WIDE OPEN

I don’t mean to freak everyone out by making more than one post in a 12-month period. Just trying to stay on top of the communications a little better. Highlights of the recent past, as I recall, are as follows:

In February, we hauled the newly completed BW650 across the country to Portland, Oregon, for The One Moto Show. As usual, Thor and the gang at See See Motorcycles put on an amazing spectacle. Immediately following, Señor Adam Ewing and I trekked south to the dunes near Pismo Beach, California. There, were able to release our fat-tired stepchild into the its natural habitat. Adam got some great pics, and we headed south again to LA. Sadly, our shoot with legendary Pikes Peak champ Greg Tracy got rained out, but we had fun anyway. Afterwards I dropped Adam off at LAX and was, as Jerry Reed says, Eastbound and Down.

Once back in Virginia, we wrapped up two bikes that were built to be given away — one for a Rebel Yell Bourbon summer promotion, and the other for an AMC Network/Slim Jim sweepstakes. Tis the season, it seems!

The AMC bike is based on our “Crow” offering — CB750 Nighthawk — and will be awarded to a lucky winner with (I think I have this right!) a year’s supply of Slim Jims… maybe a lifetime supply (which could be the same thing, I guess.) All we know is that our bike was on the Slim Jim wrapper this year, and that’s a 10/10.

The Rebel Yell build is an old Kawasaki KZ1000 that we revamped in retropocalyptic style to cruise from St. Louis to Sturgis as part of the promotion. We can’t wait to get this beast on the open road. Rebel Yell was kind enough to bestow upon us lots of product for sampling and for photo shoots. Unfortunately, by the time the cameras were rolling, most of the product had disappeared. So weird.

Other builds are wrapping up at an alarming rate. More Nighthawks and XRs and a sweet GSXR1000 headed for Hawaii, to name a few. Stay tuned! — JR