Guest post by Mrs. Subjective I saw husband tracksIn the snow the other day,Leading down a pathFor his own getaway. Those tracks of hisThey show me his grit;Being willing to ride in snowIs a whole other kind of lit. Preparing his bikeTakes work (and I’m sure some fun too),From siping tiresTo finding his groove. He said to me once,“The snow has to be just right.Better to have snow on the groundThan none in my sight.” He’s true to his motto —Ride to Work or work to ride,These words to whichHe will forever abide. The Suzuki Van Van,It’s his favorite winter bikeWith big, wide tiresThat’s what he likes. All bundled up,Facing the winter wind,His helmet secureAnd, I’m sure, quite a grin. Do I worry? Do I fear?Oh yes, but just a little bit,For I know he is clothed withThe best gear one can get. American-made —A Roadcrafter Aerostich!Equipment for ridersStraight from their pitch. His one-piece zip-in suitWith padding galoreGuarantees him the chance to rideMore and more… and more. Now you might think this is an ad,But no — I’m just a little savvyTo include a renditionOf my husband’s Duluth company. Although I must sayTheir products are quite stellar;Many a hideThey’ve saved from the gutter. But now back to the storyOf seeing husband tracks —I knew that since he left,He must also come back. It was nearing dinner timeWhen my belly cried out,So I texted him these words:“How about some takeout?” Pizza? Sure thing.So I put the order in.Away on his Van VanHe rode with a grin. It wasn’t the first timeHe managed a pizza on his bike,But this time aroundIt was quite a different sight. Opening the boxWas quite the surprise —Our perfect pepperoni pieSlid in that two-point-four-mile ride. Cheese off the slice,Pepperonis scattered about,I gave a little gaspAnd then laughed out loud. The way I look at it is this:If riding makes him smile,He should keep on keeping onmile after mile. If the only casualtyIs cheese off the slice,Well, I think that’s a win —’Cause it still tastes pretty nice. So get out and ride!Leave your tracks wherever you go,Whether you decide to rideIn rain, sleet, sun… or God forbid, snow.

And Another Box of Chocolates. The fellow who became the owner of the first Aerostich suit is a highly accomplished writer with a bunch of published books, a degree in history, considerable expertise in Air Force subjects, airplane and flight history and technology, and a successful career as an automobile and motorcycle journalist. He rode twisty backroads FAST and was a skillful motorcycle road racer, too. During my twenties and thirties his smart editorials in Auto Week and Cycle World taught me a lot. Many of them offered a deeper understanding of motorcycle culture and mainstream culture than anything I’d read elsewhere or could have come up with myself. Steven L. Thompson got that first Roadcrafter unsolicited, with a cover letter introducing it and attempting to explain what the suit was for, and letting him know if it was not his size to please let me know. I hoped he’d give it a try. Fortunately, he immediately understood what it was, and liked it very much. He also wrote encouragingly about it ('Dressing Up’). Aerostich would not exist today without his generous encouragement, support and recognition, literally from day one. As the years passed, we became friends and eventually collaborators on his insightful book ‘Bodies in Motion’ which analyzes some of what underlies our profound attraction to motorcycles. Steven is still around, and we’re still friends. Recently he sent me a link to a story about the ‘Big Wheel’ children’s trike. Unfortunately, it was behind a paywall, so I was unable to read it, but the story’s title alone was enough to get me going and I wrote what follows. (That behind-a-paywall article is here: “The Wild—and Weirdly Dark—History of One of America’s Most Iconic Toys - How the Big Wheel turned plastic, physics, and pure chaos into a generation’s first taste of freedom.” from Popular Mechanics. If you subscribe to Apple News at $12.95/mo and want to make me a .pdf, I’d love to read it.) What follows is an autobiographical story from my childhood. Among other things, it reveals how much of an insufferable, overly-opinionated little sh-t I was. The first Schwinn ’Stingray’ bikes came out when I was in the 5th grade. With their innovative chopper-esque styling they quickly became the company’s best-selling bike and were soon copied by many other bicycle manufacturers. Nearly all kids loved ‘em. That year I was still pedaling my trusty red and white 20” Huffy traditional bicycle with painted steel fenders, ‘paper-boy’ style bicycle handlebars, ‘balloon’ tires, a Bendix coaster brake and a normal bicycle seat. It handled great and was good on both sidewalks and single-track ’shortcut’ trails through overgrown vacant lots. Excellent at jumping curbs, too, this was a true do-anything little bike, and I loved it enough to periodically use auto paste wax to shine it up. It became my faithful wings as soon as its bolt-on training wheels were removed. So when I examined those flashy new Stingrays it was with narrow eyes and a mix of anger and sadness, in roughly the same way as a decade later pop singer Don McLean described America and American music culture changing in ‘American Pie’, his wonderful song about the “Day the music died…” Here’s verse three of that song: "Now, for ten years we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin' stone
But that's not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh, and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book on Marx
The quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died” (Notes: “jester” = maybe Bob Dylan, “rollin’ stone” = maybe the Rolling Stones band, “the king” = maybe Elvis, “Lenin read a book on Marx” = maybe John Lennon, “quartet practiced in the park” = maybe The Beatles. Personally, I love both pre-and-post ‘American Pie’ pop music.) Those Stingrays embodied everything which seemed to be going bad in America in the worlds of bike marketing, and about the inherent wonders of riding a bicycle. The overly stylized machines seemed like pure evil on two wheels, yet they were selling like hotcakes and ’sliced bread’. I had neither the age, wisdom, or experience to understand what was happening to America, but I knew this terrible bike represented the beginning of the end for something amazing about the experience of riding a bicycle. At age ten I was unable to appreciate and describe it, yet one look at a Stingray and I instantly felt a kind of anger through my every fiber: “The jester stole his thorny crown, the courtroom was adjourned…and we sang dirges in the dark, the day the music died.” For a couple of months every spring and fall, from the third through fifth grades, I rode that Huffy about two miles to and from my elementary school. On September 24th, 1963, a couple of months before President Kennedy was assassinated, he did an overnight campaign stop here in Duluth, speaking in the basketball gymnasium of our local university (UMD). Their campus was less than an eighth mile from my elementary school and that night my parents went to witness the President speak. They had either left me with a babysitter, or maybe I was left on my own - I no longer remember this detail clearly - but I also went there, pedaling my trusty Huffy just to see if I could somehow get in. As I left our house it was already twilight, and if there was a sitter (?) I‘d have sneaked out very quietly, powered mostly by adrenaline and curiosity, hoping to sneak into that gym. I knew the best route even in the dark since it was the same one I’d been pedaling to school every weekday. When I got there some guy at a side door actually let me in and I stood with a few others, crowded into an aisle between folding bleachers, looking around at a sea of people, and trying unsuccessfully to spot my parents because I did not want them to see me there. That trusty Huffy got me into lots of trouble like this and then always got me out of trouble, every time. After the President finished his speech, none of which I remember (…or understood), the city was already in full darkness. Despite the gloom I pedaled back home like the wind and fortunately made it there before my parents. I was in bed faking sleep by the time they arrived. None of this would have been remotely possible riding an idiotic ill-handling Stingray. When the Big Wheel trike came out a few years later I was already older. Little kids had them. The roto-molded polypropylene frame and matching soft plastic tires were as ridiculous and useless as it’s ‘chopper-esque’ riding position. Those G-d Damn’s Stingrays had somehow led to this abomination, I thought. But parents and little kids both loved them because on asphalt or worn concrete driveways they were pathetically easy to drift and slide around in safe and controlled ways, thanks to the near-zero frictional coefficient of roto-molded polypropylene. Plus, they were cheap and less tippy than a traditional trike. When used as intended, which they all were, it did not take super-long to wear through the oversized front wheel’s molded plastic tread, at which time the entire crude and cheaply made thing went into a garbage bin, and then a few days later to the local landfill. It was still years before today’s semi-fake plastic recycling programs existed. Despite (or because of) those dynamic and durability limitations, little kids everywhere begged grownups for them and thanks to a very low price it was not difficult for even lower income parents to comply and shut them up. A few years later those kids would be pedaling Schwinn (or imitation) Stingrays and a few years after that they would be making horrible ‘sissy-bar’ equipped almost-choppers out of completely inappropriate used Honda CL 77 scramblers, all while Evil Knievel was bloviating about jumping the Snake River, true courage and good ol’ American pride while wearing rhinestones on his fingers and a snazzy leather suit which looked like it had come from one of fat Elvis’s concert wardrobes. These days I’m still riding those same streets as I once did on that Huffy, except now I’m doing it year-around thanks to a lightly-modified a 200cc fat-tired Suzuki Van Van ‘winter bike’, which turned out to be a dependable cold-temp starter and seems/feels safe-ish for use on snowy and icy streets. You don’t know what strange is until you’ve ridden a studded-tire bicycle, e-bike or Van Van for day-to-day transportation though one of our always slightly too-long northern Minnesota winters. “To discover what normal means, you have to surf a tide of weirdness.” – Charlotte Rampling, Actor, interview in The New Yorker, 16 May 2021. I’m no poet or Henry David Thoreau philosopher and weirdo, but in America today there’s something inherent about riding which estranges you from all those who do not ride, and which also helps you see the world a little more clearly, probably a little more cynically, and possibly with a bit more humility and a little less hubris than all the good and sensible people surrounding you. Most of them from inside their sealed/safe/comfortable/convenient cars. Also, I