Having followed a link from the EA forum's thread, I listened to Signal Path Podcast 021 and amongst other things, Albini talked about creating his - erm - revolutionary guitar strap shenanigan, and did so by making brief reference to sprung and unsprung weight (something bikers can get a bit consumed by at times) - so again, I thought oh okay, maybe bikes meant more to him than "we" have guessed. Did they?
I wondered too if he was a Hardley Ableson man - Milwaukee being relatively close, but then I realised that a). he lived in CA when he binned it and b). every upstanding american biker owns one so the odds are on. That said, because Harleys don't actually have any suspension (or none worth mentioning), the concept of unsprung weight seems unlikely to have occurred to him.
Ahem. Not long after those ponderings, I thought well okay then, so what bike DID he ride. He was not a wealthy lawyer nor dentist, which rules out a Harley. Arf! The other day, I read Lanigan's Devil in a Coma and he mentions owning a Yamaha 750 Back In The Day. I thought wait - a 750?? In the early '80s (which was the time Lanegan referred to). What actual 750 did Yamaha make at that time??? Was it just a bored out XS650?? No - it was not. I remembered their weird shaft-drive triple, which was their first multi cylinder bike. And presumably Lanegan's as well.
Albini would not have owned one of those though. I would instead see him maybe more likely to own a Moto Guzzi, if only because "heritage" (and cf also two other Guzzi people - Mark Linkous, and Karl Burns - btw if you are reading this Karl, please make your presence known as we have been curious about your status for quite some time now). However, despite having a bit of character what with the daft sticky outy transverse v-twin gubbins, I would guess that Albini would've sought something a bit more, well, racy. However not a Ducati - too obvious. But would he dare a Nipponese effort? I think so, yes. Why? "Engineering". In my noggin I imagine that he would've always been impressed by good, and possibly also overly complicated, design and buildsmanshippery. So how about one of those Honda CB400 Four - the '70s air-cooled ones with the eccentric and to my eye horribly swept asymmetric exhaust headers.
I think that is my best guess for now. Cue someone whipping back the proverbial curtain to reveal Albini astride a Mobylette 50.
