2003 Harley-davidson Touring 2003 Flhrci - Road King Classic 100th Anniversary on 2040-motos

Moto blog

A Seattle Seahawks-Themed Motorcycle. Why? Because Football. And Charity.

With the return of football season upon us (that’s American football for our international readers), we thought it best to feature, what else, but a motorcycle. In this particular case, it’s a Seattle Seahawks-themed custom based on a 2005 Harley-Davidson Road King, the same year the Hawks made it to the Super Bowl. The man behind the custom, award-winning bike builder and Seattle resident, Keith Wong, was approached by Patrick ‘PT’ Town, the founder and executive director of Union Ride & Charity Rally - a charity event to raise money for several non-profits including Northwest Harvest, A.N.E.W., Helmets to Hardhats and the Awareness, Education and Prevention of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in Youth Football.

US Motorcycle Thefts Down 6% in 2011

Americans reported 46,667 motorcycle thefts in 2011, a 6% decrease from 49,791 stolen motorcycles in 2010, reports the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Despite the drop in reported thefts, the non-profit organization representing nearly 1100 property and casualty insurance companies says the theft rate still averages out to one motorcycle stolen every 11 minutes in the U.S. The numbers were published in the NICB’s 2011 ForeCAST Report which examined theft reports as well as recoveries.

Vespa goes back to the future

IT'S been a while coming, but the gorgeous Vespa 946 - EICMA 2012's Best of Show - has finally introduced something to the two-wheeled world that our four-wheeled counterparts have had for a while.  I call this 'reverse retro-futurism' - the art of borrowing lines from models past and imbuing them with a sleek sense of future direction (as opposed to retro-futurism, the pre-1960s design trend of depicting the technology of the future. The term 'decopunk' may come close, but feel free to tell me if there's a more exact term.) It's what the New Mini and the New Beetle (both 1997 and 2012 versions) have done so well, and so successfully: building an all-new model as a tribute to a classic, something that's modern yet already timeless, with a widely-appreciated, inclusive aesthetic (and here we eliminate the Plymouth PT Cruiser from the conversation). The biking world is great at retro, indeed thrives on it, but not so good at adding in a taste of the 21st century.