The Throttle Stop – September 2023 [Motorcycle Commentary]

Life on the wrong side of 35 is pretty much the same as before. My joints seem to creak a bit more these days, and I feel sore after track days to that extra degree, but we’ll blame that on my age instead of taking responsibility for stretching. Remember, kids, always stretch and hydrate before a track day. You should, but as with most things, I probably won’t heed my own advice. Don’t merely hop on sportbikes and spin laps until you must be peeled from a bike in the pits. Or maybe do, because you’re like me and subconsciously do things the hard way.

Looking beyond spots of gray coming in (my mom says it makes me distinguished) and Just For Men commercials suddenly having an uncomfortable amount of relevance, something else has happened. The way I ride has changed a bit—just a bit, really.

Two long years ago, before I’d hit my mid-to-late 30s, I rode on the street with an extra bit of gusto. Perhaps, too much gusto, some would say. That said, some fellows hang out on plenty of Southern California haunts that take street gusto to unprecedented levels that, while I can appreciate in some capacity, won’t be engaging in myself. The gusto is too strong, thus concluding my overuse of the word gusto. Spirited riding of that brand should be left at the racetrack, where it can be done safely. I’m sure anyone who has convinced the social media algorithm gods that you like motorcycles knows what I mean.

So, here we are—a man who sounds as if he’s gotten an AARP sheet printed out on his desk, carefully laid out next to bifocals and readers. I’m told you unlock some adulthood achievement if you need to use multiple sets of seeing aids simultaneously, but as of now, my glasses will do. That’s not the case, really. I suppose what we’re getting at here is how other forms of less performance-oriented riding have started to hold more luster.

See, I came into this whole motojournalism thing on the back of a sportbike, and that is where my heart lies. The technology, design, and performance are all profoundly fascinating to me, and still are because sportbikes go really fast. And that’s cool. In fact, it will never not be cool.

I’ve also had the fortune to ride a few other types of machines over the years. For example, let’s take the American V-twin tourers. Your average sporting machine and American V-twin are, indeed, motorcycles. But, the similarities end when the rubber hits the road. One is designed to chow miles down like someone running rampant in a cheap buffet, while the other yearns to return home to its ancestral homelands of the racetrack.

I recently sampled Harley-Davidson’s latest CVO Street Glide and Road Glide offerings—the crème de la crème from the brand. Those unfamiliar need to understand one thing—Custom Vehicle Operations is the brand’s premier model range, showcasing all that is new from Milwaukee.

I enjoy a full-fat, all-American touring machine as much as the next rider from the US of A, but this trip was different. For better or worse, Harley-Davidsons make the most sense in their natural midwestern habitat. Massive stretches of road, with gently rolling hills by your side, and everything is dropped on this landscape in a gridlike pattern. Still, on that particular press trip, we found some of Wisconsin’s secret twisty roads and made do.

I hear you if you think that doesn’t sound terribly interesting. It certainly isn’t a cruise through the Dolomites, Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway, or even in our backyard when tearing around the well-beaten tarmac nestled in the many Southern California mountain ranges. Instead, look at it through the lens of an American V-twin touring machine.

At our fingertips, we have a massive infotainment system, sound system, a cockpit with more room than most economy cars, and four times the torque of your cousin Ricky’s clapped-out Kia. For the record, I hold no ill will toward your cousin Ricky or Kia; they’re just writing devices in this context. Now, apply all that to the expansive, meandering ranges of the Midwest, and suddenly, H-D’s make sense to this sportbike acolyte.

Going further, we can look at local midwestern cuisine, though Milwaukee also has a stranglehold on that—brats, beer, and fried, well, nearly everything. The H-D touring machine saunters to each eatery, and its owners imbibe as much as their little arteries can handle. Of course, I’ll eat cheese curds until I get sick, which will almost certainly catch up with me at some point.

With that comes conversations while hanging out with esteemed colleagues and friends. These are all things that create memories I won’t soon forget. Yet, in the strictest sense, it is a betrayal of my racetrack-rat roots.

Call it aging with grace or perhaps simply growing up a tad. There are other things on two wheels and other adventures to dive into. Why limit yourself to one? As for me, I’ll leave the cheap hair dye on the shelf for now.