Podcast: Let's talk about beater bikes

Sep 09, 2022

Are motorcycles meant to be preserved or used hard? Ari Henning joins Spurgeon and Zack in this episode of Highside/Lowside to debate the merits of saving or flogging different bikes.

Humble beater bikes carried many riders through their formative years, building skills in exchange for dents, scratches, and other side effects of rookies at the controls. Nobody sheds a tear when an old Kawasaki Ninja 250 or a clapped-out Harley-Davidson Sportster is dropped in a parking lot during cone drills. Learning to ride off-road? Your riding buddies might even poke fun of your squeaky-clean bike until it gets some dirt and scuffs on it. Everyday workhorse motorcycles are perfect for commuters, road trippers, beginners, and backup transportation. Some riders even keep a beater bike around to teach friends how to ride. Are some motorcycles too special to run into the ground like that?

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion on that, so the HS/LS crew is weighing in with some thoughts of their own. Spurgeon brings up the timeless example of a Vincent Black Lightning in this podcast, easily one of the most revered and collectible motorcycles of its era. Should a Black Lightning be ridden hard and put away wet? Somebody somewhere has surely done it. Would that motorcycle be better off in a climate-controlled room, unridden, and possibly stored away as an investment? Somebody has surely done that, too.

In the space between smashed-up beginner bikes and concours-ready collectibles, you’ll find all kinds of opinions about how a motorcycle should be used or treated. The HS/LS hosts take a stab at deciphering those differences in season six’s second episode.

Spurg and Zack also discuss current events such as the strong sales of dual-sports, respond to some listener comments, and send out some free T-shirts.