Motorcycles Books

I really enjoyed this book. He made some really great predictions, and was off the mark on others. The dollar being devalued is happening now, but there were no wars in Central Europe, except Yugoslavia. Very insightful travel book, ala Iberia from James Michener though not as academic. Easy, exciting read.

The investment biker gives the reader insight into the way Jim thinks. Jim says in 1990, most of his money was in utility stocks, U.S government bonds, and foreign currencies. Jim owned utility stocks particular nuclear power for companies like Illinois power and Niagara Mohawk which were distressed. Jim's next comments strike as parallel to problems in 2007, as he says, "I thought U.S Interest rates were headed south, so I was bullish-optimistic-on bonds and bearish-pessimistic-on the dollar, that is, I expected the price of bonds to rise and that of the dollar to fall. I figured politicians would do everything to keep the economy going. Since they aren't very smart, all they really know how to do is cut interest rates. I bought foreign currencies, mainly certificates of deposit denominated in guilders or deutsche marks, reasoning that the dollar would go down as the politician's cuts rates." Jim that was interesting insight over 17 years ago and today the dollar demise is causing exports to increase, unemployment to drop, bond yields to drop and price to increase, GDP to rise, consumption to drop, investment to decrease, real wages to drop, and credit to get tighter. The US economy is strong enough to continue climbing for the next sixty years without disruption from business cycles. Commodities will continue to be a profitable sector for the rich and commodities indexes supposing the commodity boards can remain solvent and stable.

Currency exchange controls: "The soviet union exchange rate for travelers was six rubles per dollars. On the black market I got between twelve and eighteen rubles, whereas today you might get a hundred times that". For this reason Jim carried a few travelers checks and a healthy sum of cash while traveling through Turkistan.

Georgian: Stalin had been a Georgian. "Georgia had always been a trading nation and a crossroads." Jim saw similiarities between Georgia and Texas, New Mexico, and California. "As those parts of the United States become more Lationo, and as the United States begins to suffer its inevitable economic decline, I wonder if we won't see the same things: ethnic strife and a drive for separatism, either a desire to rejoin Mexico or to be independant". "Georgia has always been a merchant area and of a capitalist bent".

Baku: "Baku, a major center of oild production, all around the road lay rusted pipes and drill rigs, idle, unmaintained, a cluttered junk heap. No wonder Soviet oil production was down." Communism fails because managers work to meet quotas, no incentives, no accountability, skimming oil from the top and running, and no private property ownership. "On of the reasons Soviets never built their capital bases, because they never built their capital." "Riding along the Caspian Sea we saw hudnreds of these discarded drilling rigs, all stripped."

Kazakhstan: "Kazakhstan had become a gigantic farmland, a desert that had bloomed into vast arable tracts." It had become 40 percent Russian, 2/3 of water provided from the Aral Sea, heavy salization, high rates of birth defects and infant mortality, and thirty mile coast line. "The Russians had thought they could use the water to turn the area into a cotton plantation. But they had treated the land the way they treated the oil fields we had passed: They stripped it and moved on." In communism you can ruin a resource without anyone saying halt. On the other hand, China in the seventies admitted its ways were not working and deregulated agriculture to teh peasants, allowing farmers to lease land for a very long time, and in some place buy it; the government allows the farmers to sell crops that they could sell for a profit on the world market; the farmers went wild; every field was planted and cultivated with items being reused and no waste; the farmers didn't strip the land; and China became an agricultural exporting country.

Samarkand: The most prosperous city in Baku. "The Centerpiece of the city's ancient splendor is the Registan, and esemble of three madrasas, or Islamic schools". "Under the corner domes of the Ulug-bek Madrasa, completed in 1420, were lecture halls, and in its rear was a mosque. The Tiger Madrasa flouted the Islamic injunction against showing pictures of live animals by boldly diplaying glorious tilework devoted to its namesake...Samarkland was like the Taj Mahal in that way, if not even more extraordinary." "We discovered that forty mosques had opened in Uzbekistan alone in 1989, and at least one was being built in every town we passed through-Ashkhabad, Mary, Bukhara."

Muslim: "The Muslims were always trying to come into Europe through Austria, through Hungry, through Spain. The Christians beat them back several times. During the centuries of the Dark Ages in Europe the Muslims were much more dynamic than the Christians. They expanded geographically, spreading their culture and religion from the Altantic to the Pacific". "All the Muslims are resurgent, not so much because they want to be Islamic, but because the need a vehicle to help them get more. If people are prosperous, they tend not to fight. What they're reaching out for is Islam, the only unifying thread they have, to help them achieve their own prosperity and identity."

