It seems I am smack dab in the middle of the nostalgia years. A point in a persons life where what has passed is much more alluring than what will come. At points I understand this desire as it is part of what I do, but often I am at a loss for the desire to halt time and relive a part of your past. For some reason I understand this more with the motorcycles that get restored and resurrected at the shop as a means to preserve the past, than I do the constant barrage of reunion tours from the bands of my youth. Don't get me wrong, many of these bands I list among my favorite musical acts. I am just not as enthused about their revival as many of my compatriots are.

There is this intangible thing with a band and its music at that right point in time that transcends it from just sound to something, for lack of better terms, spiritual. Pan camera to some 80's cliché teenager sitting in their room listening to the Smiths. Each of those moments where we have put a soundtrack to an event in our life we can relive again each time we hear that song. Seeing that band live again lacks the authenticity of that original show or time you put that super cool record on before trying to impress that new girl with how cool you were. Along with you, these bands have aged, the emotions and desires that created that art have long since passed and now most are a cover band of themselves.

With bikes it is a similar scenario. Many folks coming in the shop are looking for that bike of their youth. Whether it was their first one or the one that really cool kid down the street had. Modern bikes and how smoothly they accelerate and adequately stop in time - fail in helping us relive that rush of our youth. The sound, the vibration, and feeling one is about to fall off the back - man that is a thrill. 

With motorbikes, the revival is a much less authentic. The name of the brand remains, but the people, the designers, and engineers have all disappeared and been replaced. The modern revivals are just a Beatlemania cover band of the old moto brands. No heart, no soul, the only history is in their name. 

 

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