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.

The last time I hung out in person with Ola Stenegärd, the Director of Design for Indian Motorcycle, was at the 2020 One Moto Show in Portland, Oregon, weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everyone down. Our weekly interactions since consist of idea and anecdotal exchanges on WhatsApp or Instagram, and recently the topic of Werner — the popular German cartoon character created by Brösel (born Rötger Feldmann) in the 1970s — caught my attention.

Our first podcast guest of 2023 was Livio Suppo, one of the most successful team principals in MotoGP. He won multiple world championships with Casey Stoner and Marc Marquez in his time with Ducati and Repsol HRC. He told us how he thought the 2023 season would shake out, so it was natural that we’d talk again just days after the season wrapped to get his thoughts on a topsy-turvy year, and what he thinks 2024 will bring.

Seven months or so after I rode with Brian Mock for the first time, the Milpitas native bought a 2018 Triumph Tiger 800 Adventure. He still rides the snot out of that same Tiger, despite other bikes catching his fancy. And after trying several dual sport and adventure bikes myself, I bought a 2007 Triumph Tiger 1050 this past July to level the playing field. Too many damn fine roads to ride in California!

So it was surprising that we hadn’t shared a long ride on our Tigers until this past weekend, when Brian recommended the Carmel Valley Loop, 200-plus miles of scenic northern California vistas and choppy roads.

Autumn is quickly shifting into winter in several states this week, as a foot of snow is falling in South Lake Tahoe and the white stuff is blanketing parts of New Hampshire. Although I’m 11-plus years removed from living in the Midwest, I carry fond memories of zooming around Pelican Lake in north central Wisconsin on my parents’ snowmobiles, striking fear into my wife as my brother Joel and I raced across the snowy ice at a squillion miles an hour.

Actor Keanu Reeves is making box-office headlines with his groundbreaking John Wick movies, and while the Arch Motorcycle co-founder turns heads with his company's latest model, the Method 143, many may not realize it was his personal early '70s Norton Commando that he rode from Toronto to Florida to hand deliver Gus Van Sant's script for My Own Private Idaho to convince fellow actor River Phoenix to join the cast in December 1990.

Reeves and Phoenix met while Reeves was filming Parenthood with Phoenix's brother Joaquin in 1988. The two acted together for the first time in Lawrence Kasdan's I Love You to Death the following year. Gus Van Sant had written a screenplay loosely based on Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V, and wanted Reeves and Phoenix as his main protagonists. The story involves two friends, Mike and Scott, as they embark on a journey that takes them to Mike's hometown in Idaho and then to Italy in search of Mike's mother.

Recently, I wrote about British industrialist Dennis Poore saving Norton, Triumph, BSA and other motorcycle manufacturers from ruin between 1966 and 1973. Nearly 40 years prior in the United States, Excelsior-Henderson was third place in the US motorcycle market behind Indian and Harley-Davidson.

When the Great Depression wreaked havoc in late October 1929, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell an estimated 15 percent by 1932 (by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1 percent from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession). In many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II in 1939. Bicycle czar Ignaz Schwinn—who purchased Excelsior in 1912 and Henderson in 1917—ceased motorcycle operations in September 1931.

How did Indian survive? We have the great-grandson of industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours, patriarch of the mighty du Pont family, to thank.

I was U.S. editor of BikeRadar.com, a British cycling website that launched in July 2007. Bicycles were my life, and I was neglecting a BMW R 90/6 in the garage in favor of the 15 or so bicycles hanging from the rafters. It was my job, after all, and my 43-year-old body needed to stay in shape. A few years later I became aware of a new book called “Shop Class As Soulcraft” written by a guy who owned a one-man motorcycle repair shop in Virginia.

Today is the twelfth anniversary of the day Apple co-founder and figurehead Steve Jobs passed away, age 56. Thirty years prior, he was photographed riding his 1966 BMW R 60/2 near the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, just a few miles south of our home in Mountain View. What he accomplished in those 30 years was nothing short of miraculous.

I ride my bicycle through Los Altos several times a week, passing the Alto Mesa Memorial Park where he’s buried, which recently reminded me of a chance ride I had with Jobs associate and friend John Doerr two months after Jobs died.

Thomas Edward Lawrence — better known as Lawrence of Arabia, made famous by David Lean’s 1962 classic movie of the same name — loved his motorcycles, specifically the spendy and powerful Brough Superior. He owned eight of these beauties.

‘The Road’ is Chapter 16 in Part III of T.E. Lawrence’s book The Mint, written in 1929 but published posthumously 20 years after his death in 1935 (as per his wishes). Lawrence writes about ‘Boanarges’, the name he gave his 1928 Brough Superior SS100, his only earthly indulgence.