Soviet Union: "The Soviet Union is actually headed toward a system that will resemble feudalism: the economic, political, and social system of the medival Europe after the breakup of the Roman Empire, in which their were innumerable and ever-changing fiefdoms."

China: "By early 1990 China's harsh new monetary policy began to cause hard times. Several months later, people surged into Tiananmen Square to complain about tight money". "Like successful entrepreneurs in many parts of the world, Chinese entrepreneurs are bringing every scrap of energy, money, technology they can marshall into their business"

Currency valuation: "If the rate on the black market is five and a half zlotys to the dollar, compared with the state banks rate of five, then things might not be so bad. But if it is ten or fifteen to the dollar, then I know the country is in terrible shape, with maybe the collapse of the government or hyperinflation on the horizon." During Jim's first visit to China he paid Renminbi for a dollar, a 50 percent premium and by 1990s the premium had dropped to 35 percent. The chinese want out of the their currency less.

Soviet Union: "The Soviet Union hadn't raised its prices in fifty years! It sounded good, even great for the customer-low rent, postcards for kopecks, inexpensive bread, cheap birch juice, and low-cost hinges. But the flip side was that they had almost no consumer goods except bread, which ofcourse was the one item not even th Communist dared allow to run out". "By keeping these prices low the Communist had robbed everyone, including the state and teh party, of any eral-world incetive to produce and distribute every product. What possible incentive could there be to make hinges or socks when every pair lost money?" "The real crime was the misery-the shortages, the shoddy goods, and teh lack of opportunity-perpetrated bythe Communist on the Soviet people for decades." "In the Soviet Union they' always been told that if they left the country, they couldn't come back except under exceptional circumstances, and that this was true throughout the world."

Nakhodka: "The port of Mobile was long past its prime, but compared with the rust and broken equipment here, it was a model of repair. There was no security around the docks; goods were piled up in such a fashion that anybody could walk off with anything." Nakhodka is a city port of 170,000 with a single children's clothing store, a single grocery store, a single auto-parts store, and a single hardware store. The bakery was full of inexpensive, extraordinary bread, baked every day. The other stores were virtually empty of people and goods.

Gold Prices: In the 1970s investors were sure all paper money was going to lose its value as the price of gold rose quickly. Historically, gold prices had seen long periods of low price which did not move up even as the price of other commodities went up. In the 1930, Roosevelt responded to the economic crisis by setting the price of gold at $35/ounce. Everyone, who owned gold enjoyed a 67 percent premium in value. "Everybody was delighted to own dollars." During WWII the worldwide economy collapsed and gold did not move around the exchange for other foreign currencies, trade had come to an end. For thirty seven years gold was held to $35/ounce. "The only gold that came to the market was from Africa and Russia" In the 1970, gold began to be used in teeth and electronics, it was cheap. Through the 50s and 60s the price of gold rose as the economy faced trade deficits and printing money (inflation). 1971, Nixon took the US economy of the gold standard to avoid recession.

A bet against the central bankers: "In the seventies, the central banks were defending the United States artificially low price of gold." The market realized the prices (high or low) were absurd. As soon as the gold price controls were lift the price went up. When price goes up more supply will be created; new gold mines will open; existing gold mines will scale production; and replacement commodities will compete as a cheaper alternative. The supply will increase and price will drop cooling demand. Eventually, the price of gold will become cheap. "Every year since 1981, the world has produced more gold than in the year before. Remember, it takes a long time to bring a gold mine on stream...More supply.

Siberia is the world's largest country with 8,650,000 square miles, a sixth of the world's land mass. Siberia makes Russia one of the richest country in energy resources and minerals: a quarter of the world's oil reserves, 40 percent of the iron ore, and a third of its phosphates. "Even today no one knows the full extent of the nation's wealth", says Jim. The Soviet Union pushed hard to produce more steel, fertilizers, and oil. "This fervid lunge for producing more and more, however, mean that quality, environmental concerns, and efficient production had been ignored." "As the price of oil went to forty dollars a barrel, Moscow reaped a bonanza. All the money had gone to the Communist hierarchy and for the space program, to intercontinental ballistic missiles and world-class Olympic teams. The party managed things so poorly and the system was so rotten, there had been nothing left for the 275 million working toads except subsistence wages and a subsistence existence."

