Predictably a Blog RSS

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...

The First Ride... Photo: Daimler Reitwagen. Wladyslaw, CC BY-SA 2.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons. 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...

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...

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...

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...

VerschlimmbessernGerman verb, loose translation: To make something worse by trying to improve it. Long a favorite word of mine, though I've never known exactly how to pronounce it or use it in any actual conversation. Two forms, verb and noun...

...Or How to Ride Through 90º+ Temps (More or Less Comfortably) A) Ride a minimally faired/windscreened bike. There are several other reasons for this (Mr. Subjective) preference than heat, but below 95°F this can be a factor. B) Wear a...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Introduction – Everyone knows newer motorcycles require less maintenance than older ones, and that their engineered service life is longer. Despite those advantages most of us continue to ride our less-than-new machines, and we generally love them and want them...

The least expensive and most convenient form of personal mobility is walking, followed by public transportation where available. One step up are bicycles and e-bicycles followed in ascending rank by motor scooters, small motorcycles, larger motorcycles, smaller cars, larger cars,...

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...

Start with a merino wool base layer.  We sell this but Smartwool and many other companies offer similar.  And if you can’t deal with wool, there are excellent synthetics these days.  We sell this made in USA one and several others. Skip the cotton...

...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...

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...

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,...

The minimum we recommend wearing under an Aerostich suit (Darien, R-3, Cousin Jeremy, all of them) is a T shirt and shorts.  For most of the  warmer part of the year that's what I wear.  Specifically, these shorts, ‘commando’ (without boxers or...

"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...