Passes & Canyons Blog

About this time last year I wrote about the miles I wanted to put on my bikes in 2007. These were largely shots in the dark, but I’m still interested to see how close I came. Here’s the scoop.

I was hoping to put 2,000 miles on my Honda CB750 Custom; 2,500 miles on my Kawasaki Concours; and I hoped to limit my car mileage to 12,000 miles.

I started out 2007 with 79,230 miles on the clock of my CB750, and ended it with 79,691, for a not so grand total of only 461 miles. Darn.

I did better on the Kawi. I started with 19,011 miles and ended with 21,888. That’s 2,877, so it’s better than I hoped.

Not surprisingly, it has a lot to do with which bike I take on our annual bike trip. I took the Kawi this year, but in 2006 I took the Honda and I only put 496 miles on the Kawi that year.

Then for reference, I did manage to only clock 12,211 miles on my cars. I started the year with a Honda Civic and murdered it (don’t ask) in February, and then got a Hyundai Elantra. So my driving was not excessive.

What about 2008? OK, I don’t feel like I’m going out on a limb here because I have some benchmark data. For 2008 I’m going to shoot for 2,500 again on the Kawi, I’ll really push and try to also log 1,000 miles on the Honda, and I will try this time to keep the car to under 11,000. All I need to do is ride the Honda to work more often, right?

OK, that’s my plan and I’m sticking with it. Have a good ride!

I subscribe to the MotorcycleUSA email newsletter and was just glancing at an issue from May of this year (2007). They had an article about the latest resurrection of the Indian marque, saying that you should “expect to see the Indian Chief rolling down a roadway near you late in the Fall of 2007.”

Well, I haven’t. So I decided to do a reality check and see what’s happening with Indian.

For starters, they have a pretty nice website:
http://www.indianmotorcycle.com/

But you can’t ride a website. What about the bikes?

The answer to the obvious question, “When will the new bike go on sale?”, is posted on their FAQ page, and here’s the answer.

As soon as they’re worthy to carry the Indian name and logo down the road and not a moment before. We expect the 2009 Chief to be introduced in time to be stuffed into some very, very large 2008 Christmas stockings, if not sooner.

The other obvious question is how the project is progressing. Here’s what they say:

Fabulous. We’re currently testing prototypes of the 2009 Chief, building our flagship dealership just outside Charlotte, North Carolina, franchising Indian dealers throughout the country and partnering with some of the most respected, creative leather and fashion designers in the world to create a premium line of official Indian riding gear and apparel.

So who knows. There has been so much money spent on trying to resurrect this brand. Will these guys succeed where so many others have failed? I don’t have a clue. But I’ll be curious to see, won’t you.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to become an Indian dealer this is your chance. Just go to the website to learn how. Opportunities like this don’t come along often. The only question is, is this a good opportunity or a bad one?