old Cycle World
A couple days ago, I stumbled across an old Cycle World magazine, January 2009.
That is ancient; well before Mark Hoyer became the new Editor-in-Chief (my most recent issue, January 2010), and well before the redesign and upgrades in magazine production (December 2009).
The magazine went to perfect binding, and increased paper weights.
Cycle World is the last of the general motorcycle magazines — the survivor.
There were others before.
I started with “Cycle Guide” long ago, and as I recall, was transferred to “Cycle” when Cycle Guide folded.
Cycle then folded, and I was transferred to Cycle World.
I’m sure motorcycle magazine publication is a difficult balancing act.
Objectivity can be near impossible.
Publish a review perceived as negative, and the manufacturer pulls its ads.
The previous head-honcho was David Edwards; interesting, but fairly old.
His tastes reflected that.
Always biased towards old-style motorcycling, and older motorcycles.
E.g. the fervent dream that someday hoary old Norton would get back into production.
I continue to get Cycle World, despite my motorcycling being more-or-less over.
Before retirement, I had reason to ride — get to work.
Now I don’t; naught but the pleasure of riding, which is nice, but not that strong.
I still have my motorcycle; a 2003 Honda 600 cc CBR-RR.
It’s adequate; way faster than me.
A while ago I took it for inspection to the place I bought it: Canandaigua Motorsports.
They shook their heads in amazement; an undamaged crotchrocket.
Usually the crotchrockets were delivered in the back of a pickup for repair.
The rider lost it in a curve, and dumped it into the weeds.
“I just putt,” I said. “Too old for racin’.”
I’ve waved off would-be racers.
What I do is cut off the address labels and take my spent magazines to the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym for deposit in their racks.
What happens after that I don’t know — perhaps the dumpster out back.
Most of what’s in the racks are “Fortune” and Sports-Illustrated, “People” and Cosmo.
The magazines get used as reading material as people work out on the cardiovascular trainers.
E.g. some flaccid bimbo reading Cosmo about how to improve her sex-life.
Um honey; first ya might wanna take a shower!
Some guy works out with my Car & Driver magazines.
Usually my magazines aren’t around for long, although a fairly recent Cycle World is still on display.
I was about to take this old Cycle World to the YMCA, but paged through it.
WOOPS! Maybe not.
The three columns I read are still dog-eared, and I don’t recognize anything.
There also is a giant treatment about a new Buell (“Bule;” as in “mule”) motorcycle, the first in years without a Harley Davidson engine.
Buell is now bust. It was affiliated with Harley Davidson, and used Harley Sportster engines for a long time.
This new motorcycle was the first Buell since 1983 with an other-than-Harley engine.
It won the Pro Daytona Sportbike national championship in 2009, but Buell went bust shortly thereafter.
It’s a V-twin, so it doesn’t put out the kind of power the Japanese inline fours generate.
It excels because of its engine size; 1,125 ccs. That’s 125 ccs over a liter. Maximum size for the Japanese inline four crotchrockets is a liter, or perhaps slightly more.
The Japanese liter crotchrockets are generating 150 horsepower or more.
Buell’s 1,125 cc V-twin, made by Helicon, might get about the same.
By comparison, Harley Davidson’s V-twin is ancient, an old design.
Ya might get a hundred horsepower out of an enlarged and hot-rodded Harley engine.
40 years ago that was state-of-the-art, but no longer.
And the Harley V-twins are still air-cooled. Buell’s new motor was water-cooled; which is easier to work with.
The rear cylinder on a Harley V-twin ran hot, because it wasn’t in the air-stream.
So it looks like I shouldn’t part with this Cycle World yet.
Looks like it disappeared into my vast pile of unread magazines.
• “Perfect binding” is to glue the pages along the spine, instead of stapling everything together.
• “Norton” was a longtime British motorcycle manufacturer. It tanked in 1978. —My first motorcycle was a Norton; 1975, 850 cc Commando.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “Cosmo” is of course Cosmopolitan Magazine.
