Hotshots

HOTSHOTS

Feelin' the love

It was with absolute joy (and a lump in my throat) that I read Peter Jones’ “Love Machine” essay in the September issue of Cycle World. I hate to get all sentimental but his prose struck a chord deep within me that those not in the bike-riding community will never, ever enjoy. More of the same, please. Elliott Bryant Hamilton, Ohio

Just finished reading Peter Jones’ “Love Machine.” It will be framed and hung up in my shop. What a masterpiece! Paul Anderson

Career & Technology Education Red River High School Grand Forks, North Dakota

I love the article by Peter Jones. I love that he wrote it so I didn’t have to. I love that it echoes all the reasons I love motorcycles. I love that he reminded me of things I’d forgotten. I love that the article is all about loving motorcycles, for all the right reasons. I love motorcycles. Marty Tanis

Morrisville, North Carolina

Peter Jones’ declaration of love for motorcycles was right on! Only thing he missed is loving to wait for that next issue of Cycle World and what wonders it might hold. Tony Longo

Hillsborough, North Carolina

I love to go back into the garage after I have been out on my Honda Shadow Spirit 750 and just take in all the great motorcycle smells. The motorcycle... the machine.. .vroooom! Mark Evans

Irving, Texas

Not so much...

Regarding “Love Machine”: I love the way I hate guys who can actually sell crap like this. Peter Egan he ain’t.

Dennis R Williams

Mangum, Oklahoma

Impaired Vision?

Wow! I’m 54 with nine bikes and never a new one, but after reading your September issue I’ve just placed my order for a Victory Street Deluxe. The bike will be here in late September, just in time for the beautiful fall colors in Montana. Thanks for the great articles, CW. Without you, I wouldn’t have known this beauty existed. My thanks to Victory for building one hell of a beautiful, streamlined motorcycle that looks like nothing else on the road. I’ll be a proud daddy soon. Cigars all around, boys! J. Aaron Cundall

Helena, Montana

Victory ’s goal with the Vision ’s styling was to generate strong feelings about the bike, pro or con. Safe to say that mission is accomplished.

I am glad I used only one eye to view your recent stories on the Victory Vision. Now I won’t have to pluck them

That is the ugliest commercially made motorcycle I’ve ever seen. Peter Hayden Manchester, Missouri

Oh my gosh! I just read about the largest scooter I have ever seen! Dennis Lunt Camby, Indiana

I like the Victory Vision. The bike’s design seems sooo appropriate for an automatic transmission. Bob Adams Phoenix, Arizona

Kevin Cameron’s article on the new Vision referred to the four quadrants of design. I think the Victory design team has found the elusive fifth quadrant: Butt Ugly.

There is another motorcycle company here in the Midwest that has done very well with a more traditional styling approach. I was hoping for an American alternative. Sadly, this new bike has a plastic, gimmicky look, and I would feel ridiculous riding it.

Laurence Pierson ffsHnra.

Rockford,

Michigan

The Victory Vision in the September issue of Cycle World seems to be a rolling paradox. The illustration of the frame and engine sans bodywork looks to be a truly outstanding engineering exercise, while the bodywork-you know, that 1930s retro-aero look with all the sweeping lines-is too over the top.

Hopefully, the folks at Victory will do two things: 1) develop a standard motorcycle from that fabulous engineering platform; and 2) lower the price to where real-world motorcyclists can enjoy this potentially great new motorcycle.

As it is now, the styling is too swoopy and the price too swollen for my consideration. Manuel Lugo

Posted on www.cycleworld.com

Re-mapped

Victory’s Vision might be designed and built by “hard-headed and stubborn Midwesterners,” but at least we can read a map and see that Spirit Lake is in Iowa, not Minnesota.

