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M o n a x,
Yet another blog.

Tony Adams
email: tony at atoms.net

web: atoms.net

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AMA
I have a bit of a weakness for joining membership supported organizations. My most recent binge was joing the American Motorcyclist Association. The group looked pretty good on paper, but I was not aware of a ton of controversy and bad sentiment which had sprung up over the past decade over the group's priorities and organization. They do still list their priorities as "Rights, Riding and Racing" in that order, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for a while and see how it pans out.

I was further encouraged today by the news that Erik Buell was appointed to the board of the AMA. The Buell website clims that: "Buell Motorcycles are born from the belief that every innovation must be focused on doing what's right for the rider." Which sounds like a marketing schpiel, but as far as I can tell, this is actually true. I don't have any interest in racing. I think it is a bad idea to burn fossil fuels for entertainment or sport - so it was difficult for me to get very excited about the Buell mission in general when it is so wrapped up in producing sport bikes.

But my Buell Ulysses just happens to be a sport bike - albeit without the uncomfortable ergonomics of a typical sport bike. It also happens to be a great touring bike and handles crappy roads, dirt roads and gravel pretty brilliantly. I bought it because I had become convinced that an "Adventure" bike was as close as I'd get to the ideal motorcycle for me. I had been planning on finding an airhead BMW GS or something like that, but a series of catastrophic transmission failures on my 1982 BMW R100RT disillusioned me with that marque. Casting a somewhat wide net, I started looking for a new bike in the spring of 2007 and stumbled onto this engineering marvel. I was hooked.

If you would have told me ten years ago that I'd be re-assured to find that the head of a domestic sport bike company was appointed to the board of the AMA, I would have laughed in your face. But we all change and here today I'm greeting that news with a mixture of delight and relief.

(It is ok. You can call me a dork.)

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