Hey,

I’ve been hammered the last couple of weeks with challenges and drawbacks, but then June came along and all the tides changed. It’s a trip of the highest Biker order.

Sturgis a seemingly ghost town, is suddenly alive. I find myself in the center of an historic quagmire of strange politics and massive opportunities. I feel this joint needs a serious shot in the arm and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum could be at the center of the silver bullet.

Suddenly, we are in a progressive mood and getting shit done. I won’t delve into the details until I can show you progress next week.

Let’s hit the news. I got shit to do…



The Bikernet Weekly News is sponsored in part by companies who also dig Freedom including: Cycle Source Magazine, the MRF, Iron Trader News, ChopperTown, BorntoRide.com and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.







SAYING NO TO CALIFORNIA--This week, Governor Glenn Youngkin announced that beginning next year, the Commonwealth of Virginia will no longer adhere to California set emissions standards enacted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

As you may remember, since 1967 federal law has allowed California to seek waivers to create their own set of emissions standards. Other states are then allowed to link their emission standards to those set by CARB. Nearly 20 states have or plan to follow CARB regulations in some way.

However, recent standards planned by CARB that would require 100% of new car sales to be zero-emissions by 2035 has created backlash. At both the federal and state level lawmakers who view CARB’s plans as an attack on consumer choice and the internal combustion engine are taking action.

This move by Governor Youngkin is a signal that there is growing concern about the move to 100% electric vehicles. There is little doubt this action in Virginia will be challenged by supporters of CARB. However, it’s an important step by those standing up against the attack on the internal combustion engine.

Time will tell if more states take back control of their emission standards. We know that if the internal combustion engine is eliminated in cars and trucks the next obvious target is motorcycles. The Motorcycle Riders Foundation stands ready to support those that side on preserving consumer choice.

Learn more about what CARB is and how it is affecting motorcycling in this month's issue of the Freedom Fighter News (FFN)! Follow the button below.

Ride Safe and Ride Free

--MRF







WIND VEST STEPS UP FOR NEW STREET GLIDES--Pre-Order before July 1st, 2024 for discounted pricing.

Introducing the WindVest Replacement Windshield for the 2024 Street Glide
Looking for more wind, bug and rain protection when you're riding your new 2024 Street Glide?

WindVest Motorcycle Windshields has the solution!

With the flip at the top of the windshield, these screens are designed to redirect the wind 3"-4" higher than the actual size.

Sizes available:
9 1\2"
10 1\2"
11 1\2"

Colors available:
Clear
Light Smoke
Gun Smoke (dark)

Pre-order your replacement WindVest windshield for the 2024 Street Glide today by either calling 408-762-7180 or visiting our website at www.windvest.com

Any Size Any Color
$150 plus shipping if you get your order in before July 1st, 2024
www.windvest.com







UPDATE ON LOUDON CLASSIC WINNER--
Former two-time MotoAmerica King of The Baggers Champion, Tyler O’Hara, took the lion’s share of the prize pool by dominating the Outlaw Bagger category at the 2024 Loudon Classic at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, NH.

O’Hara qualified his Indian Motorcycle of Southeastern Virginia Indian Challenger RR on pole position by posting a 1:20.349. Yet, despite landing in P1 for the race grid, Northeast Motorcycle Road Racing (NEMRR) Club President John Grush had a challenge for O’Hara.

Grush proposed O’Hara start at the back of the field and give the other Outlaw Bagger competitors a 10-second head start for the eight-lap event, and should O’Hara overcome those odds, he’d bag himself an extra $4500 bonus. O’Hara duly agreed to Grush’s challenge and proceeded to put on a show for the Loudon fans of precision bagger overtaking, wrestling the lead away with two laps to go and coming home the winner ahead of Craig Braymiller.

O’Hara walked away with nearly $25,000 for his Outlaw Bagger class efforts.

O’Hara also took part in the 25-lap Loudon Classic on a Yamaha YZF-R6 supplied by current MotoAmerica Supersport star, Blake Davis, finishing 14th with fellow King of The Baggers competitor and current champion, Hayden Gillim, taking the win.

