The following day I hit the road alongside Neal. I learn very quickly that at this altitude the Tuono is even more of a homicidal maniac than I'm used to. When a car tries to cut me off in the early morning traffic I give it a handful in first gear to scoot past and the front instantly rockets skyward with the sort of alacrity that is both terrifying and endlessly entertaining. I apologize to Neal for drawing any unwanted attention and gesture to the luggage; the extra weight on the ass end makes this thing ridiculously wheelie happy.  


I head down the I-5 through Seattle, painlessly bypassing most of the morning's commuters via the HOV and express lanes. While I’d love to stick around and check out the sights (the Museum of Flight is on my bucket list, but time is too limited this time around) my goal for today is a bit further south.





As a child I was simultaneously terrified and awed by volcanoes, and Mount St. Helens was the prototypical event of the modern era for the overwhelming power of nature's geological wrath. The fact that one day in 1980 a mountain up and exploded, blasting so much ash and rock into the atmosphere that my parents recall the colour of the sky changing on the opposite side of the continent, captivated me. Actually it scared the shit out of me. Mount St. Helens and the story of Parícutin suddenly rising out of a farmer's field in Mexico were the two events that cemented the terrifying power of nature in my young mind. To me the sudden violence of volcanic activity remains the ultimate expression of the supremacy of nature, a force that can only be rivalled by the detonation of atomic weapons (perhaps not coincidentally another one of my terror/awe obsessions).


The images of that day in May 1980 are burned into my mind. A mountain collapsing and exploding, sending rivers of mud and ash and fallen trees flowing across the landscape. I can still picture the footage in my mind, scenes of grey mud and dust enveloping the surroundings, obliterating the dense Pacific Northwest forest, of felled trees choking Spirit Lake. I had to make a pilgrimage to the mountain to see what remains.



The detour begins innocently along Spirit Lake Highway, a pleasant secondary road off the interstate winding through idyllic pastoral fields. The area is sparsely populated, a few farms and the tiny towns of Toutle and Toledo close to I-5. As you continue along the fields subside, the forest closes in, and the road begins to twist and turn as it climbs several thousand feet into the Cascades, quickly becoming a winding mountain route that is pretty entertaining in itself aboard a motorcycle. Even if you weren't interested in seeing Mount St. Helens, you'd have fun riding the road that takes you there.


For the part of the ride there isn't much to suggest you are approaching what was once a scene of utter devastation. It seems impossible that something so cataclysmic happened a mere 60 miles up the road, particularly on a warm, clear day like today when the sun is painting the scene in brilliant hues and the trees are resplendent in their lush, late summer foliage. This is Bigfoot country, dense forest and tall trees with only tiny outposts of civilization along the way, the human element fading quickly as you climb higher and higher into the mountains.


Gradually the evidence begins to come into view. Tributaries choked with sun bleached logs and stagnant from the lack of sunlight and oxygen, mudflows grown over with green cover but still exhibiting the signs of their rapid movement through the landscape. Suddenly you see the outline of the volcano looming off in the distance. The shape of its hollowed-out northwest flank is unmistakable, a massive crater surrounding the still-active caldera. The hair on my neck stands up and a wave of anxiety washes over me, my spine tingling and my muscles pulsing. I stop and stare at it off in the distance. This is the sum of my childhood fear and my fascination with the uncontrollable power of nature, right there on the horizon. It seems closer than I imagined. Once again I'm disappointed at how little the photos convey, and how the sense of scale is impossible to translate into a static image. Riding along this road watching this broken mountain creep closer and closer is an intense and humbling experience for me.

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I ride to the summit of Johnston Ridge to visit the observatory and national monument. This is hallowed ground; volcanologist David A. Johnston sat here on the morning of May 18th, less than 6 miles from Mount St. Helens, and transmitted his final words and the first report of the eruption at 8.32 AM "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before the lateral blast obliterated everything on the ridge. He was credited with helping prevent the premature re-opening of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest due to his belief that a lateral eruption was possible, in the process saving the lives of thousands of spring tourists who might have been in the area had the evacuation notice been lifted. His body was never found.

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The monument is a fantastic tribute to the event and the lives lost or altered by the eruption, a sober and modern concrete structure that offers a spectacular view of the volcano. It serves as an educational centre and scientific research station, part of the ongoing monitoring of the site since 1980. And it is absolutely worth visiting.


The view over Mount St. Helens from Johnston Ridge is incredible. Photos are disappointing in their ability to convey your proximity to the mountain. I feel as though I could throw a rock into the crater, standing far, far closer than I imagined. I am truly awestruck by the scene. Nature has reclaimed most of the area, even the pumice plain beneath the crater is showing signs of greenery. Evidence of the landslide and the pyroclastic flows are subtle, mainly visible as irregularities in the shape of the land and the presence of fallen trees. It is not nearly as stark and dead as I imagined it would be. The iconic images we are all familiar with are those immediately following the eruption, with less attention paid to how the region has recovered since then.    



The experience is extremely moving for me, to see firsthand what has become a legend in my mind. This relic of nature's power, of my childhood fear and awe, is just as imposing and beautiful as I hoped it would be. I spend a few pensive moments standing on the ridge, staring at the crater and collecting my thoughts.


I don't know if many would be as overwhelmed as I am. Perhaps they see this as just another scenic view among thousands of scenic views available in the area. Maybe I'm just weird, living within a hyperactive mind that tends to ascribe deep meaning to ordinary things. I can become very passionate and emotional about inanimate objects - one of the main reasons I truly love motorcycling. I obsess over my interests to the point of insanity.


My intensity gets me into trouble. I have a tendency to pour all of my emotion and my manic obsession into all-or-nothing gambles in my relationships. I then analyse things beyond any reasonable measure and worry about every detail until I can't live in my head anymore, then the whole thing blows up in my face, and then I repeat the same mistakes I've always made despite recognizing the patterns I've developed over years of fucking things up. Then I have to tell myself to forget it all, to clear my mind and reset the counter so that the next time I don't fall into the same traps I lay out for myself. Then I do the same thing again, because I'm crazier than a bag of hammers, naïve, and a sucker for punishment.


I know I'm nuts, and some days I spend most of my energy desperately trying to keep my mind in check while maintaining the disguise of normalcy. Everyone has their own pet solution to your problems, usually ones that involve modifying your personality to suit the needs of other people. It's self-destructive to try and please everyone and constantly alter your ways to play the game, adding new layers to the façade to isolate your true self from an unsympathetic world. I find it better to learn from my mistakes and use them as impetus to better myself, maintaining a positive view of humanity even when I'm being exploited, and channelling my insanity into my creative pursuits. I'm at my best when I apply my obsessive nature in a positive way.


Some days I win, some I lose. But when I'm out here on the road I can briefly escape from my demons and enjoy clarity of thought I rarely achieve when I'm stuck at home or in the office, stewing over my darker thoughts and anxieties.          


Back along the twisting mountain route that, if worth doing once, is well worth doing again. Again I find a sense of contentment washing over me, the calm satisfaction brought on by a day well spent and a ride well chosen, a peculiar sensation I have been missing intensely over the previous months. My anxiety and my stress have melted away, and I have many more miles to go and many more sights to see.


I head back onto the Interstate through Portland and Salem on my way to the coast, slogging through congestions and a series of towns linked by sprawl and swirling freeways. I need to get free of this cruel urbanity. I need to make a beeline for the coast, to return to the quiet winding roads where I can think and move. The city stifles me and occupies my mind with stress and contempt for the other drivers who impeded my progress. The less said about my journey through that dull grey concrete sprawl, the better.


I'm heading for the Pacific Coast, a route I've wanted to travel for years. My father had driven the coast many decades ago and expressed his longing to return, to ride along the beaches and dunes that surround picturesque communities. Places like Pebble Beach, Monterey, Big Sur, San Simeon - iconic locales that are well known throughout the world for their idyllic beauty. Places I've wanted to discover and experience firsthand.


The sprawl subsides and begets the rolling hills of Oregon's vineyards, which gradually transmute into coastal forest and tall trees. At ease again.


I stop for the night at a KOA "Kampground" just outside Lincoln City, the first campground I find when exhaustion has set in and my mind enters the "you must stop riding now" mode that is best heeded before you make a catastrophic mistake. It may be kitschy, but at least it's classless. It's a reliable choice provided you can stand the people who congregate there. I setup my camp and sit down to take my notes for the day while a pair of drunken dolts across the lot make their presence known to everyone within earshot. State/Provincial/National parks don't seem to attract the same sort of obnoxious riff raff that private campgrounds do. I'm all for having a good time and I like beer as much as the next guy but getting blasted while driving around a campground crawling with kids, honking your horn and yelling obscenities, seems like a recipe for disaster. Or at least a good reason to get knocked the fuck out by a concerned parent.


I've always tried to keep my drunken stupidity to myself and a circle of close friends. When I get wasted, I'm still me - just dumber and a bit more prone to doing things usually precluded by my inhibitions. So when I see people who are complete and total fuck nuggets when under the influence, my assumption is that they were complete and total fuck nuggets to begin with and are using booze as an excuse to be the assholes they were in the first place.

They disappear into the night, driving off somewhere to seek adventure and more libations. They don't return. I only hope they ended their night with a DUI while being plucked out of a ditch, without hurting anyone along the way.

With the douchebag distractors gone and a fire ban precluding any late-night musing in front of mesmerizing flames, I settle in for the night. Tomorrow will be a long, long day of riding through some of the most spectacular roads I've ever had the good fortune to experience.

I, like any other red-blooded motorcyclist, have cultivated a long-held fascination for the work of the late John Britten.

I don't recall the first time I heard about or saw a picture of a V1000. I do remember that I experienced the same reaction most people have when they first encounter a Britten: "what in the almighty hell is that?"

This amazement was followed by an intense curiosity spurred on by the extreme styling, the gaudy colours, the elemental design. After the shock of the whole subsides, the strange little details suddenly pop into your periphery. The machine becomes more and more fascinating the closer you look. Just what is this strange, organic machine painted in bright blue and pink livery?

Then, inevitably, you learn how the Britten came to be: the condensed and mythologized story of a man in a shed in New Zealand building a world-beating race bike, one that had the performance to dance with multi-million dollar factory efforts - and beat them fair and square on the track. You watch the documentaries; you read the articles detailing John's project and the astounding innovation on offer. You learn of his tragic death in 1995, and the myriad "what ifs" that followed his untimely passing. What if he had lived to continue building bikes? What would have been the next step? How could he have topped himself, after he had built one of the most astounding motorcycles of all time?

It's a powerful story, an engaging tale of the everyman beating the world and exposing the weaknesses of a large, lumbering industry mired in tradition in the process. A man with a vision and grim determination takes on the establishment with a home-built special, and does well enough to scare the shit out of the factory efforts - all the while inspiring the notoriously fickle motorcycle market to appreciate an alternative, first-principle design. It is the classic David versus Goliath story arc with a tragic end, one that fits into the Kiwi tradition of self-reliance and DIY ingenuity.

It's a good story, but it is one that is simplified to the point of fiction. The truth is that the story of John Britten and his machines is far more interesting and nuanced than the "man in a shed" myth would lead you to believe, and the motorcycles that Britten and his team produced from the late-1980s through to the mid-1990s are even more amazing than you thought they were.




I'm sitting on the plane, scribbling notes and thoughts into my scratchpad. I'm flying to Alabama for the 11th annual Barber Vintage Festival, the third year in a row that I've attended the event. The Barber museum and the associated track are the stuff of dreams for motorcycle enthusiasts, the best motorcycle museum in the world and one that absolutely needs to be on every rider's pilgrimage list. Visiting the site during the Vintage Festival is an even more intense experience, with AHRMA racing going on all weekend at the track, vendors, manufacturers, and custom shops setting up stands across the grounds of the state-of-the-art facility, and tens of thousands of like-minded folks showing up aboard their bikes to enjoy the spectacle. You'll see just as many cool machines parked around the museum as you will inside it, and meet a countless number of interesting people who have come from all corners of the world to participate.


This year, however, is different. I was tipped off several months prior that this year's BVF would see the largest reunion of Britten motorcycles in North America, an event that I would be incredibly stupid to pass up on.

And pass it up I almost did. I had been planning my second USA Tour for the past two years and had drained my meagre funds completing a 5000 mile ride along the West coast. The ultimate goal of visiting Bonneville ended up being a bust, with the Motorcycle Speed Week I was aiming to document being cancelled right before I departed. Meanwhile I was getting word that quite a few Brittens were going to be at Barber, with several of them being run on the track. I started panicking and kicking myself for not planning a visit, for not putting aside enough money to make the journey to Birmingham to witness history and see the bikes that have become my icons.

The Britten has long been on my endless to-do list, one of the foremost examples of my obsession with strange motorcycles and alternative design. I've been quietly gathering material and contacts to write an in-depth profile of John's work, a task that became more and more daunting as each level of research revealed more and more detail to the story. It rapidly became clear that writing about the Britten could be my magnum opus article, a piece that would blow away any previous profiles I had done. It would also be a delicate subject, one that required the utmost care and attention to get right - no one would be impressed with a derivative, abbreviated summary of such an important machine that has inspired so many people.

It was a project I had on the back burner for some time, but one that was renewed when I met Bob Robbins at the Barber Vintage Festival in 2014. I had actually met Bob in 2013 while scouring the paddocks for a replacement coolant temperature sensor for my 916 after it broke down rolling through the gates, after I had ridden all the way from Montreal. In my panic to find a new sensor I had asked countless Ducati riders in the paddocks for help, including Bob. When I spied his Moto Guzzi MGS-01 in his tent during my 2014 visit, I had to stop to say hello and get some photos. I was surprised to learn that Bob had remembered me from my misadventure in 2013; I was embarrassed to admit I hadn't remembered him.

During the course of conversation, Bob let slip that he was in the process of rebuilding a Britten.

I was dumbstruck. It turned out that Bob had purchased Britten P001, the first "production" V1000 that was originally sold to Roberto Crepaldi of Café Racers & Superbikes, along with Jon White's "White Lightning" V1000-powered streamliner. The bike had not been run in 16 years and Bob had enlisted the help of factory-trained mechanic Dave Koban to return the machine to rideable condition.

I stayed in touch with Bob over the course of the year, selling him some parts for his MGS and keeping abreast of his work on P001. He turns out to be a kind, passionate enthusiast who has a deep respect for the importance of the bike. He was rebuilding it to run it, to make sure that as many people as possible could see and hear it running. Soon he had it finished and promptly shipped it off to New Zealand in February 2015 for a tribute to John's memory at Ruapuna Park raceway, which proved to be the largest reunion of Britten motorcycles up to that point. Following that he enlisted Stephen Briggs as a rider for the machine; Briggs had taken second place in the 1995 BEARS World Championship aboard this very bike, second only to Andrew Stroud aboard the factory-run F002. Briggs rode P001 for some parade laps at New Jersey Motorsports Park during an AHRMA event in July, and would ride the machine at Barber as well.

I mentioned to Bob that I was trying to work out a way to get to Alabama on a tight budget, and he kindly offered me a place to stay in one of his trailers. If it hadn't been for the opportunity he had offered me, and the free accommodations for the weekend, I wouldn't be sitting here on this plane, scribbling my convoluted thoughts onto paper.

It would turn out that Bob's offer was worth far, far more than just a bed to crash on, and would make this weekend one of the highlights of my career as a quasi-journalist.


I arrive in Birmingham on Wednesday afternoon and, because I'm lacking the requisite AHRMA certification to enter the site before the weekend, Bob finds a way to sneak me into the paddocks.  I arrive to find he is trying to keep a considerable operation under control. A massive tent is being erected by a crew of hired labourers, trailers are being unloaded of equipment and bikes, and friends and guests are milling around trying to make themselves useful. It's a scene of controlled chaos, with Bob at the centre calmly orchestrating the madness. It turns out that he has been instrumental in organizing the reunion of V1000s here this weekend, coordinating with the owners, the Britten family, the riders, and the team members who will be visiting.


Word slips that nine of the ten V1000s built will be here this weekend.

I'm stunned. I expected five or six machines, and there was virtually no fanfare about the reunion ahead of time aside from the Vintage Festival poster illustrating a pair of V1000s and the promise of a gala fundraiser evening with the Britten family. My contact in the Barber museum had kept mum when I prodded him about what was going. As far as I knew there might be a couple of bikes present, with maybe two or three running parade laps, and I would have been more than happy to witness that. I didn't think I would see almost every V1000 built in a single place, at one time, particularly on North American soil.


P001, commonly referred to as Black Beauty, is present and taking centre stage among Bob's race lineup, which includes his freshly-rebuilt MGS-01, a heavily reworked Ducati SS he has had for decades, and two race-prepped Ducati SportClassics he is loaning to Briggs and Stroud to use in the AHRMA races this weekend.


His Britten is one of the most raced machines produced by the company, the first "production" bike sold to Roberto Crepaldi of Café Racers & Superbikes and campaigned extensively in Europe. P001 is also infamous as being the bike that Mark Farmer was killed aboard during a practice session at the 1994 Isle of Man TT, an incident that thrust John Britten into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons when allegations of a mechanical failure surfaced - rumours circulated that either the engine had seized or the girder front suspension had failed, and there were no eyewitnesses to confirm the circumstances of the crash.

The myth of the home-built race bike became a liability following Farmer's death, when John was singled out by at least one journalist for putting a rider into the TT aboard something people thought he had slapped together in his wood shed.


The truth is that Brittens are not crude machines, in spite of what the images of John quenching crankcases in a bucket of water would suggest.

Seeing one in person is all you need to confirm how beautifully constructed a Britten really is. While they have a few rough edges and some minor inconsistencies, you'll be surprised by how advanced and well-put together they really are, particularly when you recall you are looking at a bike that was designed in the early 1990s. Examining a Britten in detail will inspire even more respect for what was accomplished by John and his small team, because they are even more amazing than you imagined they were. The more you dig into them and the more you learn, the more you'll be impressed. It is one of the few cases where meeting on of your heroes will exceed your expectations.


The entourage begins to trickle in. Aside from Bob's friends there are several people who were involved in the Britten project who will be visiting. I meet Craig Gee, who aided in the construction of Jon White's streamliner. Stephen Briggs and Andrew Stroud will be arriving shortly, as will Roberto Crepaldi. Kirsteen Britten and her children, as well as two of John's grandchildren, will be here. So will Craig Roberts, who helped on the original build team and is one of the few technical experts on the V1000. Bob Brookland, who painted all the bikes, is visiting as well. That's not mentioning all the owners who are showing up with their bikes. Bob's tent is being setup as one of the main Britten displays, with a dining area and catering for the guests and a vendor area selling Britten merchandise. A few bikes will be displayed here, with the rest setup at the museum on the other side of the track.


It's utterly overwhelming. I expected to arrive and have the chance to talk to a few of the people involved, maybe get some testimonies on paper. Instead I'm thrown into the fray and I hardly know where to begin. I do my best to just introduce myself to everyone and not get in the way, but it quickly becomes apparent that the task before me is far more daunting than I imagined. This story is epic and documenting it over the course of one frantic weekend will be impossible. Nobody here knows who I am, and treat me with a degree of guarded reservation. No one knows what to make of my intentions. Presenting myself as a "journalist" doesn't help; thrusting a camera or a notepad into someone's face is a quick way to get them to clam up.


The following day P001 is being prepared for Stephen to ride on some parade laps during the lunch break. Bob removes the bodywork to pull the plugs out of the intakes, giving me my first glimpse under the skin of a Britten. It's a rare opportunity, and I have my camera ready. Bob shows me the ducting moulded into the bodywork to direct air into the intake and the underseat radiator, presenting the parts with a smile as I stare, mesmerized. The carbon fibre is roughly hewn, all laid by hand. Each bike's bodywork is unique and is not interchangeable without some fiddling.


I snap endless photos of the details and the layout of the front suspension while the bodywork is off, poring over each component and mapping the functions in my mind. Each pivot is adjustable with eccentric inserts and multiple mounting points. Even the axles and swingarm pivot have eccentric adjusters. Every element of the geometry can be tailored to suit the track and the preferences of the rider. Despite the apparent complexity, everything is remarkably clean and simple. Every element is distilled down to the essentials, with no extraneous wiring or components getting in the way. It's a form of purity you'll only find on the best-prepared race bikes.


But don't think for a moment that the Britten lacks sophistication. The fuel injection system was developed from Steward Electronics hardware, which was chosen as a cheaper, NZ-made alternative to the expensive EFI systems then available, but it proved unreliable on the precursor V1000s - so the hardware and software was reworked by team member Mark Franklin, to the point where Britten was manufacturing their modified systems under license from Steward. It is adjustable on the fly by the rider, via a trim knob on the left switchgear. Turning the knob will add or subtract 5% mixture across the map to fine tune the running during a race; while the technology isn't unique (Ducati has had a similar trimmer on their ECUs since the late 80s) the idea of making it adjustable on the fly by the rider is. A red button on the left switch allows the rider to set a mark point in the data, a way to trace running issues - if you have a problem, tap the button to set a point in the printout so that the mechanic can examine the parameters at that moment.


The Britten teams were famous in the paddocks of the 1990s for plugging a Cambridge Z88 laptop into their machines to check parameters and make adjustments, sometimes faxing their datalogs back to New Zealand for analysis and corrections. It was the sort of space-age technology that virtually no one had seen in motorcycle racing to that point.

Part of the evidence used to exonerate P001 following Mark Farmer's death was that datalogging system. A ten-minute log is recorded in the ECU that can be downloaded and analysed, and the data preceding the crash showed a sudden RPM spike - evidence of a probable highside at the Black Dub, a complex corner that has become infamous for catching seasoned riders off guard. Farmer's tire selection (a hard compound rear) increased the risk, and word was he had been riding hard chasing Steve Hislop's Honda RC45 (which was shod in softer tires) into the Black Dub.


The bike is reassembled and fuelled up, and Bob wheels it onto starter rollers. Everyone in the vicinity stops what they are doing. Phones are pulled out and cameras start rolling. The dry slipper clutch is locked with a spring-loaded pin on the pressure plate that engages with the rear of the basket to allow for bump starting. A few coughs and some some oil smoke billows out, a common issue due to the lack of valve guide seals on these engines.

Then it fires.



It's the first time I've heard a Britten running. P001 is currently fitted with a 999cc engine; F001 is an 1100, others are 985cc. The exhaust note is distinctive from the 60 degree twin, a raspy, staccato noise with the dry clutch rattling away in the background. The boombox exhaust fitted to the production bikes is relatively quiet, approximately the volume of a street bike with an unbaffled slip on. Bob notes that the boombox, which doubles as a chain guard and a mounting bracket for the footpegs, weighs 14 pounds, which he suspects is for ballast more than anything given that everything else on the bike is built to be extremely light. F001, the Cardinal Britten that is now owned by the Britten family, was notoriously loud with its open megaphone - too loud to pass inspection at most tracks, which led to dodgy fixes like jamming steel wool scrub pads into the pipe to quiet it down enough to get through tech.


Stephen takes the bike out for a few laps during lunch on Thursday, doing a few gentle parade laps for the crowd. The Barber Vintage Festival doesn't start until Friday so most of the attention is coming from within the paddocks, with racers popping out from their tents and trailers to get a look at the machine as it circulates the track.


I try to make myself useful in the paddocks, just so I'm not a useless tit getting in the way. In the process I become a de facto part of the pit crew. It's mostly just Bob's friends along for the ride, so I'm in good company. It turns out that this is far more entertaining and engaging than most of the events happening on the weekend, and I enjoy being around the Britten entourage. I can tell my imaginary grandkids that my contribution to history was scrubbing bugs off Brittens.


Just seeing one running and circulating the track is miraculous. An engine overhaul is spec'd for every 10 hours, but the word is that 5 hours is a safer bet. Stephen has noted that performance degraded noticeably after 60-odd laps, which would be less than half that. Bob Brookland shares that he calculated an average cost of running a Britten in a race at around 5000$ an hour. These are not production based machines hopped up for racing, they are purpose built race machines built to exacting tolerances. Tolerances that go out of whack real quick, provided you manage to avoid cold seizing or hydro locking the valve tappets, recuring problems when they were run in anger.


With that in mind, you realize why it is incredibly important that Bob Robbins has dug up sources for a number of engine parts and started the process for getting new runs of spares made to keep Brittens running. The main hurdles are the crankcases, head castings, and crankshafts, of which only a few spares exist. Con rods remain unobtanium, being titanium items plucked from a late-80s Indy motor made by a long since defunct company. But given enough time and investment, even those unique items could be replicated if needed.

Most of the moulds, castings, pictures and documents were moved into storage at the Brittco office after the Britten factory was closed in 2006. This turned out to be an unfortunate move, as the building was severely damaged and flooded during the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011, leading to the loss of many of these invaluable original parts and documents.

The rest of the mechanical bits are surprisingly pedestrian. The five-speed gearbox is out of a Suzuki GS, which causes issues with gear ratios, as the first two gears of the street bike transmission are far too short for race duty. The water pump is a Suzuki item as well. The dry clutch is a mix of Kawasaki and Suzuki parts, and will accept Kawasaki ZX-RR plates with some fiddling. The finned rotor poking out of the left side of the engine will be familiar to anyone who has worked on an early-90s Ducati, the donor of the charging system. The oft-repeated story is that the team only failed to win at Daytona in 1992 because of a Ducati rectifier; the truth is that the wiring was messed up and the bike had been running as a total-loss system off the battery for the whole race. Word is that John himself may have crossed those wires in a late-night rush to reassemble the bike after brazing a cracked cylinder liner.  


Jim Hunter arrives Thursday evening and wheels his bike into the tent to display alongside P001. Jim's bike is P002, the second production machine which he bought from John, and was famous for winning the Sound of Thunder and Battle of the Twins races at Daytona in 1997. It was also the Britten showcased in the Guggenheim's Art of the Motorcycle exhibitions. Painted in traditional Britten blue and pink livery, it attracts a new crowd of curious onlookers.


