-stephen berner

Here’s a taste.

-stephen berner

Thanks for your loyal patronage!!

-stephen berner

-stephen berner

- stephen berner

images & production: stephen berner

It was a good time, the Pizza rocked!

Last week H-D held a press and media event at the ACE Hotel in NYC where they “debuted” the new Forty-Eight Sportster model.

It’s a nice enough bike and I was happy to check  it out. It was good to have the H-D team in my hometown, that doesn’t happen often.

Pupkin and I got to chat with WilleG and his lovely wife Nancy for a awhile -that was a real treat and I appreciated him entertaining our questions.

What a classy guy WillieG is, if you ever get the chance to meet him, I highly recommend it…really down to earth guy.

As an added treat to the high rollers mentioned, Chris Callen/ Cycle Source and Pat Patterson/ Led Sled were also in attendance and we got to chat a bit, that was cool.

After the Press Event there was a weird kind of party in the same room attended by all these non-bike rider hipsters who milled around and posed on the bikes whilst video cameras captured it all. I’d imagine we will be seeing this footage on MTV, TMZ or it’s ilk.

Pupkin & I finished our Millers (thoughtfully provided by our H-D hosts) and beat feet to East (a fine sushi joint) on 29th and 3rd to eat what i estimated to be half a school of fish.

We caught a train home and that was that.

Thanks to Paul James &  Jen Gruber/ H-D – for a nice time and a good look at this new model.

But first, I want to clue everyone in to what is going on at IronWorks mission control.

The way we see it,  Job #1,  is to engage our readers, subscribers and fans in both Print and Online media… and to do that we need to produce unique and excellent content in both places. The web provides a great platform to share  pictures, video, text, PDF files, downloads – all kinds of stuff, and broadcast it more frequently and in greater depth than we can in our precious print pages. Look at it this way, we publish a print magazine 9 times a year, but we publish online at IWBlogger multiple times a day. These two media work together to give you the whole IronWorks enchilada. Our hope is that if you are a web consumer and a fan of the IWBlogger, you go pick up the print magazine at the newsstand, or subscribe and that if you are a newsstand reader, you check out the IWBlogger site.

One of my personal goals is to work with Snakebit Sam and ratchet up the volume of our online presence, but do it in a manner that is true to the core of what IronWorks is about - a celebration of the VTwin culture, the machines we adore and of motorcycling. That’s the bar we have set, and it is a high one. 20 years of continuous publication is a testament to those enduring, heartfelt values and I don’t see that changing one little bit…  if anything we want to dig in even deeper in those core areas and really find out what our shared passion has to offer us…. stories, experiences, laughs, shared good times and challenges. In a word, the kind of stories a rider can appreciate and truly understand. We will bring you not only great bikes to ogle and dream about (just like we do), but great stories to read too.

There are so many forums, boards, newsgroups and communities sprouting up on a daily basis, that unless IronWorks readers express the need for us to provide them, we will probably not put a lot of energy in that direction.  If folks have feelings one way or another – let’s have at it. I’d really like to know how you feel and you can comment here or send me an email. Count on a response, if nothing else I am accessible and responsive.

So, you’ve seen  I’ve been crowding and cluttering up the IWBlogger site with all sorts of images of the thing that is my nearest and dearest passion – the VTwin engine. To tell you the truth, I’d really rather be posting your pictures – so I will say it here folks – send on your digital images – use the Submit  button and send them on. I promise we will look and make it a point to run them online if they are G-rated (please). Really, if you leave it to me, you will be looking at flywheels, pistons and all kinds of engine carnage, and what kind of fun would that be?  C’mon, crack open the photo album and scan some oldies for us.

OK – if you’ve read this far – you deserve the payoff….here’s a personal story you won’t find in IronWorks Magazine.

Since 1991 or maybe even before, my very best and oldest friends, Pupkin & Freddy and I have made the annual pilgrimage to the Annual Toys for Tots Charity Bike Ride held in our hometown of Queens, NYC. Some years ago we bailed on the City and moved a bit North, so getting to town takes about an hour. The run was scheduled for the first weekend of December, and so some years the ride down to NYC was tough (read: cold, and i mean stupid cold).  In the days before we were smart enough to ride baggers, wear electric gear and could appreciate the idea of windshields, there were years where I had so many layers on I couldn’t bend enough to get a leg over the back of my lowered FXR.  I mean really, 30 degrees is just about manageable putting around town, but honk 50 miles on the highway in an hour and the smile has been wiped off your face, guaranteed – windchill takes on a whole new meaning at that point. I know you hard riders are here are with me on this…if you ride you’ve  been there …in a word it is brutal. But there was no way we’d miss it, it is a tradition and dealing with it is the way we earn our bones.

Fast forward 15 years and for some reason the date of this ride changes to late October – moved from December. Hmmm, what is going on, who is messing with tradition? Then we thought on it and realized the brilliance of it – the weather is manageable in October. You see friends, all of the folks that had attended this event for all of these years were getting older and began bitching about the cold to the Organizers (who were themselves getting older too).
And so the date was moved – and now  attending the Toys For Tots run is a really a pleasurable event. Everyone in my old hometown turns out and it is great fun if the weather is nice – and it was beautiful this year.

So take a spin with me and my two pals….Pupkin & Freddy while we ride down from Connecticut to Queens NYC , down I95, over the Throgs Neck Bridge and have the best Souvlaki NYC has to offer for lunch and then pick up our buddy Sure-low. Take a look, see some great NYC bikes and get a taste of what is happening in my little part of the big world.

Please – send in some News from your corner of the world!! IronWorks is your publication, lets see what you’ve got!

Interested? Check out Kurt in IronWorks. Visit his website or give ‘em a visit on Facebook. Sure, he’s on Myspace and oh yeah—he has a blog.