RUST magazine: RUST#32

Triumph Street Scrambler & Ducati Desert Sled
This is life with the Street Scrambler. Maybe
we don’t have to be quite so aggressive about
it – apologies there to those of a nervous
disposition, and kids please don’t talk to your
folks like that – but the Street Scrambler asks
over and again, ‘what do you need all that
bullcrap for?’
It is eternally rewarding, this bike feels so
right it has to be wrong. Can 54hp really feel
this good? Can 120mm of suspension travel
really make a Scrambler? Actually, none of
that matters. Nothing matters. The Street
Scrambler just tears up all the rules, does
things its way, and does it so spot-bollock-on
that it strips your soul bare.
Riding the Street Scrambler is to remember
what biking was, when you were a punk kid,
when riding your bike was your first real
taste of freedom, when you’d go without food
and drink just to have another gallon of gas.
It recalls a life before cellphones, before the
Internet, before 24-hour news and Jihadis.
You’d blow out of work on a Friday afternoon
and go explore every tarmac’d corner of your
part of the world. You’d feel the wind on your
chest, blowing up your nostrils, watering your
eyes and you’d want it to never end.
And a bit like that punk kid that you once
were, the Street Scrambler doesn’t actually
look all that much. It’s smallish, its green for
God’s sake (green?) and its stats would make it
the bogey card in any game of Top Trumps.
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