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Back in November, we posted a story about motorcycle riding being linked to impotence, citing a study from Japan that was published in the International Journal of Impotence Research. Yes, apparently there is an entire journal with an unrelenting focus on our fun bits. I digress. Anyhoo, the study suggested that men who ride motorcycles are at risk of impotence and urinary problems due to the vibration of the engine damaging nerves in our happy place.

MO readers piped up in large numbers, adamant that years of riding hadn’t prevented their little soldier’s from standing at attention. According to patent-granted author Randall Dale Chipkar, they may be half right. “More studies are needed to determine the cause,” says Chipkar, who believes that the focus of the study was based on limited information and too few variables, making it inconclusive the motorcycle seats are the cause of impotence.

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Badesha was handed a $110 ticket for riding without a helmet northwest of Toronto. His defense was that his religion forbids him from covering his turban and he shouldn’t be made to choose between his faith and his motorcycle.

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What the hell is that? Come back tomorrow to find out!

The New York City stop of the Cycle World International Motorcycle Show starts this Friday and I think my ears have begun bleeding from all the chatter going on around the Motorcycle.com virtual office about the 2010 Honda Fury. Teaser images, patented drawings, leaky blog links and childhood-like excitement for something new from the Japanese mainstay has been filling both our homepages. But it’s an American motorcycle company that’s got my blood pumping. Known bad-ass designers and thrill seekers to boot, the folks at Victory Motorcycles also have an unveiling on Friday and I’m even more intrigued by the photograph shown on the IMS website then I am for that squiggly photoshopped image of the Fury.

I’ve looked at quite a few motorcycles in my years here at MO. And I’ve seen them in many unique ways and points of view, so I of course have been wracking my creative little peanut to figure out what this image might represent. A custom billet wheel? Not with that notch in there. A brake lever? A Fender? A finger-chap conch? It certainly seems like a cast piece by the textured shadow on the right, but the middle appears rather hot pressed. Damn you macro lenses and teaser media leaks! I’m gunna guess it’s a fender strut and come back on Friday when they let the whole wide world know what’s at the “CORE” of this concept motorcycle from Victory.

The number one perennial hot-button item of discussion amongst U.S. motorcyclists has to be the mandatory helmet law issue. It has been for years, and will be ‘til the earth stops spinning.

While scouting around on the subject I ran across an interesting chart from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that compares state-by-state helmet laws for motorcyclists and bicyclists. During my cursory review of this chart I couldn’t find any pattern between states, or any logic to some of the laws. For example, why do some states require only a motorcycle passenger up to a certain youthful age wear a helmet but not the operator, or kids on bicycles, while other states mandate helmet use across the board?

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I think I remember seeing the book ‘The Joy of Sex’ in my parents bedroom. It may have been a bad dream or I could have subconsciously removed it from memory. Pop culture suggests that the ‘70s was a dirty decade. With the release of Deep Throat, the birth of Hustler magazine and just look at the guy on the cover from the first edition of this famous book that was released in ’72.

In ‘The New Joy of Sex,’ the suggestion of having sex on a moving motorcycle, which was included in the older editions, has been omitted. Perhaps this decision came after legal issues arose from people actually trying it. Not only would it be illegal in most states, it probably isn’t very safe either. It would however, be quite a challenge. It would also be one hell of a memorable ride!

Source

Lawlessness, rampant sexual promiscuity, theft, gambling, drugs and being a general menace to society are the stripes motorcycle riders wear… 40 years ago! No doubt the image of motorcycling in the U.S. hit a low spot starting in 1947 with the infamous, and allegedly staged, photo of a Boozefighter motorcycle club member surrounded by empty beer bottles in the gutter, lying next to his bike. There’s more detail to that story, but this incident eventually became the premise for the Marlon Brando classic, “The Wild Ones.”

A couple decades later, during the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Hell’s Angels became the face of all that was wrong with motorcycling in the public’s mind. Since then it’s only been in the past 15 or 20 years that motorcycling seems to have largely made a full public image recovery. Though there’s still a faction or two that seem to keep biking with one foot in the grave. Regardless, in the U.S. the image of motorcycles and riding them has come light years from where it once was for a very long time.

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Mike Holmgren coached his last game for the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, leaving behind a 4-12 record. Holmgren did lead the Seahawks to four straight division titles before this year however. In ten seasons as a head coach in the NFL, he also had three Super Bowl appearances, including a Green Bay win in 1997.

It’s no surprise that Holmgren was going to be replaced at the end of the season but apparently his players wanted to send him off on a high note. The articles describing that he was ready to retire in favor of riding his motorcycle to the beach to enjoy a good book during the season was a little bit strange to me. What tops it off is the $42,128 limited edition Harley-Davidson Screamin’ Eagle gift he received – for a horrible season.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that his players bought the bike for their coach. It is also their prerogative on how to spend their hard-earned pay. But since Holmgren had already retired in the middle of the season they shouldn’t have waited until their last practice to present him with the gift. You would think all of the team bonding would have translated into a win, but no such luck. In the end, it was just another expensive gift from a bunch of multi-millionaires to another multi-millionaire who could have easily afforded to buy one on his own anyway.

The TV show CHiPs was what first got me interested in motorcycles. A young boy when the late 70′s show made its debut on the air, I thought it was extremely cool to be on the California Highway Patrol, but especially so while riding around on a Kawasaki 1000. Erik Estrada even had a cool name and car on the show, going by ‘Ponch’ and driving a Firebird.

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I love pop culture… maybe even a little too much. With such an addiction to collecting – regardless the industry – I read a lot of magazines. I simply don’t know when to say no. And yes, I still buy magazines despite being an internet addict and content creator. Just how many magazines constitutes “a lot” you may ask? I’ll just say that I employ the services of self-storage units to house my collection.

While walking around the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica tonight I tried to simply cruise past the open air magazine stand and not shop as I usually do. I didn’t have the carrying capacity on the motorcycle tonight to pick up my usual Friday night stack. My eyes however had to look from afar even though my body was keeping itself out of arms reach – they’re a weak team. I was surprised to see on the cover of New York City’s Surface Magazine, “Style and Design for Inspired Living”. Beneath a Louis Vuitton-encrusted Janine Henkes (the model) was Tiger Bracy’s visionary creation called the Victory Vision 800. Awesome! It’s rare to see two of my favorite worlds come together in a personally appealing way – fashion and motorcycles. I bought the magazine and added it to my collection of course.

Congrats to Tiger for designing and building such an oddity, and thanks to Robert and Manny Pandya for bringing Victory Motorcycles to the general public’s eye on the cover of Surface Magazine’s Annual Avant Guardian Issue.