Art, craft and storytelling runs in my family. Despite the proliferation of modern content and media filling our small and large screens as a society, sometimes something new comes along that harkens back to the old, prompting a warm feeling cascading up from the belly to form a smile on my face.

I became aware of Indiana native Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studio and his throw-back 3D illustration and stop-motion animation craft 11 or so years ago after watching this video, and have followed his journey on Instagram and in print and digital interviews.

The stars aligned last week when my friend Dave McLaughlin texted to coordinate a spirited ride from Livermore to Mines Road and up and over Mt Hamilton through San Jose with our pal Ross Shafer. My schedule was open and the roads were calling.

The late-summer heat hadn’t returned to Livermore yet, so our ride through the San Antonio Valley was crisp and fun, with a quick stop at the newly-renovated Junction at Del Puerto Canyon Road. We met several old timers on bikes, and after some BSing climbed the same switchbacks ridden by Lycra-clad Tour of California pros to the Lick Observatory before descending 19 miles into San Jose and back to our respective homes. Last Thursday also happened to be Ross’s 62nd birthday.

Belgian motorcyclist Kim Tiebergyn has accomplished quite a bit in the 11 years since getting his M1 class license. The 32-year-old has become a regular fixture on the professional international bicycle racing circuit, piloting the likes of world-class photographer Tim De Waele. Tiebergyn has racked up an impressive race resume: nine times Tour of Flanders, eight times Paris-Roubaix, seven times Tour de France, seven times Giro d'Italia, seven times Milan-San Remo, and six times La Vuelta a España, to name a few.

As a 51-year-old born and raised in Wisconsin who didn’t ride a Harley-Davidson until 2015, when given the opportunity to ride one all around California for two weeks I chose the Fat Bob Softail. I was drawn to the brawny bars and front tire, and the un-Harley aesthetic. Riding it north on US Route 101 from Los Angeles last Sunday was fun, but I wanted a bigger and dumber challenge to really get a feel for the bike. So I called my moto buddy Ryan.

Syracuse native Peter Jones still receives correspondence from folks who enjoyed his Cycle World feature story about Sturgis last fall, and that surprises him. I contacted Jones recently to talk motorcycles, and thought it would be fun to interview someone who’s typically doing the interviewing.

What was your upbringing like?

My upbringing was unconventional. We lived in the city until I was 11, and there were no motorcycles in my family until my brothers and I each left home.

Who or what influenced you to become a motorcyclist?

I was 21 when I first got a motorcycle. I was attending college in Florida and it seemed an easy, economical means of transportation. I bought a Kawasaki 175 two-stroke. It had many issues.

The throttle bug bit me again in late December 2013, and I picked up a 2004 Moto Guzzi California Stone for $3,400 off Craigslist in San Francisco, about 40 miles north of our house in Mountain View. I knew of CityBike because of Maynard’s longtime contributor status, but hadn’t read a copy in years. My boss mentioned a fella named Gabe Ets-Hokin, who I emailed in September 2014 about possibly writing a column for Bicycle Times, the magazine I edit. We spoke a few times, and finally met at Alice’s Restaurant for lunch in late January.

Recently, Gabe texted to ask if I was interested in driving the `15 Harley-Davidson Ultra Limited (featured on the April cover) down to the Harley Fleet Center in Carson, then driving a new Triumph Tiger 800 XcX back to Oakland for Editor Surj. I said yes without hesitation, despite never having ridden to Los Angeles and back, let alone ridden a Harley. I was confident saying yes because my Goose is a fairly big cruiser, and I’ve driven it 8,000 miles all over the Bay Area.

In Part 1 of "How Would You Resurrect A 1953 Norton Dominator 88?", California bicycle framebuilder Todd Ingermanson described how he obtained a basket case from New Zealand and the steps he's taken over the past 18 years to breathe new life into a highly desirable machine. Here's Part 2.

“While this list might seem fairly short, all these disparate parts needed one, two, three, or a half dozen parts made to have them mate up to the other parts they were attaching to,” Ingermanson explained. “I became a one-man adapter-making machine. There was a lot of re-doing things that a step or two after completion were found to be in the way of—or somehow otherwise interfering with—another part. It took four attempts to get the rearset placement correct. It took three rebuilds of the gearbox to figure out that a re-pop kickstart pinion was made incorrectly and was locking up the gearbox.”

