Mr. Subjective

Snow clean up at Aerostich after a blizzard came through last weekend, dropping over 20 inches of snow in Duluth. It's been a wild week. A couple of nights ago I discovered a slowly deflating rear tire on my electric ‘winter commuter’ bicycle. A little sliver of metal had penetrated the studded tire’s casing and innertube. This puncture was easy to...

Yesterday for the first time this fall it got down to twenty degrees, well below historical averages here on this date. I rode to work from a heated garage aboard a recently re-animated -- but still seriously old -- 1994 Honda XR650L (photo, left). It didn’t take very long to dress for this chilly commute, either. Nobody else on my...

Question... “When you finish a long adventure ride, have you experienced strong emotions that you hadn’t planned on? If so, what were they and why?”Michael Boton (from the LinkedIn online forum 'motorcycle journalists') Many years ago, at age 43, I took three months off and rode 17K miles from Minnesota to Mongolia and back, via Siberia, China and Japan. I...

Our first product was the ‘Roadcrafter’, an armored coverall which has been produced, updated and improved continuously for thirty-six years. We’ve never felt the need to restyle it. Depending on how much one rides, and if they sit behind a windshield or fairing, and where they mostly ride, a Roadcrafter can function well for many years. Still, they eventually wear...

A few weeks ago, I drained the fuel tanks and float bowls of my two long-ridden old (BMW) airheads, washed and waxed both, aired up their tires, and then put them away inside the basement, not the garage. Also pulled spark plugs and sprayed oil in the upper cylinders. First time I’ve ever formally ‘put a bike away’. Felt like an...

Getting Started: Notes On One’s First Bike Trip Packing your crap... The first few days of travel and dealing with the straps, soft duffels and bags will teach you if your setup is good for you. The idea is to have things secure, semi-easy to get to, and not too much of a problem to remove or re-load. If it takes twenty minutes every morning...

If it can happen, it will (usually)... 1. The farther it is to the next gas stop, the larger the bug that will hit your shield exactly on the sight line. These may help... Cycle Wipes Effective, specially formulated wet wipes for cleaning bugs and grime from visors, shields and bikes. Convenient 12-count re-sealable travel pack stores easily in a pocket...

"The Older I Get, the Faster I Wuz..." Back in the day when 'Smokey and the Bandit' was in first-run theatrical release, Fuzzbuster (cheap) and Escort (expensive) radar detectors were still pretty new stuff. Lots of drivers had them and also the CB radios needed for talking about all the 'Bears' and 'Countie-mounties'. The era's quaint cat-and-mouse games between speeders...

The Ultimate Poach Camping App. Motorcycle vagabonding in the United States usually involves some camping, occasional couch surfing and a few cheap motels. The camping stuff divides between authorized and unauthorized campsites. Unauthorized means poach-camping. Stealth camping. Finding someplace to pull off the road for the night where nobody is likely to bother you, and hopefully also in an open-enough...

Riding road trips range from a simple out-and-back overnights to meandering multi-year globe-girdling vagabonding experiences. But for most who are reading this a typical summer road trip will involve crossing several states and riding thru deserts or mountains or to one of the borders or coasts. I’ve ridden cross country a few times. The main issues are: How much time...