I'm fortunate to meet Dave Koban, who served as Hunter's mechanic while he was campaigning P002 in the United States. A factory-trained Britten mechanic, Dave is a quiet fellow who proves to be a wealth of information. I'm able to quiz him on a few details and confirm/deny some of the "facts" I'd gathered, and he immediately provides concise and clear answers, correcting some misinformation in the process. I desperately wish I had a few hours to spend alongside him with a bike in front of us so we could go over the design, construction, and adjustment of the entire machine. In the meantime I content myself with shadowing him when he is making adjustments so I can get a small glimpse into the inner workings.


Friday morning Roberto Crepaldi arrives. Roberto was a key player in the Britten story and the first person to purchase a bike from John, the very bike that Bob now cares for. Chuck, one of Bob's friends, reveals that he and Bob had visited Daytona in the 1990s, and Bob had wandered off on his own into the paddocks. He came across Roberto and his team, and sheepishly asked if he could sit on the bike. Roberto kindly obliged and took a photo.

Bob still has the photograph. He likely never imagined that 20 years later he would have bought that bike, though he probably did dream about it.


At lunchtime on Friday, the first day of the Barber Vintage Festival proper, four Brittens are sent out for parade laps. Kirsteen Britten waves the green flag to send them off. Moto journalist Nick Ianetsch takes out P002, Stephen Briggs is on P001, Andrew Stroud on F002 (the second factory machine built, currently owned by Kevin Grant), and Chuck Huneycutt is on Barber's P004. Ianetsch proceeds to hoon it up around the track, pulling wheelies and showing off for the crowd - and making most of us nervous. He does have some history aboard a V1000 but not nearly as much as Stroud, who everyone normally forgives for his antics. The idea of some self-assured loon borrowing an irreplaceable, million-dollar piece of history and immediately goofing off like it is a GSXR doesn't sit well with me, even though I'm happy to see these bikes out on the track and being ridden in something resembling anger.


Thankfully the bikes return unscathed, and the collection in the paddock grows once again with F002 being placed on display alongside P001 and P002. Now the crowd is beginning to grow, with curious spectators coming out of the woodwork following the parade laps. I get asked a lot of questions and do my best to answer them without talking out of my ass, usually trying to deflect inquiries to the more knowledgeable people who are around. I know a bit about the bikes and the story behind them, but I'm by no means an expert. The desire for people to learn more about these machines is palpable, but I'm not yet prepared to be a curator of their history. I still have a lot of learning left to do.

There is an odd problem that exists, something I was warned about early on in my research, of people who were not directly involved in the Britten project to claim they were. They try to steal some of the glory by pretending to have been a part of the story.

With that in mind I am cautious not to overstep my position as an observer. I have zero tolerance for bullshitters and certainly don't want to be seen as one myself.


There is a surprising amount of ignorance too, far more than I would have expected. I take it for granted that everyone should know what a Britten is, but the constant stream of people reveals that they aren't familiar to the average visitor. That doesn't mean that the curiosity isn't there. These machines still stop people in their tracks more than 20 years after they were introduced, prompting furrowed brows and strained expressions as people try to deduce what they are looking at. It's just a shame more people aren't aware of what they are, or why they are significant.

Reading through many of the summaries of the Vintage Festival upon my return home, I note a distinct lack of coverage on the Britten reunion - it's just a footnote in a huge event, and the significance of this number of V1000s being in one place at one time is lost on a lot of observers. Sam Britten, John's son, recalled that before this weekend the most V1000s in one place was some point in the 1990s when there were 7 machines at the factory, some being assembled and some brought in for servicing.


Friday evening is the gala dinner, an annual part of the BVF that helps fundraise for the Barber museum while bringing together an interesting mix of industry personalities. Normally there is a guest of honour, who is interviewed after dinner in candid manner - last year Alan Cathcart interviewed Erik Buell, the year before he quizzed Miguel Galuzzi and Pierre Terblanche.


But not this year. The dinner is billed as an evening with the Brittens, but in reality it's more of a quiet tribute to John's memory. Kirsteen Britten takes the podium to make a short presentation in memory of John, making a point to thank the owners present who supported his dream. There are no interviews this year. When I ask about this, the consensus is that nobody wanted to put Kirsteen on the spot and risk upsetting her. Regardless, she and the children are here surrounded by the people involved and thousands of fans, and all weekend she is approached by people sharing stories and photographs of their encounters with Brittens over the years. She notes that her children didn't fully grasp the impact of John's work and the significance of these bikes until they saw the memories and tributes being shared here. There is a lot more to the story that needs to be revealed, and that people desire to learn, but a lot of people seem to be walking on eggshells around Kirsteen.  


It brings to light the central problem you'll encounter when trying to tell the Britten story: few dare to tread on John's legacy as a lone, quirky genius. The contributions of his team members and suppliers, and even a lot of the technical details of the bikes, are overshadowed by the hero worship that has arisen since his untimely death of melanoma in 1995. Any event involving Brittens is inevitably presented as a memorial or tribute to John's memory. As far as the average person knows, John built the bikes himself with the help of a few friends. The "official" biographies and documentaries downplay the roles of the team members who took John's ideas from conception to reality. Disputes that arose within the group over money and patents have been swept under the rug in favour of a simplified history that paints John as a brilliant innovator who conquered the world more or less alone. The details of how he achieved this and how he produced one of the greatest motorcycles of all time are glossed over in favour of worshipping the legend and maintaining a positive light on his achievements.


The truth is far more nuanced and far more interesting than the made-for-TV story that is usually promoted. John was indeed a brilliant designer and artist, and skilled at inspiring his associates and friends to help with his projects to a degree that would drive most people to insanity - John was notorious for working long nights and surviving on minimal sleep, and his teammates were along for the ride. He was stubborn and often unwilling to compromise on his ideas. One of his greatest skills (aside from his vision, creativity, determination, spatial awareness, and ability to learn) was his ability to hold a disparate group of people together and set them upon an impossible objective. He would seek out the best minds and talents he could secure, and keep everyone working insane hours on impossible deadlines - and somehow, with his direction, they'd make it, often by the skin of their teeth, and not without many failures along the way. He had the charisma and determination to inspire people to do the impossible, a self-effacing bravado that made him seem simultaneously timid and unstoppable.


John himself promoted a lot of the myths about the construction and performance of the V1000.People still believe that Brittens never had mechanical failures or handling problems. They were very good, but they weren't flawless.


It's not to say John was some aloof director, a manager who hired on a crew to do his dirty work while he spouted off unachievable goals and bullshit claims. He was there alongside his team, working harder than any of them and pushing them to try and keep up, all while maintaining his professional and family life. His hand was very much in the first factory machines. His ideas are the core of the whole project, for good or ill - many improvements were rejected by John in favour of doing things his way, which sometimes resulted in setbacks. His penchant for flying by the seat of his pants, for last-minute experiments and hacking up perfectly good parts to test harebrained ideas, was notorious. He was a curious tinkerer and his meddling sometimes sabotaged the race efforts - a venue where consistency and reliability, not experimentation, are paramount.  


John was a great motivator and visionary, but there was one secret ingredient that allowed him to succeed where most innovators would fail: wealth. He was the heir to a successful real estate development company (Brittco Management) who was able to fund his dream by spending tremendous amounts of his own money without any regard for profitability, while being in a position to secure further investments along the way through his business network. He was able to beat the factory efforts by disregarding the compromises of mass production; his machines were built to win races, pure and simple. The V1000 was a cost-no-object exercise driven by John's desire to win, and to seek alternative solutions to common problems.


Attempts to adapt Britten technology to production machines for third parties fell flat when the sheer cost and effort of making them suitable for reliable, road legal applications appeared insurmountable. His designs were simply not viable for the compromises of mass production. That is why his machines were so incredible and so advanced: there wasn't a bean counter or engineer in the way to tell John he couldn't do something, and he was free to start from a fresh slate to solve problems in his own way.


After his death, work stalled and profitability outside of T-shirt sales seemed impossible. John had been the driving force holding the team together and driving innovation, and without him his namesake company was without direction in terms of both design and business; shareholders didn't like the idea of haemorrhaging money to win races. The company withdrew from further development of the V1000 and quietly shelved John's next project, a single with a six-valve head that was dyno tested but never installed into the lightweight supermono chassis John had envisioned.


The result of John's complete disregard for profitability is a 320 pound, 160 horsepower icon of motorcycling, each one of which is worth something in the region of a million dollars. It's a figure that isn't questioned by anyone present; they are simply priceless icons, form, function, and artistry built free of compromises by passionate people.


The million-dollar figure was thrown around a lot throughout the weekend, and I myself have wondered if a Britten could be the world's most valuable motorcycle. None have been offered publicly, save for a listing in Robb Report Motorcycling about ten years ago - I recall the asking price at the time was 450,000$, but damned if I can find a scan to confirm and I can't recall exactly which machine was on offer (maybe P005?). Aside from that they've only ever changed hands privately, and a few of the machines are still in the custody of their original owners. If a V1000 were to hit the auction block there is a good chance it would shatter records, humiliating creaky old Broughs and Vincents and making the so-called Captain America chopper sale look like the fraud that it was.  

   
After meeting some of the owners, it becomes clear that a Britten will probably never will go to public auction. They are all passionate custodians of these artefacts, preferring to be referred to as "caretakers" rather than owners. I don't think a single one of them would dare sell their machine, let alone offer it on the open market where it could fall prey to a pragmatic speculator looking for a blue chip investment to mothball in a warehouse. And for that we should all be thankful.


Nine V1000s are on display here tonight, including F001, the prototype built by John and his team in 1991, which is now owned by the Britten family. Each bike is placed on a work stand in the restoration department in the basement of the museum, a pink rose laid on the tank in memoriam to John on the 20th anniversary of his death.

After the first course of dinner I excuse myself from the table and take the opportunity to photograph each bike in detail while everyone else is engrossed in their meals and the conversations around them. I zone out and snap an endless stream of pictures, noting the distinct details of each machine. It proves to be the only moment I have to appreciate each Britten free of distractions and throngs of people, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be among my icons more or less alone. I don't regret my anti-social move for one second.


The six-valve single cylinder prototype engine is present, along with the White Lightning streamliner (sadly lacking an engine, as the powerplant was only rented to Jon by the factory for his record attempts). The only machine missing is F003, owned by the government of New Zealand and on display in the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum. It very nearly did make it, but the laundry list of strict conditions and insurance policies that needed to be met for its transport to the United States were impossible to meet in the timeframe of the event. It's hardly a disappointment considering the scope of the turnout, but it would have been nice to have the entire production run on hand.


After the dinner and auction, each owner is given a custom Vanson jacket bearing their bike's serial number, the bikes are lined up in a row, and everyone takes a moment to pose with their machine. It's a surreal moment, punctuated by an endless flurry of flashes. There is a certain amount of frustration that comes with photographing something being instantly shared across the internet in real time by dozens of people, but it doesn't lessen the impact of what is happening.


Some murmurs pass through the crowd. Everyone has the same thought, a base desire to round out the evening's events with a bang. A starting motor is produced from the workshop and the doors are opened. Stephen Briggs hops aboard P001. The basement is filled with the staccato rumble of a V1000 firing into life. Stephen takes his time, gently blipping the throttle and watching the temperature display, waiting for the cold warning light on the dash to extinguish. The revs build, higher and higher as the temperature climbs. The smiles grow as people jostle to film the proceedings. The murmurs of the crowd are drowned out by the sound of thunder reverberating through the building.

A quick series of runs to redline and the bike is shut down, the deafening silence immediately interrupted by a triumphant cheer.



Saturday is another whirlwind day of activity in the paddocks as AHRMA racing goes on and more people stream through the tent to gawk at the Brittens. Stephen and Andrew continue racing aboard Bob's machines. All is running quite smoothly. Bob's meticulous eye for detail appears to pay off in his racing machines, all of which are prepared and maintained perfectly and don't suffer a single major issue all weekend. It's an interesting contrast to the scruffy, battered vintage rides you'll encounter in the paddocks. That's not to say those bikes are any less impressive, given their battle scars and the mark of the people who built and rode them visible at a glance. They are just another side to the sport, the grassroots foil to Bob's perfection.


The lunchtime parade laps see five Brittens on the track, yet another amazing moment that seems impossible to trump.


Little do any of us know that Bob has had an idea, and he's convinced Stephen, Andrew and Jim Hunter to join in.

I spend some time wandering around the event and checking out the sights. When I return to camp the entourage is buzzing, wry smiles all around.

I had been tipped off to what might happen, but I didn't really believe it would come to pass.


Stephen and Andrew suit up and P001 and P002 are wheeled out and fired up. Once warmed up they are put onto stands and tire warmers are thrown on. Dave Koban gives the bikes a final once over, making last minute adjustments.

The combined Sound of Thunder and Sound of Singles race is coming up. There will be no more parade laps today.

On the other side of the fence, the racers line up on the grid. The tire warmers are pulled off, the Brittens are started, and Stephen and Andrew hop into their respective saddles. They roll out onto the track along pit row. The flag drops and they take off after the group from behind, picking their way through the ranks as the singles drop behind the twins into their respective battles.


Everyone is stunned. No one anticipated this. We are witnessing history. A pair of Brittens are being raced in anger for the first time in over 15 years. The significance of the moment might have been lost on a lot of people, but for those of us in the paddocks we could hardly contain our joy. It was euphoric, and nerve wracking, knowing that million-dollar machines were dicing through the ranks of battered vintage racers, none of whom were warned that they were going to be going toe-to-toe with a pair of V1000s. Every lap is tense as we wait for the two machines to cross the line intact. But lap after lap they do, picking their way further and further up in the standings, finishing mid-pack in the Sound of Thunder group.


The boys return to the paddocks, unscathed, and a crowd forms. Riders from the race start streaming in, their leathers still hanging around their waists. They babble about being passed by a Britten, their faces animated and lit up with childlike glee at having been beaten by one of their icons. If anyone is upset, it's only because they didn't know in advance and complained about not having their GoPros turned on to film the action as they got cut up by a pair of V1000s.


Over and over again over the course of the weekend I hear people express a desire to learn more about Britten and how these machines came to be; a desire to learn "the truth", an unabridged and honest account. People are aware that they only know a myth and they crave something better.


Tim Hanna wrote a biography of John Britten, but it has been labelled unauthorized by Kirsteen and circulation is limited. It's not perfect but it is a very thorough and interesting account of John's life, personality, and work, and a very good account of the contributions made by the team members who helped build the bikes. The only officially endorsed Britten biography is a coffee table book written by Kirsteen's cousin, Katie Price. There is, of course, a story behind that outcome, but it is not one that I feel needs to be revisited here.


Bob has a filmmaker working on an account that gives a voice to the people who worked with John. On Saturday evening, at the same time that One Man's Dream was being screened in downtown Birmingham by the Britten family, Eric, the filmmaker, holds a preview showing in the pit tent of some of his work. He had spent the previous two days locked in his trailer, headphones on, furiously editing together a coherent narrative. It reveals the beginning of a beautiful story, of heartfelt accounts from the people who were a part of the dream. It doesn't take anything away from John's legacy. If anything it will be a brilliant tribute to his work, an account of how he was able to drive a team to achieve the impossible.

I'm happy to learn that I'm not the only person who is on this path, who desires to tell the story with all its nuance and complexity. Bob and Eric are playing this one close to their chest, but I hope that I can offer my humble assistance in the future and glean some insight from their research.


The pieces begin to fall in place in my mind. I begin to see how I can tell the story. The task ahead of me is daunting and the deadline seems to be stretching farther and farther ahead of me, but the process is beginning to sort itself out.

The night goes on with drinks and food. Everyone is relaxed and the atmosphere is warm. It's a perfect contrast to the slight stuffiness of Friday's gala, which had a far more serious tone. Jokes and stories are shared, candid moments and memories coming to light as the coolers get emptied and the crowd gets comfortable.

I am still in shock that I am here. The weekend has been a blur of surreal, once in a lifetime moments blending together into a spectacular whole that is far more incredible than I even imagined it could have been.


The following morning I attend the Naked Britten seminar at the museum, where Kirsteen, Craig Roberts, and Bob Brookland make a tantalizingly brief presentation by stripping the bodywork off F001 and showing the hidden details to a small crowd in the museum auditorium. It's a rare opportunity to see the inner workings of the prototype. The roughness of the components shows the hands of those who built it, the quick solutions to last minute problems evident in the construction. All Brittens have a slightly rough-hewn quality to them, but none more so than F001.


This is probably the most famous Britten of all, the one built by John and his small team at his home in 1991 over the course of single year - starting after Daytona 1991, where they had campaigned the more conventional fully-faired "precursor" V1000, and finishing with the debut of F001 at Daytona in 1992. It is the bike showcased in One Man's Dream. It exhibits a number of distinct details in its construction compared to the later bikes, including an 1100cc engine, a single cam belt versus the twin belts of later bikes, and differences in the shape of bodywork that are immediately noticeable when compared to the other machines.


Bob Brookland gives an overview of his paintwork on the machine, confirming the story that John came to him with a blue glass starfish purchased while on vacation. Bob painted each Britten and spent a lot of time thinking about how to integrate the disparate pink and blue colours together in way that wouldn't look jarring. The bodywork is not a solid colour, instead having artificial shadow and overlays to accentuate the forms. The pink panels are sprayed with translucent violet to harmonize them with the vibrant blue of the main bodywork. The bikes that followed were painted a more subdued blue with white numberplates, giving F001 a distinctly dark, rich appearance.


Craig Roberts offers some insights into the design and build process that speaks volumes. Components were built, then pared down until they failed, then taken back a step to produce a reliable but light part. John was notorious for his experiments, like a failed attempt to build carbon-fibre con rods - not all innovation made it past the testing stage. Craig shares tidbits like how they tested the crankcase castings for porosity by connecting a garden hose to the cooling circuit. He also shares the time John snuck out for a ride at Daytona while wearing Andrew Stroud's leathers, a ruse that was almost forgotten until someone found a picture of two Andrews, one aboard the bike and the other standing in the paddocks.


John was a pioneer in the use of carbon-fibre wheels, but if you have the opportunity to handle one you'll realize they were overbuilt to the point of being as heavy, if not heavier, than a conventional light alloy wheel - but they were extremely strong. Dave Koban noted that he accidentally flung a Britten wheel off a bead breaker, six feet into the air, and watched it land on the rim. It didn't even mark it.


Back at the paddocks, racing continues. While the Vintage Festival is a world-class mecca of motorcycle delights, with fascinating things to discover at every venue, I'm having more fun hanging out with the crew and doing my little part to help run the fleet. The Britten entourage is a group of genuine, interesting and kind people. John Britten clearly had a knack for finding good people and inspiring them to do great things. There is a lot of sombre reflection going on, even two decades after John's passing - it's the result of a deep respect for his genius and his memory, which makes this event a bittersweet reunion for a lot of the people present.


Once again Jim Hunter agrees to have Andrew Stroud go out on his bike for this afternoon's races. Jim's Britten is running quite a bit stronger than Bob's, with more compression (which is quite noticeable on startup) and a higher rev limit set in the ECU. Bob had P001 rebuilt to slightly more conservative specs for longevity. It's not slow, but to legitimately contest a race against highly developed "vintage" racers with modern parts and tuning Andrew is going to need all the power he can get.


A fresh slick is installed on the rear (I wish I could have seen the look on the tire guy's face when they handed him a Britten wheel) and Dave Koban makes some last minute tweaks, renewing safety wire and checking the belts. The carbon-fibre bellypan built for P001 to serve as an oil catch, something that wasn't needed in the 1990s but is now required to pass tech inspection, is transferred over to P002 with some fiddling. No two bikes are the same, and swapping parts from one to another takes some finessing to make them fit. Aside from that and filling the tank with C12, not much else is needed. A few days ago this bike was a priceless artefact on display in Jim's office; with some fuel and tires it's now ready to go kick ass on the track.


Andrew makes a few requests for adjustment of the suspension and controls to suit him, and complains about sliding around on the vestigial seat. I wish I had a roll of hockey tape handy to add some grip strips to the edge of the bodywork. It may be the most stereotypically Canadian solution I could have come up with but I'm pretty sure it would have worked. Maybe Bob will have a roll in his spares bin next time we meet.
         
The bike passes tech inspection and is sent out in the Sound of Thunder race. Andrew is riding conservatively, taking it easy through the corners then slingshotting ahead on the straights. He places mid-pack after sniping his way up through the field, gradually picking up the pace as the race progressed.

The next race is New Age Superbike, and there are murmurs that Andrew could take this one. He will be running against period-correct competitors, early 1990s superbikes, including a few highly-tweaked Ducatis.

Once again Andrew is sent out. After a clean start the race settles into its usual rhythm, with small groups forming and spreading out across the track. Chris Boy, aboard a very quick 888 Corsa, is in the lead. Andrew works his way up behind Chris, and now the race is on. Conservatism has gone out the window. A V1000 and a 888 are having a legitimate battle for first on the track, swapping positions repeatedly through the turns. The rest of the field disappears behind them as they push each other harder and harder.

The atmosphere in the paddocks is electric, the tension and excitement building to a crescendo. We are watching a recreation of a classic rivalry, a Britten dicing with a factory-spec Ducati. Andrew might be racing for fun, and won't receive any points for his finish (as it turned out he wouldn't even be noted in the AHRMA results), but he isn't holding back much if anything.


The Britten crosses the line ahead of the Ducati, making this race the first victory for a V1000 in the United States since 1998. The crew is ecstatic as Andrew rolls back into the pits, sharing a moment of jubilation after a historic moment. A flurry of photos and videos are taken, and Chris Boy comes over to congratulate Andrew on his victory - Chris will be first on the result sheet, but everyone is more than happy to admit defeat to an icon, even if it isn't official.


What follows can only be a slow, painful return to reality. The equipment is packed, the bikes are strapped into their trailers, the guests disappear to their respective hotels and flights. I've been a part of something extraordinary this weekend, and I dread returning to the misery of my retail servitude where no one will really understand what I was a part of - nor will they really care.

I try to thank Bob for his generosity, but he has a disarming, soft-spoken personality that makes you feel silly for even saying so.

He is the reason I'm here this weekend, and his generosity is what allowed me to be a part of a once in a lifetime reunion that exceeded my expectations at every opportunity. This weekend reaffirmed my passion and reignited my desire to write, after suffering through a severe case of writer's block brought on by months of mindless bullshit at my day job that left my mind muddled and my spirit broken.


My perspective on the Britten endeavour and the people involved has been forever altered by this experience, and this weekend has strengthened my resolve to tell the Britten story in a fair and accurate way that gives a voice to those involved while showcasing the brilliance of John's work. I have an even greater respect for what was accomplished and for the people who were involved after witnessing these bikes being run in anger and meeting the folks who helped make John's dream a reality.

This is only the beginning. I have a huge task ahead of me as I sort out the details, the anecdotes, the myths and the legends. I have a lot to do to write a profile that is fair to John's legacy, to the team members, to the riders, to the owners, and to everyone else who was involved in creating what I believe is, without exaggeration, the greatest motorcycle of all time. My task is daunting and my deadline stretches out far beyond the horizon, but I relish the opportunity to tell this story. John Britten and his bikes deserve nothing less.

As per my usual habit I awake at sunrise - or rather, I sleepily hobble out of my tent, because a sore, groggy motorcyclist extricating himself from a single-person tent at the ass crack of dawn of a cool morning is about as undignified an act as you can possibly witness - and go through my usual routine of fumbling with packing my gear into the impossibly tight confines of the stuff sacks from whence they will never again fit.


This uncivilized procedure is followed by the soothing effects of the day's first cigarette and an instant coffee prepared over a portable stove. If I'm feeling particularly thrifty I might make some instant oatmeal and skip the pleasure of a greasy breakfast, but today, on this damp morning, I'm feeling like I deserve something more substantial. Today's a day for my favourite practice of riding as long as I can stand on an empty stomach and stopping at whatever eatery happens into view when I can't suppress my hunger any longer.




I hit the road and find myself passing through a series of small harbour communities on the Pacific coast. I hadn't realized how close I was to the ocean when I stopped last night, but now I'm enjoying the pleasure of riding through idyllic seaside towns on a beautiful autumn morning.


The smell of cool, salty ocean mist is unmistakable to a Maritimer and I'm instantly transported back to my childhood on the Atlantic coast. I haven't been East during the summer months for something around 6 years, so it's a powerful moment as I breathe deeply and enjoy that familiar, clean air I haven't experienced in so long. It has a particular feel on your skin that is impossible to replicate and distinct from the mist off you'll get off freshwater; the salt slowly crystalizes on your skin and gear, leaving a grainy film over everything exposed to the elements.


The sights are similar to the coastal towns of my youth, but altered slightly. There is a bit more sophistication here, a bit more money rolling through the trendy tourist traps. The businesses here would have a hard time surviving in the more frugal economies of the Eastern provinces. It gives a sense of the uncanny valley, something perfectly familiar but not quite right.


I stop in Yachats for breakfast at the Drift Inn, one of those small-town relics of a bygone decade, with a dark interior filled with deeply stained wood. Just like any proper historic bar in a seaside town, it has a colourful history. A grumpy, hard-as-nails owner and a dive-bar reputation, cleaned up in recent years to make it a family-friendly venue for tourists like me blowing through town.


Time marches on, gentrification trims all the unpleasant edges away and upstanding folks displace the grumpy old bastards. At least on the surface. Our demons and debauchery just lurk beneath the veneer of respectability, where nobody cares to look.


The road winds along sandy beaches and rocky cliffs blasted by steady waves, bordered by lush green forests and quiet communities. As I continue south along the 101 I'm beginning to realize I chose a spectacular route, one that I should have started much further north.


My original route, based on a three week tour, would have started on the north-western tip of Washington, but my workplace denied my request to take three weeks off. They gave me grief for taking two consecutive weeks, instituting a new policy immediately afterwards stating that no employees could take more than one week off at a time.

The older I get, the more I realize that working the majority of my waking hours as a cog in an unsympathetic, soulless machine is a poor excuse for a life.

But all that is forgotten out here on the road. I've found that riding is my best medication against the looming spectre of a bleak future.


