Tread Life Is Making A Pit Stop

It’s been a year and a few days since I tripped and fell face-first into the blogosphere. Before then, I wouldn’t have used the word blogosphere; now I have a summer house there.

I started this blog because the market in the print media for my kind of work is shrinking. I’ve already written about how the very medium through which you’re reading this is largely responsible for that, so I won’t try to reanimate the dead horse. Suffice it to say I have seen the future, and is it virtual.

Tread Life was originally conceived as a sort of online resumé for anyone who might want to hire me to do paying work. But over time TL has become something more, a place for me to unwind and write the kind of things I want to write, as opposed to the things that might earn a buck.

It’s been good practice; every good writer writes almost obsessively. It’s also been good for me to expand my horizons and poke my nose into topics that wouldn’t have interested me previously because there was no market for them.

At the same time it must be acknowledged that you, the reader, have played a vital part in the process. Based on the comments you leave, and the emails I get, TL is more than a venue in which I can muse, rant, wonder, posit, and bloviate without fear of some editor standing over my shoulder, suggesting this post is a bit too harsh, or that post might piss off some of the readers.

So thanks to all of you who read this stuff. Next year I plan to liven up the mix a bit, with product spotlights, interviews with industry people, and maybe a travel story or two. I’m also going to see if I can scrounge together the equipment to make videos and post them on YouTube.

For now, however, Tread Life is going on a break, mainly because I don't figure many of you plan to spend the holiday season on the computer. Also, I feel another novel coming on, and I want to fool around with the outline some more before I get started on it.

So have a happy whatever it is you do this time of year. I’ll be back in 2010, and I hope you will, too.

Why Are Motorcycles So Hard To Work On?

I drove into town this afternoon to the Honda shop to pick up a bottle of coolant so I can finally put the V-Strom back together after the Great Valve-Adjustment Fiasco of ’09. While I was there I went around back to talk to the mechanic, who has done all of the work on my bike that I haven’t done myself, despite him working for a Honda shop and me riding a Suzuki.

He was sitting on a stool beside a lift on which sat the filthiest old quad I’ve ever seen. There was so much mud caked on it I wasn't sure what brand of quad it was. I joked that it was nice when the customers cleaned their bikes before they brought them in for service. He said this one wasn't bad, and I should see one of the really dirty ones.

I congratulated him on having the patience to sit there all day and work on mutts like that quad, because it had taken me three weeks just to adjust the valves on the V-Strom. He knows me well enough to realize I wasn't talking about three weeks of eight-hour days, but rather an hour here and an hour there, often with several days between those hours to wait for parts or let my aching knees and back recover.

We got to talking about how hard it was to work on some bikes. I told him some of the horror stories the V-Strom valve adjust had generated, and he trumped every one with a tale of his own about newer Hondas, especially the sportbikes, some of which are so compact that you have to remove the injector bodies to adjust the valves.

On the drive home I thought about this, and wondered when and why motorcycles got so hard to work on. When I started riding, it seemed like you were practically expected to do your own maintenance. BMW motorcycles came with toolkits so complete you could almost strip the bike down to the bare frame by the side of the road. Even low-dollar Japanese bikes came with a little blue plastic bag crammed so full of tools you could never fit them all back inside once you took them out.

Now? Not so much. Some of the test bikes I’ve ridden in recent years came with a spark-plug wrench, a screwdriver, and three wrenches made of steel as hard as old cheese. Harleys, which for years had a reputation for stopping dead due to factors like a change in humidity, still don’t come with tools of any kind.

All I can figure is the manufacturer don’t want me messing with the bike at all. That’s understandable, I guess, in the age of emissions standards and corporate liability, but dammit, if that’s the way they want to play it, they ought to make sure every shop selling their brand employs mechanics who can use tools for something other than scratching their asses.

Some years back, I stopped by a Suzuki dealer to ask about a valve adjust on the bike I was riding at the time. The only guy in the shop looked about 20, and had on a T-shirt with the name of some heavy-metal band across the front. He was holding a torque wrench the way a monkey would hold a violin.

This did little to instill confidence in his mechanical ability. Still, I was already there, so I asked him if he’d ever done the valves on the model of bike I had, and he said, “No, but I’ve done the valves on my CBR600, and that’s the same kind of valves, right? With the little round things?”

I thanked him for his time, rode away, and did the job myself. It only took me two weeks back then. I guess I’m slowing down in my old age.

Motorcycling Lessons Learned

On one of the forums I visit now and then, someone started a thread by asking for responses to the question, “How old are you and how has your riding changed, or has it?”

