Dee-AH-vul: it means ‘devil’ in the Bolognese dialect of Italian… and to Cruiser readers, it will no doubt live up to its name. The hate mail comes on hot and heavy whenever we feature a Ducati in these pages, so we’ll keep this brief. The gist is this: though Ducati thinks they have themselves a cruiser, we can confirm that this is abundantly not true.

We all know that production “customs” have become the norm. But while just about every manufacturer offers a less-is-more blackened model to the market, shape is now changing, as well as color. Ape hangers are in, straight bars are out. Enter the production bobber.

Got a bike you’d like to flaunt? Send prints or high-resolution digital files (300 dpi, please) of your cruiser plus info about it to Motorcycle Cruiser, 831 S. Douglas St., El Segundo, CA 90245 or cruiser@sorc.com

Got a bike you’d like to flaunt? Send prints or high-resolution digital files (300 dpi, please) of your cruiser plus info about it to Motorcycle Cruiser, 831 S. Douglas St., El Segundo, CA 90245 or cruiser@sorc.com

The dog days of summer are truly upon us. The air is thicker, the wind calmer, and the days longer—extending before us like endless tarmac shimmering in the late afternoon light. The natural human reaction is to dream of escape, and for cruiser riders, that usually means one thing: Road Trip.

Got a bike you’d like to flaunt? Send prints or high-resolution digital files (300 dpi, please) of your cruiser plus info about it to Motorcycle Cruiser, 831 S. Douglas St., El Segundo, CA 90245 or cruiser@sorc.com

Motorcycling can come late to some of us, perhaps approaching with a need to escape stress and workaday woe, or simply as an economical alternative to whatever massive gas sucker parked in the driveway. For others, it comes none too soon.

Want attitude without the painful negative cash flow? Style without heft? Then you’re better off in the middle, it seems. Last issue, we poked under the hoods of the latest 1300cc cruisers from Honda and Star ("The Happy Mediums"), sampling their middleweight road warriors, the Interstate and V Star 1300 Tourer. In Part Two, we dig into the more street-savvy offerings from each manufacturer, pitting the pro-street Honda Sabre against Star’s radical factory custom, the Stryker. These low-slung, high-style rigs are more suited for trolling down the Sunset Strip than for a mile-munching road trip, so to match the machines to the task, we squired them through the unforgiving back alleys of downtown L.A.

Attitude + Darkness = The New Cool

The sun sweeps over vast expanses of statuesque saguaro cactus in the crook of the Superstition Mountains. Here, nestled in the Valley of the Four Peaks, is Fort McDowell, home to the Yavapai Indians and more to the point, the base camp for Triumph’s 2011 MY Cruiser line launch.