Davidson

New for 2012, the Switchback is Harley-Davidson's version of a reversible jacket. It's a cruiser that can be ridden to the Rock Store for a burger or across the country to Daytona. "We were hearing from a lot of women and aging riders: 'I love to tour, but I don't want an 800-pound motorcycle,'" said Jennifer Hoyer, media relations manager for Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee. Harley's answer: A 718-pound addition to the Dyna family that can be packed like a mule or prettied up for town with an easy-to-detach windshield and saddlebags.

Art teacher Jeremy Davidson skipped the annual back-to-school-night at Manual Arts High this week. He'd walked off the job the day before — after 10 years at the mid-city campus — done in by a group of unruly ninth-graders who'd hijacked his sixth-period drawing class. While Davidson was "trying to give a lesson on shading," the troublemakers were "whacking each other with rulers, throwing paper across the room, getting up and walking around. " They blocked the door when he tried to close it, talked over him when he tried to teach.

Director-writer Martin Davidson and his wife, residential and restaurant designer Sandy Davidson, have put their West Hollywood Hills home on the market at $1,995,000. The 1940 house was designed for a sculptor, and the two-story living room served as a studio. The open-plan residence, with 1,864 square feet of living space, has a sky-lit dining room, a loft/bedroom, two offices with built-in furniture, a master bedroom suite and two bathrooms. A rounded deck with a mature tree in the middle leads to a lawn and swimming pool.

Most summer camps are for children. But Camp H-D is a summer camp for big kids -- and big bikes. The Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee is hosting five-day motorcycle camps in 2011 to give riders (and riders-to-be) a chance to immerse themselves in the culture of twin-cylinder two-wheelers and the Midwestern city that has been building them for more than a century. Costing $3,000 per person, each of the three camps includes a night out in Milwaukee and, of course, saddle time on a  hog. Each camp is limited to 20 participants.

From the backyard of his hillside home outside San Diego, Ben Davidson can look out and enjoy nearly two dozen fireworks displays on the Fourth of July. "I'm kind of ruined now for gyms," notes the former Oakland Raiders defensive end, motioning toward a stack of weights nearby, "because I can stand here and, while I'm doing my curls, make sure everything's all right in Tijuana and San Diego." Football, in short, has accorded Davidson a pleasant, comfortable lifestyle, not to mention a breathtaking view.

Harley-Davidson Inc. is engineering its own makeover, and some shocked fans and workers aren't pleased. In reporting an 84% drop in quarterly earnings, the Milwaukee manufacturer said Thursday that it is shutting down its longtime Buell product line and selling its MV Agusta business, an exclusive, high-end Italian brand it bought only last year. The company said it wants to focus on its core Harley brand. The decision to get out of sport bikes left a small but devoted ridership "kind of depressed," said Joe Frus, owner of the American Thunderbike Club, an online forum for Buell fans with 2,000 members.

Twenty-five Harley-Davidsons rumbled through the heart of the rain-drenched Indian capital recently, aggressively announcing the arrival of the legendary U.S. company in one of the world's largest motorcycle markets. The American motorcycle's long-awaited journey to India was enabled by what has come to be called the "mango-motorcycle swap" in 2007 trade negotiations, when the United States decided to allow Indian mangoes to be imported in return for the export of Harley-Davidsons.

The Angels planned to call up a position player to replace Vladimir Guerrero, who was put on the 15-day disabled list Friday because of a torn right pectoral muscle. But when starter Dustin Moseley lasted only three innings Friday night -- forcing the Angels to exhaust much of their bullpen -- and went on the disabled list Saturday because of elbow tightness, the team had little choice but to reinforce its relief corps.

Bill Davidson, the Detroit Pistons' Hall of Fame owner and noted philanthropist, died late Friday at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. He was 86. The cause of death wasn't released, but Davidson had been in poor health in recent years and used a wheelchair. Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in September, Davidson also owned the WNBA's Detroit Shock and Palace Sports & Entertainment, comprising the Palace of Auburn Hills arena and DTE Energy Music Theatre.