was not ‘born old’, or with a good sense of self-discipline and a desire to be on a scholastic ‘honor roll’, and an ambition to be an Eagle Scout, admirable as those things all are. Back when I was riding that Huffy my simple plan was to become a paleontologist who drove a Corvette across the sands of outer Mongolia to find and dig up dinosaur bones. I’d also hoped someday along the way a pretty HS homecoming queen might fall in love with me. Never got that Corvette or any dino bones, but finally - and entirely by chance – did end up married to a smart, feisty, pretty homecoming queen almost as lonely and (forgive me honey…) weird as me. It sure took a good long time, though. By the time we’d met at random, I was old enough to be eligible for Social Security. “Life” really “is like a box of chocolates.” You never do know what you’re gonna get. She and her brothers all loved their Big Wheels. If you loved your Stingray and Big Wheel, that’s ok, too. From a certain viewpoint those things did look fly and were great fun. You probably looked really cool on yours, too. But they still rode like absolute crap… Mr. Subjective, February 2026 PS – Possible future blog post: “Every Dog Has Its Day: The Fall of Schwinn and the Rise of (good handling) Mountain Bikes” PPS – I was completely wrong about the Big Wheel. Though it resembles a tricycle in form it’s actually and more simply a perfectly genius toy. Children of all ages love the sensations of skidding, sledding, skiing, sliding,surfing and every other form of semi-controlled drifting. Many kinds of mammals (think otters, etc) do. This toy was cheap to make, safe to use and introduced kids to exactly this kind of fun in a beautiful way. At a fast glance it looked like a trike, but it was always so much more. These days I am sorry I misunderstood and maligned these things for most of my life.

Interstices, Mashups and Fusions. When I was very little my mother would read me to sleep with bedtime stories. Most nights I wanted favorites read again and again. One was Dr Suess’s ‘Horton Hears a Who’. Another was ‘Anatole’. It may have been their illustrations, or my mother’s attention, or some deeper message those stories carried, but whatever the reason for a year or more they topped the list of favorite bedtime literature. ‘Horton Hears a Who’ is about a nice elephant who, because of his extra-large ears, is the only elephant able to hear the voices and other noises made by a community of extremely tiny people living out their otherwise unknown lives. Horton knew others were unwittingly about to destroy this entire miniature world. Fortunately for them he was nothing if not determined and eventually was able to help them be discovered, thus saving the entire microscopic community. The lesson was if you happen to discover or learn something nobody knows, it’s ok to tell the world about it even if no one else believes you. Stick to it long enough and if you are persistent, eventually they will. (Side note: this is essentially how I feel about useful day-to-day utility-transportation motorcycle and bicycle riding.) ‘Anatole’ is about an industrious little Parisian mouse raising a family and how he makes a living.  Every night he sneaks into a nearby cheese factory after it closes for the day and samples all the different types and flavors of cheese they manufacture. This mouse knows his cheeses. He learns the company is struggling so to help he starts leaving tiny notes on the various cheese varieties about how their flavors might be improved. When the cheese makers arrive in the morning and find his tiny notes, they modify their recipes accordingly and soon those reformulated cheeses start winning gourmet awards. The business prospers and eventually Anatole receives well-deserved recognition and he and his family live happily ever after. Both stories carry important lessons for a young person to learn. Thirty years later as I was trying to get Aerostich going I must have remembered them, at least unconsciously, because some of the design and business decisions I made reflected those ideas. At some point I also picked up an understanding of ‘interstices’, ‘mashups’ and ‘fusions.’ Interstices are the empty spaces between larger things. Think of a bucket full of soccer balls and marbles. The marbles fill (or infill) the interstices between the larger soccer balls. Mashups are combinations of two different kinds of things, and fusions are when a blend of two different things yields a third all-new thing which then fills some formerly vacant space – the interstice - between the two already existing things. Examples are infinite: Combine two musical genres and create a new genre. Combine two ethnic cuisines and you end up with a new cuisine. Combine a riders rainsuit and an armored crash-protective suit and you end up with an Aerostich Roadcrafter. Combine a motocross boot and a street boot to get an ‘adventure riders’ boot. The well-remembered Aerostich Combat Touring Boot was that and today there are dozens of variations based on its pioneering fusion. Combine a lightweight street bike with an off-road bike and you end up with a ‘street scrambler’ or a ‘supermotard’. Combine a dirt bike with a touring bike and you end up with an ‘ADV’ bike. If you are lucky the result originally intended to fit the interstices between well-established market categories will exceed the popularity of the existing categories. BMW’s GS bike family is a blend of street bike and dirt bike and became their best-selling motorcycle type. Ten years ago, we started fooling around with a lightly