The road shifts inland, following logging routes populated by well-weathered semi trucks hauling massive trunks of old growth trees to nearby mills. The smell of sawdust and wet lumber permeates the air. The forest becomes denser, the highway snaking up and down hills. Low posted limits slow my progress through the various small towns dependent on resource industries. I don't care. This is infinitely more interesting than the grey expanse of the interstate, even if it is slow going. It's far too beautiful out here to become irritated with the slow pace.


The miles tick by and soon I find myself at the California border. A quick pass through an environmental checkpoint and I'm soon riding along a Redwood-lined highway with golden eagles circling lazily overhead. It's a stunning sight. One that is, once again, impossible to convey in static images - a frustration that I continue to revisit on this journey.


The scale of these immense sequoias is staggering to someone who has never witnessed them. I continue along the Redwood Highway route south and pause at a turnout to try and process what I am seeing. I stand beneath the dense canopy and peer skyward, unable to see the tops of the trees that surround me. I put my hand on their trunks to try and confirm what I am seeing, something so foreign to me that I can't quite believe it is real. I place my helmet at the base of one of the bigger examples and take a photo to try and convey the size. The result still doesn't do it any justice.


Riding amongst these giants is calming, the road crowded on both sides with ancient guardians that give you the sense of being both protected and dwarfed into insignificance. Sound is damped and given a warm tone, free of echoes as it is deflected by the enormous trunks and absorbed into the mossy undergrowth. The sound of nearby vehicles is delayed until they are practically in your line of sight. I can imagine that the enveloping quiet, the permanent shade, and the faint glimmers of sky through the all-enveloping canopy might cause unease in more claustrophobic people, but for me it inspires a sense of serenity.


I'm overwhelmed by the scene, giddy with emotion and smiling broadly as I place my hands on the coarse bark. I'm pretty certain the splendour is lost on the local commuters barrelling through while they choke down their lattes. Familiarity breeds complacency, which seems a damned shame when you are craning your neck to look up the trunk of a tree that is older than your civilization.      


Continuing further south the road moves inland, splitting into a divided highway running through the forested hills and passing through tiny communities. I make some brisk progress along the wide, sweeping lanes, which are mostly clear of traffic and law enforcement.


Roadside attractions dedicated to Bigfoot provide a welcome diversion, and a kitschy way of satisfying another one of my childhood fascinations, albeit one that hasn't survived the internet age very well. The dearth of photographic substantiation of everyone's favourite crypto creature in the age of smartphones is probably the best evidence against the existence of an eight-foot tall hominid skulking around the forest. That and the recent spate of debunking that has taken down a lot of the traditional pieces of supposedly irrefutable proof. The discovery that the Paterson film was an admitted fraud was one of the biggest blows to my lingering sense of childhood wonder.  


But I'm happy to forget logic and scepticism for a few minutes while I buy some Bigfoot tchotchkes and give one last cautious glance into the dense forest before I hop back on the bike.

I was advised to take a detour along Highway 1 from Leggett to the Mendocino coast by one of my coworkers, and I arrived at the crossroad at the tail end of a 12 hour stint on the road.


What followed was a combination of euphoric riding through some of the gnarliest twisties I'd yet encountered, tempered by the sheer terror of piloting a high-powered mutant of a sport machine on a ridiculously tight forest road while trying to maintain my concentration at a point of dangerous exhaustion. It is one of those stupid, stupid high speed jaunts that defy all good sense but leave you shaking with that pure, uncut adrenaline that you simply can't summon on any sensible ride. I feel more alive than I have in months, perhaps years, slaloming through the trees and decreasing radius bends, gently floating the front wheel out of first and second gear corners, screaming happy obscenities in my helmet as the descending sun sparkles through the canopy.

Then I emerge from the forest onto the rocky coast, just as the sun is setting over the Pacific.


I stop at a lookout point, enjoying a Marlboro while I watch the sun cast a fiery reflection across the water. This is the first time I've seen the sun setting on the ocean, being used to the opposite happening on the Atlantic coast. The afterglow of an exuberant ride washes over me, along with the realization that this is a moment that is too perfect to ever replicate. I'm slightly annoyed that there is a family in their sedan sharing the lookout with me and cluttering up my photos. This is the type of experience that could only be better if I was perfectly alone to soak in the details and savour my awe in silence.


Then I snap back to reality and realize I still have several hundred miles to go if I am going to make it to my destination.


I quickly check my map and make a mental calculation before I call Matt, my host in Calistoga. I should arrive there around midnight if I keep my stops to a minimum. Matt has been a long time supporter of the site who offered me a proper bed to sleep in for the night at his home in the heart of Napa Valley, an offer I couldn't refuse and a welcome detour off the coastal route.

But I really can’t afford to stop now and only ride a few hundred miles tomorrow; I'm aiming to be in Los Angeles in two days.  The only other option is to audibly say "fuck it" and go for broke.


I've already ridden this far and pushed myself beyond my point of exhaustion. What's a few hundred more miles?

In the dark?

On unfamiliar, unlit twisty roads?


There are many reasons I choose to ride solo. Two of them are: my propensity for snap decisions, and my habit of pushing the limits of my endurance. Most riders would consider this practice foolish; the ones who wouldn't are not the kind of lunatics I enjoy riding with.


The roads along the Mendocino coast are more spectacular that the forest run I just completed, a tight ribbon of fresh asphalt winding along beaches, up and down sandy embankments overlooking a craggy coast. The speed limit is 55 MPH but in a lot of spots you are hard pressed to even keep up that pace. When the yellow signs say slow to 15 or 20, you'd better fucking listen because they are not kidding.


A local in a BMW X5 comes up from behind and thunders past me at full throttle, wobbling and careening across the undulating pavement before disappearing around a corner. I make no attempt to reel him in. Drivers around here mean business and I'm just trying to maintain my focus on staying out of the ditch.

I'm beginning to understand why most magazines base their operations in SoCal, not that I didn't really get it in the first place. Aside from the weather and longstanding vehicle culture that’s developed down here, they are surrounded by picture-perfect roads that can really push your machine to its limits and instantly reveal the qualities and flaws that might elude you riding anywhere else. I knew the suspension on the Tuono was on the soft side, but on most roads it's adequate; out here it feels like I'm riding a hundred-horsepower pogostick that is constantly trying to find new ways to pitch me into the weeds. I'm focussing more on keeping it reigned in than actually enjoying the road. The fork is bottoming out and wallowing into tight corners while the rear feels vague. The brakes are adequate but could use more initial bite. The steering damper is too light to keep the front in check and the steering is hair-trigger sensitive as a result, made worse by the amount of weight I've got strapped to the back. I'm making a mental checklist of things I need to do when I get home, chief among which is check the tightness of the steering head and order an adjustable damper.      


Darkness falls and I stop for gas in Fort Bragg, quickly checking my map to figure out the best route to Calistoga. Route 128 looks to be the most interesting, though in hindsight if I was in a hurry and riding in the dead of night I would have probably been better served by the Interstate. Of course, that would not have been nearly as memorable.

The moon rises and casts an eerie pallor over the landscape, the grey light filtered through the canopy of old-growth trees that arch over the road. There are no streetlights outside of the small towns that dot the route, and I'm forced to rely on the catseyes in the road to see where I'm going. I quietly thank Aprilia for installing effective lighting on the Tuono, and shudder at the thought of attempting this sort of jaunt aboard my 916 with its feeble excuses for headlights.

Even at a slower pace it is absolutely nerve wracking as I navigate blind turns, crests and decreasing radius hairpins. I usually avoid riding at night due to my poor night vision, and every time I encounter an oncoming car I'm completely blinded. My active imagination keeps flashing images of deer darting out of the trees into my path, sending me over the bars and spewing my luggage out across the road in a cloud of clothing and camping gear. I slow down a bit more whenever that thought occurs.


I discover that Route 128 closes nightly and I'm forced to take a detour along the 253. This proves to be a beautiful but equally treacherous path snaking through rolling hills dotted with vineyards and million-dollar properties. If it was anything other than darkness, this would be a spectacular route with stunning scenery attempting to distract you from the perfect ribbon of inky black asphalt twisting through the landscape.

But it is darkness, and I'm sweating bullets trying to anticipate the corners and dodging the occasional tipsy driver leaving a late-night wine tasting session.

I still have many more miles to go. My exhaustion has passed and been replaced by a third wind fuelled by adrenaline, my lingering fear of painful death, and far exceeding the day's recommended dosage of Red Bulls.


Rejoining the 128 on the other side of the 101 reveals still more beautiful riding and more idyllic wine country. I roll through small towns that clearly have some money flowing through them, with trendy shops and eateries that would be out of place in most one-stoplight localities. I was looking forward to riding through Napa Valley and it's just as I expected, if not better. A beautiful region dotted with picturesque little settlements with a functioning local economy to sustain it.

I finally roll into Calistoga and arrive at Matt's place just before midnight. I've ridden more than 600 miles on nothing but twisty roads and repeatedly risked my ass to get here; I'm nearly delirious from the strain and vow I will never repeat this kind of ride, but I'm happy I did do it at least once and survived to tell the story.

There are probably a lot of Iron Butt riders who would mock my candy-assed attempt at reckless adventure. No matter how far you ride or how hard you push yourself, there is always some deranged rider out there who has ridden much further, in far worse conditions, with far less suitable equipment. Or at least there will always be that guy who will make you feel like a wimp when you share the tale later, as per the traditional rules of motorcyclist one-upmanship and dick-wavery.

But today was nothing if not memorable, an epic ride that will consume my memories for a long time. There is even some small inkling in the back of my head that I should do something to top this, something even more daring and irresponsible to push my limits a little farther. Sitting on Matt's front porch inhaling the umpteenth cigarette of the day and buzzing from an overload of nicotine, caffeine and endorphins makes it seem almost worth risking my life for the memories.

But not on this trip. I've already used up all my luck and I still have a long damn way to go. I like to tempt fate to keep things interesting, but I'd also like to get home with both wheels on the pavement.

Matt proves to be an engaging host, an experienced racer filled with good stories, interesting contacts and a wealth of knowledge. I'd talked to him online briefly before but hadn't realized how passionate and knowledgeable he truly was, making my stop in Calistoga after a far-too-long ride all the more worthwhile. He is kind enough to prepare a late night meal for me after my day's adventure, a much welcomed gesture given my unfortunate habit of "forgetting" to stop for a meal due to my excitement and determination to complete the journey.

I have a tendency to zone into a task so completely that I neglect to even feed myself, pushing my basic needs aside in favour of seeing myself through to the end. It's a trait I share with my father, who is known for spending long days in the garage without taking a break. I know this practice well, zoning myself out for long hours as I tinker with my machines or work on my hobbies. I usually don't stop until I encounter a roadblock that stymies me, which generally results in something getting broken in a rare fit of blind rage. I am not known for having a temper, usually being quite calm in demeanour, but when something frustrates me beyond the limits of my patience I have a tendency to snap in spectacular fashion. Demons run when good men go to war, or when the quiet man strips a bolt at the wrong moment.



I sleep soundly and wake early, refreshed and ready for another long day. I was supposed to meet with some OddBike fans at Stinson Beach for coffee before riding into San Francisco for lunch, but the folks who were supposed to join me dropped off one by one in the days prior to the meet and it appeared that I'd be going solo. The perils of organizing a meetup on a weekday. I wasn't too bothered, and looked forward to a little detour along the coast. I'll use any excuse for a decent ride, and I'm keen to get back onto the twisties of Route 1 again.


But first, I need to run the gauntlet of early morning traffic entering the Bay Area.

I can now benefit from being able to split lanes, this being California and all. I have some trepidation. Lanesplitting is a mythical privilege that is quite foreign to riders outside of Cali, a degree of freedom that we simply aren't accustomed to. I picture myself skimming off mirrors and scraping paint before someone cuts in front of me and puts a quick end to my trip. I recall the hectic, take-no-prisoners riding I had to learn in Montreal, the same offensive-defensive driving that every Quebec rider needs to adapt to lest they end up a statistic being scraped off the road by unsympathetic officers of the SQ. I shudder at the thought of cutting between cars in that environment. In that town, doing something that bold would have gotten you killed real quick, either by driver error or retaliation from the irate motorists you try to pass - assuming the police hadn't suspended your license the first time you tried it.


Matt gives me some advice on how to proceed before I go, and I set out into the maw. I have to brave the Interstate for a few miles to make it to the exit for Stinson Beach. Pretty soon I'm stuck in the morass of rush hour traffic, crawling along with my usual resignation to my fate in such scenarios.

I slowly venture between the lanes as traffic comes to a stop. I'm stunned when the cars ahead of me begin to move out of my way, parting the space to allow me to pass safely.

That would not happen anywhere else. I'm surprised anyone is even paying attention to their mirrors.


My confidence grows and I begin to pick my way through the lanes, gradually increasing my speed. It's still not enough to keep up with the veteran riders who are filtering through and passing me with ease, and I move out of their way in deference to their skill. I'm suddenly aware of a degree of freedom I've never experienced on a bike before. I don't have to be stuck in traffic, and I can use the bike's size and manoeuvrability to my advantage rather than pretending I'm piloting a really small car.


I stick to cutting through stopped traffic, not yet ready to carve through moving lanes. But I've already been liberated. The nerve-wracking effort is giving way to a clear-minded focus as I spot gaps to exploit while anticipating the movement of the vehicles around me.

It's a revelation. I can't believe how easy and natural this feels and wonder why no one outside of California has allowed this practice. Not only that, but I'm in shock as drivers are cooperating and respecting my space. For the most part, anyway. There are the occasional dickheads who crowd you in and refuse to move out of your way, but you can take solace in the fact that once you get past them you'll leave their sorry asses miles behind you.


Then I whack a mirror with my handguard, the dull plastic thwock bringing me back to the reality of weaving between multi-ton machines piloted by sleepy commuters. Better take it easy. Don't get cocky, kid.

The road north to Stinson Beach is another revelation, a freshly-paved piece of twisty perfection snaking into a picture-perfect seaside town. It proves to be a superb way to start the morning, slicing through a series of tight corners before stopping at a lovely café for a coffee and snack while the locals go about their morning routine. It occurs to me that for some lucky folks this road and this route is part of their normal commute. Do they know how lucky they are? Do they appreciate the beauty of the locale and how spectacular the road home is? Never mind the weather, which is absolutely perfect for riding.


The flaw with this fantasy becomes clear when I try to leave Stinson and head back towards San Fran, and the tight road becomes choked with traffic. Ambling commercial vehicles crawl around the sharp turns, holding up a row of nimbler machines behind them. Nothing can be too perfect, I suppose.

It's funny how the problems with any seemingly amazing setting, in my mind, are the people who populate it. I'll chalk that one up to my introverted tendencies.


I cross the Golden Gate Bridge (remembering not to split lanes here on Matt's advice, given the strong cross winds messing up everyone's aim) and stop in San Francisco for lunch at the Hong Kong Lounge, a popular dim sum spot recommended to me by a local. Once again there was supposed to be an OddBike meetup here, but like Stinson all the guests dropped off one by one and I'm forced to eat my delicious, delicious meal alone. Oh well. It gives me time to think and scribble out some notes while I people watch.


Passing the city and continuing south along the 1 reveals a series of dense urban areas and not much in the way of scenery, despite being within spitting distance of the seaside. As the road winds inland away from the ocean the temperature skyrockets and I'm soon cooking inside my touring gear, vainly opening vents and unzipping every port to try and get some relief. It feels like someone turned on a giant blow dryer. Traffic is heavy as I pass through Santa Cruz, but I'm never bored picking my way through the lines of cars. Splitting lanes keeps you on your toes and forces you to maintain focus, and is entertaining in its own way. Not as much fun as strafing a deserted twisty road, but fun nonetheless.


After some slow progress through the populated areas, I start to pass through iconic locales. Half Moon Bay, Monterey, Carmel. I stop near Davenport to rest and take a walk across the pristine sandy beach that borders the road. For a few minutes I'm alone, taking the opportunity to walk out to the water's edge to dip my hand in the Pacific and complete my little ritual.

I grew up on beaches like this one. It has been far too long since I've felt warm, shifting sand beneath my feet and breathed cool, briny sea spray. Standing here scanning the horizon and watching the waves roll and crest, listening to the sound of surf lapping the shoreline, I'm at peace.


The anxieties that accompanied me on my departure have completely melted away and I'm totally relaxed. More importantly, I'm happy for the first time in a long while. My stresses seem insignificant in this moment, my demons far away from this beautiful place.  


I continue on my way. I enter Big Sur, and after stopping to pay 5.00$ a gallon for fuel, the road suddenly becomes spectacular. The route offers amazing vistas across the ocean dotted with multi-million dollar properties and resort towns. Public beaches and pristine parks dot the route as the road winds along cliff faces and across gullies, all above the glistening waters of the Pacific. The descending sun casts a fiery glow across the scene. The colours are piercingly vibrant and the air is warm. I've ridden into paradise.


I fall into the rhythm of the road, my sense sharp and my hands steady as I attack. Down two gears, hyperdrive engaged, slingshotting past rubbernecking tourists at warp speed, chasing down the more spirited drivers as the going gets twisty. I'm in my element, overcome by the thrill of the road and the act of hunting down drivers who think they can outrun a demented Canadian aboard a vicious Italian sportster.


I'm in awe once again, riding through a postcard scene that is instantly familiar. Most of the brochure shots you've seen in the auto and moto media are photographed here, along these flowing ribbons of asphalt perched high above rugged bays beaten by an endless torrent of white surf. I encounter a camouflaged test vehicle, a two-door sports car which looks vaguely like a Jaguar, accompanied by a group of competitor's coupes. I can't think of a better place to test the fair-weather capabilities of a vehicle. Here is the mythical land where a convertible makes sense, where you can enjoy the flawless weather and stunning vistas with the top down. Anywhere else a drop top is a compromise, a good car made worse in favour of posing value that can only be exploited on select days in select venues. But here, along the Pacific Coast, I can't think of a better way to travel.

But you and I know better than that. The best way is, of course, by motorcycle.


I clear a line of rubbernecking tourists driving ten under the limit and for several miles I'm alone, thundering through bends as the sun descends over the water. The road isn't as technical as the tight stuff along the Mendocino coast, but the staggering natural beauty makes up for it. The intake bellows beneath me as I scythe through the sweeping curves, powering out of the apexes at full throttle, the steering going light and my arms stretching taut as the engine hits the thick part of the meaty midrange thrust. I'm close to tears, scarcely able to comprehend what I'm experiencing. The beauty of the surroundings mixed with the adrenaline of carving this road is overwhelming, an intoxicating mix that is the very essence of the reason I ride. This is one of those perfect moments that won't be equalled for a long damned time. I'm so enthralled I don't even pause to take photos. I'm too preoccupied with riding to stop as I arc from one beautiful corner to the next.


I never ride without my iPod, no matter how short the journey. I find that music can elevate my senses and add an extra element to the experience, giving those moments of beauty you find in everyday life a cinematic quality. The music playing now punctuates the scene, the shuffled songs falling upon just the right soundtrack to accompany the visuals. It is the final element that pushes this experience from amazing to epic, my mind and my body united.



Melodramatic? Sure, but I'm nothing if not passionate. And this was, without exaggeration, one of the best rides of my life.

The road begins to straighten and I slow my pace, mindful of the law enforcement that might be lurking along the gentler sections. I stop at San Simeon, close to the site of Hearst Castle, and watch the sun set over the ocean as a full moon hangs overhead.


I still can't believe I'm here. The moment is bittersweet because I know I can't equal this experience anywhere close to home. Every ride after this one will feel hollow, until I can find another locale and another road that can surpass this. I want to savour this, to never let my memory fade.


I struggle to find the words to express the heady mix of emotions I experience in this moment, to share the overwhelming beauty of the world I'm seeing here and now. There is something within me that stops me. I cannot elaborate any more without descending into derivative, repetitive hyperbole that might sound cool in my head as I relive the ride in my mind's eye, but will fail to do justice to the experience for the reader. You simply have to ride that road yourself to know.  


Darkness falls and I continue until I reach San Luis Obispo, grabbing a cheap motel room for the night before I stop at the local hot dog stand for a greasy, artery murdering meal. I'm going to need a good night's rest after today's awesome ride. Tomorrow I head for Los Angeles.
       

I rise early and stumble out into the motel courtyard, exhibiting my usual bleary-eyed pre-caffeinated lack of focus. I wander into a group of immaculate Harley-Davidson touring models tended by a troupe of middle-aged riders. I say hello and someone compliments my Aprilia in a thick European accent, mentioning how few they see over here in America.


It turns out that they are a group of Italians who rented their H-Ds in Oakland to tour around California and Arizona. It seems like a perfectly appropriate way to tour the US of A, and I'm reminded of my dream of riding across Italy aboard one of their uncompromising two-wheeled exports. Probably aboard a Ducati, but an MV, Moto-Guzzi, or Aprilia would be quite alright too.



In the case of our European guests, Harley is the only way to go. They have the right idea. It would be a bit weird (though probably much smarter) to use a Victory or an Indian, Polaris' new pretenders to the Moto-Americana crown. It would somehow not be quite as authentic. H-D hate mongers can go on all they like about how much better the alternatives might be but when it comes to the richness of an experience the flexing of your powers of dull rationality are irrelevant. And unwelcome.


I can picture the prototypical Harley basher in my mind. There are two genealogies: one is the blowhard squid who can't comprehend the appeal of something slower than the latest generation of litrebike. The second is the bespectacled, greying dullard who rides a metric cruiser that is decked out precisely like the Harley he not-so-secretely wishes he had, but didn't buy because he convinced himself they are unreliable oil-spewing crap. He usually follows up with one of those corny Hardly-Ableson jokes you've heard a dozen times, before he dons his leather daddy getup and hops aboard his Eastern Electra-Glide knockoff. The former species I can understand; the latter I find infinitely amusing.

But I'd better digress.


I head for Solvang to make a stop at the Vintage Motorcycle Museum, one of the few places in the US where you can see a Britten V1000 on display alongside a slew of rare vintage racing hardware and antique beauties. It's pretty much the only motorcycle related stop I have planned on this trip, now that Bonneville has been cancelled. There is surprising dearth of motorcycle museums along the Pacific Coast, what with this being one of the best goddamned areas in the world to own a bike.


I pass through Buellton, leaving the cool breeze of the coast and moving inland into arid desert scrub land. The temperature skyrockets and the humidity drops, the landscape changing markedly. I've gone from resort beaches to a Sergio Leone scene in the span of a few miles.


You might think this is a new experience for a Northerner like myself, but in fact we have similar deserts just east of Calgary. The Badlands offer a strange bizarro oasis in the heart of the prairie farmland, deep canyons and hoodoos carved into the otherwise flat expanses, populated by a unique ecosystem that has more in common with Death Valley than it does the rest of Alberta. In fact a lot of the iconic visuals you picture in your mind's eye from classic American Western films come courtesy of Canada. Unforgiven was filmed near Drumheller. Brokeback Mountain was shot in southern Alberta. Ditto The Revenant.


I arrive in Solvang and find the museum tucked away in a small courtyard, a tiny sign hanging over the door the only indication that this is anything other than a clothing shop or hipster boutique. The Britten is placed near the entrance, alongside a Honda NR750, but these appear to be aberrations - most of the collection appears to be from a bygone era of polished aluminum and glossy enamel.


I'd be happy to elaborate and give you a glowing appraisal of the quaint little museum and the treasures therein, but I can't. All I saw was what was visible from the front window. It turns out that the place is only open a few hours on weekends, and by appointment only any other time. This happened to be that other time and I had no idea I needed to call in advance to get in. Another bust, this time due to my seat-of-the-pants planning and lack of a set schedule.


I head for the coast again, this time suffering through heat and congested freeways that are markedly different from the twisty PCH route I'd enjoyed until now. This region has clearly been dry and hot for a long time, which explains the numerous forest fires they've been suffering as of late. What is surprising is just how extreme the drought is when you are riding through it. The landscape is tinder dry and the vegetation is bleached to a crisp, dead tan colour. Trees look sickly and the grass has been reduced to a brown blanket of kindling. It looks like you could set the whole county ablaze with one errant cigarette butt; a possibility which probably isn't that far from reality. It's downright miraculous that all of SoCal hasn't been burned to a crisp already.


Congestion builds as I approach Los Angeles, the familiar pattern of smaller outposts and suburbs feeding into the big city, municipal boundaries blurring together as you get closer and closer to LA. It's dull, grey and maddening, the concrete walls and strip malls closing in around you, all of it made seemingly worse after spending several days riding through picturesque locales and wide-open vistas over the ocean.


I have a brief respite planned, a detour to Oxnard to visit a destination that was strongly recommended by a friend.

Flashback to October 2014. I'm at the Barber Vintage Festival at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama. JT Nesbitt is here, along with representatives of the ADMCi, to unveil the just-completed trio of Bienville Legacy motorcycles. I spend several days hanging out with the group, sharing a room with JT and helping out however I can while we shuttle the bikes between Barber and the Motus factory in downtown Birmingham.

At some point I was walking around Barber with JT, checking out the sights and sharing opinions. For some reason the topic of car design came up.

"I hate cars."

JT pauses and glares at me, incredulous, with an intensity he reserves solely for the people who piss him off the most.

That was the wrong thing to say.

I have my reasons. I don't find cars engaging. Driving them is a chore I wish I didn't have to suffer. The ones that are interesting are exorbitantly priced, their performance eclipsed by even a modestly powerful motorcycle. I have a hard time getting excited by them. If I could spend the rest of my life without ever getting behind the wheel of a car again, I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest. The only reason I own one at all is to pick up groceries and get my ass to work during the winter.

I ride motorcycles because I love them. I drive cars because I have to.

JT proceeds to berate me for my ignorant opinion and strongly encourages me to do a little more research, to earn some appreciation for automotive design and engineering. Somewhere out of that conversation came the suggestion that I needed to visit the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard.


A short detour off the freeway and I find myself in an industrial park, pulling up to a nondescript windowless building that looks much like any other warehouse in the area - until you notice the French flag flying out front, and an abstract flourish hung on the side of the building.


I'm sweating profusely and exhausted from the heat. I take a moment to drain a bottle of Powerade, pop an ibuprofen, and have a smoke while I air myself out. A pristine yellow Ferrari Dino 246 is parked out front. A closer inspection reveals… Ontario plates? This fellow is a long way from home, particularly if he is driving an Italian machine.