The bike had been raced. The frame was stripped to the bare minimum. No brackets, centerstand lugs removed, extra holes for rearsets drilled in the frame’s webbing for mounting the swingarm, etc. The frame—one of the first-generation Norton featherbed frames—had a bolt-up subframe (exactly what BMW did on its boxers from the ’70s) and was the year before the British company braced and gusseted the headstock on the road-going bikes.

Not only had this frame been raced, it appeared to have been crashed a time or two. The subframe was twisted, as was the swingarm, and there were a few small scattered dents. In the crate with the frame was a 500cc iron head motor from a Dominator 77, an AMC gearbox, some mismatched wheels, a Lucas magneto, a pair of rusty Roadholder forks, and a handful of parts for Todd Ingermanson to try and make a motorbike out of. Of all the contents of that crate, only the front half of the frame remains on the bike.

On a clear June morning, I rode 150 miles to Sea Ranch, California, to interview a vacationing rock guitarist. He's 62 years old, lives in Los Angeles, and a few days prior, rode a loaner Scrambler Ducati 1100 Sport from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. His pal Jason had arranged to hand off the Sport for a week of riding in western Mendocino County, where Jonesy often vacations to clear his head from the craziness of LA.

Steve Jones is the host of "Jonesy's Jukebox," a popular radio show on 95.5 KLOS in Los Angeles. The former Sex Pistols guitarist is considering a major move to northern California if he can find the right property. I rode a Scrambler Ducati 1100 Special three hours north to meet Jonesy, who was funny, relaxed, and more keen to talk about bikes than music.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the scrawny dude rolling up to Red Rock Coffee on a 1400cc Moto Guzzi California in early October 2017. There was a chill demeanor to his aura, an unmistakable calm that I didn’t realize at the time would have a profound effect on my life.

My friend Brian Mock turns 54 today. He’s a successful machinist; he’s never known anything else and he’s at peace with this. He rarely talks about work, unless he gets a text or call from a staffer while we’re on a motorcycle adventure. Thirty years ago he bought his childhood home in Milpitas from his mother, with an attached garage lined with motorcycle posters from his teenage years.

Europe in the late summer is nearly unbeatable, especially on a motorcycle. Too hot? Twist the throttle a bit more. Too cold. Same. In a hurry? Don’t be!

Beyond the postcard scenery and centuries-old pictorama, the important stuff to Jean, Brian and myself were the people and machines in our touring group. 

After all the planning and preparation to arrive in Aix-les-Bains for our 12-day journey, it was important to be fully present and receptive to the “strangers” who rode their bikes from the far reaches of Switzerland, France and Belgium to join us English speaking Californians and New Zealanders in a French parking lot on Sunday, August 13, 2023.

A third of the way through our 1,491-mile European motorcycle Alps tour — with Switzerland in our mirrors and Italy in our sights — we crossed into Austria, tackling the 8,117-foot Timmelsjoch Pass (Passo del Rombo) in the Tyrol region. Before immersing ourselves into the splendors of Italy, though, extreme heat reared its ugly head before heavy showers greeted us a few days later in the Dolomites.

Our pace was quick and rarely interrupted. We embraced roundabouts, which aren’t as prevalent here in the U.S. This saved unnecessary stops and starts in larger cities, and provided some respite from the heat once the midday sun started beating down.

It was all about checking boxes in Part 1 of this series recounting our motorcycle tour of the Alps, while Part 2 diplomatically described my emotional response to having zero control of the situation once we started rolling through Switzerland. Lesson learned? Be less like Walter and more like The Dude.

We were, after all, riding a beautiful German motorcycle in the Swiss, Italian and Austrian Alps, so why get worked up when there was breathtaking scenery to absorb? The only way to cleanse one’s soul is to embrace awesome, which Europe’s Alps offer in unlimited supply.