modified Zero electric motorcycle for local winter transportation in our hometown of Duluth Minnesota. Our purpose was: A) To test Aerostich rider’s gear in cold weather, and B) find out how an electric vehicle of any kind might work in this climate. Until then nobody had ever tried to run an electric car or motorcycle through a Duluth winter as daily transportation. It gets cold and snowy here: Average annual snowfall is 80-90”, average January/Feb low temps run around minus ten degrees F. But riding for daily transportation is always worth it, right? Horton was hearing another Who... As the winter-motorcycling years followed, the result became a lightly modified 200cc Suzuki VanVan. These are good low-temp winter starters thanks to fuel injection. They are also easy to keep upright thanks to a very low saddle, light weight and fat tires. But with a little work they could be made even better for winter-transportation applications. Nobody manufacturing motorcycles offers one specifically optimized for use in cold snowy places. There is an old saying in business when one is trying to figure out some business deal.  The phrase became so common it’s now a cliché: “There’s a pony in there somewhere.”  Yes, there is. For local transportation and the Suzuki motorcycle company that small horse is an interstice you could ride a VanVan through blindfolded. Many of the world’s peoples living in cold and snowy places would enjoy owning and using a lightweight winter-focused motorcycle -- if one existed.  Calling Anatole, the famous mouse with the extraordinarily well-educated cheese tasting palette… Dear Suzuki, You manufacture the basis for an excellent winter-focused lightweight motorcycle. With only a few changes a variation of your VanVan 200 model could be that bike. It would not take the place of any snowmobile or ATV. It would be something entirely new -- a uniquely versatile, practical, useful and enjoyable winter-adapted bike. Those peoples living in cold, snowy, icy places would find many reasons to buy one. Nobody else makes any type of winter-optimized lightweight utility motorcycle. You’d have this market entirely to yourself.  There are essentially two tiers of modifications needed to develop your Van Van in this direction, measured by cost and relative importance. Here are the ten least-costly most-critical items: Heated Grips An easy connection for a heated vest or bib Gaiters protecting the fork seals Optional removable handguards and ‘hippo hands’ An optional windshield A center stand An extender for the front fender The larger-sized rear tire and wheel also mounted on the front An O-ring final drive chain An insulating sleeve on clutch and brake levers The next tier lists five more expensive but also critical items (some would require a substantial investment): Aluminum rims (the current steel ones are far, far, far, far too heavy) Snow tires (a low temperature-optimized rubber compound and tread design, low-profile-stud-able, heavily siped) Lighter weight muffler Brighter headlight Slightly larger (+ one gallon) gasoline tank Plug-in electric battery and engine block heaters (for extreme cold operation). Finally, here are a few luxury and fantasy items, some maybe optional: An (optional) heated saddle An increased capacity alternator An on-off switchable two-wheel drive system using a small front hub electric motor A remote starter system A nice (optional) rear cargo rack A sixth gear Steel fork sliders (subzero temps shrink aluminum enough to lock the forks) Motorcycle riders across the entire northern half of the USA, all of Canada, most of Russia, the northern third of China, all the high elevation ‘stans’ (Kazakhstan, Afghanistan etc), Greenland, the northern half of Europe, the southern fourth of South America and all those living at higher elevations in the Andes mountainous places are waiting. So am I. A bike like this would offer all peoples in the world’s colder areas a kind of versatility, efficiency, economy and functionality no snowmobile, ATV or conventional motorcycle could ever achieve. This ball is in your court. You can pioneer and own this. Sincerely and respectfully yours, - Mr. Subjective PS – If you wanted to make this bike a bit more ‘freeway compatible’ (a very low priority for my application) enlarge the engine to 300cc’s. The 200cc’s it has delivers enviable MPG but only takes this bike to around 60mph. Even the slightest headwind or grade means 55mph - pinned. Which is fine for small town surface streets, and for villagers in northern Norway or Alaska, but these days many riders must deal with high-speed ‘freeways’ for at least some portion of their everyday A to B. PPS – Interestingly -- at least to me -- is how, after my ‘winter’ VanVan was set up with DIY modified tires (inflated to only 4-4.5lbs), it feels safer on snowy icy roads than my e-bike or regular bicycle on their studded ‘winter’ tires. I’ve been riding single track machines on snowy icy urban streets for many years now, and even though I’m moving much faster on the VanVan than I do on those bicycles, riding the well-traveled auto-packed down and sometimes rutted tracks aboard the VanVan still feels a lot safer than navigating the areas of deeper snow nearer the road’s shoulders aboard a bicycle or e-bike. Car traffic leaves the sides of the roads piled up with snow with the well-used lanes comparatively clearer. And more-closely matching the speed of surrounding traffic also feels a lot safer. And at night (winters being long and dark) a motorcycle’s better lighting makes a nice difference, too.