With inputs from
https://www.cyclenews.com/





HONDA GOES ALL ELECTRIC--No more petrol engine motorcycles as per future planned by Honda

Maybe they believe too much in their old "you meet the nicest people on a Honda" advertisement. To be in the good books of global decision makers in Silicon Valley and Wall Street, Honda is playing nice and has declared an end to petrol powered motorcycles.

This is indeed big news because "technically" (bad pun?) Honda is the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles and two-wheelers in general. They hold one-third of the global market of motorcycles. To show you the impact it will have, well, they sold 18.4 million two-wheelers in 2023.

Maybe it is a "good news" for those manufacturers still gunning their gas (engines).



Well, we reported recently on Bikernet Blog about the end of Electric Motorcycle adventure of BMW thanks to the new CEO.

Refer: https://blog.bikernet.com/bmws-ceo-says-electric-motorcycles-arent-ready/

So, surely, there are others who may want to build up revenue to fuel EV or alternate energy powertrain research and development by selling more of their well-known and well-tested and easily modifiable internal combustion engine motorcycles.

MotoGP and racing is changing or being forced to change so as to derive testing results. That's still better than self-driving EV car nuisance being tested on public roads with motorcyclists as captive lane lab rats.

Released in Honda's Summary of 2024 Honda Business Briefing on Direction of Electrification Initiatives and Investment Strategy, the company's outlook on EVs is one that aims to have a fully electric fleet by 2040.

And that includes all of its motorcycles.

Release says, "Honda has not changed its belief that EVs are the most effective solution in the area of small mobility products such as motorcycles and automobiles, and Honda’s electrification target to make EVs and FCEVs represent 100% of its global vehicle sales by 2040 remains unchanged. Honda must look ahead to the period of EV popularization and build a strong EV brand and a strong EV business foundation from a medium- to long-term perspective."

Honda aims to achieve the milestone of small mobility products—i.e. motorcycles—is laid out further in the release, stating that it will use a forthcoming Honda Mobile Power Pack e: (MPP).

"Honda will introduce a micro-mobility product which will be equipped with 4 MPPs in Japan before the end of FY2026." Likewise, the company states that an upcoming electric motorcycle will be launched this year and powered by two MPPs.

On e-Fuels, the company believes development of those technologies haven't yet become mature enough for planning products utilizing it. So, that might mean they are just taking orders so as to not get cancelled by the powers that be -- instead of actually having any of their own research or insight into these matters.

--by Wayfarer
Technology Editor
Bikernet.com™





STURGIS MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM NEWS OF THE WEEK—Scott Jacobs steps up again this week. Scott offered to supply the museum with 50 signed posters and a framed example of a terrific piece he did a few years back. They will be offered to folks who buy entrance tickets.

There are a thousand ways to build income for the museum from donations to sponsorships programs.

One way to donate to the growth of the museum is to offer up rare antique motorcycle as a donation. We can display and honor your machine for a year then raffle or auction it off.



We recently were offered the first sidecar rig, powered by Vincent to run at Bonneville.

Mike Parti was a leading sidecar racer of the 1960s and later became one of the foremost restorers of antique motorcycles in America.

At 15, Parti bought an old Ford jalopy. When his mother saw the car, she threatened to chain the tires together until Parti turned 16 and got his driver’s license. Early on, he bought an old Indian Scout for $15, which Parti pointed out was the going rate for a bike that didn’t run in those days.

A local Harley-Davidson mechanic, Harry Sorensen, who’d befriended Parti, was instrumental in getting him more involved in bikes.

"One day I was taking a radiator in to be fixed for the umpteenth time," remembers Parti. "Harry told me that motorcycles didn’t have radiators and you didn’t have to crawl underneath to work on them and the girls were prettier. I became a motorcyclist on the spot."

In the early 1960s, Parti became a sidecar enthusiast. He remembers riding his wife and baby daughter around in the sidecar.