They say music turns hard life into poetry, so what does that say about motorcycle design? Where do metal, rubber, gas, melody, and emotion intersect in the face of a century of world wars, financial collapse, transportation, and economic growth?

According to the International Council of Design, regardless of the application, designers follow methodology and a set of fundamental notions, which inform their approach. Designers also strive to ‘do more with less,’ and they maximize economy (of materials, of investment, of energy, etc.) through creativity and ingenuity.

As BMW Motorrad celebrates 100 years in 2023, the sweet spot for the German manufacturer seems to be its popular R nineT, R 1250 GS, S 1000 RR, and R 1250 RT models. Going the distance has been the company’s unofficial motto, it seems, with thousands of customers enjoying the scenery on long trips off-road and on for decades.

So it’s somewhat curious to see the manufacturer enter into the politically-charged EV market, not with a lithe urban marauder dripping with Bauhaus sensibility, but a hefty science experiment reeking of interdepartmental confusion called the CE 04.

A triumphant return home to Mountain View, California from our first enormously memorable European motorcycle trip was barely a week old when we were told the lease on the address we’ve called home for nearly 17 years wouldn’t be renewed. This is where we raised two dynamic teenagers; entertained friends and family from around the world; cultivated a fine array of flowers, plants and trees; enjoyed flybys from hummingbirds; took care of countless dogs; and garaged nearly 30 motorcycles on a rotating basis.

It’s finally happening. After years of wishful thinking, best laid plans, conservative financial planning and research, we’re taking a guided motorcycle tour of Europe for most of August. I’m choosing not to bring my laptop, so this will be the last blog post until at least August 30. There’ll be much to share once we return, with rich detail, photo galleries and details galore.

Jean, myself and riding pal Brian board United flight 1411 departing SFO at 7 a.m., August 8, transferring planes in Newark before landing in Geneva at 7:30 a.m. CEST. We’ve been preparing for this since February, and the time has finally arrived to head east and hop on some bikes in a region of the world none of us has experienced before.

Last Saturday morning I was washing the side cases from my Moto Guzzi Quota 1100ES. After 9,000 glorious miles of ownership it was time to find a new rider and home for the Italian tractor. As the suds were getting sprayed down the driveway an older couple walked by, both them and their little dog unfamiliar to me as the day’s heat was slowly building.

“Good morning,” I said, hose in hand as I washed off my feet. Phil was meeting at our place in an hour or so for a ride to the coast to escape the forecasted 90-plus degree heat. It was our maiden voyage on the 2007 Triumph Tiger 1050 we purchased from George Smith in Martinez a few days prior, and Jean was excited to get back on a proper two-up sport touring bike after we sold our trusty BMW R 1150 RT several months ago.

“Hey, that’s a Moto Guzzi,” the gentleman said as he doubled back toward me. “Haven’t seen that model before. I’m more of a car guy, but the Guzzis always stand out to me.”

Fictional Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire hates motorcycles as much as Indiana Jones hates snakes, but the New York Times bestselling author Craig Johnson loves bikes as much as he loves his horses and Wyoming ranch.

With his 19th novel ‘The Longmire Defense’ set for early September 2023 publication, we spoke with the 62-year-old West Virginia native about his motivation and discipline for writing, how he spent several promotional tours visiting bookstores on his BMW motorcycle, and that time many decades ago when he nearly lost an eye during a motocross race.

Little is known of blue-eyed author Craig Johnson’s career path prior to publishing his first novel, The Cold Dish, at age 43 in 2004. Johnson appears to have stayed on the right side of Johnny Law, and at some point was inspired to develop the characters which appeared in the book. He certainly has a vivid imagination and a penchant for writing about trials and tribulations of people on and off the Indian reservations around the greater Wyoming area.

With an Americano at my right elbow and the music of Rush in my Airpods, it’s easy to process what my next motorcycle adventure should entail. I’m sitting at Red Rock Coffee while the July sun warms Villa & Castro streets, not struggling to keep my bike upright against gale force winds on CA-5 or getting pelted by hail through Bakersfield.

And any reinforcement from the late motorcyclist, writer, lyricist and Rush drummer Neil Peart is welcome. This is why I return to his books for mental and spiritual guidance. It’s been three and a half years since we lost Peart to brain cancer, but his words and music live on. 

Spending my 2023 Fourth of July on a 245-mile lunch adventure up to Sonoma County with pal Brian, while a 2023 BMW CE-04 electric scooter awaits a week of testing in my garage in Mountain View.