…Business Goals We Aim For (And Sometimes Hit) Every business is supposed to have a ‘mission statement’. Something simple and easy to understand and to follow. Aerostich is no exception. As I’m typing this, we are on the third or fourth iteration. Our mission statement has changed over time. We started in the fall of 1993 without one. By 1998, we had one, and it was: “To profitably provide products that encourage the adoption of motorcycling.” By 2015, it had both expanded and narrowed at the same time: “Aerostich creates and provides products and services that help make motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles more useful…Because riding anywhere is nearly always a comparatively more healthful, efficient, and fun way to get there.” In June or July of 2016, it became: “We create and provide better gear (and services) that help make riding safer, more comfortable, easier, and more useful." We still use this, but maybe it’s time for another rewrite? These days, it sometimes feels like something is missing. An ingredient we don’t actively consider, sort of like the DNA coding ‘blueprint’ we're all made from. Particularly when it comes to the business’s marketing narratives we create (catalogs, ads, videos, emails, all of it) and our employment practices. Humility, Transparency, and Irony are all tightly woven into our company and people like (…analogy warning!) the fibers of the tough 500D abrasion-resistant Cordura nylon fabric used in the products we design and make. Not that we are perfect, by any means. These ideas are goals, not accomplishments. We make as many errors as anyone, but despite them, we keep showing up for work and trying. Doing the best we can while recognizing that no matter how hard we work, or how much we try, here and there we’re gonna fall short sometimes. Humility + Transparency = an occasional apology.  Humility + Irony = acceptance with good humor.  Humility + Transparency + Irony = awareness... that all our problems, even the largest and most daunting, are “first world problems”. If you don’t already know what that phrase means, Google it. Humility + Transparency + Irony = knowing and admitting that sometimes riding a motorcycle is completely ridiculous and stupid, though still always worth it. The only way I know to deal with that paradox is to grin and ride onward, simply because compared to the wonderful comforts, securities, and conveniences provided by automobiles, riding just feels more right. A lot more right. Right-er. Riding in bad weather presents THE perfect example. It’s raining hard. The gutters are filled with runoff. Your face is stinging from oversize raindrops, or your windshield or face shield is covered with vision-distorting water. It’s a moment-by-moment struggle. When (if?) stuck in this situation, and if you are anything like me, you are giggling at the insanity of it, and of your existence. You are uncomfortable yet thrilled to be out there, battling the elements, and feeling more alive for doing so. Or you can pull over under the shelter of an overpass and wait until it lets up. And that’s ok, too. The lesson is the same. It’s ridiculous you put yourself in this situation in the first place. In an early Aerostich print catalog, I wrote (something along these lines…): It’s 1915. A driver in an early fully enclosed automobile/horseless carriage and a rider on a motorcycle pull up to park somewhere alongside one another at the exact same moment. It’s raining heavily. Over the thunderous roar of the falling rain, the smug driver says to the rider, “I bet you wish you had a car!” The rider smiles and replies: “No, but I sure wish it would stop raining!” When it comes to riding motorcycles, bicycles, and scooters, I don’t think it gets any more complicated than that. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, at least once in a while, something is wrong. So, ride on, and as always… “Stay out of trouble, kids!” - Mr. Subjective, Sept 2025 The new prime minister of Japan, when she was a young spitfire.Now she is an older spitfire.  Does anyone know if she still rides?

