever smoothly each time so there’s no break in traction of the rear tire.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

That’s a lot to deal with, for sure, but practicing when it’s dry, so that you’re comfortable with this level of care and smoothness when it’s wet, is a good strategy, and one that will pay dividends.

And above all? Slow down a bit! Not only will it give your tires a better chance to bite without the threat of hydroplaning, but you’ll see what’s out in front of you more clearly and have a better chance of dealing with sudden surprises when they do pop up — which they will. Hey, it’s part of life.

Being wet and cold while trying to stay on top of things on the bike can be a big distraction, and one you don’t need when you’re dealing with the variables of a wet ride. those years, and with

Garage

Basics Bicycle e

Curious? Here’s what you need to know.

BY AARON P. FRANK

Five years ago, few knew what an eBicycle was. Today you can’t walk to the end of your driveway without encountering a neighbor, cousin or old friend who won’t shut up about how an eBike changed their life. And now you can’t enter your favorite powersports dealership without tripping over a rack of sleek eBikes emblazoned with the logos of your favorite motorcycle manufacturer, whether it’s Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Yamaha, Triumph, Husqvarna, or even MV Agusta.

There’s even an AMA-sanctioned national championship racing series dedicated to eBikes…the Specialized Turbo eMTB GNCC National Championship, which runs from March to October each year.

Why is everyone building eBicycles right now? The answer is simple: demographic trends. Especially in Europe, especially in urban areas, and especially with younger consumers, eBikes are competing successfully with traditional motorcycles (and automobiles) as a primary mode of transportation, making “micromobility” an essential component of any mod-

ern motorcycle company portfolio. The transition is hardly a stretch; the very first motorcycles were powered bicycles, bringing many of these firms full circle. And an eBike just might be the ultimate expression of the current trend toward lighter-weight, smaller-displacement, and more accessible motorbikes. In a world where nearly everyone knows how to ride a bicycle — studies estimate that over 90 percent of U.S. adults know how, compared to just 10 percent of Americans who know how to ride a motorcycle — what’s more accessible than an eBike?

There are, of course, other factors driving the rise in eBike popularity. Almost everyone is looking for easy ways to incorporate more physical activity into their lives, or to rely less on automobiles. Then there’s the fun factor. As with riding motorcycles, it’s impossible not to smile when riding a bicycle, and the experience is even better with an electric push to take

the suck out of steep climbs, strong headwinds, and longer distances.

There’s also the opportunity to enjoy another version of two-wheeled adventure: it can be tough to find time to gear up the ADV bike or Gold Wing for a two-week tour of Monument Valley, but who can’t make two hours to explore a portion of their city they’ve never seen before, somewhere only accessible by bicycle path?

What do you need to know before you start shopping for your first eBike? Start with a few simple questions: Pedal assist or throttle assist? (Pedal-assist means the electric assistance only operates while the rider is turning the pedals, providing a better workout and longer range; throttle assist propels the eBike without pedaling.) Hub motor or mid-motor? (Mid-motor bikes handle much better but cost more.) Class 1, Class 2, or Class 3? Class 1 refers to pedal-assist eBicycles that provide electric assistance up to 20 mph. Class 2 eBikes offer both pedal-assist and throttle-assist capabilities,

regardless of speed. Class 3 eBikes are pedal-assist only, like Class 1, but provide assistance up to 28 mph.

Where you want to ride will guide this last decision. Although rules vary widely between jurisdictions, pedal-assist eBikes are generally considered bicycles and are legal to operate anywhere you can currently ride a bike, including bike lanes, bike paths, and within National Parks. Some regulatory agencies classify any throttle-assist eBike as a “moped” and restrict where

they can operate accordingly.

And sure, you can dive into the deep end of AliBaba.com and buy a 7500-watt, throttle-assist “eBike” capable of 70 mph, but be careful what you wish for — the vehicle dynamics of a 50-pound bicycle are not the same as a 500-pound motorcycle. Ride one first and you’ll discover that 20mph is fast enough when you’re dodging potholes or dog walkers on the local bike path.

