It just hit me again last night and this morning, and it keeps coming back. Essays, news, emails. Story after story, year after year. Real-time life experiences. This so-called generational ‘divide’. The young digitally-fluent generations don’t understand how to navigate yesterday’s analog realms too well, while the older analog-fluent geezers struggle to handle today's computerized technologies. This is hardly news...
A Few ChatGPT Answers to Important Questions(Some Blog-Posts Literally Write Themselves…) ChatGPT Jan 9 Version (2023) Red text sections = Comments from Mr. Subjecive Important Question: Why should I ride a motorcycle? ChatGPT Answer: There are several reasons why someone might choose to ride a motorcycle. Some people enjoy the feeling of freedom and the open road that riding a...
A fair number of our customers agree about one looking like a dork/Road Grimed Astronaut if riding for transportation and utility, vs. when riding primarily for sport and recreation. These two different-but-related applications have at least this in common: they both involve a single-track motorized vehicle. In rich countries like America, transportation/utility/commuting riders generally do both kinds of riding, but most...
The First Ride… Click to enlarge.Photo: Daimler Reitwagen. Wladyslaw, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons. In November of 1885, 17-year-old Paul Daimler went for a motorcycle ride on the first ICE engine motorcycle, the Daimler Reitwagen (built by his father, Gottlieb Daimler, and Wilhelm Maybach). The date he made this ride is up for debate with some reporting...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ott5Z1aRiM&t=6s A detailed explanation of how to comfortably commute on snowy and icy roads during a Minnesota Winter. My commute here in Northern Minnesota (Duluth) is five miles each way, all on surface streets, and last winter I decided to do it mostly by everyday motorcycling. The experiment was only partly successful, but I learned a lot, and it was...
Rightly or wrongly I’ve sometimes privately felt a bit like the legendary Johnny Appleseed, in that the purpose of my life’s work turned out to be to help make ordinary useful A to B daily motorcycle and scooter use in wealthy countries a bit safer, easier, more comfortable, and more popular. By one rider at a time. This wasn’t planned...
This story winds around a bit. The other day my younger brother, who’s a great vintage car lover, emailed me the link below which is to a story about how, during the great depression of the 1930’s, some ingenious fellow turned scrap Ford Model A four-cylinder auto engines into self-powered air compressors, and did pretty well selling them. Several patented...
VerschlimmbessernGerman verb, loose translation: To make something worse by trying to improve it. Long a favorite word of mine, thought I've never known exactly how to pronounce it or use it in any actual conversation. Two forms, verb and noun version, neither of which I know how to say or use. But in our modern world, as we get older...
...Or How to Ride Through 90º+ Temps (More or Less Comfortably) A) Ride a minimally faired/windscreened bike. Photo: Chandler Baker There are several other reasons for this (Mr. Subjective) preference than heat, but below 95°F this can be a factor. B) Wear a wetted Aerostich Silk Scarf around one’s neck. Fold the wet scarf in half then drape it over...
Two high-mile riders meet: Brook Dain (left) and Paul Pelland at the Aerostich store and factory in June 2022. Brook Dain and Paul Pelland. Click to view full size image. What do these guys have in common? Both Brook and Paul ride a lot more than the average rider (basically every day), and they use Aerostich gear. One chooses a Vespa...
It just hit me again last night and this morning, and it keeps coming back. Essays, news, emails. Story after story, year after year. Real-time life experiences. This so-called generational ‘divide’. The young digitally-fluent generations don’t understand how to navigate yesterday’s analog realms too well, while the older analog-fluent geezers struggle to handle today's computerized technologies. This is hardly news...
A Few ChatGPT Answers to Important Questions(Some Blog-Posts Literally Write Themselves…) ChatGPT Jan 9 Version (2023) Red text sections = Comments from Mr. Subjecive Important Question: Why should I ride a motorcycle? ChatGPT Answer: There are several reasons why someone might choose to ride a motorcycle. Some people enjoy the feeling of freedom and the open road that riding a...
A fair number of our customers agree about one looking like a dork/Road Grimed Astronaut if riding for transportation and utility, vs. when riding primarily for sport and recreation. These two different-but-related applications have at least this in common: they both involve a single-track motorized vehicle. In rich countries like America, transportation/utility/commuting riders generally do both kinds of riding, but most...
The First Ride… Click to enlarge.Photo: Daimler Reitwagen. Wladyslaw, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons. In November of 1885, 17-year-old Paul Daimler went for a motorcycle ride on the first ICE engine motorcycle, the Daimler Reitwagen (built by his father, Gottlieb Daimler, and Wilhelm Maybach). The date he made this ride is up for debate with some reporting...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ott5Z1aRiM&t=6s A detailed explanation of how to comfortably commute on snowy and icy roads during a Minnesota Winter. My commute here in Northern Minnesota (Duluth) is five miles each way, all on surface streets, and last winter I decided to do it mostly by everyday motorcycling. The experiment was only partly successful, but I learned a lot, and it was...
Rightly or wrongly I’ve sometimes privately felt a bit like the legendary Johnny Appleseed, in that the purpose of my life’s work turned out to be to help make ordinary useful A to B daily motorcycle and scooter use in wealthy countries a bit safer, easier, more comfortable, and more popular. By one rider at a time. This wasn’t planned...
This story winds around a bit. The other day my younger brother, who’s a great vintage car lover, emailed me the link below which is to a story about how, during the great depression of the 1930’s, some ingenious fellow turned scrap Ford Model A four-cylinder auto engines into self-powered air compressors, and did pretty well selling them. Several patented...
VerschlimmbessernGerman verb, loose translation: To make something worse by trying to improve it. Long a favorite word of mine, thought I've never known exactly how to pronounce it or use it in any actual conversation. Two forms, verb and noun version, neither of which I know how to say or use. But in our modern world, as we get older...
...Or How to Ride Through 90º+ Temps (More or Less Comfortably) A) Ride a minimally faired/windscreened bike. Photo: Chandler Baker There are several other reasons for this (Mr. Subjective) preference than heat, but below 95°F this can be a factor. B) Wear a wetted Aerostich Silk Scarf around one’s neck. Fold the wet scarf in half then drape it over...
Two high-mile riders meet: Brook Dain (left) and Paul Pelland at the Aerostich store and factory in June 2022. Brook Dain and Paul Pelland. Click to view full size image. What do these guys have in common? Both Brook and Paul ride a lot more than the average rider (basically every day), and they use Aerostich gear. One chooses a Vespa...