False Neutral

After revisiting a couple of old topics (The Tmax's odd engine, the Vitpilen 401's long gestation period, and our impressons of the new Harley Street Rod) we discuss Garrett's stable of bikes, which is suddenly smaller, and his cash reserves, which are commensurately larger. The three of us put our heads together to come up with the perfect bike for him and his $6000 +/- bike-buying budget. After more than a dozen suggestions, we appeal to our readers to help Garrett find the perfect bike.Be sure to visit our pages on Hooniverse.com or on Facebook.

Garrett's back! Yay! We have a lot to catch up on with him this week, so our episode is longer than they've been lately. After we update each other on what's been going on, we debate the question of how many bikes a motorcyclist needs. What is the optimal number, and how many is too many? There's obviously no single answer for all riders, but we have fun discussing it even if we don't definitively answer the question. Along the way, we relate owning bikes to firearms, personal watercraft, houses and children. We also debate when a parts bike ceases to count as a motorcycle, and the merits and pitfalls a Turo-style bike rental app would present.

Garrett's still AWOL this week, so Eric and Pete keep this episode a bit briefer than usual. Our topic is a bit obscure: horizontal-cylinder engines. We start with Guzzi's Falcone and Nuovo Falcone. Then, we fawn all over the Ducati Supermono, explain how reciprocating counterweights work, and school Ducati on what the Scrambler Sixty2 should have been, and why. All this leads Pete to a sudden epiphany regarding Honda's worst bike ever. Moving from thumpers to multi-cylinder bikes, we wrap up with BMW K-bikes and the obscure, Aermacchi-based Linto racer.

It's just Eric and me this week, and we touch on a veritable smorgasbord of different topics in this episode. We debrief Eric's solo professional roadrace update in episode #53, then talk about what what's gone on in our workshops. (Thanks to Garrett, it's actually something!) After a quick update on several new 2017 models that are just hitting the streets, we actually answer a few listener questions. A big thanks to those who sent queries and comments in!

This week Eric rides solo and talks MotoGP with David Emmitt of motomatters.com.  We talk about pre-season testing, a look ahead at the 2017 season, and a run down of the riders and the machines they will pilot in 2017.  At the end, we touch on the Moto2 and Moto3 categories as well.Let us know if you like this kind of race talk or if you prefer for us to stick to our standard subject matter.  Enjoy!

This week we're joined by Abhi Eswarappa, the founder of Bike-urious.com, adventure biker, and all-around righteous dude. We talk with Abhi about his favorite bikes and favorite riding experiences, which include Mexico, Alaska, crossing the desert terrain of California and Nevada (in a Ural sidecar rig, no less), Ironbutt rides, and drafting behind an SUV aboard a Honda Grom. After a bit where Pete rudely hogs the mike to blather on some more about the Smackdab Run, we get back to Abhi and learn about how Bike-urious.com came to be.

Sometimes little details make or break a bike. This week we delve into the multitude of minor changes that Harley made to change the existing 750 Street into the new Street Rod (spoiler, we like them). That prompts us to pay way too much attention to rear fenders of various bikes, including Ducatis and Can-Am Spyders. Finally, we look at all the details of the Yamaha XSR900, and why they drive us batty.

This week Garrett gives us a ride report on the Aprilia Tuono V4 and Pete describes the EF1 tornado that skirted his yard this past week. After that, we discuss deals Eric found on Craigslist, including a BMW cop bike with 74,000 miles on it. We wrap up discussing a few bits from the motorcycling press, including a big-box mega-dealership in Michigan and a new taxi bike designed for African markets. Along the way, Pete puts Bulgaria on his bucket list.

In the second part of our discussion of online motorcycle resources, we detour from where to get parts and riding gear into talking about what riding gear we have and why we like it. We go on to examine our favorite Facebook pages and groups, along with a couple of pages we're involved with personally. Links to all the sites we discuss are included in our Hoooniverse post at http://hooniverse.com/2017/03/07/false-neutral-49-moto-surfin-part-2/

After a quick catch-up on Eric's Mustang and Garrett's new son, we mark the one-year anniversary of our first episode. Eric would like to add a new daily rider this season, and we discuss the possible candidates, then delve into our topic for this week, This week's topic is motorcycling on the Internet. How we get motorcycle-oriented content (professional and amateur) has changed greatly over the past couple of years; we share our current favorite and less-than-favorite motorcycle-oriented websites, vlogs, and forums.We're returning to our original 30 minute format, so this conversation is a two-parter.Be sure to visit our accompanying post on Hooniverse.com to access a list of all the websites and YouTube channels we mention in this week's show.

