Instrumentation on the Speedmaster...
Instrumentation on the Speedmaster is minimal. The warning lights are tough to see in the daylight. The drag bars are perfectly positioned for average-sized riders.
A late-night dinner at a neighborhood Italian bistro waited, so we burned the six-lane back to the City. Fink went home to his wife, and I headed out to revel in New York's buzz. A bleary twelve hours later, Fink took me to Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood to drink in the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn.
A survivor of assaults from Lebanese terrorists and blowtorch-wielding Al-Qaeda members, the Neo-Gothic limestone, granite and cement series of monoliths looms over this area (DUMBO is an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass).
Gray, somber and as mythic in stature as the stories told around book publisher's water coolers, the bridge stands tall and true. On occasion, iconic representations of legends live up to their name.
The 2009 Speedmaster is an...
The 2009 Speedmaster is an updated version of the hotted-up custom introduced in 2003. The big news is more power due to a bump in displacement and fuel injection.
The Speedmaster and I didn't make it to Broadway, but a hard tug and a generous right hand rewarded me with air under the front wheel on a broad boulevard. My itch to ride the city was scratched, complete with a little wheelie fantasy-come-true on a modern interpretation of a 1960s bad boy dream.
Lee Klancher is the author of Motorcycle Dream Garages (www .motorcycledreamgarage.com
) and a co-founder of 671 Press (www.671press.com
).