Not quite able to totally give up the speed bug, Parti started taking his sidehacks to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah for the top-speed runs each year. When Parti and his fellow sidecar racers first showed up at Bonneville, the officials didn’t know what to do with them. There wasn’t even a class for them. "We were just doing it for fun," Parti said.

Some of Parti’s clients over the years included famous fellow motorcyclists such as Jay Leno, Steve McQueen, Bud Ekins and auto racing world champion Phil Hill, to name a few. Parti said before Leno got so busy hosting his television show, that the two worked together restoring a couple of bikes. One of the Cyclone motorcycles Parti restored was part of the Guggenheim Museum’s "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit. He also has three bikes on permanent display at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

If we’re lucky, Mike’s daughter will donate this piece to the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and you can check it out.

More news coming regarding the Lichter exhibit and our timeline display with a shot of the first Sturgis racers from 1938.



Hang on,

--Bandit







TRIUMPH CHOPPER OF THE WEEK—







--Sam Burns
Feature bike editor
Bikernet.com™







100-WORD LIMIT FICTION CONTEST APRIL WINNER--The winner for the month of April 2024 is "Me Too Engine Ride" by Steven Sanner.

It is a serious fiction actually and it concerns all of us motorcyclists. It tells us to wear our heart on our sleeves and respect the patches we have earned by wearing those proudly wherever we go, whoever we are and whatever be the circumstance around us.

Integrity is often discounted in a business and industry chasing profits and market share. Many times, relationships have to be discriminated as being personal and not to be carried forward into profession. Well, for those of us who actually walk the walk and ride the product -- well, we know we belong to a brotherhood and that "that" family always matters ahead of petty business talk.

So never lose a brother chasing down some corporate numbers and never forget to join your local motorcycle rights groups and support events that bring them closer together.

If you don't know about ABATE, MRF, NCOM, IMA, etc, well then you need to read the Bikernet.com news regularly and know your freedom and liberties and how to maintain them.

Have a read at this winning story and we will announce the May month winner next week. Sorry for this delay though. We gonna see a bigger and better Bikernet.com website soon, with a better faster search engine and whole new look.

https://www.bikernet.com/pages/Bikernet_100_Word_Fiction_Contest_2024.aspx

--Wayfarer
Associate Editor
Bikernet.com ™

"Something special is headed toward Steven, but I need to know what model of H-D he has." --Bandit





CAN BILL GATES BE TRUSTED--We just broke ground on America’s first next-gen nuclear facility.

From Gates Notes: Kemmerer, Wyoming will soon be home to the most advanced nuclear facility in the world.

I was recently in Kemmerer, Wyoming, for the groundbreaking ceremony of the most advanced nuclear facility in the world: the first-ever Natrium plant. This cutting-edge project will bring safe, next-generation nuclear technology to life. And it represents a huge milestone for the local economy, America's energy independence, and our fight against climate change.



For decades, nuclear innovation was stalled due to regulatory hurdles, public perception concerns, and insufficient investment. But if we’re going to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and avoid the worst effects of a warming planet, we’re going to need nuclear power. That's why we founded TerraPower in 2008—to enable nuclear scientists to develop safer, more cost-effective, and more reliable nuclear technology. I've been supporting their innovative work ever since.

Nuclear energy has incredible potential to provide affordable, reliable, and carbon-free electricity to power our modern world. But unleashing that potential requires bold thinking and smart private-public partnerships like the one that made this Natrium plant possible. I'm thrilled to see construction underway and for the world to witness the power of this next-generation technology.

You can read more about this groundbreaking project, the instrumental partners involved, the science behind the Natrium reactor design, my thoughts on why nuclear is essential for solving climate change, and what comes next on Gates Notes now. I'll continue sharing updates as this amazing facility takes shape over the coming months and years

---Bill Gates

Read more at: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Wyoming-TerraPower-groundbreaking





BRAND New Bikernet Reader Comment!--VLXAFL-5 Build Series Part 8

https://www.bikernet.com/pages/VLXAFL5_Build_Series_Part_8.aspx

I am totally amazed and blown away at your top quality machine work and your never-ending desire to get each part of the project just perfect. And your mind is still sharp as a tack coming up with idea after idea and back up plans on your one-of-a-kind piece of art. Every section of this bike just screams for attention, and it deserves it.

