Moto Culture

A Short Mr. Subjective Blog Post See attached. This model Honda is in short supply, and high demand. Last night (Sept 6th) this auction closed at midnight.  Location: Chicago area.  The MSRP on these is $3899.  This one had 180 miles on its odometer. Whomever sold it probably bought it to flip. He or she just made a pretty easy $600. Screen...

“When you own your story, you get to write the ending.” Brené Brown Because Aerostich gear isn’t hanging in cycle shops, and is made in America, and is available only factory direct, media exposure is important. Almost any kind of exposure in social or traditional media is good, which gives professional journalists and ‘influencers’ the space to take their Aerostich...

An essay by Mrs. Subjective… Last week was the first time I rode on the back of a motorcycle in more than ten years. It was the first time I rode with my husband, Aerostich’s “Mr. Subjective”, whose life revolves around the activity, or what he would call ‘a social good’. In my years of knowing him, he has talked...

If you want to ride a motorcycle often it’s always part of a system. Simply owning a motorcycle is great, but by itself that bike isn’t quite enough if you wish to ride a lot. Just like most individual recreational activities, riding (and racing) require a support system of parts, tools and equipment. And the more frequently and longer you...

My reply, whenever people ask, “Aren’t you hot?” is “Yes I am.” But my favorite reply to any question about wearing Aerostich gear on a hot day came from my friend John Chase. Thirty years ago, we were riding back roads and cross-country dirt trails heading diagonally north-west from Phoenix Arizona toward Yosemite National Park in California, and trying to...

This post/essay is included in Section 5 of the book "The Riders" (pictured above) available to purchase here. The smaller and more obscure a road is, the more interesting it usually will be on a motorcycle. This size/interestingness inverse proportionality is well known to experienced riders. Motorcyclists naturally want to find out what is just over there, on the other...

“Social media is less a reflection of who we are, and more a performance of who we want to be."- Drew Harwell and Shiori Okazaki, May 11, 2021, in a Washington Post front-page story featuring a life-long motorcycle rider. Here’s a link to the full article. The story is about a 50-year-old male rider in Japan who successfully pretended to be a...

Did you and your contemporaries ever call notoriously slow cars and bikes ‘stones’? For example: “That old van sure is a stone…” When I was growing up my pals and I always referred to all underpowered vehicles as ‘stones’ or ‘slugs’, so I’m not sure if the new ‘Moto Guzzi V7 Stone ’ is an example of truth-in-advertising, or if...

This is a short essay about what the Apple company might be planning for their Next Big Thing. First, please note I am not an Apple 'fan-boy’ and have not spent even one second doing any actual research on this, so what follows is mostly made-up storytelling. I was recently daydreaming (thanks pandemic!) when a bunch of ideas came into...

Here’s an excerpt from an emotional essay about the recent ending of some good special interest outdoor magazines. Not the print motorcycle titles we all knew and have recently lost, but almost the exact same scenario: “...And what’s left is too often shit. I don’t mean Bike, Powder, Snowboarder, or Surfer, I mean junk shows like Men’s Journal. Is this...