…Another Autobiographical (too long?) Story Note: The short essay linked at the end of this blog post is about today’s economy and uses the history of the Erie Canal as the example to make the author’s point about how important government involvement in science, engineering, and ‘development’ is. After reading it I decided to write what follows.   When I was twelve, my father took my mother, my four-year-younger sister, and me on his 36’ Chris Craft cabin cruiser from Duluth, Minnesota, down the Great Lakes, across the Erie Canal, then down the Hudson River to New York City. My brother Ken was only four at the time, so he was left in Duluth with trusted family friends. After arriving at the Big Apple, the four of us spent a few days at the 1965 NY World’s Fair, then drove home using a borrowed car. Some other guys my father knew had driven a station wagon to NYC and then enjoyed cruising his boat back to Duluth. This trip took us around five weeks and remains one of the two most influential travel experiences of my life. The other was a three-month 1996 motorcycle ride from Duluth to Mongolia and back when I was forty-three. These bigger adventures caused a lifelong preference for self-made trips of any scale and length over all pre-packaged travel experiences. Watching my father manually and meticulously chart the next day’s courses on huge paper nautical charts at 11 PM after an exhausting fourteen- or fifteen-hour day running the boat was a lesson I’ve never forgotten. Children learn far more watching how their parents operate than from whatever lessons their parents are intentionally trying to teach them. Every morning at six AM, dad would fire up the boat's two engines (marine-ized versions of V-8 Chrysler 383’s maybe?), and the only thing I remember about them was my assigned job of crawling down into the hot, cramped bilge to check their oil dipsticks every day. Us two children were sound asleep in the “V” bunk in the bow when he’d warm up those engines while disconnecting the ‘shore power’ and casting off the dock lines. We’d always be awakened by their noisy vibrations and still pajama-clad would groggily stumble up to the stern just as he’d throw both engines into reverse and start carefully backing away from whatever dock he’d found for us the night before. Then, still in my PJs, I’d climb up onto the narrow deck beside the cabin to pull up the fenders and stow the lines, and we’d be off for the day. Breakfast for his crew was made and served about an hour later, and the rest of the day was mostly spent watching the water and shorelines go by. Sometimes, like when crossing Lake Erie, there were waves large enough to cause my sister to become seasick. Other times, like going through the Erie Canal, we could almost reach out and pet the cows calmly grazing in some farmer’s field right next to this waterway. Transiting locks was always fun, and each was a little different from the last. There must have been sixty or seventy of them between Duluth and the final one on the Hudson River. We’d started out at six hundred feet above sea level, and at the New York harbor, we were at elevation zero. Dealing with the unknowns about whatever may be just ahead is a key part of all self-made travel experiences. The fun of that trip was the endless moment-by-moment encounters with the unknown. Some of this involved walking around little towns along the way and meeting locals and other boaters when looking for a laundromat and a grocery store. Other times, some unanticipated problem came up that needed solving before we could proceed. For example, one morning, just as we were backing out of some tiny marina, a carelessly handled stern line slipped into the water and became tightly wrapped around the starboard propeller and shaft. Several tries reversing that prop did not unwind it. Fortunately for us, this place had a boat lift, so on one idling engine, we very carefully motored over to it and an hour or two later were underneath the dripping wet hull, cutting away the line with a sharp knife. We were on our way again by ten or eleven. I don’t know if we made it to the next charted harbor with such a late start that day, but eventually we did get all the way to the Flushing Bay Marina in New York City. “I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” - President Dwight D. Eisenhower on battle preparations. By then, we’d become experts at locking and general boat handling, but at the same time, my parents also had about enough of my sister and me after spending more than a month living with us in such close quarters. As always, Dad had a solution. He called a NYC cab from a pay phone that was conveniently mounted on the side of a pole at the end of the dock. When the cab driver arrived, he made a deal with the guy: “Here’s $50 (or something…). Take the kids to a movie.” I think he tore the bill in half and handed the smaller half to the driver. There were no cell phones, and this was a total stranger (and maybe that bill was the equivalent of several hundred dollars today…), but the cabbie was probably happy to get a break from driving that afternoon, and my parents appeared ok accepting the risk. I don’t remember what movie or double feature we saw, but after it was over, the driver brought us back to the marina and got the other half of the bill. Hard to imagine any parent doing something like that today (?), no matter how fed up with a kid they might be. What came out of this experience (and my three-month Mongolia ride) was a very strong preference for self-made travel. Especially via motorcycle. I love the logistical and navigational challenges involved in being a mostly self-contained back-road vagabond. Of having a loose goal, and some good maps, and the lightweight camping and cooking equipment needed to bed down in some never-before-seen location, and the