I jotted down a few things that came to mind right away, then the more I thought about it, the longer the list got. This was my answer:

I'm 57 (for a couple of months more), and I’ve been riding for 41 of those years.

Yes, my riding has changed.

I no longer ride at night.

I no longer have to be the first guy there.

I no longer care about anyone's pace but my own.

I no longer try to keep up with anyone who passes me.

I no longer feel the need to prove anything to anybody.

I'm 100 percent ATGATT. (For the uninitiated, that’s an acronym for “all the gear, all the time,” “gear” being riding gear—helmet, armored jacket and pants, gloves, boots.)

I'm convinced that most motorcycles need much bigger and brighter taillights.

I'm intrigued by big scooters and sidecars and I don't care who knows it.

It's more fun to ride a small bike as fast as it'll go than it is to ride a big one way too fast.

It's more fun to stop for coffee or to stretch and sightsee every 50 or 100 miles and arrive in time for a late dinner than it is to ride 400 miles in one shot and get there by lunchtime.

Lord of the Ring-Dings: Return of the King

No Elves or Orcs in this version, but a Wizard does battle with a shrieking, fearsome, and deadly fast four-cylinder beast from his past.

Inside Lines: Loud Pipes Equal Terrorism?

"'Instead of honoring noise terrorism, our representatives should protect us from the awful noise of Harley riders,' said George Atwood, a Noise Free America member from Milton, Wis."

Here inside the spacious Tread Life compound, the roar of Harleys on the highway down the hill can be heard clearly, and loudly, and often. It's annoying as hell, it turns the non-riding public against all the motorcyclists who don't have crippling inferiority complexes, and there's no real excuse for grown men and women to behave like a pack of five-year-olds whose clueless grandparents gave them drums for their birthday. Still, comparing obnoxious dimwits with loud pipes to fanatics who randomly blow up people is a pretty big leap.

Alex Zanardi, Roll Model

On September 15, 2001, Alex Zanardi, a veteran Formula 1 and Champ Car driver, was merging onto the track after leaving the pits late in a race at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany when his car spun and veered onto the racing line. The car driven by Alex Tagliani T-boned Zanardi’s car, splitting it in half and severing both of Zanardi’s legs above the knee.

After a long recovery, Zanardi continued to compete in cars specially equipped with hand controls until the end of the 2009 World Touring Car Championship season, when he announced his retirement from racing. His next goal is to qualify for the Italian handcycling team and compete in the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

According to report on Axis of Oversteer, last week Zanardi put in a few laps of Monza on a BMW HP2 modified with an automatic transmission, a brake splitter, and supports for his artificial legs.

The next time you go for a ride and feel like turning back because your ass hurts a little, or you're too cold, or too hot, just think about Alex Zanardi, fearless and legless, bending that HP2 around Monza at a buck-sixty.

Reevu Helmet: Eyes In The Back Of Your Head

With the stock mirrors on most bikes falling somewhere between marginal and useless, seeing what's going on behind you is a challenge. Here's the most promising take on increasing rearward vision on a bike since the Visor-Vu. Read more about it here.

V-Strom Valve Adjustment: Welcome To My Nightmare

I make it a habit to do all the work I can on my bike using only the tools in the toolkit. If there’s a routine job I need to do that requires a tool I don’t have, I buy the tool and add it to the kit.

Some jobs, however, render that plan impractical. For example, I’m in the middle of a valve adjustment on my V-Strom. By “in the middle” I mean I just completed the rear cylinder, and am ready to tackle the front one tomorrow.

To do this job using only tools that fit on the bike, I’d have to add a shim set, a torque wrench, a tube of gasket sealer, a shop manual, a two-foot-long socket extender with a universal joint at both ends, half a bottle of Tylenol, and a phrasebook of blistering profanity with which to excoriate the motherless pinhead who designed the bike so as to require the removal of the tank, the fairing, the air box, countless tubes and hoses and electrical gang plugs, the radiator, the rear brake pedal and master cylinder, the seat and seat bracket, the right-side passenger peg bracket, and several square inches of skin from my knuckles just to check—never mind actually adjust—the freakin’ valves, a task the manual has the balls to call “routine maintenance.”

I am consoled to a small degree by the knowledge that the valve clearances on 650 V-Stroms don’t change that much as a rule. I checked mine for the first time at 14,000 miles, and they were all in spec, though at the very lower end. Now, at 27,000 miles, I have found one tight exhaust valve in the rear cylinder, and the other three valves right where they were last time I checked them.