As am I.


I walk to the door and find it locked. Ah fer fucks sake, don't tell me.

A woman opens the door. She informs me that the museum is by appointment only.

Great. Solvang all over again.

I tell her my story. How I was encouraged to come here as a pilgrimage by a friend of mine. I turn on the charm, telling her how I had ridden all the way from Canada and I would truly appreciate the opportunity to visit.

A call is made to the museum director for permission. A few minutes later I'm allowed in.


The first thing I encounter upon entering is the Hispano-Suiza Dubonnet Xenia, an unmistakable one-off that is staggeringly beautiful and advanced for its era. I know this car. I glance around the room and see other familiar machines, the best examples from the golden era of coachbuilt automobiles. These are the icons that I've read about in magazines, Pebble Beach winners and historically significant machines with unmatched provenance.


It turns out the owner of the Dino is currently touring the collection, the only reason anyone is here at all. He has driven here from Toronto; for doing that in a classic Italian icon he has my respect.


The private tour begins with an introductory film presented in a small Art Deco-themed theatre that gives a brief overview of the museum, the broad strokes of the period represented in the collection, and profiles of some of the more interesting machines on hand. After this I'm given a private tour by Tessa, one of the museum's guides. She presents a brief history of each machine, with a few anecdotes and interesting tidbits thrown in, allowing me a few moments to take in the details before moving on to the next object.


It's a bit overwhelming. I'm in the presence of some of the most significant, most beautiful automobiles of all time. I hardly know where to begin, barely able to process the beauty and craftsmanship before me. The collection is relatively small, but packed with the absolute best examples of the period.


There are famous artifacts here; one of the most fascinating being the Swiss Lake Bugatti, displayed just as it was recovered after spending 75 years at the bottom of Lake Maggiore. The Type 22 was dumped there by customs officials when the owner, who won the machine in a poker game in France, was unable to pay the import duties upon his return to Switzerland.


JT was right. This was well worth the detour, and as good a place as any to expand my appreciation for automotive design and history. In fact it is probably the best place to do so. This is a quiet, intimate museum. I am here alone, with Tessa as my guide, free of distractions. I can take my time to examine the machines in detail and ask endless questions. I'm frustrated that I don't have more time and more energy to peruse the collection and fully appreciate what I'm seeing.


Tessa proves to be an excellent and engaging host. She gives me the opportunity to muse aloud about the vast disparity between the appreciations for French automobiles and French motorcycles. Good fodder for a future article, I think. Why these four-wheeled machines are considered the pinnacle of car collecting while the equally innovative and beautiful (if not as exotic) offerings from the French motorcycle industry are largely forgotten and under appreciated. I inform Tessa that her homework is to look up the Majestic to see what sort of innovation was going on on the other side of the fence, and make a note to myself that I really need to get around to writing a profile of that thing.


We discuss life, art and design; cars and motorcycles. I haven't had an intelligent conversation like this in ages. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit smitten.


I'm drawn to the strangest and perhaps least sexy item present in the collection: the Voisin C6 "Laboratoire". Here is the essence of innovation of the early 20th century, a slab-sided vision of the future that was considered a failure due to its inability to compete against faster contemporaries on the French circuits in 1923. The machine here is an exact replica, there being no surviving examples of the four originals.


The C6 is unapologetically weird; just the sort of thing that I adore. Wonderful design elements abound. A small propeller on the top of the radiator drives the water pump. The sleeve-valve inline-six uses magnesium pistons. The rear track is narrower than the front, the rear wheels fully enclosed into the bodywork for aerodynamic efficiency. The chassis is a fuselage-like wooden structure with stressed aluminum skin, the genesis of the automotive monocoque. The whole machine takes a lot of inspiration from aeronautical design, not a surprise given designer André Lefèbvre's history in aviation.


This is the spirit of what I love in motorcycle design, but in automotive form. It is the trope of the ahead-of-his-time innovator, whose brilliance only becomes apparent long after the fact. Lefèbvre's uncompromising vision of progress is beautiful in its purity. It would prove to be an early example of his peculiar genius; he would go on to work for Citroën, where he designed the Traction Avant, the 2CV, and the DS.


The C6 can't compete with the classical beauty of the coach built wonders that surround it here, but to a technical mind it is equally stunning. Having this machine here, among these stable mates, is akin to displaying the Lunar lander next to the Bugatti 100P. Equally amazing, but for different reasons.


I only wish Mr. Mullin had a Bugatti Type 32 "Tank" to round out his collection of unusual racing hardware.


The automotive collection is rounded out by Art Deco and Art Nouveau furniture and paintings, including many pieces by the talented members of the Bugatti clan. It's overwhelming and I feel like I'm doing no justice to the significance of these objects in my current state, racoon-eyed and coated with road grime and sweat, my brain baked numb by the California sun. At this moment I am completely out of place here, but I feel entirely welcomed and respected by the staff. Most importantly, much like JT had hoped, I am leaving the Mullin with a new found appreciation for some of the beauty and innovation you'll find in the four-wheeled realm.


Back on the road and back onto the freeway towards LA. I make a beeline for the coast once again, passing through the famed Malibu and Santa Monica seaside. Traffic slows to a crawl along the crowded beaches populated by half-naked beautiful people, the picturesque palm-lined avenues dotted with million-dollar properties and surf bum hangouts. It looks just like you'd picture it from images presented in countless films and TV shows, only with about 200% more people and cars cluttering up the scene.


I head into Culver City to meet my host for the weekend. I began exchanging emails with Abhi from Bike-urious.com several months ago, discovering that he was a kindred spirit in the moto blogosphere. Like me he is fascinated by weird and unusual machines and runs his modest site in his spare time, pouring his passion for motorcycles into a unique niche that he felt wasn't satisfied by existing media. He's achieved some notable success and developed a pretty significant following, particularly after he made an appearance on Jay Leno's Garage.



Incidentally I tried to organize a visit to Mr. Leno's motor mecca on this trip but unfortunately my request wasn't answered. One doesn't contact him directly. Word was he probably would have said yes if he had received my message, but odds are it was screened out by the layers of entourage that surround him and he probably never got the request. Oh well.


I meet Abhi and drop off my gear at his place before we head out to a nearby In-N-Out burger for dinner. I've heard great things about the SoCal staple and have been meaning to try it while I'm down here. It proves to be well worth it. Not only is the burger delicious and the shake thick enough to grout tile with, it's also absurdly cheap. Cheaper than McDonalds cheap. I imagine that's the biggest draw, aside from the quality of the grub. Food seems exponentially better when it's underpriced.


I don't have long to rest. I've been invited to attend a lecture by Miguel Galuzzi being held at Pro Italia in Glendale, on the other side of town. Time to suit up and terrorize the freeways once again, this time free of the hindrance of tens of pounds of luggage.


I venture onto the 10 into late rush hour, a perfect opportunity to hone my lanesplitting skills. I've been gradually building my confidence and my spatial awareness, getting quicker and quicker at slicing through the lanes and manoeuvring the Aprilia with authority, exercising the sort of sharp low-speed agility I never have the opportunity to practice back home. With the luggage gone, the Tuono is an absolute weapon in traffic. The wide bars and sharp steering make rapid manoeuvres telepathic, the high seating position giving excellent visibility and allowing me to easily keep an eye on my blindspots. The not-insubstantial weight of the bike disappears beneath me, allowing me to focus on the task of picking my way through the rows of cars.


The best part is the torque. The instant snap offered by the rabid twin at low-ish rpms is addictive, allowing me to slingshot through gaps without hesitation. Keep it in first or second somewhere around the magic 4000 rpm mark and control the explosive acceleration with the clutch; spot openings, give it a twist, and boom, you are there. No waiting for power to build. Just point and shoot, and punt your ass into the gaps without delay. It's fantastic fun, and the discovery of a new aspect of the Tuono's capabilities.


Everyone may think that LA traffic is nightmarish, but the truth is that I found Montreal to be far worse - and the drivers there are far less conscientious of motorcyclists, if not downright hostile towards us. It's simply a matter of calling upon those survival skills I learned in Quebec and resetting my perception to deal with the fast pace of churning traffic after years of complacency from riding in Calgary.

I feel perfectly at ease here. Especially considering I couldn't split lanes in Montreal.


I arrive at the venue just as Galuzzi is wrapping up and shaking hands; I would have arrived on time if someone had warned me that there are two Verdugo Roads in Glendale, and they are not connected in any way. Oh well, can't win 'em all. I take the opportunity to say hi to Miguel, who I met during the first USA Tour in Birmingham, Alabama. He claims to remember me, though I would have forgiven him if he hadn't. I'm disappointed to have missed his presentation, which was apparently quite inspiring, with some call outs and criticisms of the industry that resonated with (or pissed off) a few of the people present.


But all isn't lost. I meet with the guys who invited me and join them for a drink at a Mexican joint across the street from Pro Italia after the presentation. Eddie and Dom are ex-Erik Buell Racing employees who migrated to Los Angeles after things went south in Wisconsin. Eddie served as lead design engineer, while Dom was an industrial designer.


We talk bikes and design for a while. They keep mum about their work at EBR, only hinting at some of the shenanigans. I don't blame them; I have a reputation for being honest to a fault, and the ink is barely dry on their NDAs.

We hit the road for a late-night ride through LA. Eddie is aboard his KTM 690 Duke, an appropriate tool for scything through traffic. Dom is attempting to follow us in his car.


We promptly get lost and spend some time bombing around in the dark trying to navigate the tangled freeway junctions. Traffic is moving freely now, and it is manic. In this way LA is worse than Montreal. Speed limits are completely disregarded on the freeway where traffic is flowing at 80-90 mph, cars and bikes weaving across lanes. It's pretty obvious there are no speed cameras here, and no one seems concerned about the CHP sneaking up on them.

Eventually I figure out my route home and peel off, leaving Eddie and Dom to their fates. I'm tired from riding all day and cooking myself in the SoCal heat, and my adrenaline can only carry me so far before my mind will turn to mush and I'll start making mistakes. A fact that is made plainly clear when I bump a truck's mirror while filtering up to a stoplight. I don't get far enough away after the light changes and he chases me down, his passenger leaning out of the window to scream obscenities. I pretend to be oblivious before I escape.


Let's not do that again. Last thing I need to do is to get killed by some psychotic Los Angeleno in a violent incident of road rage.

I arrive back at Abhi's safe and sound, exhausted in the most wonderful way. I stand in front of the apartment building, enjoying a cigarette as my adrenaline subsides. I'm happy to be here, to have ridden as far away from my responsibilities and my anxieties as possible.

Tomorrow will be another busy day in LA.

I get up early to head back to Pro Italia to make a pilgrimage to one of the dealers I've long been curious about. I've dealt with them in the past for parts orders for my 916, back in the fleeting days when the Loonie was worth a damn and it was cheaper for a Canadian to buy parts in the States. I also wanted an Aprilia mechanic to have a listen to the persistent top end tick in my Tuono, if only to quell my hyperactive imagination and remove the spectre of imminent mechanical catastrophe from my mind before I rode 2500 miles home.




It's another beautiful day in SoCal, perfect weather and bright sunshine warming the air quickly as I slice through the morning traffic on my way to Glendale. Pro Italia is split into two locations, one covering Triumph, KTM and Moto Guzzi, the site of Miguel Galuzzi's presentation last night, and a smaller shop down the street that houses the service department as well as the Ducati and MV showroom.


The shop is remarkably tiny, far smaller than I imagined it would be given their online presence. It's a single room packed with bikes and apparel, with an only slightly bigger service department out back. Dozens of bikes, showroom stock and customer rides here for service, are wheeled out onto the street to make room. It takes me back to my days working at a hole-in-the-wall Triumph dealer that had resisted updates for 30 years, though here the setting is far more polished and professional. And a lot cleaner.


After a short wait a mechanic is produced and has a listen to my bike, before declaring me good to go. Nothing to worry about, some examples tend to have noisy valvetrains. It's not that there would be much I could do about it at this point, lacking any time or money to get the bike thoroughly checked over. But as I hoped it serves to alleviate my anxiety before embarking on the long ride home.


I take some time to peruse the showroom and chat with the staff, drinking their coffee and picking up a few T-shirts. It's a fantastic little shop, staffed by a small but enthusiastic crew. It's just the sort of place I'd love to work, down to earth but modern enough to be interesting without the gruff, blue-collar masochism of a back-alley greasy-rag shop. I chat with the parts and apparel folks for a while, swapping stories and getting advice on riding in the area. The parts guys produce a Café Desmo T-shirt, a gift for the traveller a long way from home. It's a small gesture that endears me to them even more.

Let it be known that I'm pretty easy to bribe.

Their good reputation in the Euro bike community is well deserved, I think. I only hope that their recent takeover by AMS Ducati won't do anything to diminish it.


Next stop is the home of an OddBike reader who had kindly offered to buy me lunch while I was in town. David was a long time stagehand for NBC who has settled into a suburb in North Hollywood, where he tinkers with various projects - including a few prime vintage Moto-Guzzis.

After sitting down for a cold drink and introductions, David invites me to the garage to check out his collection. He promises he has some odd machines that I'm going to enjoy.


The first thing to note is the well-kept Willys Jeepster convertible, which serves as David's daily runabout after a thorough, sympathetic restoration that included renewing the original flathead four - the famed Go Devil engine used in wartime Jeeps, reworked for civilian duty in the late 1940s.

The second thing that I notice is a very well preserved Moto Guzzi V65 SP, showing only 4700 miles on the odometer.


It's a beautiful machine, a sort of scaled-down LeMans resplendent in its angular red bodywork. It's almost perfectly original aside from a set of period-correct aftermarket pipes. David shares how he bought it for a song due to running issues that the previous owner was unable to sort out. Some ignition and carburettor fiddling later, it runs sweetly and offers a perfect snapshot of mid-80s Guzzi goodness. All the usual Italian quirks are intact, right down to the cursed self-retracting suicidestand, which is impossible to operate from the saddle given the traditional Guzzi far-too-forward mounting point.  


"Want to take it for a ride?"

You are goddamned right I want to take it for a ride.


Confession: I've never ridden a Moto Guzzi. This in spite of working for a Guzzi dealer; I'm not allowed to take anything for rides outside of sanctioned demo days, and Guzzi doesn't do any in Canada. I haven't gotten chummy enough with the few-and-far-between owners to borrow one, either. I adore them and wax lyrical about their charm, and have seriously considered buying one (a low-mile V11 LeMans that inhabited the showroom at work for a while), but I've never had the opportunity to take one for a spin. What better way to get acquainted than with a well-preserved and exceptionally uncommon classic sporting Goose.

I fire it up and the bike settles into a slightly lumpy beat, the glasspacks offering a muted but pleasant lope. David advises me to blip the throttle at a standstill until the engine warms up enough to hold an idle.

The gearbox clunks audibly into first, and I pull away - only to have it immediately jump back into neutral 10 feet down the alley. A few more stabs at the lever and I figure out the shift method - forget being delicate, the infamously agricultural transmission needs a firm kick to stay in gear. Away I go.

Being a small block, the V65 is remarkably compact and light; most of these little Guzzis were something around 100 lbs lighter than their big block brothers, a staggering difference even if you are giving up tens of ponies and a fair bit of torque for the privilege of a reasonable figure on the scale.


It is surprisingly nimble and not nearly as clunky as I would have imagined, recalcitrant gearbox aside. The older bias ply tires and spindly suspension bits (and the spectre of chucking a borrowed bike down the road) keep me from pushing my luck too much. The bones for fast riding are here, however. It tips in quickly and feels pretty stable, if a bit vague. In comparison to modern bikes these old machines tend to feel imprecise and flexible, but if you know to push a little further and carry your speed through corners while avoiding abrupt inputs you can hustle them quite well. You won't have the feeling of security you'll get on a modern machine but it will hold the road just fine, far beyond the limits that you might initially set in your mind. The myth of the veteran chasing down squids on tight roads with a weathered old warhorse pogoing around on wobbly suspension bits isn't far from reality, if you know what you are doing.

The only bugbear is the linked braking setup. Grabbing a handful of front doesn't do much; you need to use both levers to stop with any effectiveness. It takes me a little recalculating to get used to it, after riding Italian sport bikes with worthless rear brakes for so long.

Rolling hard on the throttle produces a lot of pleasant noises from the Dell'Ortos and the pipes, but nothing earth-shattering in the way of forward motion. Power is linear and the engine revs freely, but it feels like a bunch of dramatic Italian arm-waving theatrics, the sound and feel of power rather than actual speediness. That being said, it is sneaky quick. Revs build quickly and a blast onto the freeway reveals that acceleration is gentle but steady, bringing the little Goose up to 80 mph with ease. There's even enough oomph to get some decent passing power rolling on the throttle in fifth. It lopes along on the fat part of the torque band like a much bigger machine, just turning more revs. It probably makes as much, if not more, power than the current V7 does despite giving up 100ccs to its emissions-strangled grandchild.


80 is the limit I'm willing to reach, as at right around that speed the 35mm spaghetti forks start to rhythmically wobble enough to cause some concern. Whether it's due to tires or the suspension or a loose steering head, or some combination of both, I'm not sure. It tracks arrow straight, just with a looseness and undulating weave that wasn't there at lower speeds. Probably just as well. There's more on tap, but I'm on an inner city freeway and I'd rather not tempt LA's finest with a flat-out run on someone else's pride and joy.

I sit there, burbling along in top gear, savouring the experience. I left my jacket behind and my T-shirt is flapping hard in the wind, the warm air blow drying the sweat from my clothes, my skin hot in the midday sun. This little machine is full of life and character and is a wonderful way to trundle around LA, a sporty but gentle old Latin twin that offers up a lot more fun than the spec sheets would suggest. I'm instantly at ease aboard it, freeing my mind up to enjoy the ride, the sound, and the feel of this charming little small block. It's quite comfortable, with an upright seating position and mid-mounted pegs and an effective fairing. I could ride this thing all day.


I head back to join David for lunch. We hop into the Jeepster for a top-down cruise over to one of his haunts, a spot he frequented during his days with NBC. It's one of those old restaurants with as few windows as possible and permanent mood lighting, dark and cozy like an old nightclub. The type of place where the acoustics have that peculiar quality of being quiet but able to channel the din of clinking cutlery and surrounding conversations without overwhelming your senses. This isn't one of those new-age bistros that play trendy music just a little too loud to distract you from the lackluster food you paid too much for.

We discuss life, motorcycles, corporate greed, modernity and the entertainment industry. David proves to be a great character, a resident of Los Angeles since the 1970s who has been riding since he was 15. He is the friendly, engaging grizzled veteran, the man who has seen it all and ridden most of it in his many decades on the road - and he is happy to share his experiences. He also offers me some perspective on my writing and my opinions, something that is always welcome as I am often unaware of how people receive my work when my nose is so close to the grindstone.

I rarely foresee what articles or what statements will resonate. Sometimes it's exactly the opposite of what I expect, with my off-the-cuff articles hitting a nerve more than my serious writing. David quotes a few statements I'd made in the previous years that I'd forgotten about entirely, giving me a moment of pause. My work is probably more important than I give myself credit for. I always see it as a diversion, my hobby and an outlet for my manic ravings. Good-hearted people like David sitting me down and quoting the gospel I've written in my moments of madness gives me a great deal of perspective on what I'm doing here on my weird little site.

It is 1986, and Harley-Davidson is in the midst of a rebirth. After years of struggling under AMF ownership and suffering through poor quality, lagging sales, and a tarnished reputation, the 1980s have offered a new era of prosperity for America’s perennial motorcycle manufacturer. Following the purchase of the works from AMF by a group of investors led by Willie G. Davidson in 1981, a major restructuring has restored solvency to the marque. And now the company is looking to recapture some of the racing successes that had driven their brand for decades. The XR program led by Dick O'Brien in the early 1970s had given The Motor Company a strong base for success in American racing, but it was limited to dirt track and a few notable but fleeting wins in European road racing with Renzo Pasolini and Cal Rayborn aboard the XRTT. With the coffers finally filling after the dark days, Harley's reputation improving, and production steadily climbing, the mid-1980s seemed like the ideal time to begin a new program that would lead to the development of the most potent, most modern motorcycle HD would ever create.


This is the story of the VR1000, the Superbike contender that was hoped to put Harley-Davidson back on the road racing podium. This is a story you might think you are familiar with, but the truth of the matter is that you haven't heard the real story of the VR, how it came to be, and how it came to end.





Following the investor's purchase of the company from AMF, Harley-Davidson was a shell of a company on the brink of bankruptcy. Operating with strictly just-in-time manufacturing and staffed by a bloated workforce despite years of sliding sales, at the time there appeared to be little hope for the once-storied brand. Painful and drastic reorganization was needed – the first order of business for the new ownership was to reduce the workforce by a staggering 40% and stem the tide of losses while new models were developed. In 1983 Ronald Reagan's notorious 700cc-plus 45% import tariffs were interfering with Harley's overseas competitors and allowing the company to gradually reclaim the US market. By 1984 things were on an upswing, with the introduction of the new generation of Evolution big twins and the creation of the popular Softail range, two important developments that would drive the company's success in the coming decade.

Private road racing successes began to make headlines. Harley dealership owner and legendary tuner Don Tilley, backed by Dick O'Brien's racing department, developed the XR-powered series of machines that became known as Lucifer’s Hammer. Operating outside the factory with sponsorship from the Harley Owner’s Group, these thundering warriors began earning wins in AMA's Battle of the Twins category from 1983 onward. Gene Church and Jay Springsteen were doing well aboard Tilley's machines, which used pushrod, undersquare 997 cc XR powerplants in modified XL Sportster chassis (and with Lucifer's Hammer II, an Erik Buell frame design), a combination that seemed unlikely to win against the highly refined European offerings – but win they did, and with this success came the idea to begin an in-house Harley road racing effort in earnest.


Willie G. Davidson had been a strong proponent of racing as an integral part of Harley's history, and pushed hard for a return to racing once the books were balanced. HD CEO Vaughn Beals had attended Laguna Seca in 1986 and voiced his concern about how few Harley riders were present in the crowds. The conception for an all-new, entirely modern road racer emerged in this fruitful period, with pencils hitting the drawing board in 1987.


Mark Tuttle, Vice President of Harley-Davidson engineering, organized a group within the company to develop the new machine. A meeting was organized by Tuttle in 1987 to discuss development of a new platform. The initial plan was to develop a modified air-cooled twin based on XR750 architecture with oversquare dimensions and a five speed transmission.


Erik Buell, then operating independently after working as an engineer for Harley from 1979 to 1983, suggested developing a modern liquid-cooled V-twin to compete with the four cylinder opposition, citing the better tractability and torque of such a platform compared to the 750 fours. He felt that an air cooled engine wouldn't be competitive in road racing and that the best course of action would be to adapt existing 500cc cylinder designs from an automotive racing engine. Overhead cams and four valves (or five, an idea pursued in early prototyping) per cylinder would be employed. Ducati's contemporary resurgence in Superbike racing with their 851 desmoquattro was a clear indicator of the viability of such a configuration. An initial configuration of a 92mm bore (the same as the 851) with a 75mm stroke to reach 998 ccs was proposed, closer to the 1000 cc ceiling for twins in AMA Superbike than Ducati was then using.


The resulting machine would be unlike any Harley-Davidson and would be a far cry from the crudity of Lucifer’s Hammer, which relied on antiquated technology made competitive against more advanced machines through force of brute engineering. The mandate came to be for a liquid-cooled, overhead cam V-twin housed in an entirely new chassis. It would not have any base in production Harleys and would be developed from the ground up as a racing machine, aimed at competing in AMA Superbike where 1000 cc twins went toe-to-toe against 750 cc fours.


Buell was hired to design the chassis while HD designer Mark Miller was tasked with developing the engine around Buell's blueprints. Engineering input was sought from Cosworth and Jerry Branch from Branch Flowmetrics, who had personally built the heads for the production XR1000 and would work on some of the early cylinder head designs of the VR.


The first meeting's spec for a 92x75mm design were abandoned in favour of a 95x70mm ( 992 cc) configuration sketched by Buell and based on the Cosworth BDG 2000 cc four cylinder engine, laid into a narrow-angle 60-degree V-twin – in fact the prototype engine was expected to use standard BDG pistons as a starting point. Miller designed a unit construction bottom end with dry sump lubrication based on Buell's specs. The first gearbox design was based on a modified XL five-speed transmission.


A narrow Vee angle would give compact external dimensions and a short overall length that would make chassis layout easier. Ducati and other marques have often struggled with the length of a 90-degree twin, which places the front cylinder too close to the front wheel and the rear cylinder (and its exhaust plumbing) in the same space you'd traditionally want to stick a monoshock suspension. Keeping the wheelbase tight and the weight distribution correct requires a lot of fettling that has led to some odd solutions, like the infamous rotary damper fitted to Suzuki's TL series, or Bimota placing the rear shock above the engine next to the throttle bodies on the TL-powered SB8, or Buell's underslung shock that mounts below the crankcases. With a narrow angle twin you solve most of the packaging problems at the expense of the primary balance of the engine, an issue that ended up plaguing the early VR engine.

Buell RR1000 Battle Twin.

While sketching the prototype frame, which was initially to be a steel tube design similar to his XR1000-powered RR-1000, Buell consulted with Cosworth and had a revelation. The gurus at Cosworth noted that the best way to make power in a four-valve design is to feed as much air as possible using a large airbox design. A back-of-the-envelope calculation showed that a 24 litre airbox volume would be ideal – the problem was where to stick it, when the intake for a narrow angle twin needed to occupy the same space as the fuel tank above the engine. So Buell came up with an ingenious solution he would revisit 16 years later with his XB series: get rid of the tank entirely and make the frame do double-duty as a fuel cell, carrying the fuel inside the hollow beams of large alloy spars. While not an entirely new idea (the Pierce Four carried its fuel and oil in the frame tubes as early as 1909) Buell's design was the first application of this innovation in a modern motorcycle chassis.