Moscow, "there was a good chance, however, that despite the good harvest, half the grain and vegetables wouldn't reach the consumer because of tractors, combines, and trucks that sat idle for lack of spare parts and gas... One engineer said it was a waste of his talents for him to be pulling up carrots."

Government price fixing messes up production. In Zimbabwe the government decided to enforce a cheap food policy and set the price of corn. In the mid eighties farmers produces 1.8 million tons of corn a year. After the government policy enforcing corn price fixes was in place corn production dropped 98 percent. However, the government never regulate flower production and in the mid eighties flower production was $5 millions and the year Jim traveled through Zimbabwe the flower production was $200 million. "The ability of farmers to raise flowers had apparently gone up some forty times during this catastrophic drought." "It is only when a government artificially holds a price back and then all of sudden releases it that the price explodes and a political crisis arrives." "I saw countries realize they could not control prices, that it wouldn't work". "Only when the market is free-unleashed, if you will-and the local currency finds its own level, will people then start doing what comes naturally..." "I won't put my money into a country until it actually makes it currency convertible."

"It's the American government policy for the dollar to sink, because the government think then American goods will be more competitive on the world market...But unfortunately the dollar will continue to go down until it fall becomes so out of control that the government will snarl and blame our problems on `evil financiers`. Once controls are put on, the currency will fall farther because everybody will try to smuggle it out."

Botswana had a balance of payment surplus. Major economic sectors are diamonds, copper, nickel, beef and tourism. Botswana had democratic elections. Botswana passed laws, given tax incentives, and everything to attract capital.

I read this a few years ago and gave it to someone who has enjoyed motorcycles and has been investing for years. We both gained from reading it.

I don't bike and am relatively new to investing, but both of us found the adventure yarn interesting and a good way to get a better appreciation of world economies. An easy entertaining way to gain an understanding of what differentiates the successful (macro and micro) from the types that will always be in survival mode.

Investment Biker is a fascinating book for anyone interested in biking, world history, or economics. It's one of those you hate to put down, as you are eager to see what challenges Jim and his friend were to encounter next. It's a wonder they survived, but thank God they did!

This should be required reading for any economics course! (or for global investing ...of course ;) My eyes are opened. Jim has accomplished something that may never be repeated. He completed an amazing land journey through territories of every kind on earth. He experienced the people, the lifestyles, the local markets, the capital markets, the currency markets and the black markets of the world. His experience relates cause and effect of political and economic policies of over fifty countries. He has travelled our global economic history and laid it all down in an clear, concise and exciting text that will have you churning paper as you roar through it.

I learned alot. I want more!

Thank you!

This is a good book to read to learn about the basics of motorcycling and riding.

This is a thoughtfully and well-written book for would-be beginners.

The author does an excellent job of acquainting the novice with all the charm, excitement, work and dangers of owning and riding motorcycles.

He convinced this 78-year-old to engage in something less demanding.

But only regretfully so.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in motorcycling.

This book is a great resource for motorcyclists. It has history, skill development, and repair sections, and is incredibly handy as a reference book. I would definitely recommend this book for beginning to intermediate motorcyclists.

I found out that this book really helped me find the bike of my dreams, and helpped me choose a style, type, acessories, and the right size of a bike for me. I believe that all riders need to read this to get started and even refresh themselves.

I found this book to cover the surface of almost every aspect of motorcycling such as technique, about bikes, the biker community and bike maintenance. If you've attended an MSF course there is probably not going to be that much more in this book in terms of how to ride and what to be aware of.

For experienced riders, I don't think this book would benefit you unless you wanted a refresher on what to do in dangerous situations or riding technique.

This is a must have read and is better if you study it before you start racing or going to your first track day.

This was by fare the worst motorcycle book I have ever read. From the start to the finish Mr. Code tried to explain the basics of how a motorcycle operates. But what he really did was take a hundred plus pages explaining that you should pay attention while riding a motorcycle. The tips that are given in the book are common sense tips that if you have ridden a bike once then you already know them. I would not recommend this book to any rider.

This book doesn't have anything groundbreaking and is a little dated as of 2007 but is a very helpful reminder of the important things that you learned and forget to apply when you are actually riding. Not at all technical. The sidebars don't really tie into the content very well, but overall, it has helped me improve my track days.

Great book for the weekend rider to the begining roadracer, easy reading, and easy to relate to. I enjoyed reading a chapter or subject topic, then going out and applying what I learned to my riding technique. This book covers things you should be thinking of while riding and makes you think about what you already do but, don't know why.

