Aaron Frank's Megaphone Reactivated

It's hard to describe how good it feels to be back in this space, filing a column for Motorcyclist. This was where I started, after all. One of my first contributions to this magazine was a column called "Performance Anxiety," which appeared in the December 2002 issue. It's more than a little embarrassing for me to reread that piece today, extolling the object lesson of learning to ride well on a small, underpowered bike like the 650cc Honda Hawk GT I owned at that time. It's still a valid point (and entirely true), but that first column was dripping with so much SBS (small-bike smugness) that it makes me cringe.

I'm happy to say I've come a long way since then. For starters, I now know that it's always better to ride a fast bike fast than it is to do anything on a slow bike. And it makes me even happier to announce that I'm coming back to Motorcyclist full-time, to join Messrs. Catterson, Boehm and Carrithers in the capacity of editor at large and assist them in our ongoing quest to produce the smartest, savviest-and coolest-motorcycle magazine you've ever read.

Not that I was ever really gone. I've been on the masthead in some capacity or another for five years, but for the last three I've only contributed sporadically. The majority of my time was vacuumed up writing about stunters and custom sportbike builders in Super Streetbike, a sportbike lifestyle publication that I helped launch in the spring of '03. But as educational and colorful as my years at Super Streetbike proved to be, I was always angling for a way to get back to my roots at Motorcyclist, the title where I came into my own as both a writer and a rider.

After a few months of freelance contributing, I started my first tour of duty in '02 as senior editor. It was Butcher Boehm who took me from know-nothing newbie to a functional (if not entirely competent) motojournalist through a steady diet of international press launches and lots and lots of track time. I was dispatched to Catalunya to ride Ducatis, to Misano to test GSX-R600s, to Spain's Mediterranean coast on SV1000s, to the Alps on Yamahas, to Japan for more GSX-R goodness on Suzuki's Ryuyo test track and so much more. All this riding-and the writing that went along with it-quickly built up the chops necessary to keep up with my colleagues on this masthead.

Then the Super Streetbike thing came around, a rare opportunity to act as editor-in-chief (ask Catterson how long you have to wait for that opportunity in this business) and learn the ins and outs of building a magazine from scratch and getting it off to press each month. Most days were spent babysitting wheelie boyz and learning more than anyone should know about chrome, candy paint and other mostly irrelevant stuff. In my free time, though, I never left "our" world, earning an Expert roadracing license, traveling the country to compete in WERA national endurance races with TeamMS.org and restoring and riding the wheels off my '72 Moto Guzzi V7 Sport-decidedly non-SSB stuff, in other words.

But now, with all the bling kings and wheelie riders set squarely in my rearview, I'm excited to be invited back and am looking forward to being an important part in the big changes that Catterson (the real FNG on our masthead, it's worth noting) has planned for this magazine in the coming months.

I've come a long way to get back to where I've started. How far? Let's just say that 52-horsepower Hawk GT is long gone, and now, slotted between the V7 Sport and late-model GSX-R750 in my garage, there's a new toy: a 215-bhp, 200-mph, nitrous-fueled Kawasaki ZX-14. I've had a bit of a horsepower injection in my riding life, and I'm expecting that this return to Motorcyclist will do the same for my writing, too-and I can't wait to share all the great stories with you.

Yeah, it's good to be back.