In Part One, I spoke with Maynard Hershon about his early motorcycle days, racing hare scrambles and doing hill climbs. We touched on several interesting historical facts, and due to our continued friendship and his legacy, I’m republishing Part Two of my interview with him from August 2017 here.

How and when did you start piloting motorcycles during domestic bicycle races? How many years did you do that?

I was working for Winning Magazine in the ‘80s when the Coors Classic stage race came to California (from Colorado). Because I was a “bicycle media hotshot” and could ride a motorcycle, when I asked if I could help with the race, I got a flattering yes.

The name Maynard Hershon is familiar to avid bicyclists and motorcyclists. For years the Midwest native’s byline appeared in several cycling publications, including Winning and VeloNews. His books Tales From The Bike Shop and Half-Wheel Hell are both dog-eared best sellers. But Hershon has lived a double life for decades, also writing for a handful of motorcycle publications, namely CityBike.

As I explained in Part 1, there was a certain luxury in not having time constraints when planning our first European motorcycle tour. After a few years of passive research, it was time to commit.

First, we chose August to tour the Alps for several reasons: agreeable weather to summit high passes (10,000-plus feet above sea level); drier conditions, because riding for hours in the rain sucks no matter how prepared you are; more time for prep rides in California’s mountainous terrain; a longer runway to decide which gear to wear and bring; and a clearer head after enjoying summer and all its loveliness.

The trade off? Higher travel costs (airline, Airbnb/hotels) due to August being the peak European tourist season and heat. In my experience it’s easier to deal with heat than cold or wet, so we rolled the dice and accepted our fate.

The domino effect of touring the Alps by motorcycle in 2023 began when I became a serious cyclist in 2013.

Then 47 years old, I was invited to be a guest of Trek Travel to participate in L’Etape du Tour, organized by the same promoters as the Tour de France. Literally meaning a stage of the Tour, ours was a 130 kilometer loop starting in Annecy, France, with Mount Blanc lording over everyone like Zeus. I flew from San Francisco to Geneva, Switzerland, then took a bus 45 minutes to Annecy, our home base for the week as 10 of us trained for the Big Ride. It was my first time road cycling in Europe, approximately 7-½ years after touring Rwanda by mountain bike.

Joe Parkin came into my purview more than 30 years ago. We first crossed paths when he won the 1992 Chequamegon 40 mountain bike race (I was waaaaay off the back in the sea of 2,400 participants), then at the Chicago Area Bicycle Dealers Association (CABDA) Show a few years later. We became friends over the years, when he moved to Santa Cruz, CA in 2008 and we saw each other regularly. I interviewed Joe for some magazines a few times, and in turn he hired me to contribute to Paved and BIKE Magazines when he became editor a year or so later.

He married Elayna Caldwell, whose subsequent job took them to Chicago, then Germany, before landing in Colorado. Joe and I haven’t seen each other in a few years, but as kindred spirits over many things, we text and talk on the phone as frequently as the days allow. We’ve led somewhat parallel lives, and I’d be remiss not to do a proper interview with Pal Joe to share his story. 

German tire manufacturer Metzeler originally produced plastic and rubber products. Founded in 1863, the company expanded like its peers into aviation, automobile and motorcycle tires. World World II saw the factory destroyed, and after rebuilding and refocusing over time, motorcycle tires became its primary focus before getting acquired by Pirelli & C. S.p.A. in 1986.

Today, Metzeler tires come stock on several production bikes, including the 2024 BMW R 1300 GS. To highlight the new bike’s performance capabilities beyond the typical media launch in Spain or southern California’s desert terrain, Metzeler and BMW Motorrad organized an expedition in Chile to prove how serious the two German companies are about performance under extreme circumstances.

Our new place sits across from an elementary school on a slightly busy road off the main drag in Mountain View. There’s orchestrated chaos twice a day when kids are dropped off and picked up in front of our house. One daily highlight is seeing middle school-aged storks and geese roll by: young teen girls storking on their bicycles, pulling on the bars and standing while pedaling instead of shifting out of the big ring (storking), with a gaggle of young teen boys rolling by a few minutes later, their prepubescent voices breaking in unison (like geese) excitedly about stuff in general.

Then there’s the cool kid.