Got this book along with a couple other authors riding books. Goes into great detail about racing and riding techniques. Thumbs up

Ladies - if you're husband is an "Indian Motorcycle Lover" this is a great present for him! I gave this to my husband last Christmas and it was by far one of the best presents he ever received in our 23 years of marriage. He couldn't put it down. A must have for anyone who has an Indian Motorcycle and especially who rebuilt it. Hope this helped - blessings to all! Anyone reading this - do you have another Indian suggestion for me - I'd love to give him another great book for this Christmas!

I found "Rebuilding the Indian" on the clearance shelf of a bookstore in Napa, California; for just $9.99. Being a motorcyclist, I figured I'd pick it up. If it turned out to be an awful book, well, only ten dollars wasted.

But what a pleasure it turned out to be. Not just a book about restoring an Indian, it's more about the Author's journey through life, his failed first marriage, his blissful second marriage, and the birth of his third child. Putting the bike back together seems to be a metaphor for his life, as he attempts to resurrect his writing and teaching careers. The restoration itself is an exercise in frustration and hilarity, and an experience I can entirely relate to; doing whatever it takes to get the bike running at the very end, when you need that last nut or bolt, it's midnight, and nearest bike shop is closed. It's no Hemingway novel, to be sure, but it's easy to read, entertaining, and touching to the soul.

If you're into motorcycles at all, or have ever contemplated buying a basketcase of your own, this is a must read. Highly recommended.

'Rebuilding the Indian' is not a step by step "how to" book on motorcycle restoration. It is the personal journey of a man finally beginning his dream. He had to do it with limited finances but with the support of a great family. Having taken similar journeys I found it a great read. It was fun to learn the same characters can be found in Montana collecting and saving rare motorcycles and parts as in the more densly populated areas of the country.
The author was not only a motorcycle enthusiast but writer that was able to become published.

I picked this book up at a garage sale or some such and had it for a while before reading it. What a delightful surprise it was. Author Haefele, whose life is in a bit of a mess (divorce, career problems, kid problems), sets about restoring an Indian Chief. The Chiefs were the premier line of the once-great Indian motorcycle company and highly valued now by collectors.

Along the way he encounters an eccentric cast of Indian motorcycle enthusiasts. Skilled artisans of sheet metal and engine restoration populate this book's pages, some in dingy, crowded shops, others in clean, professional places. Haefele records the trips tracking down Indian parts and the real characters he encounters along the way. His partner (Chaz, I believe) packs a pistol on one exploratory trip.

As the restoration goes along Haefele finds his life mending too. A new wonderful woman in his life, along with a beautiful baby girl, and his professional life reviving too. Whatever the reason, the gradually resurrecting Indian seems to pace his life coming together too.

He paints it Midnight Blue, definitely not a factory color, but one that works. His description of the first ride on the Indian is vivid--I had no idea how difficult it would be for modern motorcyclists to use a foot clutch, hand shift, left-hand throttle motorcycle. A satisfying book to read, and it's nice to know that another Indian motorcycle was rescued from the dumps.

I really enjoyed Fred Haefele's Rebuilding the Indian: A Memoir. This book is a delight. I liked it on several levels...there is real wrench-turning and parts hunting tales...there are colorful characters...there is a man undergoing a self-actualization and maturity coming to realize just what it means to be a man. He figures out where he fits in between his dad, his grown kids and his first and second wife and new baby all the while building a big motorcycle and running a arborist business. And it is fun while he is doing it.
I gave it to my wife (a high school English teacher) and she gave it to some of her 11th grade reluctant readers who are more at home turning wrenches than they are writing essays. It appealed to these kids tremendously.
I don't have a motorcycle and I am not going to build one but I do love reading about it. I found this to be a great book. If you like this one you may also like A Cliff Walk by Don Snyder.

read this book - you can not use better your time and money

An excellent and easily digestible guide suggesting ways to enjoy sportbiking but reduce the risks of oth accidents and tickets.

This is not a slick, commercial product by a big name, but a book intended for a relatively local market in Northern and Central California where inexperience combined with challenging conditions and powerful bikes available on easy terms have created a high number of incidents and too many fatalities.

However, the advice here is just as relevant on any twisty road and the tips and drills have certainly improved my rising accuracy, cut my reaction times and increased my overall sportbike skills.