Image Source

Given the inherent vibrations of a narrow-angle twin, Buell specified a version of his uniplanar rubber-mounting configuration for the engine, isolating the vibration from the twin-spar chassis. The crankcases and heads of the prototype engine were designed to suit – a pair of large mounting brackets secured the rear of the crankcases to the rubber mounts at the base of the frame, with a small forward mount on the front cylinder head supporting the other end. Split radiators were mounted flat against either side of the frame. Wheelbase was a tidy 54 inches, quite a bit shorter than the Ducati 851 which was closer to 57.

Image Source

By this time Ducati had been saved from the brink of bankruptcy by their production Desmoquattro design. Despite falling short of the 1000 cc limit of the Superbike series, the 851 proved to be a force to be reckoned with on the track. First tested in 1985 but officially introduced into World Superbike in 1987, the 851 would see continual development through 2001 with the 996 RS before being superseded by the Testastretta architecture in 2001. With its Cosworth-inspired cylinder head and liquid cooling mated with a good chassis, backed by millions of dollars of factory support and bleeding-edge tuning, the Ducatis quickly became the benchmark for twin-cylinder racers. Desmoquattros won the World Superbike championship in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2001, took the 1993 and 1994 AMA Superbike championships, as well as the 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2001 British Superbike championships. Harley appeared to be on the right track.

Image courtesy Denis McCarthy.

Once work was underway on the engine design, it became clear to the Harley engineers that they were out of their element trying to develop a competitive liquid-cooled, quad-cam engine. It was at this point, in 1989, that H-D made the fateful decision to contract Roush Industries in Livonia, Michigan to help develop the top end for the VR. Steve Scheibe was entrusted with the task of designing the cylinder head and the electronic fuel injection system. An employee of Roush since 1985, Scheibe was a Michigan-based engineer and experienced road racer who already had some Harley projects under his belt, in addition to automotive projects for Chrysler and Ford and work for Mercury Marine – he had helped developed a four-valve pushrod head for the Evolution engine, dubbed Abacus, as well as a prototype fuel injection system for production Harleys.

First-generation uniplanar-mount VR engine. Note the bosses on the rear of the crankcase and the shape of the stator cover. Image courtesy Steve Scheibe.

Using Mark Miller's bottom end Scheibe helped complete the first generation VR engine. To reach a proposed rev ceiling of 11,000 RPM Scheibe rejected the BDG dimensions and proposed a then-extremely oversquare design with a 98mm bore and 66mm stroke giving 996 ccs. Wiseco pistons were used, along with Carillo connecting rods. The initial design used a chain-driven idler for the dual-overhead cams added outboard of the alternator on the left side, for a total of three cam chains. The crankcases featured the rubber mounting system specified for the first Buell chassis. Racing redline was set at 10,800 RPM, with a "street" redline of 10,200. Initial dyno testing with a Weber fuel injection system yielded around 140 HP - and cracked crankcases at 8000 RPM due to bolt bosses that proved to be inadequate at that output.


It was a start, but far more development was needed to make the VR engine reliable and competitive. Chief concerns were the lack of a six speed gearbox (and no provisions to fit one into the tight confines of the crankcases designed around a five speed), the unacceptable vibration levels without a counterbalancer, the considerable weight of the powerplant, and what proved to be a destructive cam drive layout; with three inches of unsupported crankshaft sticking out past the alternator to drive the primary cam chain, resonance was setting in at high RPM and promptly destroying the primary cam chain tensioners and snapping the chains themselves.

Early crankshaft.

Three of these first generation engines were built for dyno runs and initial chassis testing, while Scheibe set to work addressing the shortcomings. A primary-frequency counterbalancer gear, driven at engine speed off the crankshaft, was engineered - no mean feat as it had to be compact enough to fit within the existing crankcases. A new 6 speed gearbox with a modern shift linkage was developed to replace the XL-based unit. The primary cam drive was redesigned, using a bigger primary chain inboard of the alternator to eliminate the resonance issues, enabling reliable performance up to the 11,000 RPM target. Later development would replace the primary chain with a three-gear system engineered to fit within the existing space, which along with other valvetrain updates gave reliable valvetrain performance up to 13,000 RPM. Rigid mounts were incorporated into the castings. With the basic architecture of this second-generation engine then determined as the basis for the production VR, the remainder of development was a slow process of massaging more power, increasingly reliability, and paring down weight.

Buell's second fuel-in-frame chassis for the VR. Image Courtesy Steve Scheibe.

Buell continued to refine his chassis design and adapted it to suit the proposed rigid-mounted second generation engine, but these prototype chassis was never fitted with a running engine (years later, after Harley had purchased Buell, they installed a production VR engine into Buell's chassis for testing). Meanwhile Harley turned to a York, Pennsylvania factory employee named Mike Eatough to provide an alternative design. Eatough had considerable experience in the field of chassis design, having worked for UK-based Armstrong Industries. In the 1970s Armstrong had built a formidable team of chassis designers through the purchase of Clews Competition Motorcycles (CCM), Cotton Motorcycles, and Barton Engineering. The company's designs had done well in various categories into the 1980s, with wins at the Isle of Man, the British Championship, and in Grand Prix racing. In addition to designing several Grand Prix frames, Eatough had the distinction of helping design the first carbon fibre chassis for the Carbon Fibre Armstrong in 1983.

Prototype with Harris-built chassis and first-generation engine. Image courtesy Steve Scheibe.

Eatough had come to Harley following H-D's purchase of Armstrong's military and off-road division in the late 80s and was an ideal candidate for an in-house chassis designer for the VR. Harley brass, in particular Willie G., were keen to bring all the expertise into the factory to make the VR a truly home-grown racing effort. It was for this reason that Scheibe was hired from Roush by HD in 1991 as the new manager of racing, with an office at the Juneau Avenue facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was informed at the time that his program was intended as a test bed for future development that would trickle down to production Harleys, a way of introducing new ideas and refining them in a flagship racing effort – ideas like liquid cooling, overhead cams, modern cylinder heads, and fuel injection.

Image courtesy Steve Scheibe.

Buell's fuel-in-frame design was abandoned in favour of a more conventional twin-spar design penned by Eatough, which sacrificed some of the airbox volume offered by the fuel-in-frame layout. Harris was contracted to build the prototype frame. New mounts were added to the first generation crankcases to suit; with the second generation motor still under development, the first VR would use the unbalanced prototype engine. By 1991 a running prototype using the Harris chassis was assembled and delivered to Blackhawk Farms Raceway in South Beloit, Illinois for initial testing. Kawasaki ZX7 fairings, repainted in the corporate black and orange colour scheme, were slapped onto the test mule which was ridden by Buell employee Scott Zampach as well as Scheibe himself. Extreme vibrations were noted from the unbalanced engine at high RPMs, but the tests were successful.

Testing the Harris prototype at Blackhawk Farms. Image courtesy Steve Scheibe.

A Harley Owner's Group representative who was present at the Blackhawk test told Scheibe the VR "Sounds like God's own voice."

Further testing was done by the late Fritz Kling, who rode the Harris prototype at Grattan Raceway in Michigan and would go on to become one of the factory VR1000 riders in the 1994 season.

Image courtesy Steve Scheibe.

To be legal in AMA Superbike racing Harley needed to produce a series of ostensibly street-legal machines for homologation. AMA Rules at the time were as follows: four cylinder machines from a small manufacturer required a minimum of 500 units to homologate, while four cylinder machines from a major manufacturer required 1000 units. V-Twin machines only needed 50 examples to be homologated, a rule that favoured Ducati's limited production numbers and penchant for producing cost-no-object homologation specials that often stretched the definition of "street-legal" to the absolute limit. Harley discovered that two could play at that game. Nowhere did the AMA specify where the machines had to be legal. A certain executive at the company put it bluntly to the team:  "Go somewhere in the world and get us a homologation certificate." The Harley production engineering department was never significantly involved in the VR program, as it was viewed as a Race Department project, and there were no real provisions for making the machine a street legal motorcycle beyond slapping on lights, turn signals, and a starter. In 1993 a single machine was quietly pushed through the German Technischer Überwachungs-Verein (TÜV) by one of the company's contacts who helped certify production Harleys in Germany. That lone VR1000 was given a certificate of homologation for sound and emissions. That proved to be good enough for the AMA.


You may have heard that the VR was only legal in a certain Eastern European nation that borders Germany. This isn't true. At some point a rumour began in the press that the VR was homologated in Poland, an idea that is presumed to have started after a journalist saw an example wearing a Polish plate and made a rather large jump to that conclusion. Harley executives saw this as a perfect cover story to protect their contact at the notoriously strict TÜV and did nothing to quell the rumour.
Interesting Links
Motorcycle.com review of the VR1000
Motorrad review of the VR1000
Erik Buell's patent for a fuel-in-frame motorcycle chassis
Mike Smith joins the factory team
Beginning of the 2001 Superbike season
Interview with John Baker
Superbike Planet Obituary for the VR
Harley-Davidson's summary of their racing history

It's a beautiful Sunday morning in LA and it's time to go riding.

My first stop is just down the street a few miles, the Deus Ex Machina shop. Actually it's less of a shop and more of a café with a clothing store attached. Regardless, Deus has become the model for the snobby hipster builder joint, the prototype for commercialization of the custom scene beyond recognition.

If you want to buy meticulously prepared espressos or overpriced t-shirts and surfboards in an environment littered with pretentious magazines, Deus is your place.


If you want to buy motorcycles or anything motorcycle related beyond a motif on a T-shirt, you'll want to go elsewhere.



Strolling through the shop, Deus' connection to motorcycling appears tenuous at best. It's limited to placing a few machines in the showroom as a bit of eye candy to advertise: hey, we happen to build exorbitantly expensive customs for well-heeled clients too. But mostly we sell beard wax and metalflake lids because that's where the profit margin is.


They are the classic sellout, the motorcycle shop that has capitalized on branding and the sale of overpriced ancillary bullshit while they knock out dull and derivative machines loaded with off-the-shelf bolt-on parts. Their bluster and ignorance in the media is cringeworthy. They exploit the image of the noble blue-collar builder eking out an honest craft to fleece the idle rich who don't know any better.


Contrary to what you might glean from my previous works spouting vitriol about the hipster moto scene, I don't entirely dislike customs/café racers/bobbers/choppers/brats/scramblers/whatever people are hacking Triumph Bonnevilles and Moto Guzzi V7s into this week. I even liked some of Deus' early work, particularly the American, which I think is about the most perfectly proportioned Sportster ever built. What I dislike and rally against is the inauthentic bullshit concocted to sell crap. It is pure marketing used to fluff up substandard and overpriced machines sold as lifestyle accessories while overshadowing the real guys tinkering in their garages producing honest and innovative designs, or the boutique brands producing genuinely amazing bikes.


You want to drop 50,000$ plus on a unique bike? Get a Ronin, or a Confederate, or a Bimota. Or learn how to build something yourself. Or get it done by a local back alley shop with dirty floors where you can see the mechanics working from the front desk. I can't fathom why you'd aspire to own an old crock some douchebag bought off Craigslist and reworked into an overwrought café poser which is then sold in a clothing store, while said douchebag whines about how he doesn't make any money on the bike when he is charging two or three times what anyone would for the same hunk of shit.

   
I'm glad I visited, if only to confirm my extreme prejudice against Deus and their ilk. I even wore my Confederate shirt for the occasion.


Maybe that act of silent defiance was a bit ironic given my anti-commercial stance. If I'm going to support any company that is fleecing the idle rich, it's going to be the one that produces legitimately cool, unique and innovative stuff that is put together in spectacular fashion. Whatever you think of Confederate, if you have a look at one up close you can't deny they are staggeringly well built; they are as far away from weird pastiches of off-the-shelf parts sold alongside flannel and pomade to dorky beardos as you can get.


Screw this, it's time to ride.

On Abhi's suggestion I head north and take a blast up Latigo Canyon road. It proves to be a fantastic route, and is entirely devoid of traffic. It is tight, technical, and perfectly surfaced, winding up a hill overlooking Malibu that is capped with a small residential community. The sharp first and second gear corners are taxing the bike's suspension and my abilities; it's hard to find a balance with the cheap, undersprung and underdamped bits fitted to the base Tuono. You are either wallowing and bobbing with softer settings, or topping out and chattering if you firm things up. It is maddening as you feel that you can never get things dialed in quite right. On a road like this, I'd much rather have the Factory with its Ohlins bits.


The shitty Continental ContiMotion sport touring tires I have fitted aren't helping. They are as vague as they are awful in the wet, the worst modern tires I've ever suffered in the rain. They will get swapped out for some proper sport tires as soon as they are toast.

I feel inadequate as a rider here, picking my way through blind switchbacks and squirting from corner to corner on the midrange. I'm trying to maintain a slow in, fast out pace - necessary with all the decreasing radius corners I'm encountering. This really is the best place in the world to test a bike. You'll soon find the limits of your skills and your machine's abilities even at a moderate pace. Which makes it all the more puzzling why the current crop of Socal-based moto journalists still can't write a review worth a damn.


The fuel light flicks on with 60 miles showing on the trip meter. A new record. Tuonos are heavy drinkers when you are the least bit aggressive on the throttle. It gets worse mileage than my car in city riding. Not that I care in the slightest.

I reach the top of the hill and stop at a T junction. The road sign reveals I've reached the infamous Mulholland Highway.

Time to see what all the fuss is about.


One of the first corners I reach is the internet favourite The Snake. I knew where I was immediately, because there were about 50 people lining the road with cameras at the ready and a CHP officer parked on the shoulder keeping an eye on the proceedings. I tip toe around the corner followed by a wave of camera shutters. I'm not going to fuck around here and risk ending up on a Youtube fail compilation by this afternoon. I'm instantly creeped out by this crowd of onlookers, who are more than likely waiting for a crash as much as a parade of showoffs.

Going down the hill reveals a rough road flanked by a rocky ditch butting against a rock wall on one side and a steep dropoff on the other. The conditions are markedly worse than what I just experienced on Latigo Canyon, with lumpy, cracked pavement and far less margin for error. Some road this is.

Then I encounter the Sunday crowd.

Groups of riders hugging the centreline trying to put their knees down, bunched together with barely a bike length between them. Cruiser riders dragging chrome. The occasional sports car trying to dice with the sport riders.

People are treating this road like a goddamned race track, riding at their limits around blind corners and narrowly slicing past oncoming traffic. I can't stress this enough: it is absolute fucknuts madness. I do not want to be in this mess, lest some macho dumbass lowsides into my corner and takes me out with him. I'm trying to concentrate on my own riding while I'm being buzzed by oncoming lunatics riding far too hard and far too close for comfort.

This is not fun.


It's not long before I reach the Rock Store and stop to escape the road race. While it's an iconic hangout populated by lots of keen folks, the Store itself is a disappointment. I've been warned not to buy the food, and other than that it's just a dingy little gift shop staffed by a surly woman who tries to charge me for a photocopy of a hand-drawn map just so I can figure out the quickest way to get the hell off of this road.


I spend some time cooling off and checking out the scene, chatting with riders and perusing the selection of bikes. The only redeeming features of this spot are the people who stop to hang out here.


I take off and make a beeline for the interstate back into the city. There's no way I'm tempting fate by going back the way I came.


If you are in LA I'd recommend you ride Mulholland once just to say you have done it - but it is not, by any stretch, the best road in the area. It's not even the best road on that hill. The fact that it is so heavily trafficked and hyped up baffles me when there are much better, perfectly groomed roads surrounding it - roads that will likely be free of dolts and camera-wielding witnesses, even on a Sunday.  


I meet up with Abhi and some friends to ride out for dim sum, a nice way to round out my stay in LA. After considering it for a few days, I've decided to skip riding to Bonneville. With Speed Week cancelled I have no real reason to visit. I see no point in heading well out of my way just to look at the empty Salt Flats when I know that the PCH is spectacular from top to bottom. I'm itching to retrace my route along the coast and head back through the Redwoods. I've decided that I'm going to ride home the way I came.


It's a shame because I was really looking forward to visiting the Flats. I had the bones of the story already written in my head: the grassroots nature of land speed trials, the last vestige of the shed-built racer and wrung-watcha-brung classes open to anything and everything that can pass a tech inspection, out on the same course as million-dollar operations. The Salt as a great equalizer and eliminator of bullshit. Pure speed without pretence.


All of it a bust. My hopes for what could have been a great piece of gonzo journalism out the window.

I guess I'll just have to wait until next year. Provided the salt is replenished enough for there to be a next year.

"I have one in Vancouver if you still need it."

I picked up the phone and immediately dialed the attached number. He was shocked by how quickly I responded to his message. I probably called him 10 minutes after he sent it.

Sometimes I have trouble mitigating my desperation. Playing it cool isn't my forte when I'm excited or lonely. It's not a good strategy for deal making or finding love, respectively.



I'd spent the last few months hunting down a replacement engine for my 916. As is usually the case, I had come across numerous good examples when I didn't have the funds handy to buy one. Now that I did have the means, I couldn't find a damned deal anywhere.

There was the dodgy one in Southern California that had unspecified "tuning" done to it, which the seller supposedly had trouble doing a compression test on because they claimed they couldn't find a deep thinwall 12 point socket to remove the oddball spark plugs the guy had put in the thing.

Every bike has a rich and sometimes scary history, which you'll inevitably discover when it comes time to buy it or cannibalize it for parts.

There was the one in Wisconsin, which was recommended to me by a friend of the seller. Pressing further it turned out he wanted to sell the whole bike, and wasn't willing to part it out. There is a damned big difference between those two scenarios. Particularly when you live in another country.

Meanwhile there was a mint, 700 mile engine on eBay that was being listed for about twice what I was willing to pay. So as good as that one looked, it wasn't in the cards on my meager budget.


996 mills are thin on the ground. You'll find plenty out of wrecked Monster S4Rs and ST4Ss, but those have different crankcases and won't accommodate the single-sided swingarm used on Superbikes. So unless you want to go to the trouble of modifying or replacing the crankcases, you need to hold out for when someone is parting out a 996 Superbike. That might sound unlikely if you aren't in the Ducati fold, or if you still remember these machines being exorbitantly expensive pieces of exotica, but the truth is that Tamburini Superbikes are more common than you think - around 20,000 were produced in their various guises - and right now they are at the nadir of their resale value. That means a helluva lot of them are being parted out; they are worth a lot more in pieces than they are as a whole.

It's a damned good time to buy one if you have dreamed about it. Prices are low and good examples are becoming scarcer because they are either being A. chop-shopped into eBay fodder or B. purchased by mouth-breathing fuckwits who think chrome accents are a good way to improve on Massimo's masterpiece. The upside is that parts are plentiful due to the former and donor bikes are popping up daily due to the misadventures of the latter.

I pressed Vancouver dude for photos. He seemed knowledgeable on Ducatis, having two 996s plus this one in parts, but he was unsure of the history on this particular engine and sounded quite guarded about making any claims about it being a good 'un. It was part of a theft recovery and had unknown mileage. I made a tentative offer provided it had a clutch and was in good shape.

A few days later the photos arrived. The clutch was missing, as was the water pump cover, the crank pickup, and one of the valve covers. The cams had been removed the stupid way, with the pulleys unbolted to slide them out; you can save yourself a lot of trouble by sliding out one of the rocker arms and removing them in one piece. Thus the possibility of a compression test was out. But otherwise it looked as new; no grime or corrosion on any of the fasteners, paint bright and unmarked. I could tell at a glance it was a low mile engine.


It fit my criteria perfectly - pulled from a 2000-2001 996 Superbike, the best Desmoquattro mill that would drop right into my 916 chassis and use my existing Weber-Marelli 1.6M fuel system. More power, improved reliability, and a much better three-phase charging system as a bonus.

 Anything else would be a headache. A Testatretta will fit but needs a complete wiring harness and fuel system, as well as shower injectors and the associated airbox from a 998. Plus those engines command more money in the first place, making that swap a lot less budget friendly.


I didn't want to get another 916 engine; if you are going to go to this much trouble, why settle for more of the same when the tantalizing 996 upgrade is just a few hundred dollars more? Provided you can find one, anyway.
 
I booked a cheap motel room and drove to Vancouver the following day. I'm nothing it not impulsive, and even if it turned out to be a bust it would be a fun adventure to drive 1000 kms into BC chasing motorcycle parts.


The engine proved to be as clean as the photos suggested and I made the deal. Well, calling it a "deal" would be giving myself too much credit. He demanded the high figure I had "agreed" upon - the figure I offered provided it wasn’t  missing hundreds of dollars worth of parts - and he put me on the spot after driving 12 hours to meet him. I wasn't in a position to argue, and the price was fair even with the missing bits, so I swallowed my pride and handed over the cash.

After returning to the motel, what followed was one of those wonderful fitful nights when you are kept awake by thoughts of all the possibilities that have opened before you. I was elated. In the trunk of my car was the heart transplant that would save my most beloved possession from a life of slowly degrading in the corner of my living room. Soon she would be running again, resurrected for another decade of making me inordinately happy to be aboard her.


For the record, her name is Nina. Yes, I named her. You would too, if you rode a bike that had this much personality. A machine that carried you through several important stages of your life, physically and emotionally moving you from one life event to the next. I adore this bike beyond any rational measure despite the pain and financial suffering it has inflicted upon me. Folks who fail to see the appeal of a 20 year old Italian superbike when shinier, faster, and infinitely more reliable machines are available for less money can and do think I'm completely out of my mind. They have since the day I picked her up. I care even less about their opinions now than I did then.


Upon my return to Calgary I immediately dropped the engine off with my most trusted mechanic for a once over. Ken Austin displays the sort of rare mechanical aptitude that you only encounter once in a lifetime. A self-taught mechanic with a keen interest in the basic principles that determine power and torque, he is the sort of learned man who has applied his intellect in a way that makes him a wizard with internal combustion. He has spent a lifetime building fast bikes of every description, from big-twin Harleys to Japanese superbikes to air-cooled Ducatis. He has built machines for Daytona, working for teams that have fielded some of the top road racers of our generation. I can spend endless hours talking to him, discussing tuning and design, and in every one of our conversations he teaches me something new.

Photo courtesy Ken Austin.

He is a true perfectionist who never settles for "good enough", and he can find the faults in anything you bring to him. He will sniff out all the half-assed measures that other "tuners" employ - not to disparage his competition, but because he strives to build the best and he has the knowledge and experience to back it up. For that reason he is one of the very short list of people I would trust with one of my bikes.

Photo courtesy Ken Austin.

Ken proceeds to tear down the engine and reveals the best case scenario: everything is as-new throughout. He guesses that the mileage was likely under 3000 miles. Even the piston rings still exhibit their original bevel and can be reused after deglazing the bore. The only faults are some minor scuffing on the big end shells and some rust on two of the intake valves due to water dripping into the inlet during storage. A new set of shells and a three-angle valve job later and all is well.

Photo courtesy Ken Austin.

While he is in there he sets the crank preload to spec and verifies all the tolerances. I source some thinner base gaskets to set the squish to 1.0mm. He dials in the cam timing, choosing a setup close to Ducati specs but altered a few degrees to boost torque. He also manages to dig up a machined flywheel, a race spare that is 2.75 pounds lighter than the stock item. That should wake things up nicely.

Photo courtesy Ken Austin.

Meanwhile, on my end, it is time to begin the teardown of the bike. At first I thought I'd break it down into pieces and then reassemble it in a friend's garage around the new engine. As I start the process and begin stripping away the layers, laying out the parts across my apartment, it begins to dawn on me that this is the best place to rebuild it - right here, in my living room. It's warm and comfortable, I have my stereo going, and all my tools are here. The weather outside is cold and miserable and the closest garage I can use is a 15 minute drive away. If I work on the bike here at home I can pick away at it at my own pace on these long winter evenings without having to run around.


Plus, how often do you have the opportunity to build a bike in a fourth floor downtown apartment? If nothing else it will be a good story to tell the kids I never intend to have.

When you tear a bike down to the individual nuts and bolts, you soon discover the flaws introduced by previous owners. Such was the case here. My 916 was rebuilt prior to my purchasing it. Everything that could have been backwards was. Nothing was lubricated and bearings disintegrated as soon as I pulled everything apart. I cursed the lazy assholes who put this thing back together, and cursed myself for not taking the time to go over these potentially fatal flaws at any point over the last ten years. My list of things to do began to grow exponentially as I fell into my usual habits of obsessing over the details and daisy-chaining one problem to the next.


It's called Shipwright's Disease, the process of turning every minor job into a complex, endless rebuild. It's a damnable condition that is destructive to your bank account and your sanity, but a boon to the clever assholes who will take your projects off your hands for pennies on the dollar once you've reached your limit and decided to cut your losses.


The trick is to never reach that limit, or acknowledge that it even exists. There is an end to project hell if you simply stop tallying the costs and avoid setting any optimistic deadlines. Being single helps in this regard, as you are less likely to have a more intelligent voice of reason pointing out the unfathomable depth of your insanity, constantly pointing out that a greasy pile of motorcycle parts are not appropriate dining room decor. If you find a companion who shares your enthusiasm and overlooks your obvious psychosis, I'd advise that you hold on to them like grim death. And enlist their help in finishing the damned thing.


So it was that I spent the course of this past winter methodically cleaning, polishing and refurbishing every part of the bike. Virtually every piece of hardware was replaced in my pursuit of perfection. I soon came to be a regular at the local industrial supply shop, when I wasn't rifling through the take-off drawers at work hunting down useful bits and pieces. I cleaned and reworked any electrical components I could get my hands on, re-soldering terminals and replacing the cheesier connectors with weatherproof items.


With the bike stripped down to nothing, I took the opportunity to get the frame powdercoated again to freshen things up visually. A high-gloss black matched the wheels and swingarm but added some extra visual pop that the previous satin coating lacked.


Slowly things came together in the centre of the living room, the bike growing around the engine as the weeks progressed. I spent endless hours making sure every fastener was torqued to spec, every bearing was replaced, each pivot thoroughly greased, every component cleaned and shined with a variety of sprays. Even in its half-finished state it looked spectacular; all gleaming stainless and bright paint complimented by glossy black plastic and rubber. I was beginning to get antsy.


