[High On Octane]

I'm just sitting here waiting for motorcycles to come factory equipped handlebar mounted laser beams.  Might be waiting awhile. 

[malky]

Have you been "threatened" with the Air Bag jacket in the U.S. and your respective countries?

[Richard230]

No airbag threats in the U.S. that I have heard of.  Just don't tell any of our Democratic "feel good" legislators that such a thing exists or they will mandate it to keep us all safe - and maybe require a couple of extra wheels on our motorcycles too.  Of course the Honda Gold Wing has offered an airbag as an expensive option for a few years, but I doubt it sells very well.  I wonder if it is made by the same company that built the exploding bags for Honda?

[malky]

To my way of thinking, it is a strong contender for ugliest motorcycle ever produced.
 
Another contender

[gizzo]

Don't forget the Ducati diavel : an amazing motorcycle in the ugliest form Ducati have come up with in years. A favourite of wogs and lebs for whom a Harley is not vulgar enough.

[malky]

I'll have to go back on the medication again, after Diavel being mentioned. There is no excuse for the Indiana either.

[ace.cafe]

I feel similarly about the motard category as I do about the adv bike category. Neither fish nor fowl.

I have a burning question: Will there eventually  be retro motards called retards?
 

[Farmer_John]

I'll have to go back on the medication again, after Diavel being mentioned. There is no excuse for the Indiana either.

That bike may as well been called a Cagiva (which was the original plan).  The Castiglioni brothers "saved" Ducati (and Husqvarna also comes to mind) and then used and abused Ducati and IMO did nearly as much damage to the Marque as the Italian government had done over the previous decade.

The Indiana was a product of that.

[Ice]

That bike may as well been called a Cagiva (which was the original plan).  The Castiglioni brothers "saved" Ducati (and Husqvarna also comes to mind) and then used and abused Ducati and IMO did nearly as much damage to the Marque as the Italian government had done over the previous decade.

The Indiana was a product of that.

 I see a pattern there. It is familiar.

[malky]

I feel similarly about the motard category as I do about the adv bike category. Neither fish nor fowl.

I have a burning question: Will there eventually  be retro motards called retards?
 

I thought a retro motard was a street scrambler.

[gizzo]

Haha! I love motards! Insanely good fun bikes. That Ducati Indiana was idiotic. A high revving sport bike engine in a cruiser WTF? Kawasaki has just done it again, with a detuned ninja engine in that Vulcan thing.
FWIW, the bmw in the OP looks fine to me, in a samey, japanesey, me too kind of way. Nothing special about it but inoffensive.

[gizzo]

I feel similarly about the motard category as I do about the adv bike category. Neither fish nor fowl.

I was thinking about that comment at work today. There's nothing else to do. It occurred to me that the motard builders are kind of building on foundations laid by the cafe racer crew. What's a cafe racer? It's not a touring/commuter bike. It's not a sport bike. It's a sporty special built from a base of a tourer/commuter. Likewise the motard. Not a sport bike, but can hold it's own in company of some pretty fierce machines given the conditions, and from a  base bike not intended for that purpose at all. Motards, the new cafe racer 

[malky]

Cafe racers were part of the evolution of the factory sports bike. Before you could buy an off the peg "racer" you built your own, and a whole industry grew up supplying the parts, Dresda, Dunstall, Rickman etc. The first Jap cafe racer I saw was a cb750 with a Read Titan kit fitted, once the manufacturers saw there was money to be made they got in on the act and built their own, stifling individualism along the way.

[gizzo]

I realise that. Motards started the same way. Then manufacturers saw they could make money copying what crew were building at home and there it is. Factory motards are a thing. Likewise streetfighters. I'd draw a line between old school pukka race bikes by the likes of Dresda and Rickman and cafe racers built at home but that's just me. You might see it differently, having been there and all  .

[malky]

The guys who built their own cafe racers were "apeing" their heroes of the race track. You would see their helmets painted to match Mike Hailwood,John Cooper etc.