Now the front cylinder is all that stands between me and the road. Barring any catastrophes on the way to exposing its mysteries, I’ll have everything buttoned up by New Year’s Day, in time for a long-distance rider lunch run up the coast to Florence.

Speed in Super Slow Motion

The problem with speed is it happens so fast you can't see how neat it really looks. This video shows cars and bikes going really fast, really slowly. Nice soundtrack, too.

Harry Hurt, 1927-2009

"He was a bulldog at finding the facts and making them public even if some people were unhappy when the facts he reported didn't support their pet theories."

Read more here.

A Lifeline for Buell?

From a press release dated November 20:

ERIK BUELL ESTABLISHES ERIK BUELL RACING
New Venture Will Build Buell 1125R-based Racing Motorcycles and Supply Parts

Milwaukee, Wis. (November 20, 2009) - Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE:HOG) announced today that following the company’s recent decision to discontinue the Buell motorcycle product line, Erik Buell, Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of Buell Motorcycle Company, will leave the company to establish Erik Buell Racing, an independent motorcycle race shop.

Erik Buell Racing will specialize in the supply of race-use-only Buell motorcycle parts and race preparation services for engines and motorcycles, and the building and sale of Buell® 1125R-based race-use-only motorcycles under license from Harley-Davidson, as well as providing technical support to racers of Buell motorcycles.

“I’m looking forward to helping Buell racers keep their bikes flying,” said Erik Buell. “We’ve got some exciting race development projects in the works and it will mean a lot to me personally to see Buell racers competing for wins and championships in the 2010 season and beyond.”

“I’m pleased that Harley-Davidson is assisting Erik in establishing this business to continue supporting the racing efforts he has had so much passion for over the years,” said Buell President and COO Jon Flickinger. “Harley-Davidson and the Buell Motorcycle Company will always be proud of their affiliation with Erik, and we wish him well in this new endeavor to support Buell racers.”

Erik Buell Racing will be based in East Troy, Wisconsin and will be staffed by Erik Buell and a veteran team of personnel. For more information, after December 1, 2009, contact:

Erik Buell Racing, LLC
2799 Buell Drive, Unit C
East Troy, WI 53120
www.erikbuellracing.com
info@erikbuellracing.com

Cooking With Gas(oline)

How to make a Smartuki: Add one GSX-R1000 engine to one Smart Car. Stir until ingredients are blended. Bake at 12,000 rpm until tires are smoking hot. Serves one or two.

More recipes here.

Unpopular Opinions: Be Careful What You Wish For

Sometimes well-intentioned actions produce an outcome that’s the opposite of what was originally intended, or they solve one problem while creating another that’s just as bad. Let’s say you drive a gas guzzler and you’re feeling guilty about your contribution to global warming. So you sell the guzzler and buy a smaller, more fuel-efficient car.

But have you really made a difference? You sold your old car to someone who will go right on driving it, and you bought a new car to replace it. Now there are two cars on the road where there was only one to begin with. You haven’t done anything to reduce global warming; if anything you’ve made it worse. All you’ve really done is sell your guilt.

You can see the potential for this sort of backfire in the effort to promote motorcycles as a viable transportation alternative, and convince people to leave their cars at home and ride bikes to work, to school, to the grocery store...well, maybe not the grocery store. As someone who didn’t own or have access to a car for about a year back in the 1970s, I can tell you the number of round trips I had to make to Safeway on a CB500/Four just to keep the cupboards half full was more than enough to offset any savings on gas.

There are more good reasons why riding a bike instead of driving a car just doesn’t pencil out. If the price of gas is putting a serious hurt on you, what do you think the monthly payments on a bike will do? Then there’s riding gear—a helmet, a jacket and pants, gloves, boots—none of which you need in your car. Throw in another insurance policy, and the price of maintenance and tires, then factor in the number of days each year when it’s too hot, too cold, or too wet to ride, or the task at hand demands a device with a trunk, seating for more than two, and some weather protection—days the motorcycle sits in the garage unused—and it’s obvious why you’re never going to get Joe and Mrs. Suburbia to trade in the Tahoe for a couple of scooters.

But suppose they did, along with hundreds of thousands of other people, making one of the motorcycle industry’s fondest wishes come true. That would be a good thing, right?

Wouldn’t it?

More riders will inevitably result in more crashes and fatalities, no matter how well trained those riders are. That will attract the attention of legislators, regulators, insurers, a national media already convinced that motorcycles are death machines, and—you might want to send the children out of the room now—lawyers.

