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...
After experiencing three days of sweltering 98º highs during the BMW Motorcyle Owners Of America’s National Rally in Springfield Missouri, I headed homeward riding up state route sixty-five. First stop, lunch in Sedalia. Temp still 98-99º. Sticky hot. By Iowa it was down to 87º and comfortable enough. At Minneapolis, 83. Very comfortable. All those miles of comfortable-ness made me...
A famous old saying goes: “Nothing clarifies the mind like standing before a firing squad.” The last couple of years have been like that for more than a few of us. Hopefully we’re now on the far side of a fading pandemic. Surviving this plague (…so far anyway) has made me grateful and wanting Aerostich to focus more sharply on...
Last year an elderly friend emailed to inform me he’d decided to finally stop riding. A few months later he emailed me again about how he was missing it more than he’d anticipated and now was looking for one of those little (and somewhat hard to find) retro 250cc Suzuki’s, the TU250X. Those good machines have a small following in...
If you commute every day or nearly every day, in all kinds of atrocious weather, this is for you. For those riders who are Road Grimed Astronauts and use their bikes for daily transportation, errands and last but not least, who commute as much as they can. If you ride mostly for fun, sport, entertainment and relaxation, or if you commute only...
...or like a sociopath? Almost nothing one can do during course of their ordinary daily life is as socially ostracizing as when one gets bundled up to ride somewhere for utility transportation through cold or crappy weather. You’ll receive the strangest comments, reactions and looks if you find yourself riding when, in the mainstream’s comfortably-sealed-inside-a-car worldview, one isn’t supposed to...
Thanks to the internet, a far-away and never-met long-time motorcycle friend (Paolo, who lives in Turkey and operates this interesting motorcycle, philosophy and culture website) recently emailed me an amusing short essay about the misleading environmentalism of electric power-in-general. A link to a downloadable .pdf of that essay is attached at the bottom of this post, but before you skip...
When I was younger (mid 30’s) I did two sort of endurance rides. Neither was specifically planned to be an endurance ride. I simply wanted (needed?) to see if I could get somewhere which happened to be fairly far away, in as little time as possible. I was not trying to set any speed record, though. Just wanted to get...
"Good god no. I'm nowhere near old enough..."- Excerpt from a recent online (Revzilla Common Tread) discussion about "Building A Better Brand" and the R-3 and Roadcrafter Classic one piece suits
Before we know it our ICE (internal combustion engine) motorcycles will be replaced by electrics. And not specifically because the bikes we currently buy only slightly contribute to the greenhouse gas effect, but more because they are too costly to make, too difficult to ride and too tedious to maintain. Even today’s most fabulous and desirable bikes will meet the...
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...
After experiencing three days of sweltering 98º highs during the BMW Motorcyle Owners Of America’s National Rally in Springfield Missouri, I headed homeward riding up state route sixty-five. First stop, lunch in Sedalia. Temp still 98-99º. Sticky hot. By Iowa it was down to 87º and comfortable enough. At Minneapolis, 83. Very comfortable. All those miles of comfortable-ness made me...
A famous old saying goes: “Nothing clarifies the mind like standing before a firing squad.” The last couple of years have been like that for more than a few of us. Hopefully we’re now on the far side of a fading pandemic. Surviving this plague (…so far anyway) has made me grateful and wanting Aerostich to focus more sharply on...
Last year an elderly friend emailed to inform me he’d decided to finally stop riding. A few months later he emailed me again about how he was missing it more than he’d anticipated and now was looking for one of those little (and somewhat hard to find) retro 250cc Suzuki’s, the TU250X. Those good machines have a small following in...
If you commute every day or nearly every day, in all kinds of atrocious weather, this is for you. For those riders who are Road Grimed Astronauts and use their bikes for daily transportation, errands and last but not least, who commute as much as they can. If you ride mostly for fun, sport, entertainment and relaxation, or if you commute only...
...or like a sociopath? Almost nothing one can do during course of their ordinary daily life is as socially ostracizing as when one gets bundled up to ride somewhere for utility transportation through cold or crappy weather. You’ll receive the strangest comments, reactions and looks if you find yourself riding when, in the mainstream’s comfortably-sealed-inside-a-car worldview, one isn’t supposed to...
Thanks to the internet, a far-away and never-met long-time motorcycle friend (Paolo, who lives in Turkey and operates this interesting motorcycle, philosophy and culture website) recently emailed me an amusing short essay about the misleading environmentalism of electric power-in-general. A link to a downloadable .pdf of that essay is attached at the bottom of this post, but before you skip...
When I was younger (mid 30’s) I did two sort of endurance rides. Neither was specifically planned to be an endurance ride. I simply wanted (needed?) to see if I could get somewhere which happened to be fairly far away, in as little time as possible. I was not trying to set any speed record, though. Just wanted to get...
"Good god no. I'm nowhere near old enough..."- Excerpt from a recent online (Revzilla Common Tread) discussion about "Building A Better Brand" and the R-3 and Roadcrafter Classic one piece suits
Before we know it our ICE (internal combustion engine) motorcycles will be replaced by electrics. And not specifically because the bikes we currently buy only slightly contribute to the greenhouse gas effect, but more because they are too costly to make, too difficult to ride and too tedious to maintain. Even today’s most fabulous and desirable bikes will meet the...