Ups & Downs
Ups & Downs
ROUNDUP
UP: To Men’s Journal and Vanity Fair, for sprucing up March newsstands with cover photos of celebrities on motorcycles. The former featured country crooner Lyle Lovett astride his KTM, while the latter depicted comedienne Julia Louis-Dreyfus posing on a 1932 AJS—“posing” being the key word, because the “Seinfeld” girl doesn’t ride bikes. Lovett, however, is a devout motorcyclist; author Laurence Gonzales accompanied the guitar-strumming singer/songwriter up Southern California’s Angeles Crest Highway and down to Baja California. Lovett’s best comment: “Racing motorcycles and playing music have the same feeling for me. If I could make a living by riding motorcycles, I think I’d be just as happy to do that.” We here at CW can relate to that.
DOWN: To Shanghai, China, for making citizens pedal to work. In an effort to curb air pollution, city officials have prohibited sales of two-stroke mopeds, and will not renew registrations for the half-million such machines already in use. Clean air is certainly important, but we have to wonder about the alacrity of the officials’ decision— particularly in light of the clean-burning two-strokes that are poised to enter the market in the near future.
DOWN: To Claes Tingvall, a road safety director in Sweden, for fueling a rumor that his country was poised to ban motorcycles. During a television appearance to promote “Zero Vision,” a proposed program to end highway accidents, Tingvall said that he does not feel motorcycling is “compatible with the accident-reduction target.” The rumor was quenched by Ines Uusman, Sweden’s minister of transport, who declared that Tingvall’s views are his alone, and are not supported by the government.