Galen Krogman

Lismore, Minnesota

Victory’s production line in Spirit Lake, Minnesota? Isn’t that just down the road from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average? All that and the mythical Polaris plant? Brad Kopp

Posted on www.cycleworld.com

Hot mama

Really enjoyed Robert Pandya’s “Mother Rode” article (CW, September). He actually went and did something many a good son has thought about. Big kudos to Mama Pandya for throwing caution to the wind, too! I’m inspired to at least take my mom on a one-day spin up into the mountains. And can I just say.. .Robert’s mom is hot! No, seriously, I haven’t had those kinda feelings since June Cleaver was relegated to late-night on Nickelodeon! Michael Orr

Marietta, Georgia

After reading the September issue, I checked the masthead only to find the usual suspects lined up there. What gives? A kinder, gentler Cycle World perhaps? Nah, can’t be...

But there it was. Mother love in your mag! Omigod! I loved the trip-with-his-

mom story by Mr. Pandya.

Wait, there’s more: Not just mother love, but poetry, too! “Love Machine” was fun, sensitive yet manly, and I found myself nodding my head thinking, “Yeah, I’m down widdat, Mr. Jones!”

And then there was Slipstream-a feature I rarely find even smile-provoking. But this one made me erupt in unladylike guffaws that left me helpless for at least several minutes.

So, I dunno whose tires you guys are smokin’, but keep it up, dewds! And pass it around... Kris Tigerlady

www.kristigerlady.com

Snark attack

I am aware of the political myopia that is drilled into the journalists while in school but I have had it with the snarky references to conservatives that get sprinkled into Cycle World's content. The September issue has Paul Dean slamming our president in the Honda Interceptor vs. BMW F800ST comparison test, and even a product review has an insulting reference to Rush Limbaugh.

Keep the politics out. I will not humor you with a canceled subscription, but I will drive up there and teach some respect to the offenders. I am not amused

by this kind of cute verbiage at all.

Carl Pollzzi Carlsbad, California

Bits, bits, bits...

Cancel my subscription for Ducuti (sic) Monthly, a.k.a. Cycle World. I am damn sick of seeing that word in every article.

I received a subscription as a birthday present and just can’t take it any more. When you bastards even manage to get the word Ducuti (sic) into articles on the new “Hyper-Busa” and the S&S XWedge.. .well, it’s just too much for me.

Oh, yeah, the word “bits” is overdone, also. Clifford Stoufer Sr.

Largo, Florida

One and counting

Glad tidings! I’m the one who’s glad to get your magazine! Guess what? It has articles, stories, spec sheets, reviews, information, etc., all related to the wide variety of motorcycles. Novel concept! And you seem to be the only ones doing it. Without mentioning a name or two, other publications feed us a USA Today or People magazine approach to our beloved obsession. You have the audacity, forethought and professionalism to give us a series of well-researched, well-written and informative articles that we expect from a real motorcycle magazine. No wonder you people are the numberone publication! R. Griffin

Rancho Mirage, California

Happy ending

On page 95 of the August issue there is an ad featuring Ben Spies apparently pleasuring a woman with an HJC helmet. This prurient display of implied sexual activity has left me no recourse and I must take action. Renew my subscription!

Matt Matlock Dublin, California

Roost in peace

Please have some respect. The passing of race promoter Edison Dye deserves a whole lot more than a small news item in Roundup. I personally witnessed the influence of this motocross icon. Mr. Dye deserves at least a feature article, if not a cover, in tribute to his vision of American motocross. The list of living legends who owe, at least in part, their success to Edison Dye is long. Don Page Half Moon Bay, California

There is no doubt that Dye made a difference. Among other achievements, he hatched the Inter-Am series that pitted top European MXers against American scramblers and helped ignite the early motocross movement here (photo is from the inaugural 1968 event). In naming him to our list of motorcycling’s most influential people in 1987, CW’s 25th-anniversary year, we called him, “The Godfather of big-time motocross in America,” and noted that Dye helped the sport “grow so big in this country that the AMA was forced to recognize that form of competition.” Ö