This book may be on the short side but what I think the author is trying to get across is to ride safe and to think about your skills and try to improve upon them with every ride you take. The author may not have used a fancy publishing house or had the bucks to pay an editor but maybe all he really wanted to do was to share his skills and knowledge of riding with his fellow motorcycle enthusiasts in a printed format! Buy the book, read it and if you learn something new that's great. And if it just reinforces some skills you already knew that's great, too!

I've come from standard bikes into riding sportbikes only recently and was looking for another resource for adding to my riding skills. I'd heard some good comments from a friend that had bought this book and recommended it to me so I bought it. I found that though this book was only around a hundred pages the information was very valid to the things I've experienced in my own riding on the street. I liked the fact that the information was so relevant to street riding especially the actual riding experience examples that the author included. I found lots of things that have helped me in my riding and continue to refer to the book on a regular basis before going out on weekend rides with friends.

Incredibly over-priced! This book couldn't have taken him longer than a day to write (as the poor editing and horrible style suggests).

I was able to pick up about 5 new "tips" to help me with general safety, but just not enough content. Frankly, he should just stick to riding a bike and stay away from his word processor. Or hire a freakin' editor for crying out loud!

On a positive note, he did provide numerous "real-world" anecdotes where he described rides where certain "close calls" occurred and how he managed to avoid disaster. There was also a good section of the book dedicated to riding in the rain.

As Miss Jean Brodie said, "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like." She meant it as an insult, but I don't. Bicycling Science is nerd heaven, full of physics, engineering, molecular biology, aerodynamics and all kinds of other scientific manna. If you have an appetite for charts, graphs, and research studies, then this book will delight you with its explanations of why bikes work so well with the human body.

It's not casual reading by any means. I'd prefer the same information presented in slightly less academic tones, but that doesn't mean it isn't accurate or interesting. So I dip into my copy for short bursts. For me, it's not a cover-to-cover read, but it's been on my bedside table for months because I pick it up regularly.

Bicycling Science may well be more technical info than a casual fan can absorb. However, it's a great reference that will demystify your bike -- if that's the sort of thing you like.

While I recommend it, I don't recommend you expect a real engineering reference or good reading cover-to-cover. It is somewhere in between and as such is not very good as either.

The charts and plots are good so if you only want it for that it's a great compilation of other sources and references. The history of the bicycle and the HPV chapters are very interesting. The book is one of a very few like it so "one of the best" is not that great of a compliment.

It is layed out and presented as an engineering reference type book on a specific topic (something like a Mark's for bikes) but it's nowhere near as consistent, rigorous, or detailed. A better description would be "musings on bicycle design and science" by someone who is genuinely very knowledgeable on the topic.

My biggest problem is with the narrative. It has way too many opinions. Many are simply some ideas the author has about a particular design or test (there's no data in this area but one way to get some would be this...). It also has way too much anecdotal evidence which is (thankfully) usually presented as such. And worst of all there are many opinions that are generally made to sound like facts through casual use of expressions such as "future testing should..." "it is recommended" "conventional design practices" "according to some" and so on.

To sum up if you are an engineer looking for an engineering reference you'll be disappointed. If you are a lay bike geek you'll probably find it too technical.

I used the book mainly to write a report on the history of recumbent bicycles. But it is an excellent source for bike history and science in general. David Gordon Wilson goes into great detail, both conceptually and technically, with regard to bike issues, such as aerodynamics.

Definitely a good book for bike nerds like myself. Really technical and thick reading. If you like stuff like that, then get this book.

I like science. I like bicycles. This book goes into much greater depth than most people will want. I couldn't even finish it. If you build bikes and/or are a physicist or engineer and like biking then you will probably enjoy it.

Five Stars and cheers to one of the best.

This was one of the best reads I have had in a long time. I found my self laughing out loud and annoying my wife several times. I have recently seen the fever in full blossom in two of my friends that resently joined me and my riding friends. The funniest part of all this is that as the fever hit each one I had them read this book and they both reported back on how funny it was to read what they felt was happening to them.

I devoured this book over a couple of days. It was a great read about another man's love for riding Harley's. It was easy to see myself in some of LaPlante's expressions of "Hog Fever". If you live where it is too cold to ride,this is a great temporary substitute. If you lay awake at night planning your next chrome purchase, you will "get" this book.

A disease either goes away or kills the subject. An addiction is limitless, like La Plante's interest in Harleys.

This is not a book about motorcyles, or even about Harley-Davidson motorcycles. It's about an image, one created by magazines like Easy Riders and In the Wind. La Plante carefully studied that image for years before actually getting a motorcycle. He measures the riders and mechanics he meets by how well they match that image.

