“If you’re like me, today is sort of like Opening Day in baseball.”

But you seem so interested.

My uncle landed free tickets to this weekend’s Anaheim event. Lucky jerk.

Calm down, friend, this doesn’t come from a position of reflexive brand-hate. I used to work as a maintenance mechanic for a motorcycle training school running a Rider Edge program. This involved working hands-on with eighteen or so Street 500 models, all of which were infuriating to keep running.

Half of them had…

Exactly, it’s too large an undertaking for a product their current customers aren’t demanding. Potential conquest customers would be intrigued, though, and now that the Street models are (supposedly) taking up the shallow end of the product line, the Sportster has room to grow in a fashion befitting its roots.

They make one, the Street 500. You don’t want it.

All the Sportster really needs (in my mind) is a four-inch lift at the back and about a hundred fewer pounds. I get why Harley doesn’t offer such a thing- their core customers aren’t asking for it- but it’d make me consider a Harley against a Triumph or a Moto Guzzi.

A Street 500 is the only Harley I’ve ever ridden, but it was so offensive I can’t bring myself to consider it indicative of the brand.

I suspect this is common for law enforcement agencies in urban areas. Police departments (and Sheriff offices, albeit to a lesser degree) maintain a rigid and aggressive atmosphere, and this paired with relatively high disposable income relative to their communities often predisposes them to organised motorcycling as…

... I misread that as something horrifying at first.

Kind of looks like a Toronado.

Are you not entertained?!

I just did some poking around on their website a little while ago, and was surprised to see that their battery packs utilise cylindrical cells. With how much thought went into the rest of the design (and considering that the powertrain is entirely air-cooled) you’d think they’d go for the lower weight and superior…

The single-battery FXS actually comes within a dozen or so pounds of the Redshift, if I remember correctly, but without the considerable power advantage of the two-battery arrangement the Redshift would run rings around it.

I mean, I like these quite a bit, but you have to admit they’re pretty sluggish.

For context: a base model 2016 Toyota Yaris costs fifteen grand.

“At least I didn’t get hosed as badly as Autoevolution when they published that shit though.”

I like to think they have a sense of humour.

#seanhannity

Holy shit, this is fantastic footage.

There’s a somewhat rotund fellow near me with a Zero FX. Every time I start thinking about picking up a new Duke or V9 or some such thing, I remember his black blur shrieking up the hill and forget all about the gassers.

Worth noting: the new FXS (as will all Zero bikes by the end of 2016) gets a version of Zero’s new…

Is there... any reason for that? Even the promo video has half a dozen crashes in it.

Are they wearing crash armour under those jerseys?