New Classic Rides

In Key West when a rider pulls into a motorcycle parking spot he finds himself shoving his machine alongside a row of multi colored cheap Chinese scooters such as locals own and use primarily to get from work to a bar. Scooter riding isn't a chic hobby in Key West, its as utilitarian as it can get, and the rides follow their function, appearing on our streets as hordes of primary colors, yellows reds blues and blacks, and with all the character of mass stamped, mass produced plastic toys from that great production line in the East. Snowbird season is the time for surprises, when people from Up North wheel out their abandoned rides from sheds and garages and press them into service as a way to get around a town clogged with cars and nowhere to park. The other day I was in New Town on a mission of some sort and when I came out of the store look what had pulled up alongside me. I snapped a picture, from instinct not really sure why this classic unloved Honda appealed to me. It just did in some subliminal way. And it was only yesterday during my lunch break at Fort Zachary Taylor Park that the answer hit me. This is the Era Of The Classics. I reached for my blog...

When I was hunting for a replacement for my beloved neo-classic scooter, the Vespa GTS 250, I couldn't find a motorcycle that really spoke to me. I don't like crotch rockets, I dislike riding with my feet stuck forward, I can't see riding a pseudo off-road motorcycle in the Keys and giant sport tourers make no sense either. "Supermotards" are the new fashion and to me they are absurd and as useless as high heels or strapless dresses and other fashion fripperies. If I can't commute on my motorcycle I would hardly get to ride at all around here. The Bonneville, an imitation classic of the highest order was the obvious answer to my dilemma, yet I couldn't see it at first, even though its been in production almost a decade.

It's as modern as any motorcycle but its looks are as classic as the square rigger masts or the 19th century Fort walls in the background. As I whiled away my hour outside the dispatch center I put down my book and refreshed myself flipping through the pages of a youthful motorcycling magazine. Cycle World isn't really my cup of tea, it's devoted to the pursuit of horsepower and racing statistics and quarter mile tenths-of-a-second stuff which just seems puerile to me, BUT there were a couple of pictures in its pages that reminded me of the corroded old Honda in the second picture.

This Honda 1100 is supposed to recreate the classic image of the original range of Honda four cylinders that revolutionized motorcycling in the 1970's. Readers of the magazine were raving about it hoping that the Japanese will actually put it into production. The motorcycle that stole my heart is a proposed reproduction of the machine I have always wanted and never owned:

Cycle was dismissive of this 750cc recreation of the classic Italian sportbike of 40 years ago thanks to its "modest" 750cc capacity which proves they know how to completely miss the point. But I doubt I will ever buy a Moto Guzzi in the US thanks to their lackadaisical "network" of dealers which is a terrible shame. But this is motorcycling as I remember it, and I'm glad Triumph is led by a motorcycle loving businessman who knows how to stay solvent.

It feels weird to be part of an international cabal of elderly men who all want to find their youth in fake bikes from long ago, that by objective standards weren't that mechanically great but whose designs speak to us wherever we live and ride. They just twang the heartstrings, in a reminder that being human is irrational at best. Its a thin line separating the stupid from the merely nostalgic.