The Lowdown Show - By ADVrider

7h ago

Aaron Pufal is far more than just a man with a grey beard. He’s the grey-bearded mastermind behind the ADV Cannonball coast-to-coast GPS rally. It’s not like the old cannonball runs, those ones in which you’d rip through Ohio at 130 miles per hour at 3 am after having ingested a fistful of little white pills. No, this a rally you can do on your oversized adventure bike while following the law of the land. But you don’t even need a bike that’s more than you needed in the first place, because this is a cannonball you can do on your KLR, turning the event into a bowling ball. Just add an extra bungee-cord to your milk crate and off you go. And you can even opt out of the off-road sections and do it on your Electra Glide.

Dec 12

Ex-Confederate motorcycle designer JT Nesbitt—whose current project is re-imagining the American motorcycle with his audacious Magnolia 4—stepped into the fray recently and wrote an open letter to New York Times bestselling author Scott Galloway. Galloway’s book, titled “On being a man,” discusses the so-called “masculinity crisis” affecting young males—the very same young males that not so many generations ago were drawn to motorcycling. Nesbitt, who’s this week’s guest, took exception to Galloway’s language and suggested a cure that would give disaffected young men their mojo back. And, wouldn’t you know, it involves a motorcycle.

Dec 5

Michael Uhlarik from Motorcycle Global joins Neil Graham to talk about—wait for it—motorcycle seats and mirrors from a designer’s perspective. And then Neil makes the case for an ADV motorcycle inspired by Kawasaki’s 400 cc four-cylinder ZX-4R screamer—a high-spec, small displacement bike with all the tech of a big bike but without the bulk of something like a 1290 Adventure. Like a 600 cc V-twin not built to a pauper’s budget. Wait until you hear Michael’s shockingly (predictable) response, you’ll be (un) surprised.

Nov 28

The late great Steve Thornton edited ADVRider.com 's Photo Of The Week feature for years. I’m happy to report we’ve found a worthy successor to carry on Steve’s work. And I don’t say that casually. Katie Hunter is just about as singular a personality as was Steve. She rides an BMW airhead, she’d rather shiver at a campsite than have a warm shower, and she’s worked at a funeral home as an embalmer. And that pose that funeral home employees have? You know what I mean. The way in which they’re in a room but not really in the room, well, Katie says it’s all in way you cant your neck. That and much more in this week’s rambling chat.

Nov 21

Mirrors on motorcycles are almost universally wretched. They either present you with a movie of your elbows or they whimper and fold at merely the thought of a twig brushing against them. Most of us just complain about them. A wonderful motorcycle with bad mirrors is dead to us. (Unless it’s Italian.) But one man with a similarly vexed history with the mirror put his foot down, drew a line in the sand and said "I will make a mirror that will change the way we look back on where we've just been.” (He didn’t actually say that.) His name is Ned Suesse, and his Doubletake mirrors never cease to amaze. Oh, and he’s a Dakar finisher, too!

Nov 14

Dallas Shannon from Traction ERag Adventures joins Neil to outline their upcoming schools and to debunk some of the myths that surround off-road riding. We’re in a peculiar moment in that the ADV-style motorcycle is the de-facto standard of our age, and yet taking a significantly-sized motorcycle into the dirt is beyond the skillset of many a purchaser. Dallas & company hope to change that. Have a listen and then check them out at tractionerag.com .

Nov 6

It’s the most important motorcycle show in the world and regular contributor and Motorcycle Global main-man Michael Uhlarik is here to give The Lowdown the lowdown. We’ll address the rise of the Chinese, the resurgence of Honda, the absence of KTM and ponder a scooter with two cupholders. And lots more, including ADV bikes-a-plenty. Because of the liberal use of video and photographs, you may wish to sashay on over to YouTube to watch this episode.

Oct 31

Scott Calhoun has the most bizarre motorcycling history of any man I’ve met. Up until age 55 he hadn’t ridden a motorcycle. And then, for the next decade, he rode every paved road in America that held any promise for enthusiasts. Every single road. Then the co-founder of Butler Motorcycle Maps—that’s why he rode those roads—sold his BMW and moved on to disc golf. What you and I would call tossing a frisbee. Scott gives us the skinny on those years of travel and gives us the best single location in America to ride. And believe me, you’ll never guess where it is.