This will inevitably lead to more restrictive laws—mandatory DOT-approved fully armored protective jacket and pants laws, anyone?—more public backlash as a few bad apples suddenly become entire orchards of them, and in general the kind of governmental scrutiny on the local, state, and federal level that motorcycling has so far escaped by virtue of being too small an insect to bother swatting very hard.

Currently motorcyclists can argue that they should be exempt from emissions regulations because they constitute a small minority of road users. But if the number of bikes on the road gets high enough, that excuse won’t fly. If you laughed when you saw the optional air bag on the latest Honda Gold Wing, you probably won’t think it’s very funny when it’s a government-mandated requirement on your dual-sport, along with a roll cage, arm restraints, and any number of half-assed “safety” features thought up by know-nothing politicians.

The sad thing is I’m pretty sure I’ll live long enough to see some of this stuff anyway. So why hurry it along? Next time someone asks you why you ride a motorcycle, tell them it’s because you’re too poor to afford a car. Don’t let on how much you enjoy it. The longer we keep the secret, the longer the fun will last.

Motorcycle That Builds Itself

Cool, but what we really need is a bike that makes its own payments.

Kill Fee, the Online Mystery

Tomorrow I'll post the first chapter of Kill Fee, a mystery novel I wrote about 10 years ago, on a new blog. It doesn't have any motorcycles in it, but the main character is a writer, which I hope will intrigue those of you who come here to read what I have to say about writing for a living.

You can read Kill Fee here. If you like it, let me know, and spread the word. If you don't like it, keep it to yourself. Write your own damn novel if you think it's so easy.

Craigslist Motorcycle Ads Decoded

“It ran when I parked it.” ...six years ago under the awning on the side of my motorhome with the gas cap open so the bad gas would evaporate.

“No title, but I have a bill of sale.” ...written on the back of a Taco Bell napkin. The seller’s handwriting wasn't too good, so you can tell the DMV you bought it from me. I’ll back you up if anybody asks.

“Very rare.” Nobody bought them when they were new.

“Classic.” They don’t make parts for them any more.

“Starts with no problem.” Unless kicking it over for 30 minutes is a problem.

“Minor surface rust.” All minor surfaces are rusted.

“Don’t need it any more.” Don’t want it any more.

“Will consider trades.” Anything has got to be better than this.

“Great commuter bike.” Slow and dull.

“Gets great gas mileage.” Uses a quart of oil every 100 miles.

“Perfect Christmas present.” For me, if you pay cash.

“No time to ride.” Had to get second job to pay speeding tickets.

“Never been dropped.” Fell over by itself a few times.

“Tags good until 2011.” As soon as you pay for them.

Leap of F#$%!

I wrote a while back about smells, and how they can conjure up memories of places you thought you’d forgotten. Tonight, I heard a sound that did the same thing.

I was watching Masterpiece on PBS’s website. The current series is about Inspector Robbie Lewis, who in an earlier series—and a series of books before that—was the sidekick of Inspector Morse, an Oxford, England, police detective created by Colin Dexter.

At the end of the episode, when Lewis and his sergeant had unraveled a murder so convoluted that I gave up trying to figure out whodunit and just went along for the ride, the uniformed coppers arrived to cart off the guilty party. They put her in a police car, and as they were doing it, an extra walked through the foreground of the scene, wearing a yellow jacket and a flip-up motorcycle helmet. In the final scene this extra rode off on a police version of the Honda ST1100, which is called the Pan European over there.

In a lot of movies and TV shows I’ve seen that have motorcycles in them, they often add the sound of the bike later—and they often get it wrong, either by not bothering to match the rise and fall of the engine revs to the scene, or by making everything from two-stroke 125s to four-cylinder sportbikes sound like Harleys with straight pipes.

This time they got it right. I heard the unmistakable whir of the engine as the starter turned it over, the quavering idle, and the staggered power pulses of the V-four engine pushing gas through the stock exhaust, and bingo, there I was aboard my old ST1100 again.

I’ve been thinking about that bike a lot lately. I did a lot of fun stuff on it, and had a scary experience that was almost the last experience I ever had.

I was riding north through Tacoma, Washington, on Interstate 5 near the Tacoma Dome, or whatever it’s called, in heavy traffic. I was in the hot lane, and some joker in a Dodge pickup was right on my ass. We were going maybe 75, and I was too close to the car ahead for comfort, so I glanced over my right shoulder at the number two lane, saw it was clear, and signaled to change lanes. As I leaned the bike into the open spot, I turned my head forward again and looked at the car ahead of me, and out from under it, as if on a conveyor belt, came a four-by-four wooden post sitting in the middle of the lane, perpendicular to my path.

