Ups & Downs
Ups & Downs
UP: To Automobile Quarterly, for recognizing that motorcycles are automat biles, too. More glossy hard-cover book than magazine, AQ's latest issue is dedicated entirely to BMW, including a nicely done chapter-penned by former CW staffer D. Randy Riggs-on the history of BMW motorcycles. More bikes are on tap, too: Later this year, AQ vol. 37, no. 2 will feature "A Manx Tale," a motorsports history of the Isle of Man in which motorcycles figure heavily. Issues can be ordered from Automobile Quarterly, P0. Box 348, Kutztown, PA 19530; or phone 800/523-0236.
DOWN: To Philip Morris lawyer Murray Garnick, for effectively telling a Florida courtroom that motorcycles are as dangerous as smoking. Claim ing that it would be unfair for the state to argue that cigarettes are inherently unsafe, he asked the judge how other products would fare under a similar test: "How would a motorcycle fare? Or a dirtbike?" he said. Of course, unlike certain tobacco industry executives, we readily admit that motorcycles are addictive...
UP: To the Wild Ones, for returning in peace. Fifty years after the infa mous 1947 Hollister "riots," 50,000 motorcyclists rode into the centralCalifornia town for a July Fourth rally. The original event, trumped up by Life magazine and later by Holly wood in the Marion Brando flick "The Wild One," gave motorcycling a big black eye, but the 1997 remake went by without a hitch. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, many Hol lister residents are already looking forward to next year's rally. "It's kind of quiet now," said 87-year-old Mule Curtis after the event. "I think I miss them already."
