AIMExpo 2015 Orlando

A gorgeous vintage display from the Mitzel Collection of Mandan, North Dakota. I loved these Japanese survivors at the show.

 

 

 

The excellent Motus all American Sport Tourer, built in Birmingham, Alabama. All that's separating me from it is thirty thousand bucks.

I thought I might like the Indian Scout but it was uncomfortable for me. I was surprised.

The Indian Dark Horse was sublime.

I was even more surprised I loved it.

The Vintage Chief is prettier but the Dark Horse would be easier to live with with no chrome or leather to worry about getting rusty or wet.

Nope, I like this one. I think I might go to Orlando this winter and rent one for some fun on Highway 17. Harley Davidson wasn't at the show at all.

Never thought I'd go for a cruiser! Back to regular programming.

Night, night Ninja helmets!

Trust, but be on the safe side:

Not all motorcycles, these things are popular:

Hard core touring:

Finis...

 

Posted with Blogsy

Ducati Scrambler

Thanks For Reading Key West Diary Starting 9th Year Today.

       One A Day Since 13th June 2007

3979 Photo Essays So Far

I did the geek thing and while I was leaving Salute on the Beach I crossed paths with a brand new model of a brand new motorcycle, a Ducati designed to take a slice of the market so ably created by the Triumph Bonneville. The Ducati Scrambler 800 is both more powerful and lighter than my Bonneville and it is a pretty machine.

Ducati built a range of single cylinder motorcycles in the 1970's which were quite popular at the time. I never owned one because they had a tremendous reputation for vibrating and being an uncomfortable ride. I, even then, had my sights set on touring by motorcycle and my machines might have been equally uncomfortable but they didn't vibrate like these machines, which now look to my elderly eye quite lovely and desirable!. 

But, just like my Bonneville which is a picture of an elderly Triumph but not a real one these modern Ducatis are said to be fast and easy to ride and great fun.

I was hoping for some low down on these very new machines but the owner, from Czech originally could only tell me it was his second ever motorcycle and he liked it. Being the nerd I am I think I knew more about his ride than he did! Nice guy he even incautiously offered me a ride but I declined because...that isn't done! The last time I loaned someone my bike they crashed it so don't even ask.

I was on my way to work so I had to book on my old Vespa. I had been at Salute saying good bye to a dear friend whose mother is not well and who unfortunately lives in Illinois. It happens a lot in Key West, people who are permanent fixtures have family or other obligations Up North and off they go.

Nan, dressed in white, was quite tearful as this was not an easy departure. Her friends crowded round as one does and I expect each of us was secretly glad it wasn't our turn to slip off the island and go north.

This was the view from her front yard and she won't be replicating it in Illinois on the banks of the Mississippi. She told me she spent every waking moment she could sitting out here taking it all in one more time. "I wish I canceled my cable long ago, not last week." It gave me renewed appreciation for my deck, that conversation. I went out last night and stood in the breeze watching the thunderheads crackle, thinking of Nan.

I hope her departure will be temporary, I know she misses this place already. We keep hanging on. 

Riding With Rilke

The saying" bright enough to read a book by," is sometimes used to describe a full moon and lately its been that way on my street. I'm lucky enough to live where street lights have yet to penetrate so every night is a light show, stars on no moon nights, and crisp white light bathing everything for the other ten nights a month. When we were out cruising I preferred traveling by night, partly because it was cooler, partly because the ocean is a marvelous place at night. On moonless nights I sat in the cockpit of my sailboat and watched a deeper darker sky than a city dweller could imagine possible, and the term "velvet" sprang to mind. But to be on a tropical passage under a brightly shining moon is another brand of magic altogether and even though the silver disk obscures the stars, I really do prefer a full moon. It's an event I notice even when the moon is just starting to rise over the mangroves with the sun still high enough in the sky to be able to...read a book by. I was turned on to the book in question by the Moto Philosopher, a mention of a motorcycle biography by a Canadian university professor who told the story of riding to Texas on his highly unsuitable Ducati. The notion that a 700cc standard motorcycle might be "unsuitable" for a journey of several thousand miles is a modern conceit, propagated in a consumer driven economy where every garage should house a multiplicity of cycles, one for each purpose. A huge cruiser to travel, a dirt bike for fire roads, a scooter to commute and a classic to admire and on and on and on. Ted Bishop turns his back on that theory, falls in love with a Ducati Monster in monstrous matt black and takes off across America. Except this isn't the oily reminiscences of a wrench monkey. Bishop feels like he has climbed his mechanical peak when he has checked his chain final drive tension every evening. And perhaps, that is why the book is delightful. It is about riding a motorcycle, seeing places and enjoying America in all its grotesque glory. That's because travel writers love to zoom in on the weird and the whacked, and Lord knows there's plenty of grist for their mill in these United States.The other reason this book makes a good read is because Bishop is a professor of literature and he's a part-time detective and he's on the hunt for first editions and buyer lists and all sorts of other irrelevant nonsense. Don't get me wrong I love to read but Virginia Woolf and James Joyce are not anywhere near my list of classics I need to re-read, since I last hacked them in school. Thus Ted Bishop's orgasmic research in the ivory halls of Austin's academe don't do much for me, but I appreciate his well written fervor. On the other hand, T.E. Lawrence and Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) are writers of a different and much more interesting caliber, so they, and the Ducati keep me going between chiffon waves of Woolf and Joyce and their drawing room dramas. I am having a blast with this story; everybody should.