I yanked the handlebar as hard as I could, steering left to try to get as upright as possible before I hit the post. There was an almighty whack that nearly wrenched the grips from my hands as the ST smacked the post and took off like a 600-pound gooney bird, first the front end and then the back; at about the same time my butt and the seat parted ways; for a harrowing second or two the bike and I were pretty much flying above I-5 at an altitude of about two feet; and then the bike came back down with a thud like a dumpster full of doorknobs, still going at least 65, and the front wheel almost shook itself off the bike.

I assume some of the drivers around me saw what had happened and reacted quickly enough to give me room; all I remember is bulldogging the bike across two more lanes of traffic and onto the shoulder. The front rim was bent, but miraculously, the tire had held air. If the rim had bent enough to break the bead, I would never have made to the shoulder. There’s no doubt in my mind that if I’d gone down in traffic that heavy I’d have been reduced to a paste by the time anyone stopped to see what they had run over.



That could be why ST1100s continue to appeal to me; you come through something like that without a scratch and you develop a great deal of respect for the bike you did it on.

I sold mine because my wrists would no longer tolerate the weight the riding position put on them. I know if I got another one I probably wouldn’t ride it enough to justify the purchase.

But I have a feeling that if I ever needed a bike that would get me where I was going come hell, high water, or posts in the road, an ST1100 would be my first choice.

Six Things That Annoy Me

1. Celebrities Who Ride Motorcycles

I don’t have a problem with the celebrities themselves. Well, not with most of them. What I have a problem with is news stories about celebrities who ride motorcycles. They appear to be based on two false premises: (a) it’s news that celebrities ride motorcycles (news to me being defined as an important or significant piece of information), and (b) I care. It's my guess that most of these stories are generated by the celebrities' publicists and aimed directly at motorcyclists, because I almost never see one in a mainstream magazine or newspaper, and yet they infest motorcycle publications like termites in the attic. I'm not sure what the takeaway is supposed to be; if I ride, and so does Brad Pitt, then I...what? Feel validated because a movie star has the same hobby as me? Feel like he's a kindred spirit whose next movie (probably a remake of an infinitely better original) I'll want to see? Sorry, no sale. I’m not 14 years old, and I don’t need someone to tell me I’m cool every minute of the day. I ride because I like to, not because Brad does. If he quit riding, I wouldn’t. In fact, I’d almost prefer it if he did quit riding, because then I wouldn’t have to wake up one morning to read that he’d gone out on a bike in an open-face helmet and a T-shirt and jeans and gotten his ticket punched by a soccer mom in a Hummer talking on her cell phone, and I’d be spared the inevitable shitstorm of righteous editorial outrage against motorcycles that flares up only when something bad happens to someone famous while he was riding one.*

(A special note about Jay Leno: I met him once at a photo shoot for Cycle Guide. He invited me and a few others to his house to look at his bikes. He was a really nice guy, knowledgeable and full of genuine enthusiasm for all things internally combustible. But by now even the most solitary bushman in the remotest corner of the Australian outback knows Leno is a major gearhead with enough cars and bikes to take everyone in L.A. for a ride on the same afternoon. This is no longer news in any sense of the word. So please, enough with the Leno already.)

2. Formation Riding

Where the whole idea of a group of motorcyclists riding in a staggered formation came from, I have no idea. But I do know it’s a crappy idea. It’s dangerous for them and annoying for everyone else. If something happens—a deer, a left-turning car—the bikes are too close together to react without taking out every other bike nearby. It’s impossible to pass them when they’re strung out for a hundred yards, weaving back and forth trying to maintain their position while traveling at a speed dictated by the slowest, least experienced rider in the pack. If you and a dozen friends were all driving your cars to the same place, would you line up nose to tail, bumper to bumper, and drive all the way there like that? Of course not. So why do it on bikes?

3. Loud Pipes

See here. ‘Nuff said.

4. Anti-Helmet Groups

If you don’t want to wear a helmet on the grounds that you feel your personal safety is your own affair, not the government’s, that's fine, I suppose, although I’d be interested to hear what your spouse and your kids have to say about the increased likelihood of you dying or becoming a vegetable if you fall off and try to punch a hole in the asphalt with your head. But where some anti-helmet groups forfeit their credibility is their insistence that helmets don’t work. That’s bullshit, and there’s abundant data to prove it. Stick with the libertarian argument and stop spreading lies about the effectiveness of helmets, lies that could convince someone not to wear one who might otherwise choose to if he knew all the facts. Consent is one thing; informed consent is another.