By chance, La Plante got his first Harley just before they became popular in the UK, so he looked like a pioneer instead of a follower. He bought it on his wife's credit without her knowledge and rode without a license for years.

Despite spending hours polishing his machine, La Plante nevers bothers to learn how to fix it. Given the number of time it breaks down, this might have been a good idea.

I read this book after Melissa Holbrook Pierson's "The Perfect Vehicle," and this book suffers by comparison. Pierson's book is about discovery, about learning new things about herself and the world, through motorcycling. La Plante's book is about stepping into a pre-existing role, and acquiring all of the accessories to go with it.

I freely admit that Harleys are magnificent-looking machines. I'm also probably one of those people who just don't get it.

La Plante's prose is a smooth, quick read. However, the book never goes very deep into motorcycling or La Plante's own mind.

A wonderful book from a refreshing standpoint, giving the reader the feeling of the 'brotherhood' of the love of the Harley -Davidson (and motorcycles in general) which spands the ocean. This book not only gives you the 'present' it goes through the history of the Harley in such a way that anyone who reads it can enjoy and understand it, as well as translating the emotions of the rider on his roadtrips. FABULOUS .

This book is only one of the many fine works of this author. . .

As a recent convert to the world of Harley Davidson I could really relate to Richards experience. I'm a life long biker but new to Harleys. His book captures the Harley "bug" so well and makes for a terrific read for fellow addicts and the uninitiated alike. I was hooked from page one and followed the onset of Hog fever from Richard's first exposure to the legendary Fred Warr right through to his nirvana, the ultimate HOG. The book had even more "feel" for me as I know many of the characters mentioned. Real people in a real HD world all with various degrees of Hog Fever watching bemused as a newcomer starts to show the first systoms.

If you have ever turned your head as a Harley Davidson motorcycle cruised by on the street then you need to read this book. But beware you too could catch Hog Fever, I hope you do, it could be one of the best things ever to happen to you. Remember though, there is no cure, thank the Lord

Scottie

Indian Larry's bike is pictured on the cover and I find myself opening up to his bike "Wild Child" and the very words are vividly painted on the belt drive; in fact every bit of the bike exudes a beauty and wild genius -- especially in the details. Both Indian Larry with his busily tattooed body and his bikes are loaded with content and meaning and the picture of him and Paul Cox look like they are on fire speeding along a quiet road on their beautiful unique bikes. It is amazing to have these photos since Indian Larry took the express to Biker Heaven.

I enjoy paging thru the book looking at the different styles. In section 3, Seate has "new blood" and Tom Langton's Gold bike with a seat that says "Pleasure to Burn" almost makes me want to give my old school bike fantasies a rest...Almost!

Billy Lane's bad boy hubless bike that looks like a bit of hell, insanity and chaos that found reason -- a reason to ride. Seate's description of Kendall Johnson's "paint schemes" using phrases like "Felliniesque circus nightmare" are insanely amusing but I found Johnson's work far more exciting featured on Discovery Channel than in this book.

If you don't like paging thru a wide variety of bike themes this isn't for you. If you enjoy a big heavy book both in weight and variety than this is the book for you. I really enjoyed this book! You can return to this book over and over and enjoy something different each time or revisit your favorites. I return to the pages with Indian Larry and I am so glad I got to meet him and see his art in the flesh --- and metal.

If you like to gaze at Motorcycles and admire machinery built by hand. You will enjoy this book. Also good bio's on the guys who build the bikes. Looking forward to the sequel from this author and photographer.

I purchased this book for a friend who is very in to choppers and bikes. He was very pleased at the information & photographs provided. In turn, I too, who knew nothing about this art..have become a fan myself. Great book for collection.

Sometimes you see a book cover that jumps right out at you and grabs your fullest attention - this is the case for a great book for teenage boys called "Choppers." Well the cover was just the opening to a wonderfully and well written book about custom choppers. These motorcycles are really works of art and the color photos of them are classic!

The authors, Mike Seate and Linda Black McKay, have done a good job of taking us on a visual journey of the mind and spirit with this book. They give the reader plenty of information to make it an educational journey (including a "Chopper Glossary" at the back of the book) yet the reader is always entertained and amused by the text and the color photos.

If you are looking for a gift to give to a young man in your life then this is one book that will actually be read and looked through from beginning to end. It is fascinating and pure "dream candy" looking at what others have done to those two wheel machines. The choice of bikes to display and write about is a perfect balance of art and function. This book is part of a great series of books and like all the books in that series this is not limited to just young men. All male readers will enjoy looking at and reading this book.

