I was fortunate to review the 2016 Indian Springfield motorcycle for USA Today online recently. It’s a great bike that’s fun to ride.

As we see during rides with Linda on her Vespa, motorcycles attract attention, most often at gas stations. The more exotic the machine, the more people it will draw. Even those with only a passing interest in bikes will come over and ask about your Triumph, old Honda, or Indian.

Indian motorcycles are stylistically distinctive. The full-skirted fenders and large headlight nacelle let people identify them a mile away.

So it was the same thing with the Springfield. It drew in the older gentleman, a former Harley rider, in Washington, Va.; the sports-car enthusiast at the outdoor tables at a restaurant in Manassas; the bike riders at the Sheetz station in Chantilly.

Some guys base their bike choices partly on how much attention they’ll get riding them. I was never that way, though I do enjoy talking to people about bikes.

In addition to comfort, performance, and cost, part of doing these reviews is how people honestly react to the bike you’re testing. So nearly every conversation I have is fodder for the writing. But not all.

“That’s a real pretty bike,” said a young woman on her way in to the Manassas restaurant, and I almost started laughing, wondering how to work that into the review. I could have asked what she liked about it, whether she’d been on a bike before, and would she consider riding it, but in the end I only said oh, thank you, and let it go, thinking, yes, I suppose it is pretty.

The USAT review is here.