Year by year I have had this building desire to own an Indian motorcycle. It started out when I was just a small child, sitting on Santa’s lap at the local department store. Did I get one? No. Has my desire for an Indian motorcycle been fulfilled? Not yet, but it is getting a lot…
When you name a motorcycle after an Intercontinental Ballistic Missle it better be one hell of a bike. Norton did just that, sort of. Norton had some sort of Post War / Cold War theme going for a while. They had the Dominator, then the Atlas, next came the Commando… Norton was at war with…
Sometimes you just have to wonder why a motorcycle manufacturer would keep building a bike that they have already replaced with a much better bike? A bike that is smoother, faster and much more in line with the times. The 1976 Honda CB500T is the poster child for just that question. In the early to…
In 1957 Harley Davidson was not really in trouble compared to Indian. A few years before the Beatles arrived there was the original ‘British Invasion’. Soldiers had returned home from the war in Europe and were buying motorcycles. Triumph, BSA, Norton, AJS, Enfield, and others were all building light and fast motorcycles while Harley and…
Through the first part of the 20th Century, Indian was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world. Indian produced the fastest and most technologically advanced motorcycles there were. Then World War 2 hit. Indian did supply motorcycles to the military for the war effort but Harley Davidson, Indian’s closest competitor, was awarded more of the…
In 1969 BSA commanded 80% of all the Brit bikes sold here in the USA. Eighty Percent! Who woulda thunk? I, and I think most of us, would have pegged Triumph as the leader but not so say the statistics. What was it about BSA that made it that strong a seller in a time…
Team Motoworld is back at it’s favorite motorcycle event, the World Superbike meet at Miller Motorsposrts Park in Utah. It’s always a wonderful time. Every year when we leave, we’re not even out of the parking lot before we start looking forward to next year, it’s that much fun. Yeah, it’s a lot of work,…
A couple Saturday’s ago I was riding up in the Santa Monica mountains on my way to a Vintage BMW gathering down in Venice, California, and one of the required stops on that kind of ride is The Rock Store on Mulholland Highway. It’s always a good stop because you’ll see a few really cool…
That cool sound that you paid hundreds of dollars for emanating from the back of your motorcycle may wind up costing you more than the retail price. A while back I mentioned in one of my Motoworld podcasts www.themotoworld.com that a state legislator from Southern California, Fran Pavely (Dem, Santa Monica) in 2009 was working…
The last Motoworld blog post was all about getting friends together to watch the season opener MotoGP, do some bench racing, eat, drink and plan our spring road trip. While everyone was arriving with pots and plates of food, boxes of beers and good munchies we had a great motorcycle movie on in the background….
