Part of the motorcycle riding bug consists of reading motorcycle magazines. If you do more than just look at the pictures, eventually you'll find a few writers who really stand out for their passion for bikes and their command of prose.

My current favorite motorcycle writer is Clement Salvadori, a columnist and regular contributor for Rider and American Rider. Here's an excerpt from his column, "Road Tales":

...Several years went by, and I found myself living in a waterfront apartment in Boston's North End, a delightful old part of the city built before the advent of the automobile, with no garages at all. My previous Cambridge slumlord had an empty Garage to rent, so I would keep my new Triumph TR6R there, and drive my old van back to the apartment. I went out of town one weekend in a car, three of us going down to Philadelphia to visit a friend in the U.S. Naval Hospital---this was 1967, the days of Vietnam. We returned late Sunday night. Monday I went to get the bike, and as I walked around the building to the garage the old fellow who had lived in the first-floor apartment since Truman had been president stuck his head out his window and said, "Hey, I think you've been robbed; the doors were hanging open when I got up Saturday morning." Sure enough, somebody had cut the hasp on the padlock and taken my almost new bike. Obviously some local scoundrel had taken note of my coming and going, proof that out of sight did not necessarily mean out of a thief's mind.

Cops arrived, took a report, told me that I had less than a 5 percent chance of getting the bike back, and left. Fortunately, a local dealer had set up an unofficial retrieval system, essentially hiring ex-thieves to steal stolen bikes, and my TR6 was soon back in my happy hands.

The moral of that little story was to have a more secure garage... At my rural home the bikes are well-guarded by five attack cats. I sleep well.

Salvadori is a Harvard grad who went into the Army during the Vietnam War, serving in the Special Forces as a demolitions expert. After his tour of duty, he became a Foreign Services Officer with the State Department. After several overseas assignments, he quit his job and spent the next three years traveling the world on his motorcycle. He's a great raconteur and does a lot of guest speaking engagements. Salvadori is tall and distinguished-looking with a close-cropped grey beard, and he wears a beret without irony.

Salvadori's writing has a conversational tone, like you're hanging out in the garage after a long day's ride. Of course, Clem's garage is lit by candles, and there's a loaf of great bread, some aged cheeses and a perfect red wine on the workbench next to the wrenches.

He has two books in print: Motorcycle Journeys Through California (2000) and Honda VF and VFR Interceptor (2001), both available at Amazon.com, but I enjoy his magazine writing every month.