You might encounter haters along

the way. Spandex Sam, all shaved legs and Strava data, will accuse you of riding a “cheater bike” — as if every activity should be measured in suffering. Your moto friends might ask you why you are “wasting” time and money on eBikes when you have a garage full of perfectly good motorcycles to ride.

Ignore both, because eBikes are something different and, for many purposes, something better. Time spent on an eBike will make you a stronger and safer motorcyclist, and besides, when your doctor says you need to be more active, an eBike is a lot more fun than a treadmill or elliptical machine.

So the next time you encounter a rack of eBikes at your favorite moto-emporium, take one out for a test ride. If you’re ready for a new way to experience fun, freedom and adventure on two wheels, see where a push of the pedals of an eBicycle can take you.

Husqvarna isn’t alone among OE motorcycle builders who offer e-bicycles, as the list is long — and growing.

The 750 Four, In Anger

Most folks don’t think of Honda’s first-generation CB750 — this month’s cover subject — as a roadracer as they might, say, Kawasaki’s Z1, or Yamaha’s R5/ RD350/400 series.

But for one shining weekend in the Spring of 1970, Honda topped the world at Daytona…with some help from the late, great AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Dick Mann.

Honda had launched its axis-altering 750 Four the previous year, and though the company was hesitant to race the huge-selling and wildly-popular CB750 (and possibly risk its on-road performance reputation), National Service Manager Bob Hansen pushed for an effort over the winter — and got R&D to agree.

Honda Japan would prepare four works-spec machines, three for British Isle of Man/GP phenoms Tommy Robb, Ralph Bryans and Bill Smith, and one for a rider of Hansen’s choice — Dick “Bugsy” Mann.

The competition was fierce. The Triumph/BSA squad featured AMA Hall of Famers Mike Hailwood, David Aldana, Don Castro, Gary Nixon and Gene Romero, all riding highly modified 750cc triples housed in Rob North frames. Harley-Davidson came loaded as well, with AMA Hall of Famer Cal Rayborn aboard the latest version of the XRTT.

But in the end, none of it mattered. The British triples (all but Romero’s) and Harley twins all overheated and broke, and the Hondas had serious cam-chain tensioner issues, which sidelined Robb and Smith, with Bryans’ bike burning up in a fiery crash.

Only Mann’s CB750 lasted the 200 miles (though just barely), thanks largely to an engine rebuild by Honda’s Bob Jamieson the night before the race to freshen the tensioner. Mann got the holeshot of his life as attrition percolated all around him.

At the end, with his Honda slowing dramatically due to a worn-out

The CB750 racer the late Dick “Bugsy” Mann rode to victory in the 1970 Daytona 200 was largely that in name only, as not much more than the crankcases and cylinder came from the production machine. Here, AMA Hall of Famer Mann exits the tricky West horseshoe.

tensioner and having burned oil like a derrick fire the entire race, Mann babied the Honda across the line with just 2 seconds separating him from Romero, who’d been closing dramatically at the end.

Hansen had calculated how slow Mann could run and still win, and communicated this to his rider. His savvy paid off with a historic and memorable win for Honda, though it cost him his job when he told Honda’s head R&D man to get lost when Hansen’s late-race strategy was questioned. “Bob Jamieson won Daytona in 1970,” Hansen said later.

The CB750 wasn’t designed to be a racer. But for one weekend in March of 1970, the vaunted 750 Four did just enough. —Mitch Boehm

Honda’s dramatic, 1970 Daytona 200 win with HOFer Dick Mann aboard

A truly epic opportunity to win a bike ridden and signed by AMA Hall of Famer and 1993 World Champion Kevin Schwantz? You bet! Raffle tickets give you chances to win a new Suzuki GSX-R1000 painted in Schwantz’s late ’80s Pepsi Racing livery, and also benefit the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame and Museum — where legends live! A winner will be drawn next July at 2023 AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. DON’T MISS THIS!