I personally recommend this book for all young male readers and those who are still young at heart! Choppers is given The American Authors Association's highest book rating for young readers - FIVE STARS.

This appeared verbatim in the magazine THUNDER PRESS.

BTW, Zimberoff's next book (out next spring), a continuation and sequel to ART OF THE CHOPPER is dedictaed to INDIAN LARRY and contains a full chapter of his work, a portrait and his biography plus every other major builder on the planet.

Reviewed by Terry Roorda

QUOTE Dated photos gleaned from the collection of photographer Michael Lichter combine with perfunctory prose by writer Mike Seate to bring us "Choppers: Heavy Metal Art," a shameless effort to cash in on the current chopper craze by using the exact format found in the highly acclaimed and successful "Art of the Chopper" by Tom Zimberoff. That's it in nutshell, folks. The similarities in physical size, style and content between this work and Zimberoff's are striking to say the very least: A fat highly- produced coffee table book that examines a roster of custom bike builders through portraiture, some biographical verbiage and studio photos of some of their creations.

That's where the similarities end. In the execution of that formula, Zimberoff's "Art of the Chopper" is fresh and literate while "Choppers: Heavy Metal Art" is stale and sophomoric. Seate's writing is lackluster at its best and painfully awkward most of the time, reading like the first draft of a work being produced on contract and on deadline. In three of the early vignettes in the book we are informed that "Colorado's Arlin Fatland has what you might call a wicked sense of humor," and that "Pat Kennedy of Tombstone, Arizona, is what you might call seriously old school," and that "Nothing about Kodlin's motorcycles is what you might call tradition- al." These excerpts are what you might call bad writing; the type of tedious template prose so devoid of creativity and enthusiasm for the subject matter that any editor worth the name would kick it back in disgust and demand another go. That's assuming there was an editor involved at all, and judging from the wealth of typos and awkward usages found in this book, there's little reason to believe there was. A truly ironic typo comes early in the going when in Seate's acknowledgments he pens this gem: "to Almetta, for never letting us forget the value of the wirtten word." Yes, folks, it says "wirtten." How's that for value?

Here's some other stuff that made me wince: "Looking like a cross between a scene from a concert by gangsta rappers Insane Clown Posse and a Felliniesque circus nightmare, Johnson's paint schemes grab a viewer's attention and hold it rapt for hours." Hunh? Or how about this stinker: "These self-anointed keepers of the hardtail faith congregate in Internet chat rooms and in the letters pages of custom motorcycle-enthusiast magazines to heap dis and envy on builders who aren't afraid to move the art of the custom motorcycle into the twenty-first century." Ouch.

There's plenty more where those came from. And the tragic thing about it is that Mike Seate is usually a competent and entertaining writer-and probably the most prolific wordsmith in the genre. Therein may lie the problem. This volume represents Seate's fifth book with the word "chopper" in the title, and four of those, including this one, were published in the span of less than a year and a half. Who wouldn't get burned out? The upside of "Choppers: Heavy Metal Art" are the images furnished by renowned biker photographer Michael Lichter, a man with one of the most impressive resumés in the industry. As always, his photos are luminous, and anyone familiar with his work in Easyriders magazine over the past couple of decades will recognize his style, but there's a problem here as well. These photos apparently came straight out of his existing inventory of bike feature shots, and many were taken years ago, going back as far as 1992. When you're making the case for custom bike building being a vibrant and dynamic craft in an exciting period of change, growth and popularity, wouldn't you want the timeliest material you could bring to the premise? Other complaints in this regard are that the names of the featured bikes are not provided, though they're often referred to in the copy, and the sparse technical data given for each consists only of frame style (rigid; Softail- type) and engine style (Panhead; Evolution-type), which are obvious attributes to anyone the least bit familiar with the subject, and of little or no educational value to those who aren't. Those criticisms aside, we have to understand that doing this book right would have taken some time, and clearly the publisher wanted to get into the market before Christmas with a product that would hopefully piggy- back on the success of "Art of the Chopper." That's understandable, if not admirable, from a business stand- point. From a creative standpoint it's disastrous. END QUOTE

I read many of the stories in the book, prior to there being a book. The author's Texas-sized personality and passion for the road leap from the pages. I'm 42 years old, and have ridden motorcycles since I was 13. Until reading the author's ride reports, I was merely a motorcycle "fan". After reading his stories, I went out, bought saddlebags, rain gear, and planned a 1200 mile trip. The stories inspired me to go out and find adventures of my own. And I've been doing it ever since. Read this book at your own peril. You'll be hooked, and before you know it, you'll find yourself hundreds if not thousands or miles away from home on a motorcycle, grinning from ear to ear.