near-daily experience of walking into some little grocery store for provisions, and sometimes buying things like canned beans to be heated later, or a fresh submarine sandwich at a three PM gas stop to be eaten a few hours later comfortably sitting in front of a tent by a small campfire. Maybe even washed down with a lovely beer of some kind. Experiencing and dealing with infinite unknowns ahead, mile after mile: All the perfect roads and the terrible roads. The odd little towns and sometimes unbelievable scenery. The sometimes capricious weather, from perfect to horrible. I’m now seventy-two, and I’m still able to manage such trips, but only just barely. My bike of choice is a bit smaller and lighter, and the kit I pack along is more refined and smaller and lighter as well, but the goals are exactly the same. They’ve never changed: Carry as little as is necessary while also being as comfortable and safe as possible within the constraints of ’traveling light’. Today’s smartphones and GPSs have been very worthwhile add-ons, but these powerful technologies have never been absolute essentials. What a lifetime of motorcycle trips has taught me is that having the gear necessary to meet the more predictable logistical challenges depends on the details of each particular trip. Consider pooping. Will you always be near restrooms along the way, or will you need to dig a hole behind a bush somewhere to do your business? Will you need a lightweight folding shovel, or will some small plastic or aluminum hand spade be effective enough for the types of soil you project you might need to deal with? So many questions. These are fun riddles to think about and solve. Each is a thread from which you are weaving a tapestry of memories, day by day and hour by hour, whenever you travel with only a loose plan as a backroad moto-vagabond. And after you take the first step of any journey, boy-oh-boy, does all this ever make you feel alive. Cruise ships and pre-planned motorcycle (and other) tour experiences can be wonderful, but gee whiz, do I ever prefer solving all the problems that come before me on unknown roads and trails. So thanks, Dad. We sure had our differences, and plenty of them, but when I look back at my life today, I wish you and Mom were somehow still around. Especially so you could have met my wife. She’s another hard-working, self-made real-world problem solver. Just like you.  -- Mr. Subjective, Oct 28, 2025 PS – This link is to the complete Substack essay about the Erie Canal that had me remembering that family trip. The writer of the Substack is a PhD college professor who teaches history at a university up in Maine, and she’s very skilled. If you have the time and are curious, you’ll learn some history that probably was glossed over or which you slept through back when you were a student. Basic subscriptions (which is what I receive) are free. Before you sign up, though, note that many of the essays involve tying US historical events to current and ongoing history-impacting events. Regardless, and trying to ‘stay in my lane’ here, she’s a very good writer and historian. PPS – Kids do not get to choose their parents. In this ‘boat trip’ story, I briefly touched on how children learn a lot more from their parents by watching how they operate, rather than from anything parents intentionally attempt to teach. At one extreme are those parents so hands-off that their self-directed kids become intuitive problem-solving adults, which (for better or worse) is partially what happened to me. At the extreme end of this parenting spectrum is the Johnny Cash hit song “A Boy Named Sue” which is a funny-wonderful ballad about this. At the other end are what have recently been called ‘helicopter parents’, those who, though well-intentioned, do so much for their kids such children can turn out ‘book-smart’ but not super able to take care of themselves so well as adults. Somewhere along this continuum is a happy medium, and if you were fortunate to have received such parenting, be grateful. Regardless of where your parents fell along that spectrum, riding a motorcycle frequently might be one of the best things you can do for yourself because it forces you to solve a very wide range of immediate and pressing logistical problems. Every time you wobble off on two wheels, you are on your own, taking care of yourself. You may encounter bad weather, heavy traffic, or challenging terrain (or all this at the same time!) before you reach your destination. Riding provides such problem-solving lessons every time you throw your leg over the saddle and head off somewhere. No other personal mobility technology is so practical, so useful, and so much fun as it teaches you the attitudes and skills which transfer so usefully to every other area of your life, and which you can be proud of mastering.   PPPS – One part of the Aerostich business has been to supply and support riders who like to explore some very distant locations and cultures. Many have shared great stories and images of their experiences, and I’ve become friends with a few of these riders, including several whom we’ve been able to help sponsor with Aerostich gear. Most recently Anna O'Neil (see her Facebook page). Most of these stories are now shared via books and online videos. The videos have become so numerous that it is impossible to view even a small fraction of them. Among the best are those made by a Dutch woman, Noralee Schoenmaker (www.itchyboots.com), who has been creating and sharing her motorcycle trip stories for (at this writing) eight years. She recently reached three million YouTube subscribers, and to celebrate and thank her supporters, she’s made a wonderful video summarizing the length and breadth of her experiences, which you can watch here, for free. Her story fits right in with the experiences and ideas I’ve described here.

