By Jim Nash

It is safe to bet that a flying motorcycle will never be a practical transportation option, but that has not stopped Samson Motorworks, a small engineering firm in northern California’s Sierra Nevada foothills, from playing the long odds.

The company is building a prototype of its Switchblade Multi Mode Vehicle, or flying motorcycle, and hopes to sell a $60,000 do-it-yourself kit as early as 2011 (engine and avionics are sold separately, for about $25,000 total).

Occupants would sit in the aerodynamic Switchblade side by side in leather seats and climate-controlled luxury, behind an aggressively angled nose and canard. Samson is working with a third-party avionics-maker to create an instrument display that switches from air to ground readings on landing.

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Before I rode Harley-Davidson’s new Street Glide Trike, my attitude about three-wheeled cruisers was that they were geezer machines – ridden by old guys whose backsides were as big as their bikes’. The thousands of dollars riders paid to convert their motorcycles into road-going half-breeds seemed a steep price to pay just to avoid putting their feet down.

But riding Harley’s latest, I learned otherwise. The trike’s attraction is even broader than its car-like width, appealing to the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl (who was the first to get one — as a custom — even before the Street Glide Trike went i to production), the gang-bangers in my Northeast L.A. ‘hood and the guy in the Scion XB who threw a complimentary devil horn from his window less than a minute after I’d taken possession of my temporary wheels.

Powered with a 103-cubic-inch twin-cam engine, rather than the 96-incher on the regular Street Glide upon which it is based, the sporty 2010 Street Glide Trike is the second modern-day Harley-Davidson to be released as a three-wheeler. After a 36-year hiatus from triple-wheeled machines, Harley debuted its Tri Glide Ultra Classic last year, responding to customer requests for a trike that could be purchased off the floor and ready to ride instead of making buyers jump through the hoops of buying a motorcycle, purchasing a kit and ripping the motorcycle apart to convert it. The added benefit of a stock trike: matching wheels, matching paint and a full factory warranty that wasn’t voided by the conversion, all of it for less money.

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The words to Steppenwolf’s bikers’ anthem Born To Be Wild whirled around in my head as I clunked my Harley-Davidson Rocker into gear and pulled away from the lights.

It was just after 10am and I was leaving the Chicago city limits, heading due north along the western shores of Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. It’s a 90-mile journey along Route 94, crossing from Illinois into Wisconsin, with my ultimate destination the new Harley-Davidson museum in the company’s hometown.

America’s premier motorcycle company began life in Milwaukee back in 1903.

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Think you know everything about honest Abe? Have you seen Harley Davidson bikes that span nearly a century?

You can learn more about both at the Studebaker museum which has two new exhibits.

The Abraham Lincoln exhibit is called “The Man You Didn’t Know”.

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“I’ve always had a need for speed,” Stefanie declares. “I used to barrel-race horses and drag-race a ‘72 Oldsmobile Cutlass.”

After a serious accident on a horse, however, she turned her focus to painting, beginning with portraits of custom cars. It wasn’t until 2006 that she produced her first motorcycle painting, depicting her husband Donnie’s bright-red Harley-Davidson Firefighters’ Special Edition. Shortly thereafter came her first art show at Yeagers Harley-Davidson in Sedalia, since when she’s been painting bikes full-time.

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Hard to believe it’s been almost a decade since the revolution.

Eight years ago, Harley-Davidson introduced the VRSC (V-Twin Racing Street Custom) V-Rod, breaking from tradition with a brand new bike that featured low-slung power cruiser styling and a radical-for-Harley liquid-cooled, fuel-injected, Porsche-assisted engine design.

The V-Rod lineup has expanded since then, exploring different variations of trim and styling over the years.

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With their big leather seats, tiny engines and late-Victorian styling, these bicycle-like steeds could be mistaken for oversized antique toys. Yet in their day — when most people still traveled by foot or depended on horses — they were the breathtakingly speedy symbols of a revolutionary change in transportation.

Many early bikes could cruise as fast as 40 mph over flat ground and, in 1903, two specially tuned motorcycles set speed records of 53, then 64 mph. That was far faster than any horse and faster than almost any car — stamping the new vehicle with an aura of dizzying speed that has defined it for more than a century.

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Never mind the motorcycle, its name puts it at a disadvantage even before you see the comedy skull and crossbones sticker on the oil tank.

What is Harley-Davidson thinking? That we’re going to shout out “Aha me hearties!” every time we swing a leg over the Cross Bones? I’m sure there are riders who won’t buy this bike just because of its moniker.

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OTSEGO — Bean’re (pronounced “bean rey”) lives the “gypsy biker” life.

He’s 45, but “a 10-year-old” at heart. Bean’re travels from biker rally to biker rally, from here to Europe and Australia.

“People pay me to show up,” he said from Nashville, Tenn.

He will hang out, tell stories, perform stunts, and otherwise amuse guests at gatherings such as Chopper Fest 3.

He told about the time he was at one of Larry Davidson’s post-ride parties in Otsego. The power went out, “so I decided this is the perfect time to go skinny-dippin”, nobody can see nothin.’”

Bean’re jumped in Davidson’s backyard pond.

“I didn’t know everyone had spotlights and flashlights and everything else … That’s kind of what I do. I have a good time. And people around me tend to, too.”

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