I've read all of Daniel Meyers, Life Is A Road books several times and am awaiting the next. I wish he would write a little faster. As a long distance rider, avid motorcyclist, and Texan, myself, I have ridden a lot of the same road and seen a lot of the same country he describes in his books, his stories never fail to bring back momeries of my own trips. If you have any interest in the love affair of man and machine I highly recommend these books.

Enjoyed the author's style and what he had to say. Good examples of adventures on the road addressing why we choose to ride.

The only book I ever threw away....this guy is so full of himself..."big great texan"....barf! story was not so bad if you can get beyond the I am a big tuff guy!

It wasn't bad, just not my sort of thing.

The cover (at least of my edition) bears the legend "a novel by Daniel Meyer". It's certainly NOT that. It could be argued that it's a collection of short stories, but it's really not that either... mostly just vignettes of motorcycling with no real plot lines, with some of what might be poetry thrown in.

I think by "novel" the author means that it's fiction, which at least some of it almost certainly is. We are, for instance, asked to suspend disbelief when a very attractive lady, found naked, barefoot and alone in the woods at night (which she doesn't bother to explain over hours of conversation, and is apparently never asked) later produces a personalized calling card. Not "calling card" as a euphemism or metaphor, a real, physical card. The fact that authors, unlike movie directors, don't have "continuity" departments doesn't mean that they couldn't sometimes benefit from them.

I read it through, and enjoyed a few parts of it, but it doesn't gel as literature or fiction, nor does it really convey much about the experience of motorcycling.. at least as I experience it. Despite the somewhat pretentious title, there's very little in the way of pondering motorcycling's nature, beyond expressions of exuberance. Well, there is a great deal of exuberance involved, but there are also depths that go untouched here.

In fairness to the author, capturing much about the experience seems nearly impossible for any writer.. but I keep hoping.

Having already read Proficient Motorcycling and More Proficient Motorcycling, I decided to purchase Street Strategies despite some reviews indicating its redundancy of material from the first two books.

Street Strategies is the perfect book for your coffee break reading. It is physically small and easily fits in a desk drawer. Yes, the scenarios in the book are covered in Mr. Hough's first two books but their layout in this book allows you to jump in anywhere in the text. There is no need to start at page one and read to the end.

Just open up the book anywhere and read about a specific stand-alone scenario with Mr. Hough's expert analysis of how to handle that particular situation.

This helpful book enables both the novice and seasoned rider to maintain a good mental focus when riding by allowing you to review actual scenarios and their solutions prior to hitting the road.

Nothing will ever replace a professionally run "Rider's Education" course but this book is a nice supplement to have around.

David Hough continues to be the ultimate guru of motorcycle safety and handling. Common sense information for better riding skills coupled with safety information every biker should know. Safety is centered on anticipating and avoiding problems that require emergency avoidance action. With humor and style there's no loss of machismo in safe riding. Information that every weekend biker and commuter should know.

Street strategies is a collection of "stories" that are part or all of articles written by David Hough. The stories are entertaining and similar (if not identical in some cases) to stories contained in Proficient Motorcycling.

This is more of a waiting room kind of book. Very short chapters with cartoon diagrams that give the reader insight into the type of dangers that he/she might encounter in the real world of motorcycle riding and some advice on how to avoid them. It lacks the detail that makes Proficient Motorcycling and More Proficient Motorcycling such excellent training guides for riders.

This book might make a good stocking stuffer for someone who has already read the other books but if your looking for something for a starting/experienced rider pick one of the other two books (Proficient Motorcycling for the starter, "More" for the more experienced rider).

This is not a particularly in depth book but is good for reviewing your mental motorcycle skills in a one-page-example format. Good to take with you to work and read at lunch. If you are familiar with Hough's books this book takes Ricky Rider through one page situations to make you stay sharp in the saddle.Beginner's are better off learning from his "Proficient Motorcycling".

This is not like David's other books. It is not as wordy. It has short paragraphs on each page showing a different strategy. It is good for review and, the author wanted it short and sweet and book size small, so you can take it with you on the road. Some of the information is mentioned in his other books. I like it for fast reviewing. But doesn't go over riding techniques just safety review of what to look for in traffic and road conditions.