The BAKER Gearhead Newsletter

We’re going to blow your mind: At Baker Drivetrain, we’re not a fan of knockoff transmissions. It’s not just because they’re an affront to quality, dependability, and everything American manufacturing stands for. It’s not even because offshore drivetrain products are so disposable they might as well have Huggies on the label. It’s deeper than that. Knockoff transmissions are a slap in the face of an American art form: The culture of American V-Twin motorcycling.

In the latest edition of our From the Vault feature, we zip back to 2006 to see Bert tell it like it is about imposters and how speaking with your wallet can help preserve the spirit of American motorcycle culture. Let’s dive in:

A Classic Case Of All-In To Go All-Out...and he's cashing in on all he can. Gerry wrote us a blurb about his experience so far in this endeavor that he committed to and we thought we'd share with you.

At Baker Drivetrain we don’t just do what we do to make a living. We live and breathe every part of it. All-in, all-out. Commitment is core to who we are. Compromises are for imported knockoff supporters doing things half-ass and putting quality second.

So to help share our world with you we've got a fair share of wild stories, insider advice and tune-up tips waiting up our sleeves. Even if anything else we do doesn’t obey to any rules or back down from the nay-sayers, it feels just right to properly introduce ourselves before we let you in on our dark side. In this inaugural edition From The Vault, here we zip back to 2007 with this article from Bert that rants about what separates Baker Drivetrain from the chumpetition.

More transmissions than you might believe get returned to BAKER Drivetrain for repair because the end user forgot to put oil in the unit. The complaint is usually excessive noise and difficulty shifting gears. Upon disassembly, we find gear teeth with beautiful hues of blue, gold, and purple. When we notify the customer of our findings, quite often they will swear up and down that they put oil in the transmission. But there are only two ways that gear teeth turn blue, gold, and purple. The first way is to closely examine the gear teeth in bright sunlight about two hours after dropping three hits of acid. The second way is for gears to run without oil. Gear teeth turning blue, gold, and purple bathed in oil is as likely as President Obama having one of those special cone shaped white hoods in his closet...

Ya know the whole Bagger vs. Chopper wars that go on from time to time are funny to me. I mean, the word Bagger to begin with is something that this decade of motorcycle enthusiast owns completely. As I was growing up, these motorcycles were known as Full Dressers and to this day for many of us still are. Anyway, the funny thing about one group versus the other, as it applies to this article, is that in the end it just doesn’t matter. These invisible boundaries we create to identify each other are just that, invisible and invented...

BAKER Drivetrain will be helping represent Michigan drag racing culture as the AMRA, the only American motorcycle sanction, returns to the US-131 Motorsports Park this July 23-24!