Feature Story

Triumph Motorcycles has to be one of the biggest success stories in recent motorcycle history.  The Brits have achieved the almost impossible--taken a nearly-defunct brand and turned it into a marketing powerhouse, not only here in the United States , but all over the world.

  Other old-time brands like Indian, Norton and Excelsior Henderson have been the subject of attempted resurrections, each aimed at bringing a venerable old name back to life, but to no avail.             
You have to build a market-able product these days, no matter what your name is, and most resurrection companies soon see a sea of red ink on the books as the marketed products fail to fulfill the promise of fancy corporate offices and slick marketing campaigns.           
John Bloor and his team at Triumph headquarters in Hinckley , Great Britain , have bucked this trend, and even managed to survive what would have been for most a company-ending factory fire, going from strength to strength with everything from a variety of road-burning triples all the way to nostalgic twins.             
This month, Free 2 Wheel takes a look at the 2006 Triumph Scrambler, a Bonneville-derived twin with styling right out of California ’s 1960’s desert racing scene...

2nd Feature

BLUE’S NEWS
What’s New From Yamaha In 2007

While everyone else in Las Vegas lay around a hotel swimming pool sweltering in 112-degree heat, Yamaha dealers from across the country were inside the convention center at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, getting cool news about some of what they’ll be seeing on their dealer floor for the 2007 model year.
Yamaha released news on new models in the Cruiser, Scooter and Off-Road categories at the Vegas meeting, so that’s all we can tell you about right now, but the news is worth spreading. And we’ll bring you advance notice of offerings in the sports sector when those models are announced in the Fall.
So let’s start with cruisers because, after all, they are the number-one sellers these days. Based on total units of all motorcycles sold, a full 66 percent of the input into Yamaha Motors’ coffers comes from cruiser sales, and Yamaha isn’t the only manufacturer that’s reporting that type of cruiser bias.
Top-of-the-top in sales numbers are the fully dressed cruiser models, but, with the rising cost of fuel these days, small and mid-sized cruiser popularity is definitely on the increase.
It makes sense that cruisers are continuing to, well, cruise. They are comfy, easy chairs for those inclined to ride a bit slower and see the sights along the way, and they fit in with today’s stressed business people who need a way to unwind. Customer loyalty doesn’t hurt either, and Yamaha definitely has a healthy relationship with its customers. Yamaha’s Star brand is alive and very strong, and got an extra boost from the recent introduction of the Roadliner and Stratoliner lines of high-end cruisers.

For more on this story, pick up a current issue of FREE 2 WHEEL at your local dealer, or use the handy order form page found on our web site.

Story and Photos by Reid Libby

The cadence is unmistakably Ducati, but the tone tends towards the tenor rather than bass and there is a mellow urgency about it that you won’t find in its double-displacement brothers. It’s a voice from a by-gone era that is well worth a listen because, without it, the face of motorcycling as we know it would be very different indeed.
Rich Behrle knows a good thing when he sees it. His Sunday go-to-meetin’ bike, a new Ducati Sport 1000, attests to that. But it has to give way every other weekend or so to his long-term lady, a 1982 Ducati Pantah 600. While certainly not in the same horsepower game as today’s crop of 600 hyper-fours, the plucky “Panther” can still give a pretty good accounting of itself. Call it Duck Lite if you must, but this cat can still claw around corners or deliver a full day in the saddle, depending on Behrle’s mood. And there is no charge for the nostalgia, either.
Though Behrle has a great appreciation for his big boomer, he is not one to shun machines of smaller displacement. His introduction to motorcycling centered around the small stuff and he spent his early years hustling around on bikes from 80 to 450 cc’s. There are a lot of small towns packed together in New Jersey where he grew up and mega-horsepower just goes to waste when there is no place to use it. The jump to 600 cc’s was a logical progression.
Behrle and the Pantah joined forces way back in 1988. No stranger to good form, Behrle had just finished a stint in Art College when he spotted the Pantah.
“It was just one of those things,” he told Free 2 Wheel. “I had seen a Pantah in the parking lot in high school. I didn’t know anything about it, but I just loved the lines and the look of it. Of course, back then, anybody selling a Ducati seemed to be out for blood. There wasn’t anything around that was even remotely affordable. I finally found this one in a shop in central Connecticut and, for once, the price was almost reasonable. I bought it and rode it home to New Jersey.”