P96
CN
III LOWSIDE
I
'll begin this edition of Lowside by
asking a loaded question. What
is the most beautiful motorcycle
of all time, in your eyes? For some,
this might be an easy answer. When
presented with this question, my
colleague Adam Waheed from Mo-
torcyclistonline.com simply replied
"916." And when I asked why he
chose this motorcycle, he replied,
"Cause it's sick."
Fair enough.
For others, it's a slightly harder
question. The subject of a beautiful
motorcycle is no different than the
subject of a beautiful person, dog,
house or island. What's beautiful in my
eyes may be far from what you would
consider beautiful, but it's a nice con-
versation starter, nonetheless.
I got the idea for this edition of
Lowside from the excellent Instagram
car magazine Drive Nation (you can
check it out here) when they posed
the same question to their readers.
The answers were wide and varied,
so I thought I'd wrangle in some of my
esteemed moto-journalist colleagues
(and my dad, a moto journalist himself)
into this most personal of subjects to
see how different we all were.
I'll start at the top.
My boss, Sean Finley, like Adam,
nominated the 1994 Ducati 916, "It
was just so different when it was
launched but it immediately looked
cool," he said, and the early 1980s
factory Honda motocross bikes of
David Bailey, Bob Hannah, Johnny
O'Mara and Ron Lechien. "Those low
aluminum tanks still look cool even by
today's standards," Sean told me.
Cycle News editor Kit Palmer
also went for some early 1980s
moto love, signaling the factory
Suzuki RA125 of Mark Barnett out
for particular appraisal. "Super tech,
full floater suspension, water-cooled,
just plain bitchin!" Kit said.
Jesse Ziegler went for "any dirt
bike and a bonus if they have multiple
cylinders!" But when questioned fur-
ther, he said, "Definitely factory rally
bikes are the coolest looking for me.
I like the retro-cool Unlimited class
Dakar bikes from Paris-Dakar days.
"Big, unruly and pissed off. There's
something about a bike that's meant
to race across countries, navigate
with paper, and not have consider-
ations to be comfortable."
Moving out of Cycle News, Ari
Henning went for a classic in the
A QUESTION OF BEAUTY
BY RENNIE SCAYSBROOK