My modest disposable income limits progress; I could only buy a few hundred dollars worth of parts each month and I spent many hours online digging up cheaper solutions to the problems I was facing. My ignition had been reamed out during an attempted theft just before I moved the bike into my living room; I took apart the switch and cannibalized parts from spare locks to repair it and retain my original key. A quick-change carrier replaced the expensive OEM rear sprocket. Cast off heavy gauge winch wiring made dandy colour-coded upgrades to the power and ground cables. A set of spare Triumph engine mount bolts were milled down and mated to ARP 12 point nuts to fit the 12mm mounts of the 996 mill into the 10mm receptacles of the 916 frame.


To retain my original fuel system I purchased a TunerPro license and a Moates EPROM burner, teaching myself the basics of the fuel injection programming so that I could build a custom map to suit my setup, reverse engineering a few existing EPROMs to pick the best elements of each and get a baseline map. I installed a Harley-Davidson fuel pressure regulator to bump pressure up to 4.0 BAR over the stock 3.0, to give myself more margin for error while feeding the bigger engine through a single pair of injectors. A lot of 996s are converted to run on two of their four injectors to solve a common roll-on stutter issue (which is actually due to poor ignition mapping, as it turned out) but if you look hard at the numbers you'll realize that at peak torque the single injectors are distressingly close to their duty cycle maximums. Bumping the pressure and reducing the injector duration gives more flexibility but requires a custom map to make it work.


It's now early April and the weather has been tantalizingly warm since mid-March. I've been riding the Tuono so I'm not suffering from complete moto withdrawal, but my mind is occupied with thoughts of running the 916 again. I've finally completed my parts orders and installed the last of the items on my checklist. I've gone over the bike repeatedly and detailed it to perfection. I know this machine inside and out and I'm not going to let a minor oversight or moment of carelessness sideline me.


It's time to wheel the beauty out of hibernation and take her on her maiden voyage.

My intent is to get it out of the apartment, fire it up, and immediately take it for a long, hard break-in run in the mountains.  I have enough faith in my assembly skills and Ken's meticulousness that I plan the most minimal shakedown before I aim it for the horizon and twist the throttle.


I enlist the help of my friend Josh to move the bike out of the building, a tricky task given that my front door is perpendicular to a narrow hallway that clearly wasn't designed with motorcycle passage in mind. After some coaxing and care we manage to get it into the elevator and out onto the street without breaking anything or punching any holes in the walls. I vowed to not let this bike stagnate in project hell in my living room, so in my mind having it assembled and out of doors is the first victory.  

I dump a jerrycan of premium into the tank and flick the ignition. Josh remarks that he wasn't expecting me to fire it up right away and left his phone upstairs, lamenting that he can't film the first startup for posterity.

The fuel pump primes and there is an audible spurting noise as a stream of fuel pisses out the bottom of the fairing.


Unless he wanted a record of what sort of bilingual obscenities I'm capable of producing, I'm glad Josh forgot his phone in the apartment.

A beer, a few cigarettes, and a sandwich later I'm of clearer mind and ready to tackle the fuel leak. I had put new fuel lines from the tank to the throttle bodies and secured them with Oetiker clamps in my attempt to make everything look as professional as possible. As it turned out, they didn't hold tight enough on the nipples going into the throttle bodies. So I spent the next hour removing the throttles and replacing all the fancy Oetikers with the ugly but effective fuel injection clamps I've used without failure for 10 years.

The sun is setting when I flick the ignition again and hear merciful silence after the pump primes. A punch of the starter button and the bike thunders to life without hesitation.

I don my gear and take a burn around town. The bike is running far too rich but otherwise well, spooling up remarkably quickly with the lighter flywheel mass. I'm happy to note that the essential character of the 916 isn't diminished by the newer, bigger engine. It still revs freely and produces smooth, linear power with a solid hit above 6000 when it comes on cam. There is more torque but the powerband is more or less the same.


And it still makes all the right noises. Beautiful, raw, mechanical noises. I forgot how damned good these things sound on the throttle. It sounds like the end of the world, the rush of air bellowing through the intake matched perfectly to the booming exhaust note. I can't stand the shrill harmonics of most inline multi-cylinder machines or the coarse blatting of a single. The most perfect noise in my mind is the deep, staccato thunder of a high-performance twin.

20 miles later I roll back into the garage. The only things I need to adjust are the steering head and the position of the shifter. Otherwise everything works as hoped and I'm ready to take it on a proper ride.


The next day I head for the Rockies along my usual route, taking the backroads out of Calgary through to Canmore then bypassing the dull Trans Canada by sticking to the secondary parkways. We've been blessed with an early spring, with good weather from March onward. We had a similar situation last year, one that I never had the pleasure of experiencing out East. There it was more typical for there to be five feet of snow on the ground until May. I don't think many Albertans have seen five feet of snow on the ground in their lifetime.


Despite benefiting from a longer riding season out here, I miss the proper Canadian winters I used to experience. There is a soothing, enveloping silence that is only brought by a blanket of soft, white powder across the landscape. I find great calm in the fury of an intense blizzard, the world around me obscured by swirling flakes. I suspect part of my love of snow was due to my being born during one of the worst storms of the 1980s, with patients being shuttled to and from the hospital aboard snowmobiles. I grew up on a riverfront farm that would be buried by drifts during the winter, the dunes of snow becoming my playground when the winds had settled.

Meanwhile Calgarians collectively lose their shit and forget how to drive when a foot of white stuff falls.

There is always snow in the mountains, though the blizzards you'll experience driving through the high passes are a lot more sinister than the ones of my childhood. Being nestled next to a wood stove while the winds howl and the flakes hiss against the windows is quite different from trying to navigate a vehicle through zero visibility on a slick road that is 100 miles from any form of civilization.


Anyway, I digress. Today the roads are clear and the snow is limited to the surrounding peaks. The sky is clear and crystalline blue, the temperature mild. The bike is running perfectly, though still on the rich side. It's the sort of day where you don't want to stop riding, just continuing onto the next fuel stop to see where you will end up.      


I'd forgotten how sweetly these Desmoquattro machines run. Power is smooth and linear, with a surprising willingness to rev for a big twin - particularly on this machine now that the flywheel is so much lighter. Above 6000 rpm the power builds hard and fast as the engine races to the 10,000 rpm redline in a flash. Below that there is a useful slug of torque but it is far tamer; the significant driveline lash and tall gearing prevents you from lugging it much.  You want to keep it above 4000 for things to stay happy.


The clutch and gearbox are, in my mind, close to perfect. After a year of suffering the rock-crusher transmission and vague clutch of the Aprilia, getting aboard the Duc and experiencing light and precise shifting is a revelation. Not only that but the lightened internals and resulting snappy response mean that rev matching is so easy that I'd almost swear I had installed a slipper clutch.


The roads are still strewn with gravel and remain treacherous in the twistier sections. I'm not able to push the handling much on this ride but the precision and stability I've learned to love is still there, allowing me to set and forget my line through a corner in spite of rough, cracked pavement. This is one of those machines that feels totally unflappable at virtually any speed. It encourages you to go faster and faster still, searching for a limit that doesn't seem to exist. It just gets better and better as you push it harder, the plentiful feedback through the chassis always keeping you well informed of what is going on beneath your tires.

Then you pull over and see that you still have mile-wide chicken strips. This bike laughs at your feeble attempts to ride fast.


I arrive in Lake Louise and stop for a sandwich and some time to review. The bike is performing beautifully but will need additional fuel tuning to get it dialed in; I suspect there is another 5-10 HP waiting to be unlocked with some additional fiddling and a leaner mixture.

That is the beauty of this generation of fuel injection. With some inexpensive hardware and software I can edit and tune the fueling myself, learning a new skill and taking great pride in my accomplishments when I make progress.

Of course the possibility of really buggering things up is there, which is why I'm limiting myself to adjusting the fuel map alone and not altering the trim values or spark advance tables.


I decide to keep riding along the Icefields Parkway towards Jasper before looping back through the Saskatchewan River Crossing to Rocky Mountain House. That will put my mileage for the day around 500 miles, enough to claim a solid break-in.

The road winds higher into the mountains, passing glacial plains flanked by daunting peaks. This road is deserted and free of civilization, just a long ribbon of asphalt winding through the mountains. I'm alone with my thoughts enjoying the thrum of the bike beneath me, my speed creeping higher and higher along the lonely highway.

My heated grips are cranked and my heated jacket is keeping me comfortable as the ambient temperature drops. Though I may be a bit of a masochist for riding a 916 great distances, I'm not above fitting some creature comforts and the improved charging system of the 996 engine means I can run these accessories without concern. The day I bought my heated jacket I wondered aloud how I had ridden for so long without one. It extends my riding season at least a month on either side of the spring and fall and allows me to run through these icy passes in perfect comfort, only noticing the dropping temperature when I open my visor for a blast of cool air to keep me focused.      


Shortly after turning East towards Rocky Mountain House the road straightens into a long, tantalizing straight.

If I were to, hypothetically, wind the throttle to the stop on a stretch like this one, I'd imagine I might see over 150 MPH on the speedo before I ran out of road, perhaps with lots of revs remaining, even at this altitude. If such a scenario were to occur, I think I'd be pretty happy with the top end performance of this engine given that clearing 135 was difficult with my tired old 916 mill.

The ride continues in undramatic fashion, aside from coming within half a litre of running out of fuel trying to stretch the fuel range all the way to Rocky Mountain House. Otherwise, there are no hiccups, no failures, no misbehaviour - no problems whatsoever. I think I did pretty good screwing this thing together, and Ken did a wonderful job assembling this engine. The performance is smooth and fluid, the idle and low-rpm manners excellent despite the far lighter flywheel mass. With a little more tuning this thing will rip and will fulfill my desire for having just about the most perfectly setup street-going 916 out there.

I don't desire expensive suspension, braking and gaudy cosmetic mods, nor do I truly have any need for more power - though a set of SPS cams wouldn't go amiss, if I ever find a set for something resembling a reasonable price. I don't subscribe to the practice of bolting race-track bling and performing bleeding edge tuning on Ducatis; inevitably they end up being expensive poseur toys/rolling grenades that see more time outside Starbucks than they do slicing up a mountain road. I prefer having a well-sorted, low-key daily rider that will never make me feel guilty about putting miles on. I've tailored this bike to my particular tastes over the course of the past decade, and now it's running and riding sweeter than ever.

I missed this bike so much. Riding out here through the snow-capped peaks, the intake channeling the air pulses through my chest, the chassis feeding me delicate sensations while I arc through the sweepers, it feels like I've come home.

It's good to be back.      

It's time for me to reluctantly begin the journey home. The first leg along the coast north of LA is probably the dullest of the journey, but still plenty scenic. I make San Luis Obispo my destination for the day, a familiar spot to stop and get a motel room where I can spend some time decompressing, catching up on my notes and emails.




After an uneventful day of riding through the still flawless SoCal weather I reach SLO and after checking in I walk downtown to Eureka!, a burger joint recommended to me by one of Abhi's friends.


It's the typical trendy, gentrified grill serving far too many fancy combinations of meat stuffed between two pieces of bread alongside a selection of craft beers I've never heard of. I look mighty out of place here, with my scruffy hair and my raccoon-eyes helmet tan. If you don't show up on your bike, helmet in hand, the grizzled biker appearance makes you end up looking like you just stepped off a construction site, or spent too long staring into an oven. I'm a bit self-conscious as I take a seat at the end of the bar and spend my evening listening to dull conversations and scribbling notes on my scratchpad.


I'm pensive about my return to reality, as I was two years ago on the return leg of my first USA Tour. I'm unhappy with my position in the world and the grind of work is wearing me thin, the endless streams of indifferent customers whittling away at my patience and gradually increasing my stress levels. The way out of my ennui is less clear this time. As I grow older I grow wearier of hitting the reset button and upsetting my life in search of some unknown solution to my problems.


I have too much debt to survive another leap into the unknown, my savings nonexistent after the last upheaval I subjected myself to. I am involuntarily grounded by my circumstances and the choices I have made over the years. My sense of freedom diminishes each year as my responsibilities increase their stranglehold on my life. I remain thankful that I don't have a family or a mortgage anchoring me to a single spot, but I'm not much better off when I live paycheque to paycheque while battling my irrational desire to wander.


That's not to say I live some shitty, unenviable life. I have a comfortable, average existence and my job is secure even if it is not glamorous. I just have a tortured mind that constantly gnaws away at any possible sense of well-being I might cultivate. An oversimplified explanation would be depression mixed with anxiety, but it's something more than that. I don't have anyone intimate I can share my thoughts and desires with either, having spent most of my adult life single and remaining tragically inept at seducing the opposite sex.

Most days I think that if I got laid a bit more often I'd probably be a lot less neurotic; of course that brings up the chicken-egg problem because being an overthinking neurotic bag of constant existential dread generally drives potential partners away. The times I have been attached to someone have brought me great calm and purpose, giving me the perspective to organize my thoughts and apply my energy in more creative ways. Those times have been few and far between, and any period spent alone allows my negative traits to resurface with a vengeance.


It's enough to allow the creeping tendrils of self-doubt to envelop my self-esteem, countered by the poisonous thinking that I'm great but everyone else is an asshole. I intensely hate the feeling that I'm becoming jaded towards humanity; all I can do is buck up and ignore my constant failures, continuing to evaluate each person and each relationship in a vacuum, disregarding the spectre of my past disappointments. Despite that I seem to gravitate towards fake friends and false sympathy, always searching for meaning in relationships with apathetic people who don't truly care about me. I end up falling into a cycle of pushing these people a little bit harder and harder until these weak relationships inevitably break, and I'm left feeling alone even though the warning signs were present along the road long before I reached that dead end.


That's not to say that good, kind, and honest people don't exist in my life: they do, but they have been the exception rather than the norm. Their good is easily overshadowed by the unrelenting toxicity that I seem to be adept at bringing out of most people. Ignoring that toxicity and focussing on the good, continuing to seek those rare individuals who do care is my challenge. It has been my challenge for many years.

That overwhelming sense that I was losing touch with my humanity was why I left Montreal, why I left the vapid bullshit of the "luxury" industry to return to something more honest. I was becoming jaded as each day a little bit more of my soul would get sucked away. I was becoming a worse person, and I hated myself for it.


Tuesday morning I head north along the 1 towards Big Sur to revisit one of my favourite stretches of road. It's a cool, foggy morning and I stop at the famous elephant seal habitat at San Simeon. I spend some time observing these strange animals, writhing and snuffling on the sandy shore, a lone male wading in the shoals and bellowing at the females and youths lounging indifferently on the beach. These are not graceful creatures. They are the two-tons-of-fun, burger-fed 'Murican cousins of the cute sea puppies I used to encounter on the Atlantic coast.


Onto the twisty bits and I spend some time chasing a Land Rover test vehicle and popping second gear (third if you hit a good bump) power wheelies along the winding coast. It's yet another magical ride, one of many on this trip, with minimal traffic and no law enforcement interfering with my shenanigans along this picturesque road.


I stop at a café for breakfast and enjoy an overpriced meal overlooking the ocean, grudgingly paying the Big Sur tax to enjoy an ordinary meal in extraordinary surroundings. Gas isn't the only thing that is marked up to an absurd degree between San Simeon and Monterey.


More miles and more overwhelming scenery. The weather clears and the salty air offers a refreshing balance to the warming sun as I approach San Francisco.


I take a break at the Pigeon Point lighthouse, a beautiful 19th century maritime relic perched atop a craggy cliff. Old lighthouses have a certain hold on me as a Maritimer. They conjure up images of heavy surf crashing over rocky shoals, of an honest but solitary keeper living a celibate life tending to the works to keep the shore safe. It's a romantic image that probably doesn't reveal the tedium and maddening loneliness these men must have experienced.


Some days I envy them. Most days I don't.


Up to San Francisco again, on through Napa Valley to Calistoga. The ride is far more pleasant in daylight, the road winding through the rolling hills lined with greenery and vineyards. I realize now how treacherous this route was on my adrenaline-fueled night time ride on the way down, a challenging road snaking up and down hills and tunnelling through rows of ancient trees. Nevermind the possibility of wildlife getting in your way.


I arrive at Matt's place at 6pm and spend some time decompressing in the backyard, watching birds hop and play in his back shed. What follows is another evening of engaging discussion about bikes, design and racing. Matt is a veteran amateur racer who knows a lot of high-profile riders and mechanics. He is well connected and knowledgeable, to the point of making me feel inadequate in engaging in conversation. I can only sit and listen, taking in the details and the stories, gleaning information and making mental notes for future inquiries. It's a humbling encounter, as Matt is a man of many talents: in addition to his racing career and his mechanical expertise, he is a skilled woodworker and still finds time to be a father. One of those rare folks who appears to juggle a series of remarkable talents into a harmonious life; meanwhile I have trouble staying lucid without the chemical content of two or three coffees and a handful of cigarettes coursing through my bloodstream at any given moment.



Speaking of which, it's time to rest before another long day of riding through the best that NorCal has to offer.

I head out towards the coast via the 128, the same route I took in the dark on my way south. The roads are lovely. Crossing the Mendocino county line reveals a series of perfect, fresh ribbons of asphalt flowing through avenues of craggy trees forming a canopy overhead. The surface is impeccably groomed and properly cambered, the sightlines good, and there are few decreasing radius bends to catch you off guard. It's motorcycling heaven, roads that are as beautiful as they are challenging, without ever feeling treacherous. You can ride fluidly from one corner to the next, punching up to triple digits along the short straights without fear of overreaching your abilities.


It's a flattering experience, one that renews my faith in my skills. Some of the routes I've taken are so erratic and unpredictable that they shook my confidence, forcing me to pick my way through the bends and occasionally overcook into a blind corner whenever I tried to pick up the pace. Not here. This is my kind of road, with a flow that encourages smooth and fast riding rather than pointing and squirting between hair-raising corners with little to no margin for error. It's also less taxing on the mediocre suspension and tires of the Tuono, which have been giving me grief and sapping my confidence on the tighter canyon roads.


My favourite section is through Navarro. In fact I'd say it's one of my favourite stretches of the whole trip. The road flattens through a series of curves snaking through ancient redwoods, the dense canopy shading the route and turning the sunlight into a glimmering blanket of light high overhead. The earthy smell of the forest permeates the air. It's a welcome break from the cut and thrust of riding through traffic for the past few days, a soothing ride through a majestic postcard scene with little to distract me.


I continue back along the Mendocino coast before heading back into the Redwood forests. I take a detour along the Avenue of the Giants, which I missed on my hurried run to the south.


Here is one of the most spectacular scenes I've ever experienced. The scale of these massive sequoias is completely overwhelming, dwarfing me and the road into insignificance. That recurring thought pops into my mind once again - I find it incredibly frustrating that photos are unable to convey the scale of what surrounds me. I snap endless pictures and they all seem worthless, wholly unable to capture the beauty of what I'm experiencing. There isn't much more I can say other than parroting the old trope that the scene is beyond photographing, and warrants a first-hand visit to truly understand how incredible this region is.


It's also frustrating that the landscape is overrun with tourists, a problem I also have with the Rockies. The staggering, epic beauty of the scene is diminished somewhat by busloads of chattering tourists and lines of overladen RVs cluttering up the roads.


Maybe I'm just another one in the crowd, a thought which pisses me off as much as the din of 100 schlubby Midwestern suburbanites obliterating the peaceful calm of the quiet forest. I desire silence and calm, moments alone to take in the scope and scale of what surrounds me. Quiet time to appreciate the beauty and sooth my overactive mind.


A rider coasts by on an overloaded BMW GS. His helmet is off. He is riding one-handed, eating a sandwich as he rolls through the rows of trees, oblivious to the scene. I guess he is just too busy capital-A Adventuring to stop and eat his fucking lunch.


Further along I stop to observe a herd of huge elk resting peacefully in a meadow.


A small crowd has gathered to take pictures. An impatient husband sits in his SUV and honks repeatedly at his wife to get her to hurry up.


The elk remain completely unperturbed.


Sometimes - oftentimes - I really, truly hate people.

But I'm still just another one in the crowd.

         
I continue along my way across the Oregon border and stop at an overpriced Motel 6 in Gold Beach. The heat is stuck on and the room is sweltering, the paper-thin walls channelling every noise from the surrounding guests.

Try as I might I can't escape from the crowd. But I'm too tired to set up camp tonight and settle in for a sweaty night of fitful sleep.


The next stop is Portland, where I'll be meeting with Sean Smith, a fellow struggling independent moto-journalist (if we are going to romanticize things a bit). Sean has kindly offered me a place to stay and I'm keen to meet up with him and talk shop after months of online correspondence.


The scenery remains beautiful but the glamour of the California coast subsides for more modest surroundings. Logging and fishing communities dot the route, simple places where old tractor tires are appropriate lawn décor. Some are clearly dying communities fading into obscurity, rows of decrepit and boarded up buildings decaying into memories of better times. It's a sad and sobering sight, one that reminds me of the places I frequented in my youth in the Maritimes. Places where things never changed, where the people never left, and the industries never evolved. Places that were quickly left behind by progress.


I take the 101 as far as Tillamook before heading east along the Route 6. It's raining and the road is clogged with trucks and locals creeping along at a dull pace. The route is scenic but the curves too broad to be entertaining at slower speeds, let alone when they are choked with dawdling motorists. It's far less memorable than the squiggly line on the map would have suggested. I resign myself to rolling along on autopilot.


Soon I'm stuck in the thick of traffic entering Portland, quietly stewing in my helmet about my inability to legally lanesplit here. If you want to understand how amazing the privilege is, do it for a while then ride somewhere you can't, spending countless hours staring at the endless gaps and opportunities that surround you that you can't take advantage of while your sweat accumulates inside your gear and your patience drops into negative values.

I make it to Sean's place on time and without getting lost, a minor miracle by my usual standards of navigating without digital aids. Hard to believe that once upon a time we all had to get around with paper maps and vague directions. I've eschewed GPS for years and I still get it wrong more often than not.


Sean is an ex- Hell for Leather contributor who around during the heyday of that site alongside Grant Ray and Wes Siler. They had it good. HFL was once a great source of unfiltered and uncensored opinions and honest reviews, a place where misfits congregated and created wonderful content with minimal corporate meddling.

Shortly after HFL morphed into RideApart whoever was in charge saw dollar signs in a future of advertorial dick sucking and clickbait listicle revenue streams, and the whole utopia promptly went to shit. The zombie RA continues to shamble along in the Gawkerverse. I've tried to make contributions there but they are so far gone that I gave up. Somehow they mistook my writing as newbie friendly, and told me as much. I remain baffled as to how they came to that conclusion.


For the record, from this point onward, I declare that I hate new riders and I intend to do nothing to pander to them. I too was once a dumb, loudmouthed squid who knew better than everyone else and spent countless hours on forums doling out bullshit. I don't care to revisit that period. I expect everyone to learn the ropes the same way I did - through years of experience, many thousands of miles, and way too many harrowing mistakes.


Sean occupies an octane-centric household. His roommate has a Lotus Elise, a KTM 350, and a Ducati Multistrudel, while Sean rides a clapped-out GSXR600 commuter/scratcher. A small fleet of vintage bikes are strewn around the garage in various states of deconstruction.


The stories and discussions become heated. These guys had the time of their life mucking around with test bikes on wild adventures in SoCal, part of the formula that made HFL such a wonderful place for motorcycle enthusiasts with more than half a brain. Sean and his buddies lived the dream of many a blogger, myself included, before HFL went down the tubes.


The next day I head to See See Motor Coffee Co., Sean's current place of employment. See See is a café/custom shop ala Deus but presented in a far more down to earth fashion. They unapologetically cater to Portland's burgeoning hipster scene with a sense of humour that sets them apart from the more serious shops trying to bullshit their way to fame and fortune. It's cheesy and fun, and I have no problem with what they are doing. The fact that Sean bribed me with free coffee, stickers, and a T-shirt have nothing to do with that opinion. Thus I'm obligated to sell out and say that See See is the real deal while places like Deus are pretenders. Not because this T-shirt is really nice, but because it's true.


The custom side of the business is almost totally independent of the café, building machines for private commissions rather than slapping together bikes to sell in the showroom. Thor Drake is the shop's primary hack artist and his work is charming and honest, the back shop filled with an irreverent mix of weird stuff. Here is a guy who reworked a Harley Street 750 into a flat tracker, rode it to events, won some races, and then rode it home. I'd like to see Woolie Whatshisnuts do the same with one of his supposed loss-leader builds.


I idly fantasize about a See See/Deus/Etc wrung watcha brung grudge match at some small-town fairground or road race track.


Someone should make it happen.

In the meantime, I've got more miles to cover on the long road home.

 

I'm still a long way from home, but now we are on the final stretch. The excitement of exploring new locales and unknown destinations is subsiding as a return to normality looms; soon it's back to the grind, back to dull reality. It gives me pause as I roll along, inspiring my usual, recurring fantasy of abandoning my world and fucking off into the wild blue yonder.


Always a tantalizing thought for me, but one I rarely act upon. Debt, complacency, and general laziness always conspire against my ability to pull up roots and run for the hills. Plus I have a Ducati in my living room that I am desperately hoping to rebuild soon, a not insignificant task that will hoover up whatever extra funds I can beg and borrow and keep me anchored to a steady paycheque for a while yet.



I stop for a break and discover I'm minutes away from busting through to the cords on my rear tire. Now I'm boned. I had no plan to change it out before getting home, hoping that I could eke out enough mileage to replace it after the trip was over. I'd pay way, way less to get a tire back at work than I would down here, with the exchange rate being what it is.

That's a moot point now, as I stare at the ribbon of crinkled rubber running along the centreline of my Continental. I've got at least 1000 miles to go and this bun is well and truly toasted.


I call Sean Smith and ask him for advice. He recommends I double back and head for Pro Caliber in Longview, who should be able to help me out on short notice. I hate to be one of "those guys" who roll into a shop in a panic for a tire install on zero notice, but I haven't got much choice unless I plan on seeing how well an impromptu cross section of a radial will function on the roads to come.