--Shovelhead Dave
davidpittman@live.com
South Milwaukee, WI

"Thanks Dave, I’m scrambling on so many projects, but hoping stuff will simmer down next week and I can finish wiring that puppy and take it for its first break-in ride. Hang on!" -- Bandit





NEWS FROM THE MASTER--It's been a while since I last wrote. I've missed you, have you missed me!? (You don't have to answer that.)

Scott has been working his butt off, like usual, but the paintings he's been working on follow the same theme: Patriotism.

"The state of our country is so divided, I wanted to create something to remind people that we are all American and should re-unite as The People," shared Scott.

NEW "America First"

Available in TWO Sizes
87 Prints at 29" X 21"

5 Hand-Embellished Prints at 36" X 26"

Reserve One Today
We are waiting by our phones! Don't hesitate to call with questions, request images of the framing options, check available numbers, and more.
Gallery: 605 559 1876

--Olivia Jacobs







G E T O U T S T A Y O U T-- EXFIL SADDLEBAGS

It's time to hit the road. We've got all sorts of motorcycle luggage on deck and two of the most useful are the EXFIL-18 and EXFIL-36 saddlebags.

True universal throw-over style, these fit everything from an old rigid-framed panhead to a modern classic Triumph, Harley Dyna, or Softail. Both hold a ton of stuff and are loaded with thoughtful features like rain covers, hidden pockets, anti-flap zippers, MOLLE everywhere, and hi-vis orange interiors.

--Biltwell





TRIKE OF THE WEEK—By Chris McFarland

--Sam Burns
Feature Bike Editor
Bikernet.com™







BUFFALO CHIP EMPIRE NEWS--SAVE THE DATE

Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024
Industry Party Starts at 4:00 p.m.
Motorcycles as Art VIP Tour at 5:00 p.m.

Save the date and plan to join your motorcycle industry friends for the grand opening of the Sturgis Buffalo Chip's 16th annual Motorcycles As Art™ exhibition, which kicks off with the exclusive Motorcycle Industry Reception on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024.

Plan to Meet at the Buffalo Chip Event Center, Progressive Gardens

Carrying on the tradition of Michael Lichter, who established and curated the exhibit for 14 years at the Chip, new curators Kevin Dunworth and Savannah Rose continue to dive into the culture of motorcycling in 2024. This will allow you to view a wide array of builders and artists unveiling and displaying their work in the recently updated Buffalo Chip Event Center during the Sturgis Rally.

FEATURED BUILDERS*
Bryan Fuller
Fuller Moto, Atlanta, GA
@fullermoto

Mike Rabideau
Majik Mike Designs, Las Vegas, NV
@majikmikedesigns

Roy Martin
Roys Toys Customs, Denver, CO
@roystoyscustoms

Brian Buttera
Buttera’s Metal Werx, Lakeland, FL
@butteras_metal_werx

Oliver Jones
The Cutrate, Long Beach, CA
@thecutrate

These stunning works of two-wheeled art will be accompanied by works in a variety of moto-inspired media curated by Savannah Rose of Maiden Moto. This includes illustration, leather arts, metal fabrication, painting and photography.

FEATURED ARTISTS*
Michael Lichter
Photo
@michaellichterphotography

Savannah Rose
Paint
@themouseandthemoto

Douglas Werner
Illustration
@muchomoto

Alicja Polachek
Paint
@alicjaplz

Bryan Helm
Photo
@bryanhelm

Emily Dury
Metalwork
@emilydury

Guinevere Simpson
Leatherwork
@blackstitchlabel

Dana
Metalwork
@metalwoodgarage

Brent Matkin
Paint
@pinstripeinstaller

Shayna Guy
Paint
@13thstcustoms

SAVE THE DATE
Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024
Industry Party Starts at 4:00 p.m.