Mark Atkinson is back as our guest this week, at his suggestion. We delve into the dying star that is the two-stroke motorcycle world, discussing everything from porting specs to our favorite two-stroke manufacturers. This episode a 100% raw, unedited track, so you get what you get this week. Fortunately, Mark is a fantastic guest who keeps things interesting.

Several things happened in our workshops this week, so we update each other on our project bikes. Garrett delt with Nighthawk wiring issues and missing pieces inside the engine. Thanks to Garrett's help, Bultakenstein might get some new parts fast-tracked. Things remain too cold in Eric's Michigan garage, so he's working on vintage audio equipment instead. We preview the topic for next week's show, which brings us back around to two-strokes, tiny Wankel engines, fantasy engine layouts, and finally updating the formula for our faux-Italian tiddler to include the engine out of the Yamaha Blaster ATV.Our question for you this week: Do you do your own work, pay to have your bikes maintained and repaired, or divide those tactics somewhere in between? Where you do draw the line?

This week's "exhausting" episode is all about the sounds motorcycles make. After Pete reveals the mystery bikes you hear in our intro and outro bumpers, we briefly talk about books and old magazines before Eric and Pete move on to what bikes we think sound the best. This week, it's especially imperative that you visit our accompanying Hooniverse post, since all the YouTube videos we discuss are included there.http://hooniverse.com/2017/02/07/false-neutral-45-glorious-noise/  

Since our last episode, Garrett has a new son in the nursery and a new Nighthawk 650 beater in the garage. The latter prompts us to enthuse for Honda's 1980s Nighthawk range. Turning to new bikes, we discuss the proposed U.S. tariff on European small displacement bikes. I recall my encounter with a tiny, very fake Italian "classic," which leads the three of us to all get excited about building 60cc roadrace bikes in the classic Italian tiddler style.Be sure to visit the post for this episode at Hooniverse.com for links and photos.

Our guest this week is Mark Atkinson, the man behind the Alpha BMW that recently won the 2016 Hooniversal Car Of The Year (HCOTY) award. Mark is not only a highly skilled machinist, fabricator, and tinker, but also an accomplished two-stroke tuner and longtime veteran of the Bonneville Salt Flats. We discussed his past endeavors, what is ahead for him and Alpha, and his views on engineering, aesthetics, and perfectionism.

This week, Pete, Garrett, and Eric start off talking about cars before discussing the demise of Victory, Triumphs new Street Triples, the Hooniverse Car of the Year winner, along with your questions about long trips and bad engineering. We also give you a peek into what subjects we might be covering in future episodes.

We're back from our holiday hiatus and Cam Vanderhorst, host of our HPN sister podcast Cammed & Tubbed, joins us to kick off the new year. It takes us about fifteen minutes for us to get around to talking about motorcycles (Because Cam). Once we finish talking about our cars and gifts, we discuss Sportsters, helmets, and Eddie Lawson replicas. Afterwards, Cam, Eric and Garrett compete as contestants on Pete's game show, "What's The Ask?" You can play along, so it's especially worthwhile to visit our Hooniverse post for this episode this week to see the photos we used in the game.

First off, the three of us devote some attention to the 2017 Honda Rebel 300 & 500. We then briefly discuss a couple of other newly-introduced bikes that none of our listeners will ever buy, or likely even see. Finally, each of us names the motorcycle heroes — past or present — we'd most wish we could sit down and have a conversation with.  Garrett's Internet connection continued to have bandwidth issues in a few spots, but just convince yourself that he's a cyborg.NOTE: We'll be taking a break for few weeks over the Holidays. We'll resume our regular weekly schedule January 10th, 2017.

This week we look at how motorcycles are portrayed in Hollywood films. From the good to the bad and the ugly, we discuss what bike-related movie tropes get two thumbs up, and which ones make us groan. After a tangental side-trip into who does the biker wave to whom, and why, we get back on topic to close out with a list of our favorite motorcycle documentary films.

The new-bike show season continues, with another crop of new models just announced at the EICMA show in Milan. Eric, Garrett and Pete discuss the hottest (and in a few cases, not so remarkable) new models for 2017, plus a couple of concept bikes you may or may not ever find at your dealer. It's no surprise that we disagree on a few of 'em, but we do so politely, of course.