Pro Caliber turns out to be in the classic style of big box dealership, a large warehouse loaded with inventory from a few brands and not much else. It's an example of the dealers that came in-between the old mom and pop shops (usually just pop, who was a disagreeable old git who wouldn't suffer fools for any amount of money) and the new mega-powersports dealerships (that spend as much capital on overhead and fancy furniture as they do on their stock).

For the record, I work at a place that has more in common with the latter.

It turns out that I'm in luck, as they have a Dunlop Q3 in stock and can spoon it on while I wait. I take a walk across the road to a truck stop diner for lunch, and am sorely disappointed that they don't have a lemon meringue pie available for dessert. They don't even have banana cream. Amateurs.

When it comes to epicurean delights, my taste gravitates towards the simple classics I enjoyed in my youth rather than complicated nouveau cuisine. I'm a sucker for a good burger or a perfectly prepared steak accompanied by a dark beer. And if I'm eating at a greasy spoon diner I always hope they have a fresh baked pie on the shelf loaded with tangy citrus sharpness to compliment the earthy nuance of the day-old burnt coffee. But not here, and not today.

An hour later and I'm back on the road and 300 bucks lighter. I'm grateful that the detour was minimal, given that the shop I work for is often so busy that scheduling in a traveller for a tire change is always a challenge during peak season.

I continue North along the I-5 and get stuck in hellish traffic around Seattle. It's truly, epically bad. A solid line of cars crawling along at a walking pace for 30 miles out of town from 4 pm onward. It's worse than anything I suffered in Montreal, which remains my benchmark for terrible congestion. My inability to legally lanesplit is really driving me nuts at this point.


Once traffic lets up, the rain begins. After getting good and soaked I pull into a strip mall in Marysville to dry off and have a burger at Five Guys before donning my proper rain gear and continuing on my way. I'm aiming to ride across the Cascades tomorrow so I stop at a fleabag motel at the entrance of the North Cascades Highway, Route 20. It's been one of those trying, tiring days of riding and I need a good night's rest, hopefully one long enough to let my gear dry out before tomorrow's run through the mountains. Nothing sucks quite as hard as riding through cold mountain passes while wearing damp clothes.

I'm looking forward to heading back into the Cascades. The ride down through the more southerly crossing was beautiful and I expect this route to be just as impressive.


It's a cool morning with a heavy blanket of mist hanging over the hills as I pass through a series of small, quiet communities. The landscape is lush and green beyond belief, much like the heavily-forested mountains of the Appalachians on the other side of the continent. I'm reminded of my ride through the Smokey Mountains and along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the almost rainforest-like vistas in Tennessee and South Carolina I passed through on my first USA Tour in 2013.


I'm reminded that I'm heading North, with the temperature dropping and the cool, damp air chilling me through my gear. The layers of clothing are doing little to stop the icy fingers of cold from slipping through. My handguards and heated grips are welcome in this weather, though barely adequate against the humid cold. I really need to pick up a heated jacket when I get home.


The new Dunlop is unquestionably better than the wooden Continental it replaced. Feedback is much better and turn in feels sharper from the more pointed profile of the carcass. And grip feels plentiful, even on damp pavement. Where the Contis would be spooling up the rear into third gear on wet days, the Q3s just keep gripping. I'd nearly highsided a few times with the old rubber riding in the rain, nearly swapping ends on one ride home from work. Never, ever underestimate the value of good tires on a bike, particularly one with a significant torque spike in the powerband.


The road climbs into the mountains, all evidence of civilization melting away as the landscape becomes more treacherous. It is more desolate and more remote than the South Cascade route, which has a more Alpine feel. This is more like the Rockies, high peaks and winding asphalt ribbons climbing up and down spectacular passes that reveal breathtaking views across untouched nature. Nothing but massive rocks and tall trees arranged into imposing panoramas that dwarf we feeble little humans passing through them. It has a beauty in its scale and harshness. It is not a warm, friendly land. It is one that makes you feel like the celestially insignificant bag of meat that you are. If you fell down one of these drop-offs to your doom, you'd likely never be found.


But still there are tourists, and even a few speed traps. I feel like the villain here, blowing past cars as they noodle along below the posted limit. I hate being "that guy", the lunatic rider carving through traffic and ripping through at high speed, but truth be told compared to most sport riders I'm extremely tame and cautious. I ride slow along the straights and put the hammer down through corners. Top speed runs don't interest me much; I usually do one flat-out blast on a bike to learn what it is capable of, and once that is out of my system I'm happy to roll along at a saner pace.


But I'm probably still a lunatic, if only compared to these dawdling schlubs creeping through the twisty passes in their minivans at ten under. I sympathize with their quiet outrage when a motorcyclist like myself goes flying past… But not enough to slow down and sit behind a Buick piloted by some grey-haired septuagenarian.
Once past the mountains I find myself in rolling farmland and flat range. It's quiet, scenic and relaxed. I stop in Winthorp for breakfast. The town is an old-west tourist trap, overrun with the same rubbernecking tourists I've been passing all morning. It's a "wholesome fun for the whole family!" type of place, so contrived and commercialized that you feel slightly guilty even enjoying the décor and architecture. You feel like you are being fleeced just walking into town.


I hate tourist towns, particularly ones that have no other redeeming qualities. Winthorp is an outpost surrounded by sparse rangeland filled with a bunch of cheesy souvenir shops and overpriced food vendors. There is nothing of the place or the time period being shilled, aside from beauty of the well-preserved buildings. At least coastal towns will serve seafood and Maritime tchotchkes, and places like Lake Louise in the Rockies has shops dedicated to geological items and aboriginal crafts. Things that are appropriate to the setting, even if they are just as overpriced and chintzy as the wares you'll find anywhere else.


I continue into the area that was being ravaged by fire on my way down, the smell of smoke and ash still permeating the air. Tributes to firefighters are everywhere. It's sobering to think about the lives and homes that have been lost here only weeks and days before. I pass through charred forests, roads lined with scorched earth. A remarkable number of homes have been saved, small patches of preserved areas surrounding the buildings protected by fire crews in an otherwise desolate landscape. The flames had come within tens of feet of some of the farms, 360 degrees of devastation encircling them.  


I have a pensive moment sitting on the side of the road looking over the husks of trees on a flame-blighted hill. I don't have anything so selfless to contribute to society as these people who have risked life and limb to protect their neighbours in what must have been a terrifying hellscape.


I envy them. They have purpose. Their work is readily recognized and well respected, without question. My type of work could never hope to achieve that sort of notoriety - be it my day job or my freelancing. I'm insignificant and I know it.


This thought sends my ennui into overdrive. I still search for my purpose in this world. I doubt I will ever find it. And while we are being honest: motorcycles aren't exactly the most important thing in the world. Devoting my life, passion, and income towards what is little more than a recreational toy - easily dropped out of your life without consequence - would seem pretty useless in the grand scheme of things. I'm not exactly saving lives or advancing science here on OddBike.


I reach the British Columbia border and get randomly selected to have an extra fun time at customs. Fortunately the inspecting officer is friendly and affable, letting me go after a quick once over and a few off-the-record questions about my bike and my trip. I'm relieved and have some of my faith in humanity restored; I could have easily spent hours in detentions sifting through my luggage and enduring a barrage of questions if I had the misfortune of dealing with a more soulless government employee, of which there are apparently many.


Into BC the weather grows colder and wetter. Rain and steady drizzle conspires against my comfort beneath grey skies. I scuttle my plan to ride to Kootenay Lake to camp the night, the weather too miserable and distance too great for me to enjoy myself. I don't want to ride many hours through the rain in a rush to setup my tent in a mud hole so I can freeze my ass off all night.


I make my way to Castlegar where I book a motel room and walk across the street for a beer and a steak, taking some time to scribble out the day's thoughts while the deep chill of the ride subsides and I regain the feeling in my extremities. I'm looking forward to a hot shower and good night's sleep. Tomorrow, I head for home.

Innovation is a scarce resource in today's motorcycle industry, despite what the OEMs might lead you to believe. Behind every supposed leap forward in electronic trickery aimed at keeping your untalented ass out of the weeds is several decades of stagnant design and engineering tarted up with fancy new plastics. We haven't seen a real revolution in motorcycle design in a long while, at least one that didn't deviate far from the accepted formula of oversized bicycle with a big horny engine stuck in the middle.

The people who truly innovate are not found at major manufacturers. They aren't listening to focus groups or making clay mockups in well-lit design studios with Instagram accounts vomited all over "inspiration boards" on the wall. The people who are driving innovation are doing so in their garages and their homes, building their dreams without the constrictions of tradition and bean counter interference compromising their vision of perfection. They build the future the way they envision it, everyone else be damned. Their work is pure. Their genius is only recognized by the few who can appreciate the iconoclastic vision.  

This is not the story of one of those machines. This is the story of a Dirtbag bike.




This is not the result of years of engineering and testing. This machine is an example of the beauty of the hack. It is the result of a fever dream put into metal with hacksaws, angle grinders and barely-adequate welds. It is terrifying in more ways than one and rides far worse than it looks. This is Alan Lapp's Dirtbag DR650, and like all good Dirtbag bikes it is awesome because it is the result of a perfect storm of creativity, innovation, and terrible decisions made under the pressure of a ridiculous deadline and an absurd budget.   

For the uninitiated, the Dirtbag Challenge Low Rent Chopper Build Off is one of California's finest events for the slightly deranged tinkerer who desires the opportunity to exercise their moto-hacking skills. The premise is simple - build something cool in 30 days for a budget of no more than 1000$ including the cost of the donor machine. You are allowed as much pre-planning and drafting as you desire, but you aren't allowed to put hacksaw to metal until the specified build period is underway. Then it's a mad rush to get the thing built, running and rideable: static hipster art pieces won't do, as part of the challenge is completing a ride aboard your deathtrap. Burnouts are optional, but encouraged.

This is the story of Al's Dirtbag DR650, in his own words.




 My wife and I moved to the Bay Area about 7 years ago. I got introduced to the guys that ran CityBike Magazine a few months after we moved and I became the Art Director for them until recently, when the magazine changed hands. I was introduced to many aspects of Bay Area Moto-Culture by association with CB. Great people, great local history. I used to be a bit of a hard-drinking, hard-riding maniac. When I experienced the Dirtbag Challenge, I thought “this is my tribe.” We didn’t have anything even remotely like this on the East Coast. The police attitude is very different in Maryland - they’d have arrested everyone and charged them with everything from littering to speeding to thinking about anarchy.

When I quit drinking 20 year ago I started road racing a Honda Hawk, which happened to be what I was riding at the time. I didn’t have any money, and when I needed stuff I built it instead of buying it. When I needed an exhaust, I read Smith & Morrison’s Scientific Design of Intake and Exhaust Systems cover to cover until I understood it (mostly) and built one in my shop. I also have participated on Michael Moore’s Motorcycle Chassis Design List for probably close to 25 years, and felt a bit like a poseur since I’d never built a chassis completely from scratch.


So, in my opinion, it was pretty much inevitable that I’d build a DBC bike.

My first attempt at a DBC bike was based on a Ducati ST2 which had been in a garage fire.  I did a bunch of suspension mods, basically turning it into an ADV Ducati with 12” of suspension travel.  Turned out that the ignition module was DOA and couldn’t be revived within budget.  So, it got shelved to, perhaps, someday, revisit for a future DBC bike.


The DR650 donor has an interesting story: it belonged to Wade Boyd’s girlfriend, Christina, and when we bought it for my wife, it had a purple fringed saddle with alien skull tattoos. Everywhere we went, people asked “isn’t that Christina’s bike”? I still have the seat.

At some point, the bike had been swamped under water and not rinsed out properly, and at about 40,000 miles all the bearings in the bottom end were totally hammered. It was making sickening noises. The piston rocked in the bore, the valve stems wallowed about in their guides, the big end of the rod wobbled like a freshly reformed drunk, the clutch basket rattled on its bearing like castanets and the transmission was having a mid-life crisis.

So I did what any good husband would do: I set about to rebuild my wife’s bike. I bought new bearings, and went to eBay for a crank and rod assembly and clutch basket. I chose a high-compression JE piston in the stock bore which was miraculously unscathed. To hell with the valve stems, I had Kenny Augustine lap the seats for an outrageous sum of money. Rest in peace, Kenny.

Anyway, long story short, I got it reassembled and it wouldn’t shift into 5th. After much tinkering I got it shifting correctly on the workbench, but the motor languished; since beginning the project my wife had bought a much better, newer Versys 650. The motor kept my workbench from blowing away in a strong wind for 5 years in this freshly rebuilt state.

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the ideas of Norman Hossack. I saw a glossy photo thumbtacked to the bulletin board of my local MC accessory shop (The Dirt Shop, College Park, MD) of an early prototype based on an XR500 and thought “this is the future!”.

Image Source

If Norman Hossack was a teen crush, John Britten was my first true love. You can see in this photo that the V1000 also used a type of Hossack front end, only with vastly improved materials and design.


As a result, I’ve always wanted to build a bike with a Hossack front end. They neatly sidestep all the engineering shortcomings of tubular fork front ends.

So, about the build, there are a couple of facts that stand in direct opposition to my participation in the DBC. First, I’m a graphic designer and my biggest client is a boutique political advertising agency on the East Coast of the US. Elections are normally the first week of November, and all printing & mailing is done during the month of October… precisely in the middle of the build window for DBC.

Second, I have end stage renal failure. I’m on dialysis, which is basically, a part time job on top of the regular business interests. Plus, I wasn’t sure I’d have the energy or fitness to do it in subsequent years.

Not that I’m complaining: is what it is. Everyone has challenges to work around.

Anyway, Julian Farnam, multi-award winning Dirtbag and all around nice guy, and I had become good friends and dirt riding buddies, and I mentioned an interest in trying another DBC bike. He encouraged me to plan ahead, and work to the plan. He also catalyzed the process by volunteering a pair of R6 shocks which were excess to his needs and perfect for mine.

I spent time designing the DBC bike in Adobe Illustrator at actual size — I literally have a 9’ wide 4’ high drawing of my bike. Why not CAD? Because Illustrator has been my daily tool for twenty years and it is so deeply ingrained in my psyche that CAD doesn’t make sense because it’s not Illustrator.


I had originally planned to build around a mid-1970s Honda XL350 motor, with a set of CRF forks from a previous year’s attempt. When I realized I’d have to have the most ridiculously offset triple clamps to get the kind of trail I’d need, given the rake I’d designed, I switched to the Hossack front end. I actually got as far as building the frame loop for that motor, but Julian suggested I start with something which has a title and can be registered on the street if so desired. That’s what shifted the build to the DR650.


I consulted Julian about my proposed steering geometry, which he rubber-stamped as unlikely to kill me, and helped me figure out where to put the lower shock mounts so that the spring rates would be in the ball park, based on a few assumptions about how much the finished DBC bike would weigh, and the stock R6 spring rate. The spring rates actually worked out pretty well: the front is spot on, the rear could use a slightly stiffer spring or different shock mounting location.


I spent about a month prior to the GO date gathering bits and pieces, supplies and consumables (it would SUCK to get 20 days into the build and break your only bandsaw blade, right?). The funny thing is that there is less than $150 in steel in this build — the main spine frame is made from 3” steel tubing, and a 20’ stick of it is $46, which is enough to build 2 frames with plenty left over!


One of the major technologies in this build was figuring out how to miter the round tubes so that when they were all welded together, they formed a closed circle, not a helix and not an open C shape. So getting the angles right and clocking the second cut to be in plane with the first cut was a challenge. A digital protractor was used to set a woodworking bevel gauge, and that was used to set the angle of the vice on the bandsaw. To clock the second cut, after the first cut was made, a digital level was zeroed on the freshly-cut miter. The bandsaw vice was then reset to the angle for the other end, and the digital level used on the opposite end to rotate the tube into the same relationship to the blade as the first cut to ensure that the miters would work right. I came up with this process, and as far as I know it is novel. It worked out fantastically well - on the DR650 frame, the gap between the first and last tubes was less than 1/16 of an inch!


My ecstasy was short-lived: the very moment the frame loop was cool enough to touch after welding, I tried to slide it over the motor. Much to my dismay, I discovered that it DIDN’T slide over the motor. After some head scratching and diagnostic work I discovered that the ruler I’d used in my original photograph of the engine, upon which I based all my design work, was not perpendicular to the camera, causing some foreshortening and a ~3% scaling error.


Because I’d already wasted one entire frame's worth of tubing on the aborted XL350 build, I didn’t quite have enough left over to build a third. I suppose in retrospect I could have, and perhaps should have, just bought more tubing but I didn’t. Instead I pinned the frame down to my milling machine table and cut away all the areas where the motor and frame were interfering, then welded in covers for the new holes. It’s worth mentioning at this point that the frame is actually the gas tank, taking a page from Erik Buell - another inspirational out-of-the-box thinker. Fuel drains out of the bottom of the tank, and is lifted to the carb via a surge tank by a $35 vacuum-operated Mikuni pulse pump from a watercraft.


The build of the suspension pieces actually went very smoothly: as Julian repeatedly told me, plan the build, build to the plan. The only fussy bit was what I refer to as the steering head: the part which the handle bars bolt to, and houses the cross-shaft for the Middleton link. I’d have been much better off building this as a bolt-together assembly rather than a weld-together assembly, which distorted the only point of critical alignment on the piece. And being stubborn, I tried to fix it while the clock was ticking rather than discard it and design a better piece. It eventually got whipped into shape, but it was horribly time consuming. There’s a lesson in there somewhere if you care to look for it.

The operation of a Hossack front end probably needs some discussion for those readers who may not have seen one. A Hossack FE (front end) belongs to a category of non-telescopic front ends called FFEs — funny front ends. It operates just like an automotive “twin A-arm suspension” as one might see on a road racing car, Trophy Truck, Quad, or side-by-side. It’s basically an automotive front end turned 90°. The wheel is held by an upright, which also houses upper and lower pivots which located at the pointy end end of the A-arms. This is also what differentiates it from a Girder front end. First off, Girder front ends are designed to interchange with telescopic forks, which inescapably means that all of the suspension links and shock absorber are part of the steered mass, as they are on a telescopic fork front end. The Hossack arrangement relocates the linkage and shock absorber to the non-steered part of the suspension.

In addition to the reduced steered mass, the Hossack also has much less friction than a telescopic fork: it doesn’t contain oil, therefore it doesn’t need to have seals. A very nerdy benefit of a Hossack front end is that lateral (side-to-side) stiffness can be tuned independently of longitudinal (fore-and-aft) stiffness, something that cannot be done with cylindrical fork tubes. MotoGP designers have been chasing lateral grip for decades, gaining the understanding that a chassis needs to be stiff longitudinally so it can transmit horsepower to the rear wheel and braking force into the chassis in a well-behaved and predictable manner. However, the lateral stiffness has to be different than — in fact significantly less than — longitudinal stiffness. Excess lateral stiffness can lead to front-end chatter.


One of the downsides to the Hossack is that direct steering linkage is prone to bump steer. It’s easy to get all of the steering linkage pivot points and suspension pivot points to line up perfectly when the wheel is pointed straight ahead. When the pivots are lined up, the wheel can go over a bump without creating a steering input, i.e. zero bump steer. However, when the front wheel is steered to one side or the other, the steering pivots and suspension pivots necessarily cease to line up, which isn’t a problem unless a bump or dip is encountered. Unfortunately, the real world is full of bumps and dips. When the steering & suspension pivots are NOT aligned and the suspension compresses or rebounds, there is a steering input created by this misalignment. A good link design can minimize this effect, but not eliminate it.


Enter the Middleton Link. Designed by a fellow MC_Chassis_List-er, the link is put in between the steering mechanism and the steering links. The Middleton Link axis is horizontal and lateral. There are tabs at each end of the link. The steering links attach to the tabs. When the handlebars are turned, one steering link is in tension, the other in compression, and these forces balance out: the Middleton Link doesn’t move. However if the suspension is compressed or extended while the steering is turned, the necessary misalignment between the suspension pivots and steering link pivots is resolved by causing the Middleton link to rotate, bringing forces at the steering links back into balance instead of causing unwanted steering input. It also allows a great deal of freedom in the location of the handlebars.

Clear as mud?



I was also invited to be in the non-Harley custom section of the Bay Area Motorcycle SuperShow, where it got a lot of curiosity and misguided praise from The Motor Company Doodz; many of them called it a “badass hill climb bike” which sort of left me puzzled.

Fast forward a year, and the 2015 GO date rolls around. I had never been much of a list guy, but there are some real benefits of a list. It’s a little bit like an analog tachometer; you know not only what RPM, but also the instantaneous relationship to redline. With the list, I could observe progress, and judge my pace. 2014 was all heavy lifting, which I’m good at. 2015 was all about details, which I’m not good at. The list was instrumental in getting the “I”s dotted and “T”s crossed. I’m only semi-literate with electrical stuff, so Julian came over and worked with me to get the old harness reattached to the bike.


I have to say that I so deeply prefer the look of the bike in the BAMS state - just as a bare frame - than with it all cluttered up with all the stuff that it takes to actually make it work. It’s so elemental and spare, you can see and understand all the moving bits.

On the day before the ride, Julian came over again to help. We got it started and I got to test ride it for the first time. No surprise that it ran terribly. The jetting was entirely off because I’d removed the air box entirely and reconfigured the stock header using a 2-stroke stinger as a muffler. We managed to get it “close enough”, or so I thought.

The day of the ride, Julian showed up at my house with his DBC Ducati chopper from 2014 on a trailer, and we loaded up to head into San Francisco. It’s worth nothing that at this point I managed to get only 3 hours of sleep due to the political advertising work load. My client had a full on panic attack when he realized out I’d be out all day Sunday, despite my numerous warnings ahead of time.


We pulled into Hunters Point about 7:30, a bit early (I may have preferred another hour of sleep) and hung around for 2 hours, watching the other Dirtbags pull in and show off their handiwork. Some kind soul brought coffee and donuts, even though I could really seriously have used a big fat shot of caffeine, I had to abstain because of my kidneys (all you craven Red Bull drinkers, think about what you’re doing to your bodies!). The ride is supposed to leave at 9:00, but I think we left closer to 10. The local MC Club (that’s club with a capital C if you understand my meaning) ran interference, blocking the cross streets so we had a thunderous straight shot out to the highway, where it became apparent that Houston, we have a problem.

After a few short miles, the transmission started dropping abruptly out of 5th back into 4th, then eventually not going into 5th at all. To compound the problem the carb wasn’t jetted well enough to run smoothly at a cruise, but would function acceptably with my thumb on the choke lever. I rode about 90 miles of the 120 mile route with the choke on.

Jake, on his absolutely adorable XL125, and I were partners in the slow lane on the highway, both of us wringing the necks off our respective rides just to average about 55 mph. The handling was surprisingly mild: very stable, not very quick to change directions at all, the only downside was that the vintage DOT-legal trials tire didn’t like pavement grooves and would wander a bit. It didn’t even try to kill me once. Jake, however, got the worst of it: the DR motor had developed a nasty oil leak on the left side, and the 2-stroke muffler was blowing fiberglass packing onto his faceshield. His helmet looked like it had been tarred and feathered. Sorry Jake.

We got to the famous Alice's Restaurant where we socialized and bought gas. The rear of the bike felt squirrelly on the twisty bits, but I couldn’t tell if it was the oil on the tire, the knobby tread, swing arm flex, or if some critical weld was about to pop, so I didn’t push it hard. I put a couple of wraps of safety wire under the carb needle to richen the midrange.

On the next leg — Alice's to Pescadero via Stage Road — the pavement is quite choppy upon which I discovered much to my dismay that the R6 shocks, which were designed for rising-rate rocker linkage, have grossly too much compression damping when mounted directly to the swing arm without any linkage — Julian experienced this with his DBC Ducati as well. By the time we arrived at Pescadero, my jaw hurt from clenching to keep my teeth from clacking together. My thighs and lower back were screaming in pain from the forward controls. On the plus side the revised "jetting" was working pretty well. Halfway to Pescadero the rickety 2-stroke stinger lost all its packing and the end cap vibrated off, changing the back pressure and causing it to run like shit again.


On the way out of Pescadero the carb popped off the extended manifold, but that was a pretty quick easy repair — I didn’t even take off my helmet to do it.

I was considering taking secondary roads back to the party, but decided to tough it out and follow the route which went uphill on Higgins Creek Rd, back out Skyline to 92, then back onto the highway and into the city. I don’t know what I was thinking (perhaps only of the pain in my legs and back) but I passed up buying gas at Pescadero. As a result, I ran out of gas at Daly City, a mere 10 minutes from the end of the ride. I walked to the nearest exit and bought a jerry can and gas. In the meantime the DBC sweep truck came by, found the vicinity of my bike swarming with California Highway Patrol due to an auto accident, and wisely didn’t stop. I’m glad I wasn’t around for questioning.

Once refueled I made it back into the city for the party. When I rolled into the gate, I was vigorously cheered by my fellow Dirtbags, and I did a big smoky burnout: a burnout that I’d earned by working like a madman, jamming workshop time in between paid work and doctor visits for two Octobers in a row.

This year was an unusual year for voting at the DBC. As Pol says “Only a Dirtbag can judge a Dirtbag”. There are about 6 awards, the names of which I can’t remember. This year, aside from “Cleverest Award”, one guy on a screaming purple KTM 500 2-stroke MX chopper swept them all. I nabbed the Cleverest, which was a great honour.


I want to close by offering my most sincere thanks to both Julian Farnam and Bob Stokstad for their support and facilitation of this build. It’s been a real pleasure.


Maybe next year I’ll build a Britten tribute bike…

It's a cold morning with a layer of slick dew coating the roads, a heavy mist hanging over the mountains around Castlegar. The weather seems to be appropriate for my pensive mood as I finish my journey home and return to reality of a dull 9 to 5 existence. The perfect weather, amazing roads, and stunning vistas of the West coast are far behind me now; only grim reality and the first frosts of a long Canadian winter lie ahead.

I skirt around Kootenay Lake via the Kootenay Pass, a treacherous route that winds high into the mountains and far away from any evidence of the civilization that surrounds it. The temperature plummets as I go up several thousand feet, from a frigid 10 degrees to something below the freezing mark. Fresh chip seal on the road is wet and slick; I gingerly make my way to the peak of the pass, cursing the cold and my lack of heated gear the whole way.



