Hotshots

HOTSHOTS

The Italian Campaign

The next time John Burns is doing a photo essay on motorcycling in the Alps ("The Italian Campaign," March) and encounters "very shapely, blue-eyed, pig-tailed" women who can also ride the wheels off a Hypermotard, please do us the great honor of including photos of these lovely creatures, and I don't mean fuzzy group shots from 80 yards away. If these women are spectacular enough to warrant mention in the story, then good journalism requires photographic proof. Douglas Daniels El Paso, Texas

What, you didn `t like the Kevin Cameron lookalike contest winner?! Doug, you can see Signora Selvini at www.cycleworld.com At least until the restraining order takes effect...

I have owned a couple of Moto Morinis over the years (500 Sport, 3.5 Strada), and I love the way they handle and grab attention. In your article, three new Morinis were identified in a pic ture as a pair of 1200 Sports and a Granpasso. One of the bikes is actually a Scrambler, which is slightly different than the Sport. Hopefully, Moto Morini can find a buyer with deep pockets for the company and then can bring this unique marque back to the States. By the way, if Peter Jones wishes to sell his Morini 500 ("Club Morini," March), I would be more than willing to take it off his hands. Matt Schultz Eau Claire, Wisconsin

I thoroughly enjoyed Peter Jones' "Club Morini" story. I was instantly captivated by the picture of Peter's Morini that he "Eganed," or bought back again after owning it before. What a beautiful bike! It's got that certain something, even if it doesn't have a front drum brake! And the story did not disappoint; it made me laugh out loud repeatedly. Hope to see more from Mr. Jones. Gregg Tomchick Anaheim, California

Please tell Peter Jones that he should have gotten the Moto Morini 3 1/2. He paid way too much for his 500. Also, if he can get it up here to northern California, I will pay him 500 bucks for it. Hey, that's $1 per cc! David Bell Oakland, California

Peter says thanks for the offers on his Morini, but that f he were to sell it, he `djust have to buy it back again.

My first ride

IWIJ XII~~ II~~ Reading the issue with Peter Egan reminiscing about his first ride with the Bridgestone and the write-up on the Moto Morini got me thinking of my first ride, which was a 1968 Moto Morini. To be honest, I don't remember its model name, but it was a scrambler with a high exhaust pipe, single seat and 100cc. You can imagine how cool I felt as a 12-year-old kid with a real motorcycle and not the oh-so-popular Taco minibike my peers were riding at the time. The bike was a gift from my father, who had to save his nickels and dimes toward its purchase and did so on the sly so as to sidestep input from my mother; you know, the "He's going to break his neck!"-type thing.

I rode the bike for a few years until I was able to save up for the purchase of another bike. The Moto Morini was then parked along the side of the house

with Mother Nature taking its toll. I don't recall what became of it. Good memories. Loel Haviland Palmdale, California

Loel, have you asked Mother Nature if you could buy it back?

Z1000 potential

F IIf I were inthe financial positionwhich, unfortunately, I am not, having been decimated by the current econo my-I would go right out and buy the new Kawasaki Zl000 ("Adrenaline Injection," March). It is a stunner and yet unique, not a sportbike and not a cruiser. I'd probably change the bars (drop `em a bit) and the exhaust (don't like the trend toward the whiz-bang look). But, hey, keep building it,

Big K. If or when the economy perks up, and if it carries me along with it, you've got another customer.

The Z1000 looks like a perfect platform for a new 2012 Concours. If Kawasaki made a Z1000-based sport-tourer, it would definitely be more in line with my noisy old 2001 Concours, which is the only bike my wife will ride with me on for more than 10 minutes. I've tried to buy a new Concours 14, but my wife said, "I don't like your GSX-R750, and I don't like the Concours 14; they look and ride the same." So, please make a Concours using the new Z1000 as the platform! Steve See Tulsa Oklahoma

Steve, may we suggest a Vetter Windjammer on the new Z1000...

Moment of clarity

---w---~---w-w-~---. I had to crack a smile while reading Mark Hoyer's March Up Front column, "Keeping Focus," and the reference to his Yamaha RD400 get-off.

For me, the year was 1988 and I was a freshly minted Marine with riding skills in an embryonic state. What little I had learned on my own and from reading magazines had only been ap plied to my first bike, a decrepit 1982 Yamaha Seca Turbo. Foolishly, in an attempt to add a little coolness to my riding repertoire, I traded up to a 1984 RZ350 and proceeded to throw money at it like it was a Vegas craps table.

