Selecting Santa's Ideal Motorcycle: Speed, Style, and Storage!

In this episode of the Throttle and Roast Podcast, host Niels Meersschaert explores Santa's challenges in delivering presents globally and evaluates various motorcycle options for the task. He discusses the essential traits Santa's ideal motorcycle must have: speed, storage, warmth, wind protection, style, and versatility. The analysis covers sports bikes, cafe racers, sport tourers, and cruiser baggers, weighing the pros and cons of each regarding Santa's unique requirements. Ultimately, the podcast aims to find Santa's ideal motorcycle that blends tradition with efficiency, allowing Santa to make his Christmas deliveries seamlessly.

Some of Santa's evaluation teams testing out the bikes:

• Sons of Santa
• The First Motorcycle Christmas Run
• The Tale of Motorcycle Santa

Transcript

Niels: : 0:00

Oh, what fun it is to ride. Welcome to the throttle and roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. Reports have been coming in that Santa may be replacing his traditional sleigh and reindeer with a motorcycle. Witnesses have seen several Santas out testing various motorcycles to deliver the presents faster and maybe with some more fun, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus on which motorcycle he will end up using. Let's see if we can figure that out. So I want to begin with what is Santa's challenge? Well, estimates say that there are about 1.9 billion children under the age of 14 in the world, and they live in about a billion households globally. Now, if we give him the benefit of the doubt that he can deliver in 24 hours around the globe, shifting where he is based on time zones, we take those 1 billion households and divide by 24 hours. So he has to deliver about 42 million homes per hour. That's about 700,000 homes per minute or nearly 12,000 per second. These numbers are just astronomical in what he needs to achieve. And it's clear that he needs a fast bike to be able to deliver that fast. But he also needs to carry all the presents for those nearly 2 billion kids. So he needs plenty of storage space. And it's also winter here in the Northern hemisphere. About 90% of the world's population is in the Northern hemisphere. So most of his deliveries will be in the frigid cold. So he needs something that can keep him warm with plenty of wind protection. But Santa also needs to keep a particular style in mind. He's used the sleigh for centuries and he might want to keep that classic aesthetic. But Santa also needs to cover all areas of the globe from the urban streets of London to the deserts of Africa and the icy tundras of Canada. So the five traits that he needs to consider are speed, storage, warmth, and wind protection, style, and versatility.

Niels: 2:13

so with speed in mind, what if Santa used a sports bike? It has a decent amount of wind protection. There's a little bit of a windshield in there some may love the modern style, but Santa might think it goes against some of that classic aesthetic that he's looking for. There isn't storage on the bike, so he'll need to resort to carrying his presents in a backpack. And the speed may help with that extra miles that he has to go to keep going back to the North Pole to refill his backpack with new gifts. And the hard, short suspension and super slick tires will help in the tarmac sections without a doubt. But once he's off the beaten path, it'll be more of a challenge. So in reality, this gets him maybe one to one and a half stars. He has a little bit of wind protection. He's definitely got the speed, but he's coming up short when it comes to those five traits that we're looking for. Well, what if we look at a cafe racer? Now, this is probably one of the first bikes where they did the ton or hit a hundred miles an hour. So these bikes have been stripped down to reduce unnecessary weight and to maximize speed. They also look classic. So we have style and speed covered, but with everything stripped down, there's little room for storage. Maybe he's sporting a backpack but he'll need to make a bunch of trips back to the North Pole to restocking that backpack. And he'll probably still be cold on the bike because they tend not to have any wind protection. Maybe you put a little bit of a fly screen on it, but they're generally not going to be keeping the wind and the cold at bay. And it doesn't have a lot of extra power for heated gear. Now, the smaller suspension and the road-oriented tires will also be a challenge as he gets into more of the off-the-beaten-path areas of the world. So if Cafe Racer really only hits two of the five traits that Santa probably going to need to keep looking. Now, what if he turns to BMW or Kawasaki and chooses a sport touring motorcycle? He'd have nearly the speed of sport bike or cafe racer and much more storage space. They also tend to have a little bit more wind protection and even more power to support heated gear. He'll still struggle off tarmac and the style is decidedly modern looking, not really one he can hang a lot of jingle bells off of. So we've only got three out of the five traits matched up for Santa with a sport touring motorcycle. Now what if he looks to the U. S. and he picks a Harley or an Indian Cruiser touring model? He'll have that classic style that he craves, and these tend to have a good amount of storage so he can carry a lot of presents. Lots of wind protection and a huge engine provide plenty of power for heated gear. But to be honest with cruisers, they aren't really the fastest of bikes, nor the most nimble. And he'll struggle carrying a 900 pound Harley through the sand dunes of the Kalahari. So really, even a Cruiser is only going to get him about three out of the five traits. Surely, the most popular style of motorcycle on the market today must fit the bill with an ADV. He can go for speed with the Ducati Multistrada or the BMW R1300GS. While both bikes are ADVs, they can carve the canyon roads as well as a sport tourer. They have plenty of storage space with hard bags available, and lots of wind protection and plenty of electric power will help keep Santa nice and toasty warm throughout his ride. Plenty of suspension travel means he can get through the unpaved roads leading to villages all around the world. But the style tends to be a bit more modern, and to some eyes, even ugly. So we're really only getting four out of five of the traits that he needs. Now, what if he went for something really unique? Ural has been making sidecar rigs forever, and while they recently announced that they were pausing production of their classic model I'm sure Santa could pull a few strings and get one, even from the local market in Urbit. The sidecar has a dedicated trunk to hold presents, and with the seat filled up with even more presents, he'd have more space than any of the other bikes that we've looked at. That means fewer return trips to the North Pole to refill presents. Now, it has a classic style, even utilitarian to some eyes, and a splash of deep red paint and some jingle bells hanging down wouldn't look all that much out of place. Windshields, handguards, and plenty of power for heated gear will keep Santa warm throughout the night. And if he splurges for the gear up he has two-wheel drive in the back, and he'll have no trouble getting through the tundra of Canada or any snow-covered tracks. While it's not the fastest bike under the sun, he's saving on all of those round trips to the North Pole because of that extra cargo space. So he more than makes up for the slower speed. This gives him the five out of five that he's really looking for. So we looked at all the challenges that Santa faces in trying to deliver gifts to all of the children around the world with nearly 2 billion children under the age of 14, and about a billion households. He's got a lot of runs to do. found is that he needs a bike that is fast, has good storage, is versatile, provides enough wind protection for warmth on cold winter nights, delivering presents, and one that fits his style. We looked at several types of bikes and came away with that a Ural sidecar. It's likely the best rig for Santa. So will he be riding around in a Ural sidecar this year? We'll find out. We've only got a few days left. So my question for you this week is, which bike do you think Santa should use and why? Share your thoughts through the text, the show link in the show notes, or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com/voicemail. wonderful holiday. I'll talk to you next week.