I stop at the summit to watch the mist clear off Bridal Lake while I hopelessly try to warm myself up. After a few moments taking in the beauty of the scene, the peace is interrupted by the raspy putter of a tiny single cresting the peak. A ragged looking old coot riding a motorized bicycle pulls up. I had passed him on the way up the pass but hadn't realized he was riding a homemade moped; I just thought he was some lunatic BC hippie out for an ill-advised morning ride, trundling along a sheer dropoff above a forested abyss in sub-zero temperatures.


Effectively he was a lunatic hippie, gasoline propulsion aside. He proceeds to corner me and babble on about his machine, which is cobbled together from junk. A milk crate slung onto the handlebars is filled with what appears to me to be random trash, but what are probably his only worldly possessions. He asks me strange questions that only make sense in his odd mind, like how much gas I burned riding up the pass.


He prattles on about typical crazy mountain man tropes (something about beating the system) while I take in the visual details of this surreal encounter. His hands are blackened and weather beaten, most of his teeth are missing. He is wild eyed and animated as he continues his rant against the man. The bike is a clapped out road hybrid bicycle with a stationary four-stroke secured to the rear rack on a wooden plank, the rear wheel directly driven with a V-belt and pulley arrangement. It's crude. Very crude. But clever for something he probably hacked together from garbage. And to his credit it got him and his collection of junk up this mountain.


He is one of many crazy mountain hippies who make their way into the quiet wilds of the BC interior. Men and women who wish to escape the rat race and "beat the system", attracted by BC's abundant nature, the simplicity of life, the region's social progressiveness, and the easy access to good weed. I suspect the relatively warm winters on this side of the Rockies doesn't kill them off as readily as it would in any other province. You'd have to be a mighty hard motherfucker to survive -40 degree weather in the wilderness with no electricity or running water. I don't think many of the bony potheads populating cabins in this region fit the bill. People watching from the patio of one of the many fair trade-gluten free-vegan-raw-food cafés in downtown Nelson, the Kootenay's hippie/hipster hub, is a great way to waste an afternoon. It's also a good place to get run out of town if you are a riding a noisy motorcycle; it's the only place I've ever witnessed the locals spewing heartfelt profanity at passing riders.


Mountain man gets back on his merry way, sputtering down the mountain. The mist is dissipating into the trees and I'm warm enough to continue to the next Tim Horton's in Creston. I return to the Canadian ritual, taking the time to let the chill pass and listen to the patrons sharing gossip and stories.  Word is that it's been snowing in some areas. Great.


The weather is hit and miss. I pass through periods of sun, shifting to overcast, then to rain. The temperature drops steadily as I approach home. It's quite normal to pass through the stone "gateway" just outside Radium and have the temperature change 10 degrees on the other side. Today is no exception, the drop in temp on the Eastern side made worse by the rain. Pretty soon I'm soaked through and ice cold, my heated grips barely able to keep the bars more than lukewarm and doing nothing to keep my digits from freezing. I'd do anything for a heated jacket right about now.


The white peaks surrounding the highway confirm that it has been snowing recently. These mountains were still green when I passed through two weeks ago. The riding season won't last much longer and I'll have to knuckle under for another long Canadian winter.


Why must the last leg of the journey always be the hardest? Why do I need to feel like I've made a mistake returning here? I should be relieved that I'm going to be home shortly but instead I'm miserable, cold, and dreading the return to the daily grind.


I stop in Banff for a break. The area is completely overrun with tourists on this Labour Day weekend, creating a swirling vortex of overloaded vans, SUVs, and campers. Rest stops and gas stations are choked with people.

My mind is preoccupied with thoughts of what I'm returning to. Even though I've travelled 5000 miles and passed through some of the most incredible scenery I've ever experienced, I don't feel like I've ridden far enough or escaped from reality for long enough. It's been a tantalizing bit of freedom that has made me feel liberated for a time, but has done little to satisfy my ennui. The prospects of the road and the beauty of the unknown still beckon. These two weeks have offered temporary satiation of my wanderlust, but I'm still desperate to break free of the routine that has begun to consume me.


Unfortunately there is no apparent escape, no great revelation. No lesson to be learned here. I sit here and struggle to find some deeper meaning to my journey, something like the many little epiphanies I had experienced during the first USA Tour that lead to me abandoning my life in Montreal to start over in Calgary.


This time around I can't come up with a good conclusion. I'm not inspired to make any great leaps. I return to boring normality without fanfare, still unsure of what the hell I'm doing or where the hell I'm going.

As always my bikes remain my touchstone. A long ride does wonders to my psyche, restoring my sanity and my sense of calm and contentment for the price of a few gallons of gas and lunch in some unfamiliar town. It's a simple process that keeps me going in spite of an increasingly ominous sense of listless ennui as I look down the barrel of a rather dull day-to-day existence.


I don't look forward to growing old - my current prospect is to work until I die, given the current economic state of affairs and my mounting debts that preclude the possibility of any sort of retirement - but looking forward to a ride now and then is enough to keep me from giving up completely.

Hmm, grim stuff. The takeaway is that reality sucks and there really isn't much we can do about it unless we have luck or an indefatigable ambition to succeed.

I have neither.


A few more uneventful miles and I arrive home. I immediately jump into the shower to warm up and melt away the tension of riding through the cold.

Once I'm refreshed and feel like a functioning human once more, I head down the street to one of my favourite burger joints for a greasy meal and a straw-crushing shake laced with bourbon. A meal at Clive Burger in downtown Calgary has become my post-ride ritual, a satisfying way to round out a long day of riding. It too has become a touchstone, a decadent reward for surviving another day on two wheels.

It's particularly deserved after this ride. After two weeks on the road my odometer clicked just over 5000 miles - 8000 kms - as I returned to my parking garage. It is my new high-water mark for touring, and eclipses my previous record of 4000 miles aboard the 916. The Tuono has performed flawlessly, with nary a hiccup along the way.

It's been dreadfully boring, really. A little mechanical mayhem along the way does wonders for spicing up a long road trip, provided it's not a catastrophic failure that ends the trip prematurely. It might sound crazy to riders weaned on modern, infallibly reliable machines but dealing with some problems along the way makes for a far more memorable experience than when your machine performs without fault. And odds are good you will meet some interesting folks as a result of those breakdowns.


It will be treated to a well-deserved full service and a much needed oil change, but for now it sits in the darkness of the garage, grimy and faded but undefeated by the mileage. It has fared much better than I have. I am wracked with dull pain and I can barely sit down, my ass saddle sore from the poor excuse for a seat Aprilia saw fit to slap on this thing.

My burger arrives, dripping grease and liquefied cheese through its wax paper wrapping. It is my usual: a double burger with fried onions, cheese, bacon, and house sauce, all topped with a fried egg leaking yolk out the sides.

Welcome home - welcome back to reality.

I can never leave well enough alone.

I don't usually consider this a character flaw, unless I manage to tinker something to a dead stop or make something worse than when I began messing with it. Both are rare occurrences in my experience; perhaps luck has favoured me over the years and minimized my catastrophic fuckups. At least when it comes to mechanical devices. I can't say I've been so fortunate in my social life.

In then 12 years I've owned it, I've never left my 916 alone. I wasn't about to stop messing with it now that I'd slotted in a freshly built 996 mill. In fact I considered the 996 engine the first big step towards building the machine I always wanted.

Perhaps a little background is in order to understand my compulsion.

While I'd never call the 916 unsatisfying in any configuration, it has one major flaw. Nothing wrong with the bike in particular, though as with anything else it can be improved in a lot of ways - particularly 25 years after its introduction.


No, the main flaw with the 916 is that the 916 SPS exists. You can't possibly own a standard, proletarian 916 without constantly thinking about "what it might be like if I had an SPS". It gnaws away at you over time. You hear tell of those miraculous camshafts that offer a brilliant top end rush without sacrificing midrange. You learn about the lightweight internals and hand-fitted parts contributing to a free-revving engine that is miles ahead of the standard bike. You see the dyno sheets promising 120-plus horsepower at the wheel. You learn about the near-mythic status of the SPS as a race homologation special, sold at a massive premium over the standard machine and only ever offered in North America with a waiver that forced the owner to promise never to register the bike for road use because the EPA wouldn't allow it. Europeans were luckier, able to purchase road-legal versions and the later 996S with a SPS engine.

Sure, the 996 offered that same basic engine in a more civilized package that met emissions regulations. The bottom end is similar, minus the light rods and crank and close ratio box. The SPS came with a set of 50mm exhaust headers instead of the typical 45mm items, but any back-to-back dyno tests has proven that the bigger pipes sacrifice average power below the peak for just a couple of extra ponies up top. Beyond that the pistons are the same and the heads are supposedly identical, though credible sources note that the SPS was more carefully assembled and generally flows more, while offering a hair more compression. All of that should add up to something that is close enough for most people.

I'm not most people.


After I slotted the 996 engine into my 916 and finished tuning, I had a gen-u-ine 117 hp and 70 lb/ft measured at the wheel with flawless fueling cooked up by myself on TunerPro RT after many miles of tuning and testing. A few more ponies than a standard 996 offered, easily attributed to a set of pipes, degreed cams, and the three-angle valve job performed during the rebuild. The result was a sweet running bike that retained all the character of a 916 with about 10% more of everything across the board.


That wasn't good enough. It still wasn't a SPS. That dark siren beckoned me from the abyss of the rabbit hole.

I consulted with my trusted engine builder and on-call Ducati Guru, Ken Austin. Ken was the fellow who performed the rebuild on the 996 engine after I bought it out of the trunk of a car in a gas station parking lot in Vancouver. While it turned out to be perfectly serviceable we erred on the side of caution and Ken went through the entire engine, checking every spec, blueprinting wherever feasible and setting everything to perfection.

With decades of race tuning experience and many late nights spent assembling Superbike powerplants, Ken knows how to put an engine together. He also knows how to make horsepower.

His first suggestion was a set of high-compression pistons. In Ken's experience compression is king, with virtually no downside if you know what you are doing. You get more power across the board by boosting the torque from idle to redline, without sacrificing anything like you might by chasing hot rod cams and high-rpm flow.

The stock 996 engine isn't lacking in compression as far as big V-twins go, with around 11.5:1 claimed by the factory. But more is better, and the most is best.


So after some nights spent noodling around on the internet I ended up with a set of Pistal R2000 standard-bore forged pistons on my doorstep, ordered from a supplier in Italy who still stocked them at about half the price I would have paid from a North American dealer.

At first I thought I was getting a set of 13:1 items. Which seemed unusual, because the dome was so high that the stock spark plugs wouldn't clear them. I hadn't heard about that issue from anyone who had installed the 13:1 slugs. In they went after a quick diamond hone of the bore. While I had the heads off I took them home and lapped the valves, mirror polished the combustion chambers, carved the weld beads out of the exhaust manifolds, and port-matched the inlet runners. Minor stuff but every little bit helps.


Ken finished the assembly, double checking the cam timing and valve-to-piston clearance. Everything looked good, and we maintained a relatively conservative cam timing number - advanced slightly from stock centrelines, but not so much as would provide best torque with standard compression.

Therein lies the fatal mistake most wannabe Ducati tuners make when upping compression.

On a standard engine, advancing the Strada cams 10 or more degrees on intake and exhaust provides a substantial bump in torque below the power peak without killing top end horsepower. In fact the peak power will remain virtually the same, but you can gain up to 5 hp across the curve below that (provided you adjust the fuel and ignition to suit, of course). Without getting too far into the thrilling finer technical points of cam timing, you are effectively boosting dynamic compression of the engine. Advance the cams and cranking compression increases. Retard them and the opposite happens. All without altering the static compression provided by the pistons and combustion chambers.

This is good until it isn't. It goes bad when you are running sky-high static compression ratios. Like you would with a set of Pistal pistons. Then you run into pinging, detonation, and all the nasty stuff that destroys engines in short order unless you are running 7$ a litre race fuel or detuning the ignition to the point of killing the horsepower that you were trying to gain. Neither of which I intended to do with my bike. This thing had to run happily on premium pump gas.

The solution, of course, is to not run your cams advanced into the danger zone. Follow that one critical step and you'll be golden. As I was, even after I accidentally installed Superbike race replica pistons into my Ducati.


Turns out that spark plug clearance issues aren't a problem on the 13:1 pistons. But they are on the full-fat 14:1 race pistons Pistal supplies for the 996. On those you have to run surface discharge plugs to maintain safe piston to spark plug clearance.

Oops.

Regardless of my mistake, by playing it safe with cam timing and keeping the squish set a little over 1mm I ended up with a happy engine that ran safely on 91 octane pump gas. 94 octane turned out to be unnecessary, and actually hurt power. For the record I calculated the static compression around 13.5:1 as installed, with a healthy 200 psi cranking compression on both cylinders after break-in. And zero pinging or knocking, even before I dialed in the fuel mapping.


The result was extra oomph across the range, and just enough top end to now be a bit scary to pin the throttle above 7000 rpm. I didn't dyno it after the piston install but I'd imagine it was in the low 120s and mid 70s for torque. Overall a good result with no sacrifice in driveability. Any lingering doubts about reliability were addressed by riding the piss out of the thing for 4000 miles without a hiccup, even on allegedly "premium" fuel from back country gas stations.

But... it still wasn't a SPS.

The siren kept calling.

I'd already lightened the rotating mass considerably with a 3 pound lighter flywheel we installed during the original rebuild, which would just about match the stock crank mass of a SPS. I took this a step further by installing a lightweight alloy slipper clutch and alloy clutch pack, which shaved off 3 pounds compared the all-steel setup I was running before. I didn't have a close ratio gearbox (though installing the transmission out of a 748 duplicates the ratios of the SPS should you want them) but going up 2 teeth on the back and down 1 tooth on the front made the tall gearing of the standard box livable. 

The main piece of the puzzle - and the one I've desired since I bought my 916 - is a set of SPS cams. They are what gives the SPS its essential character. They are significantly higher lift (more than 1mm extra on the intake) with revised timing on the exhaust side. Duration is similar to Strada cams but overlap is altered for better high-rpm breathing. Their lobe profiles are extremely asymmetrical, obvious at a glance when comparing the opening and closing ramps. They have earned a reputation as the ultimate hot street cam for the desmoquattro, offering more power everywhere without sacrificing bottom end/midrange like the more aggressive G/A/458/Corsa-spec cams inevitably do. They are also a straight drop in for most desmoquattros, unlike the Corsa or 748R items which need extra piston clearance and different valve spacing, respectively. As a result they have been copied by most aftermarket companies, all of whom offered SPS-like cams in their catalogues at one point or another.   

As you might imagine, this means that SPS cams are highly sought after and command a premium whenever they come up for sale. OEM Ducati items aren't exactly common; either they come out of a wrecked SPS or from the factory at 2500$ USD a set. About double what I paid for an entire 996 engine.

So when a set came up for sale privately for less than a grand, I snapped them up immediately. I could scarcely contain my excitement while I waited for them to arrive.


I pored over those little bumps sticks for far longer than I care to admit. I examined and re-examined their shape, the magic T1 factory codes that identify them. I lovingly chamfered the sharp edges of each lobe with a ceramic stone. They are finally mine, here, in my hands. The little pieces of unobtanium that will take my bike to the next level. Will they live up to my expectations? Will they offer everything I was promised by all those "experts" on the internet?

They aren't doing much good looking pretty on my work table. They need to be installed, pronto. I ordered up a set of adjustable alloy pulleys to dial them in properly (and shave a pound off the valvetrain mass). Then I called Ken and formulated a plan.

At this point it was late in the Fall. I wanted to get them installed before the end of the season so I could test and tune the bike and enjoy my much-hyped widgets before the snow fell.

But there was a caveat: up to this point I was running the standard 916 single injector per cylinder throttle bodies. I had come within 10% of the maximum available fuel at the torque peak after installing the high compression pistons. And that was running a 4.0 BAR fuel pressure regulator, 30% higher pressure than stock. There was no way the single injector rack would support any further modifications, not without increasing the fuel pressure to a ridiculous level.

It isn't so much that the injectors can't flow that much, it's that the time available for the fuel to get squirted in at higher RPMs is limited. Injectors are time based. Flow is constant, only the time they are opened is altered to give more or less fuel. So if you have 10 milliseconds of time available but need to squirt 13 milliseconds of fuel, you have a problem. Split that between two injectors and all is good, with each opening 6.5 ms to provide the same amount of go juice.

This is a good problem to have, because requiring more fuel means you have more torque which means you have more power. The single injector setup with stock pressure typically maxes out around 120 hp, so running out of fuel with higher fuel pressure meant I had a healthy power curve.


I scoured eBay and the forums for a while and managed to find a double-injector throttle body off a 996 with a 1.6M ECU, the only one that would be a straight swap without any major headaches. Being a dumb system where the two injectors run parallel all the time I didn't even need to modify the wiring harness, just a few keystrokes to alter the injection timing in the EPROM and away we go.

I tore the bike down and spent an evening installing the cams, pulleys and setting the valve clearances. Once those basics were done I got Ken to come over with his tools to set the cam timing, and educate me on the process. That is one thing I've never attempted myself and I was keen to learn how.   

A few hours and a few beers later and we had them dialed, set to 110/110 degree centrelines based on similar setups tested by Australian Ducati tuner extraordinaire Brad Black. Incidentally I highly recommend reading each and every one of Brad's tuning reports, they are a wealth of information for anyone interested in performance tuning.


Another evening of re-assembly and twiddling to get the engine running properly with the new throttle bodies and I ride the bike out of the garage and straight onto the highway for some power pulls.

Initial impressions are muted by the lack of tuning but it's immediately apparent this thing runs hard. The intake roar, already pretty epic on a stock 916/996, takes on an even harder edged growl with the new cams. I nearly run into the back of a slow moving car when I wind it out while paying too much attention to the tachometer.

One of the greatest tools I've added to my arsenal in recent years is an Innovate MTX-L wideband AFR gauge. Compact and simple to install, I run the gauge mounted temporarily in the cockpit to monitor my air fuel ratio instantaneously on the road, rather than simply at WOT on the dyno (at 150 bucks an hour). I'd perfected the fuel map before the cam install and thought simply adding a bit extra everywhere would be sufficient to compensate.

I was wrong.

This ends up being the start of a long period of testing and tuning, with the bike being far more sensitive to rich or lean sections than before, going into a stuttering tizzy anytime the AFR dips away from ideal. I'm not sure if this is due to the cams or a peculiarity of the double injector setup, being reminded of the notorious 3500 rpm stumble present on stock 996s. I could duplicate that stumble at any point the AFR went leaner than 14:1 or richer than 12:1. It rapidly becomes clear than these cams require vastly different fueling across the board. Comparing before and after maps would suggest two totally different bikes.

It requires so much work that I end up carrying my laptop and chip burner with me on my rides, spending hours running up and down my super secret test road (conveniently located just south of one of my favourite cafes) stopping on the shoulder to make alterations and test again. One section along the route had an active construction site, and I'm sure the workers were wondering why the hell this dude on a loud red bike passed back and forth along this quiet stretch of road about three dozen times.


Wash, rinse, repeat. Perform the same process with the ignition maps, then again for the rear cylinder offset map. I end up spending quite a few days and evenings with one eye glued to my AFR gauge and a heavy laptop in my backpack, buzzing up and down the backroads around Calgary where I can run the bike wide open with minimal risk of getting caught by unsympathetic law enforcement. I'm just tuning the engine officer, need to check my AFR at full throttle...

I loved every minute of the process and the curious glances I'd elicit from passing motorists when I'd be sitting on the side of the road next to my bike with my laptop open.


But the results, oh my yes the results. Popping in these cams uncorks the full potential of this engine.

Power from 7000 rpm to redline is sparkling and strong, pulling mighty hard and picking up revs so effortlessly you'd think the stock engine had a sock shoved in the intake. Midrange between 3000 and 6000 is superb and satisfying, with a slight dip around 5500 being the only flaw in the powerband. A tiny bit of bottom end is lost below 3000, but not so much that you'll be notice unless you really look for it. The wide, linear powerband of the desmoquattro mill is retained, but overall response is harder and sharper, turning everything up to 11 and adding to the already aggressive character of the bike. You need to watch your ass because it spools up the rear tire much more readily, a fact I discovered when I exited a tight roundabout crossed-up sideways in second gear.

I've yet to get it onto the dyno since I finished my tuning, but I'd say it's easily in the 130 hp range with something around 80 lb/ft.

Good God Almighty is this thing good. It was fantastic before. Now it's spectacular.

But I still can't leave well enough alone.

With the engine and tuning right where I wanted it, what could possibly be left to mess with? In the past I'd already sorted out the suspension, the brakes, the clutch, and the miscellaneous electrical shortcomings. The only thing left to deal with is the weight.

I set about putting the bike on a diet of carbon fiber, titanium and light alloy. A Shorai battery replaced the porky stocker. I carefully calculated the most effective areas to install lighter components for maximum weight savings without wasting too much money on minuscule improvements - titanium bolts aren't exactly a cost effective way to shave weight.

Then I capped it all off with the piece-de-resistance and a modification I've coveted for a long time: a set of five-spoke BST carbon fiber wheels. 


I justify splurging on these wheels by noting that I got a smoking deal on a leftover set from HPS in the UK. I paid only slightly more for BSTs than I would have paid for the cheapest set of forged aluminum OZs, about 2/3rds of what they typically retail for here in North America - including shipping and duties from overseas. I would have been stupid not to buy them. Probably.


Those wheels netted me a savings of 12 pounds, 6 per wheel. Total savings along with the other exotic bits have amounted to 30 pounds off the wet weight. Before you ask how I know that for certain, I'm obsessive enough to weigh each component I replace. The resulting spreadsheet says 29.5 pounds lost.


That's a difference you feel immediately, nevermind the massive savings in rotating mass courtesy of those beautiful wheels. The lack of inertia makes the bike feel like it has an extra 5 horsepower in the first three gears and helps counteract the typically sluggish steering inherent in the 916 chassis. Plus the huge reduction in unsprung mass helps the suspension, improving the damping control and making everything feel noticeably smoother. Win win win.


So what I have now is a 1997 Ducati 916 that is 30 pounds lighter and has 30 more horsepower. To say this thing is fun to ride is a major understatement. It is a weapon. It now has the power-to-weight ratio of a first-generation Yamaha R1, with a huge reserve of midrange below the peak. If I could travel back in time to 1997 with this thing in tow I could be king of the backroads. 130-odd horsepower at the wheel might not sound impressive in an era of ballistic 200 hp superbikes, but the quality and accessibility of the power makes this thing an absolute riot to ride in anger.


I'm goddamned thrilled with how it turned out and don't regret a single penny of the considerable sum I spent on bringing it to this level. It's not a SPS; at this point it would slay a stock SPS, and I can safely say it blows the doors off a 998 - maybe even a 999.

For now the siren has been silenced and I think I have found the bottom of this rabbit hole.

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Our first Story presents Ken Austin, an independent motorcycle tuner and mechanic based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Ken works independently at Kenny's Tuning, a home-based shop where he applies his considerable skill as a mechanic to work on a wide variety of bikes.

Ken caters to discerning riders in Alberta who have learned of his skills through word of mouth, but his reputation as a superb mechanic didn't come out of nowhere. He is one of the most intelligent and inquisitive tradesmen you'll ever meet, and his skills have been hard won through decades of experience as a mechanic, motorcycle/sailboat/mountain bike racer, and CSBK/AMA race tuner. His story is fascinating and I'm proud to present Ken as the subject of our first OddBike Story.

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OddBike is a labour of love; I work full time in the motorcycle industry and devote my limited free time to work on the site and videos.

I refuse to accept any corporate sponsorship or advertising on any of my channels. My aim is to provide the highest quality content free of the meddling of the industry that has degenerated motorcycle journalism in recent decades. As a result I am able to profile whatever I see fit, and present the facts and anecdotes that most outlets overlook (or don’t dare share). Plus I feel it is an insult to the intelligence of my followers to blast them with the banners and advertorial crap that proliferates elsewhere.

That of course means that I run OddBike at a loss. I generate zero income from my work. While that is fine by me, as OddBike has never been about the money, it makes it difficult for me to find the time to pursue my subjects.

That’s where Patreon comes in.

I am fully committed to my followers and consider myself accountable to them and them alone. With Patreon, I am able to seek funding for my work directly from you, the people who read my writing and watch my videos. With your help I can expand the scope of OddBike and devote more time to writing, traveling and interviewing the men and women behind the weirdest and most wonderful machines in motorcycling. My ultimate goal is to secure enough funding to be able to devote myself to OddBike full time - but any little bit helps.

So I thank you for your contributions. Without you, my readers, OddBike would be nothing. I am forever grateful to you all for the opportunities this endeavour has presented to me, and I hope to do even more in the future with the help of my patrons on Patreon.


Coming soon - T-Shirts! Once the ball gets rolling I'll be doing another run of OddBike T-Shirts, which will be available to anyone who pledges 100$ or more.

In the near future I'll be offering more input opportunities from our growing community of Patrons - Q&A sessions and suggested topics to start!

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The full-length OddBike Stories video interview with Ken Austin of Kenny's Tuning. Ken shares his thoughts on the motorcycle industry, his career racing Laverdas and Suzukis and his techniques as a racer, and his race tuning experience in Canadian Superbike and AMA events across Canada and the United States.

A self-taught mechanic and skilled tuner who has spent more than 40 years working in the motorcycle industry, Ken is a natural story teller and his experiences are fascinating. It was difficult to select just a few points to share in the edited version of our interview, so I chose to present the full-length version here for the benefit of those who want to know more about Ken and his work. It's well worth a watch!

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What is OddBike? How did it start? Where is it going? What is wrong with the motorcycle industry and what am I doing in response? Why should you contribute to OddBike on Patreon?

In this installment of our ongoing OddBike Stories video series I turn the camera on myself to introduce the viewer to what OddBike is about and how I ended up in charge of this beautiful mess.

It's a good introduction to the site for new readers and people who might be wondering how OddBike came to be - which I can assure you was quite accidental, borne out of a fit of boredom one afternoon in November 2012.

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