Both...and forever My brother Ken recently sent me a link to a devastating story about the recent decline of Harley Davidson. It described something more than a decline, a catastrophic collapse-in-progress of one of the worlds most well-known brands.   Another old riding friend of mine recently sent me a link (Thanks, Mark D!) to a popular vlogger’s video about how motorcycling is ending: Bikes not selling, dealers closing, riders aging out, fewer young people getting into riding, etc. All the usual observations and laments. It is a well-done video which I scanned/watched with knowing interest. Aerostich is smaller than it was ten years ago, too, and we have a front row seat, but… Although the vlogger who made this video is correct about how the motorcycling ‘culture’ we lived and enjoyed is currently in a moderately rapid decline, which there are many reasons for, what it misses is that over the next fifty years another motorcycle culture will very likely arise in its place. It probably won’t look much like the one most of us have experienced and enjoyed, though.  Predicting the shape of any future moto-culture isn’t something I’m any good at, but some clues are surrounding us already, including (but not limited to): Honda’s best-selling bike here in America last year and this year is the 300cc model which comes in three or four variations:  A not Street legal dual sport play bike, and also as a fully street legal version. Kawasaki is selling more bikes in America than Honda this year. First time EVER. Hopeful Honda still has a bit of Mr. Honda’s famous ultra-competitive bad-ass DNA and this development will motivate the heck out the crew at Honda. Maybe even to the point of American Honda bringing back some kind of riff on the well-remembered “You Meet the Nicest People…” ad campaigns from the 1960s. The times we are living in today might be right for that kind of message, again. What was once old might become new again. Today’s version of their pioneering Cub is a truly wonderful machine. All the world’s motorcycle manufacturers are making and selling all-new models with very strong globally compliant ICE exhaust emission controls, anti-lock brake systems, etc. Even the smallest engine sizes and lowest-priced models like the Cub are being (or have already been) entirely redesigned to incorporate these technologies. Motorcycle makers would not be spending the large amounts of money to do all the re-engineering of even their lowest-end bikes for a future they don’t think will exist. They have what most people would call lots of real ‘skin in the game’. Automatic gearboxes, lighted control buttons on the handlebars, high-tech dashboards, easily rider-controllable performance features, and better engine management controls and amazing fuel economy are all coming on fast. Everywhere. Not to even mention electric powered motorcycles. The American electric bike specialist Zero just relocated their company’s HQ from Santa Cruiz California to somewhere in Europe because that’s now where the majority of their sales are. Suzuki just entirely redesigned their long-time best-selling DRZ 400cc models (there are two versions of this model) because this bike is: A) one of their most important core products, and B) it needs to be legally sellable in all markets world-wide. The top-to-bottom re-do involved meeting much stricter standards that what we have here in America. It meant fuel injection and a catalyst in the exhaust, and more. The new DRZ has the same HP as before, weighs a few lbs. (kg’s) more, and now can be sold worldwide. They would not have done all this, spending big money to do it, if they thought motorcycling was ever going away. Ebikes (electric-assist bicycles) are selling very well. They are not motorcycles, but they are important because they are an easy entry “gateway drug” for all riding, and more specifically for motorcycles. They are as beneficially-addictive as any motorcycle. Their plusses = lower cost, no licensing test, and no registration and insurance needed. Minuses = lower speeds, not being super compatible with auto traffic and range limited. After seven years my fairly crappy ebike has accumulated about 8,000 commuting and errand miles, five to ten miles at a time. If I wasn’t already a motorcyclist, I’d have become one by now. Summary: There is a good future for motorcycling, in America and world-wide, and the very smartest people with the largest stakes in this future are betting serious money this will be so. I agree with them. They are the biggest stakeholders in motorcycling’s future. Selfishly, I also suspect this future may be slightly more in alignment with some core things we have always prioritized in Aerostich products and marketing narratives: Utility, usefulness, function, comfort, safety, long-term durability… The future of motorcycling-in-general is brighter than ever. There are some very bright lights at the other end of the tunnel we are currently riding through. The celebrations of long-distance testosterone-fueled endurance riding and (similarly) the wonderfully popular sanitized simulations of ‘biker’ styles many of us have enjoyed for decades are super cool, but these moto-subcultures will probably continue to weaken because many younger potential-riders don’t find them as compelling as we did. The same can probably be said for the luxe touring segment and the high-tech ADV bike worlds. These areas of motorcycling will continue, of course, and I love them as much as anyone, but they may end up as smaller niches within a much larger expanding moto-culture universe, one which is just now on the cusp of being created by younger riders looking for coolness and relief from the omnipresent dullness and boringness of screens and sealed cars. The mainstream of the future of motorcycling will not look like the past, stylistically, but riding and motorcycles are likely to continue being popular, so long as there are people and roads. And if I could snap my fingers, make a wish, and suddenly 90% of all single-person car drivers would actively be riding motorcycles, bicycle and scooters, instead of passively sitting inside their cars, almost everything about how humanity works would soon be a lot better. Less Alzheimer’s and dementia, less psychological and emotional problems, a lighter environmental and energy footprint on the planet, calmer, more alert, more happier and more co-operative people. Everywhere.  The historical accident of having 90% of the people across most of eastern Asia riding small motos, bicycles and scooters everywhere they needed to go in the decades after WW2 was the secret ingredient to how societies there functioned so well and grew so successful so rapidly, and how all this occurred under such a wide range of differing types of governments. After any society becomes wealthier, and you put everyone inside sealed cars and behind screens, with everyone thus being more generally alone and isolated from one another, and (importantly) more isolated from ‘nature’ (human and otherwise), that is when societies start to fall apart.    Riding is good for you. It is well worth its risks and minor discomforts.  Motorcycles, scooters and bicycles will always be bad-ass, and will always be tremendous fun, and will always be worth the challenges and risks, no matter what the styles and forms are. So six seven y’all and stay out of trouble. - Mr. Subjective, Oct 2025