That is ancient; well before Mark Hoyer became the new Editor-in-Chief (my most recent issue, January 2010), and well before the redesign and upgrades in magazine production (December 2009).
The magazine went to perfect binding, and increased paper weights.
Cycle World is the last of the general motorcycle magazines — the survivor.
There were others before.
I started with “Cycle Guide” long ago, and as I recall, was transferred to “Cycle” when Cycle Guide folded.
Cycle then folded, and I was transferred to Cycle World.
I’m sure motorcycle magazine publication is a difficult balancing act.
Objectivity can be near impossible.
Publish a review perceived as negative, and the manufacturer pulls its ads.
The previous head-honcho was David Edwards; interesting, but fairly old.
His tastes reflected that.
Always biased towards old-style motorcycling, and older motorcycles.
E.g. the fervent dream that someday hoary old Norton would get back into production.
I continue to get Cycle World, despite my motorcycling being more-or-less over.
Before retirement, I had reason to ride — get to work.
Now I don’t; naught but the pleasure of riding, which is nice, but not that strong.
I still have my motorcycle; a 2003 Honda 600 cc CBR-RR.
It’s adequate; way faster than me.
A while ago I took it for inspection to the place I bought it: Canandaigua Motorsports.
They shook their heads in amazement; an undamaged crotchrocket.
Usually the crotchrockets were delivered in the back of a pickup for repair.
The rider lost it in a curve, and dumped it into the weeds.
“I just putt,” I said. “Too old for racin’.”
I’ve waved off would-be racers.
What I do is cut off the address labels and take my spent magazines to the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym for deposit in their racks.
What happens after that I don’t know — perhaps the dumpster out back.
Most of what’s in the racks are “Fortune” and Sports-Illustrated, “People” and Cosmo.
The magazines get used as reading material as people work out on the cardiovascular trainers.
E.g. some flaccid bimbo reading Cosmo about how to improve her sex-life.
Um honey; first ya might wanna take a shower!
Some guy works out with my Car & Driver magazines.
Usually my magazines aren’t around for long, although a fairly recent Cycle World is still on display.
I was about to take this old Cycle World to the YMCA, but paged through it.
WOOPS! Maybe not.
The three columns I read are still dog-eared, and I don’t recognize anything.
There also is a giant treatment about a new Buell (“Bule;” as in “mule”) motorcycle, the first in years without a Harley Davidson engine.
Buell is now bust. It was affiliated with Harley Davidson, and used Harley Sportster engines for a long time.
This new motorcycle was the first Buell since 1983 with an other-than-Harley engine.
It won the Pro Daytona Sportbike national championship in 2009, but Buell went bust shortly thereafter.
It’s a V-twin, so it doesn’t put out the kind of power the Japanese inline fours generate.
It excels because of its engine size; 1,125 ccs. That’s 125 ccs over a liter. Maximum size for the Japanese inline four crotchrockets is a liter, or perhaps slightly more.
The Japanese liter crotchrockets are generating 150 horsepower or more.
Buell’s 1,125 cc V-twin, made by Helicon, might get about the same.
By comparison, Harley Davidson’s V-twin is ancient, an old design.
Ya might get a hundred horsepower out of an enlarged and hot-rodded Harley engine.
40 years ago that was state-of-the-art, but no longer.
And the Harley V-twins are still air-cooled. Buell’s new motor was water-cooled; which is easier to work with.
The rear cylinder on a Harley V-twin ran hot, because it wasn’t in the air-stream.
So it looks like I shouldn’t part with this Cycle World yet.
Looks like it disappeared into my vast pile of unread magazines.
• “Perfect binding” is to glue the pages along the spine, instead of stapling everything together.
• “Norton” was a longtime British motorcycle manufacturer. It tanked in 1978. —My first motorcycle was a Norton; 1975, 850 cc Commando.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “Cosmo” is of course Cosmopolitan Magazine.
Labels: Motorcycles
posted by BobbaLew at 7:43 AM
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