First, a confession of sorts. Back when the world was young and bikes wore carburetors, I wrote my engineering thesis on anti-lock brakes for motorcycles. I was 21 years old and, like all callow youth, I believed that future technology was all promise and no downside. 

Anyway, the faculty’s head ball-buster, Julius “Luke” Lukasiewicz — who liked nothing more than seeing grown men cry as he demeaned, degraded, and/or destroyed a year’s worth of their research — said, in a manner you’ll have to take at my word was very threatening, “I don’t believe you [that such brakes can prevent motorcycle accidents].” My response — “Well, if you don’t believe me, then I guess I’ll never be able to convince you,” followed by “Next question!” — turned an otherwise unremarkable academic record into faculty legend.

It’s also a response that would seem to suggest a total belief in futuristic technology as well as a specific confidence in anti-lock brakes. And yet, fast forward, oh, barely three or four years, and I found myself driving the first motorcycle ever equipped with ABS — a blue-and-white BMW K100 RS as I remember — and all such confidence seemed to vanish. We may all now accept that anti-lock brakes do indeed work. And yes, I had done my homework in professing their efficacy. But back then, when no one — at least no other journalists — had tested ABS on public roads, trying to deliberately “lock” the front wheel at 120 km/h on a soaking wet German autobahn suddenly seemed a little more “iffy” than it had back in the Mackenzie Engineering building’s amphitheatre. I knew my computer simulations — or, at least, what passed for computer simulations back then — checked out, but it still took about 10 squeezes of the friggin’ BMW’s front brake lever before I mustered the courage to put my convictions to test.

Okay, that’s a pretty long-winded way of saying that not every novel engineering idea works out. Or, more pointedly, is worth working out. Nonetheless, while anti-lock brakes have been an incredible boon to rider safety, its sister in technology — traction control — is pretty much useless unless you spend all your time on the track. Quick shifters were, well, quick to catch on; e-clutches not so much. 

Sometimes, said failure is because we bikers are a hoary old lot (take our disdain for funny front suspensions, for instance). Other times, the technology is simply not ready (see: the almost-universal bankruptcy of every electric motorcycle manufacturer ever). And sometimes said advancement, no matter how inventive, answers a question that no motorcyclist ever asked.

For instance, a couple of years ago, Honda released a patent for a computer-controlled windscreen for the Gold Wing. Now understand that a turbulence-free cocoon is the quest of everyone choosing a bike with a full fairing. And, truth be told, I think Givi’s Airflow windscreen is the single most effective aftermarket accessory I have tested in 41 years of motorcycling, turning my V-Strom’s absolutely horrific stock fairing into aerodynamic perfection. I’ll go even further: electrically-adjusted screens really are a boon to long-distance touring, allowing the height (and sometimes the angle) of a shield to be tailored to individual riders and conditions.

But when did we motorcyclists get too lazy to toggle a freakin’ button? Or, on a mechanical system, raise a lever or slide a latch? Especially when, according to MCN, said automatic windscreen needs a computer, two cameras and a microphone to eliminate the seemingly bone-tiring wiggle of your thumb. I’m reminded of automakers that, running out of things to automate, now feel the need to make all four doors of luxury sedans — like the Genesis G90 I recently drove — push-button-operated. It appears that there are people for whom closing a car door or raising a BMW R1300 RT’s windscreen is simply a travail too far. 

Meanwhile Honda — along with Yamaha, a start-up called Lit and others — is also looking to perfect the self-riding motorcycle. Now, before I start ranting, let me first congratulate anyone who can engineer a rider-less motorcycle. Having spent the last decade reporting on the foibles of autonomous automobiles, making motorcycle riding autonomous is especially impressive considering the extra degree of freedom — i.e. cars don’t fall over. And furthermore, it is also categorically true that said research could provide some meaningful benefit; — for instance, giving new and infirm riders more confidence at low speeds.

That doesn’t change the fact that a fully self-riding motorcycle is absolutely useless. Who would want such a contraption? Oh, one can surely see the benefit of self-driving car that might allow us to text, fall asleep and, as I suspect the Gen Zers will soon popularize, have acrobatic sex in the back seat, but what exactly is one supposed to do on a motorcycle if one isn’t occupied by its control? You’re still stuck in the same riding position, still subject to the whims of weather, and there’s no way, unless you’re a world-class gymnast, you’re consummating any sex act on any motorcycle pillion seat I’ve seen. There is nothing you can do on a self-riding motorcycle that you can’t do on the bike you now ride. Nonetheless, patent-scrolling is becoming something of a metier amongst motojournalists. It’s worth remembering that for every one that actually proves useful — Honda’s adding an electric supercharger to a novel V3 engine — there’s someone who spent years working out how to make a computer-controlled windscreen. Now I know what made professor Lukasiewicz so cranky.