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For anyone who has not yet attended one of the Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows this year, let me tell you, it’s like Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory for bike nuts. Okay, there aren’t any Oompa-Loompas strolling about, but the sheer number of motorcycles and related accessories present are enough to make any biker as fidgety as a kid who just found a golden ticket.

This past weekend, the show came to Chicago. The Donald E. Stephens Convention Center was packed from wall-to-wall with stuff to see, including new models from Europe and Japan’s Big Four, Ducati Freestyle Team Performances, TapouT Ultimate Builder Competition and a copious number of apparel vendors. Not to be outdone, the Cycle World Project Bike for Ride for Kids by Roland Sands Design, “The Good Fight,” drew a huge crowd.

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Drawing from Built for Speed, by John Griffith

What-ifs are so much fun. The one I’m enjoying at the moment is Norton’s planned liquid-cooled transverse Four, designed in the early 1950s by the same team that drew the 500-horsepower, 90-cubic-inch BRM V-16 Grand Prix car. If this date is right, design would have started at about the time it became known that Gilera was testing an air-cooled 500cc four-cylinder for GP racing.

All that came of the Norton project was a one-cylinder 125cc test engine and some castings for a prototype full-build engine. It’s intriguing to consider the advanced techniques chosen and the engine’s potential for power.

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My first street bike was a 1983 Honda V45 Interceptor purchased new from my local dealer. I depleted my life savings scratching together the necessary down payment for what was to ultimately become one of life’s expensive lessons.

I was 21 years old at the time, with no prior road riding experience, but fell hard for Honda’s newly introduced sportbike after reading a road test in Cycle Magazine. Young and foolish, my time with the Interceptor was an action-packed five weeks. Two weeks in and I’d already dinged its tank in a tip-over while crossing a wet lawn in the dark. A week or two later I overshot a corner and flopped in the freshly plowed field beyond. Luck was looking after me; aside from scuffs in the paint, I was able to pick dirt clods out of the belly pan and ride away.

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Photos Jeff Allen

There is no way that I would try to convince you that the Barber Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, is anything but spectacular — it is. The same can be said of the Guggenheim’s Art of the Motorcycle exhibit that traveled the world at the beginning of this millennium. But after seeing former White Brothers-partner Tom White’s The Early Years of Motocross Museum — I had to rethink what is cool. How about having a 5500-square-foot motorcycle museum at your house?!

It’s one thing to visit an institution like the Barber Museum, which is very well-funded, employing curators, restoration specialists and so on, but White’s collection is more along the lines of the ultimate dream garage. His private vintage MX collection is situated in a custom-built barn/garage on his property in Orange County, California. It is, in a word, stunning.

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Photo by Brian Blades

As hard as it was on the bright, shiny day we got our 2010 Honda VFR1200F testbike to not ride off into the warmth and welcome of the open road, we felt obligated to take the time to roll the spanking-new red machine up on the Cycle World Dynojet rear-wheel dyno.

There were definitely some questions about what kind of power the 1237cc V-Four might make under the harsh fluorescent lights of CW’s hydrocarbon hut. Associate Editor Blake Conner came back from the Japanese press launch—held mostly at the Twin Ring Motegi racetrack—impressed with the refinement of power delivery that he felt might be masking the true amount of juice this thing produces.

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Panic and Desperation! That is, if you own one of a particular group of 335 of Aprilia’s RSV4 streetbike. It seems that a straightening operation performed on the machine’s connecting-rods has in some cases created stresses that could lead to failure of the rod. According to the bulletin on the National Highway Transportation Safety Association website, this could lead to “loss of vehicle control, resulting in a crash, personal injury, or death”. The recall program is to begin on or about February 28, 2010, and owners may contact Piaggio (the parent company) at 212-380-4431.

My thought is that quite a bit of straightening must have been necessary, because a great many industrial processes involve cold-bending as a means of straightening a manufactured product. Some of these are con-rods, motorcycle chassis, crankshafts, auto and truck steel driveshafts and gun barrels. It is because thousands of such minor straightening operations are performed daily around the world—safely performed—that I suspect the problem is not so much the straightening as the amount of straightening required in this case.

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I pity the fool with a plastic gas tank. Is there any greater motorcycle invention than the magnetic tank bag, I ask you? The gracious Brad Banister, formerly Brad Banister Press Duke of Yamaha, gave me this one as a token of corporate esteem at the launch of the original R6, circa 1998, at Phillip Island, Australia. I keep waiting for somebody else to give me a new one, but nobody ever does. No worries. This one’s gray now, but it used to be black, and there used to be a map window on top; a weiner dog may have consumed it? Before this one, I had a smaller, more stylish Honda magnetic bag for quite a while that I also loved dearly. No idea what happened to it, but I suspect the Ex, who liked to make my favorite things randomly disappear. More than once I’ve seen homeless people in a favorite shirt or shoes of mine. I never tried it, but I bet a magnetic tank bag would be perfect to accessorize a shopping cart. By the way, anybody seen my giant beer stein, lifted from the actual Munich Hofbrauhaus? Not an easy thing to get, and too big to lose. Water under the bridge I guess….

Anyway, some of the zippers on this R6 bag are shot, but there’s still enough Velcro to maintain structural integrity and contain most reasonable loads. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, why not a few bananas… and the top expands if you need more, all while maintaining your mass centralization. Going somewhere overnight? Throw in clean undies, a hoodie and a toothbrush and you’ve just converted a bike like my trusty 2000 R1 into a Sport Touring machine, with a perfect pillow to lean upon while grinding out the miles. Yank it right off when you get there, no straps or buckles to putz with, nothing to flap in the breeze or get stuck in your triple-trees. I also think magnetic bags are easier on paint, too; they don’t move around at all.

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Photo by Dave Hawkins

Last week, I received an e-mail from Doug Toland, a longtime personal friend and for many years a valued member of the Cycle World staff. While thumbing through the March issue, he’d come across 25 Years Ago. He recognized himself as one of the photo models on the cover of that 1985 magazine.

“That was my first issue,” wrote Toland. “We shot the photos in December, 1984. I was riding the Kawasaki Ninja 600. I rode the Cagiva Alazzurra 650, as well, but, for sure, I was doing the wheelie on the Ninja. It doesn’t seem that long ago…”

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Photo by Neda DesJardins

It doesn’t matter if it’s propelled by internal combustion or human power, if it has two wheels, we love it. I can’t even begin to count the number of people in the motorcycle industry who are into bicycles, whether they ride road bikes, mountain bikes or BMX.

It goes the other way, as well: Many of the top bicycle racers either ride motorcycles or follow motorcycle racing. While on a road bike ride into work the other day, I stumbled upon 2008 UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Champion Gee Atherton (check out the video below), who was in California (he’s from Manchester, England) training for the upcoming season. As we pedaled along together, one conversation led to another and he informed me that he was a huge Supercross fan and planned to attend one of the Southern California rounds. Like us, he’s simply bike mad.

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