But my riding skills had advanced very little, and daily commuting through SoCal traffic had instilled an air of invincibility that was hard to shake off. Weekend outings up and down Ortega Highway and Palomar Mountain only made rational thinking harder to achieve. And so it came to be that luck ran its course and I found myself in too deep in the middle of an uphill right-hander on Palomar. Predictably, I panicked and grabbed a

handful of brake; the RZ stood at atten tion and vaulted over the far end of the turn and into a grove of trees.

My ego and body were more bruised than the RZ, and I made it off the mountain on my own. Respect and common sense quickly became part of my riding mantra, and I signed up for the appropriate MSF courses offered on my base. To this day, I refer to that incident as my motorcycling Moment of Clarity and use it as my brain's "re store point" when I throw a leg over any bike, which is quite often. Why do two-strokes always seem to have top billing when discussing first crashes?! Rick Crespoarce Jacksonville, North Carolina

The next Harley

Your article on the 2010 Harley CVO Street Glide (QuickRide, March) stat ing that the engine was counterbal anced-to my disappointment-was incorrect. The engine is just a rub ber-mounted Twin Cam 110. I own a 2001 Fatboy with the counter-balanced engine (TC88B), which I love, and have been waiting on Harley to stop the shaking at idle and low speeds on its touring bikes for eight years now.

Wanting to buy a second bike-a tour ing bike-I can't understand the strat egy at Harley. The Softails are counter balanced (TC96B), the V-Rod is both counterbalanced and rubber-mounted, but not the touring bikes. I'm told that as the touring bikes reach speeds of 35 mph or more, the shaking/vibrating disappears. so why have it at all?

Harley: Stop working on a watercooled touring bike, V-Four engine, or whatever you currently have under development, and just focus on making a great bike better. Stay with what you know: dependable air-cooled V-Twin (counterbalanced) engines. I'm tired of waiting! Charles Bates Indianapolis, Indiana

Doing an Egan

Last spii'ng, I stum~1ed across and then "Eganed" a Bridgestone 175 Hurricane Scrambler just like the first bike I shared with my brother in 1974 at age 13. Ours was red, this one blue. . .close enough! I just went to the old guy's farm shed to look and relive a few memo ries-honest. With 14 bikes in my shop already-and eight of those in need of resurrection-it felt safe to just look. Next thing I know, I'm strapping

the Bridgestone down in the truck, thinking, "Oh, crap, how am I gonna explain another one to my wife?"

I still felt relatively justified, though, due to the condition of the `Stone. It was all there, not too rusty, and the candy-apple-blue tank looked great through a peep hole in the thick coating of dirt. Mechanically, though, it was a different story; it needed a lot and, best of all, the motor was stuck. I figured the bike wasn't worth spending a dime on trying to get it roadworthy and I'd just use a day of elbow grease to make it a nice-looking shop ornament.

Then it happened: The March issue arrived with Egan's editorial on his Bridgestone 50. I got up, went out to the shop and surrendered. I can still smell the Kroil penetrating oil on my hands as I write this. I hope you're happy, Mr. Egan. Tom Haak Wood Lake, Minnesota.

As a long-time fan of both Cycle World's Peter Egan and the author of "I See by My Outfit," Peter S. Beagle, I feel compelled to correct the March Leanings column where Mr. Egan notes that Beagle and his friend Phil rode "a pair of Lambrettas across the

U.S." Though Mr. Beagle did indeed own a Lambretta he called Brave Margot that he put "over ten thousand miles" on, it was sold to a dealer in New York for $125 when he and Phil picked up Phil's scooter on the gray New York morning that their crosscountry adventure began.

So what did they ride? Four-stroke, 200cc Heinkle Tourists, considered the Rolls-Royce of scooters for their day.

Like Egan, I, too, used to dream of far-away adventures while riding my first bike, a `65 Honda S90, along the Chef Menteur Highway on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the late `60s. Now these many years, many bikes and many miles later, I still have such thoughts and wish Peter all the best with his Bridgestone. Jack Veach Reno, Nevada

Mark your calendars

I have jusi seen the 2010 Cycle World Vintage Memories calendar, and it is magnificent! I'd like to buy two of them and sign up for next year's calen dar, but I couldn't find any info on the website to do that.Please provide the required information. Thanks for the help, and thanks for

the wonderful effort to produce an out standing, archive-quality calendar. Sam Lucas Columbus, Ohio Sam, you can order the 2010 Vintage Memories calendar online at shop. cycleworld.com or by calling 800/9145656. We `re already hard at work on the 2011 version, so stay tuned for another epic trip back in time that you can use to markyour future.

Best bike, used by somebody else

I just read the article about the "Best Used Bike" (Service, March), the Suzuki DR-Z400S! Wow, did I love that bike... except it was stolen in November of last year! Glad to see good things about it! Malt DeBow Wilmington, North Carolina