5. Bluetooth-Enabled Helmets

They let you listen to music and make and receive calls on your cell phone while you’re riding. They’re operated by taking your left hand off the handlebar and groping for tiny buttons you can’t see on the side of the helmet. Mark my words, the day will come when this will be seen to have been a very bad idea.

6. Motorcycle Poetry

Read some. You’ll see what I mean.

*UPDATE: Did I call it or did I call it?! (Okay, a photographer and not a soccer mom, but still, I'm buyin' a lottery ticket.)

Inside Lines

"Bob Klein, Harley's director of corporate communications, reiterated that Harley is 'discontinuing the Buell product line rather than selling the business because of how deeply integrated Buell is into our business systems and distribution network.'"

Harley's not interested in selling Buell.

But some riders are interested in buying them...

...and this might be why.

Buellogy

I was contacted through this blog a few months ago by a woman who worked for what was then Buell’s advertising agency. She had read a post here in which I wondered why roadracing wasn't more popular in the U.S. For some reason she thought I might be able to tell her why, given Buell’s recent successes in AMA roadracing, sportbike riders weren't flocking to Buell showrooms.

She was aware that Buell’s wins were tainted in some race fans’ eyes by virtue of the 1125cc twin running in the same class as 600cc fours. I wasn't too sure there was any real basis for that resentment—the Buells weren't exactly walking away with every race—but it certainly had to be thrown in the mix.

I then shifted into full bloviating mode. Buell’s real problem as I saw it was more complex than resentment at its roadrace wins against smaller bikes. First, although they were tricker and faster than anything Harley had ever put on the street, they weren’t any faster—and were a lot less trick—than your average 600cc four from Japan. Sportbike sales live and die on performance, and Buells didn’t outperform the competition sufficiently to make them a viable alternative.

Also, in order to buy a Buell, in most cases you had to go to a Harley dealership. For years now Harley has been selling the sizzle instead of the steak. A lot of veteran Harley salespeople didn’t know what to make of an actual steak sitting on their showroom floor. They were unprepared to answer the kind of questions sportbike riders asked, and had little or no interest in the Buell line of motorcycles except insofar as they took up space where another blinged-out Big Twin could have been sitting. A lot of them just didn’t care about Buells, and equated selling them with some tedious community service they were obliged to perform, like picking up roadside litter after a DUI.

It has to be said, too, that most of the “innovations” Buell loved to crow about—fuel in the frame, oil in the swingarm, the rim-mounted front brake, the underslung muffler—had all appeared first on other bikes. Buell collected them all into one package, for which he deserves some props, I suppose, but it smacked of the “because we can” school of engineering. None of those things made the bike substantially faster or better handling than its competition, just different.

One huge thing that held Buell back was there from the very beginning—that engine. Sportster engines, like steam locomotives and Stearman biplanes, are charming devices in an antediluvian sort of way. But sportbike powerplants? Please. Stuffing one in a purported sportbike is like breeding a thoroughbred and then breaking one of its legs before the race. By the time Buells got the engine they deserved from the outset, it was way too late.

The nice lady from the ad agency listened patiently to what I said, thanked me, promised she’d be in touch, and never called back. Later I read that her agency had been dropped by Buell. It probably wasn’t the first messenger to be shot that way, and likely won’t be the last.

In the press release announcing the closing of Buell, Keith Wandell, the new, non-motorcycle-riding CEO of Harley-Davidson, said, “We believe we can create a bright long-term future for our stakeholders through a single-minded focus on the Harley-Davidson brand.” Wandell hasn’t been with the company very long, so perhaps he can be forgiven for not knowing that this “single-minded focus” is a strategy of convenience, easily set aside when there’s a shiny bauble within reach. Harley is subject to fits of compulsive shopping, often followed by deep bouts of buyer's remorse. In the last 25 years it bought and discarded Tri-Hawk, Holiday Rambler, and now Buell and MV Agusta. Each of these purchases was hailed as the beginning of a bright new partnership; each of these corporate marriages ended in tears.

So when news of Buell’s demise broke last week, I was shocked but not surprised, except perhaps by how long Harley stuck with Buell before casting it aside. Anyone who comes under the Harley umbrella, even willingly, has to be thinking, night and day, that he could be the next one thrown out of the sleigh.

Maybe that was Erik Buell’s fatal mistake—ignoring history.