Jason Weisberger is Boing Boing's publisher. He often does what he ought, instead of what he should. On instagram and twitter he is @jlw

  • goodshiptheseus

    “… that shares the joys and dreams of people who take motorcycle road trips” or: “Is an ad that celebrates a homogenized aesthetic of motorcycling days gone by.”

    Substanceless narration, trendy custom bikes, stylish-but-shitty gear, retro helmets (when they wear them) and lots of fashionable facial hair.

    Want to take in more about the joys and dreams of people who take motorcycle road trips? Read any sport-touring, ADV riding, dual-sporting or iron-butt forum. On the plus side most of the people on these forums won’t be trying to package their lives to imitate the instagram aesthetic, but rather trying to stay warm, dry, and safe no matter how un-cool they look.

    • http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger

      I read many of those forums. I love them but rarely participate as there are too many sanctimonious assholes ready to jump down your throat for sharing something visually beautiful. 

      • http://twitter.com/firebagger Mary Mac

        Thank you.

    • SamuraiMark

       Live and let ride.

    • grimc

      Whatever criticisms you may have about the aesthetics of this, at least they appear to have hit the road in the right spirit.

      And then there are these guys:

      http://vimeo.com/55420992

    • MrWednesday7

      Mean spirited is mean spirited.

  • Donaleen Kohn

    Motorcycles are LOUD… they are horrible noise polluters.

    • Chesterfield

      Motorcycles can be loud, but there’s nothing intrinsically loud about them. Your perception is probably skewed by the fact that it’s easy to ignore quiet motorcycles and impossible to miss loud ones.

    • xzzy

      One justification for them being loud is for use as survival trait. Gives drivers who don’t check their mirrors a second stimuli to reduce the chances of running over a guy who will probably die in a collision.

      • grimc

        “Loud pipes save lives” is a deadly assumption. The only things a rider should assume are a) you’re invisible and b) every car on the road is trying to kill you.

        • SamuraiMark

          Seconded. As a cager, I’ve been ‘surprised’ by bikes with loud pipes many times.

          As a two-wheeled motor-pony rider I don’t expect the obnoxious blat from my pipes (stock, but still pretty loud when you walk on the throttle) to make me any more noticeable.

      • http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger

        Lots of studies have shown the loud pipes to make people notice you thing is perhaps not as real as some riders would like.

        My BMW R75/6 is whisper quiet and sounds like a sewing machine. I ride it endlessly and get 40+ mpg. It is easily the quietest and most efficient vehicle I own. 

        • Chesterfield

          We traded in our old car at the end of last year and now our car is more fuel efficient than my bike. Why do motorcycles use so much fuel? My bike (KLR 650) gets similar mileage as your BMW. Where are the 75-100 mpg bikes? 

    • http://profiles.google.com/jon.scott Jonathan Scott

      people pick the noise level that their bike makes. don’t blame “motorcycles”, blame the wanker who installs straight pipes.

    • Casual_Economy

       Your existence is thought pollution. I’ll get off your lawn, for now.

  • http://twitter.com/dailyrev Brian Donohue

    I’d never do it but I’m glad Pirsig did; it became one of the great books of the 20th c., one that I continue to study and learn from today. His contribution to the binary debate became the crux of a long philosophical essay of mine.

  • David Kopelman

    A thinly disguised commercial for jeans. Nice bikes though.
    http://www.edwin-europe.com/

  • http://benatkin.com/ Ben Atkin

    That’s a nice video. Got me looking through the vimeo staff picks and I found this one: http://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/49786954

  • Chesterfield

    Long Way Round is also good.

    http://www.hulu.com/long-way-round

  • Casual_Economy

    I’ve seen this before and am not convinced it’s entirely shot on film. Some of that super hi-def, crazy lens stuff looks too crisp to be film. But I do see where they cut to shots that look like film.

  • cstatman

    this is so nice, compared to the wankers doing burnouts on I-10

    • peregrinus

       Is ‘wanker’ part of the regular american lexicon now?  I’d love that.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Everyone young enough to have grown up on Harry Potter now speaks British English.

        • grimc

          And Madonna.

  • peterblue11

    makes me wanna watch Sons of Anarchy so bad. i can’t wait for the new season. beautiful

  • Stjohn

    Jason, I’m a little late to the party, but I posted this on Faceblog earlier.   Pretty much the antithesis of what your video shows:   http://gawker.com/5980261/artisanal-manliness-for-fun-and-profit

    • http://boingboing.net/ Jason Weisberger

      Ha! Its a fun world we live in.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      No. Just no. I’ve been to pedicure parties that were less twee than that.

  • Rex Brown

    It’s interesting how many motorcycle road trip films and TV shows have popped up lately. Enjoy my contribution to the genre…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxQGJt2GF4A&list=PLEB73687F6242E2FB