Saturday, March 5, 2011
Longwood for coffee
Yesterday, as Marlon and I rumbled along on our big singles through single-lane sweepers in a place where, for an hour, we met no other traffic, I reflected on my odd passion. People have their particular passions within the motorcycling spectrum. In my case I love to ride older, cheap, and reliable bikes, and to slowly modify them so that, as I sit in fourth gear rolling on and off the throttle through the turns, looking out over fields, I imagine it is the middle of the twentieth century - the 1950s; or that I am rolling through some green English lane, a 1920s Lawrence. An SR500 is a good motorcycle for this. I was struck, last week, by how soul-less my four cylinder Honda is. I admire it very much, it's so very competent. But I could never love it. No matter how ratty, rattly, and frustating my SR can be, I love it.
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Very cool way at looking at your riding perspective. The most reliable bike I ever owned was a Honda Shadow 750. The bike was brilliant in so many respects but my only complaint was that it lacked a bit of character.
ReplyDeleteI guess I like classic bikes for the same reason giving you the illusion of a timeless ride. With today's traffic however I like to rely on my ABS, and a bit more umph in case it's needed. But that doesn't mean that I don't miss my good ole SR500.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rob and Sonja. My partner suggested raiding the savings if I found a bike I would love, with the agreement to make a good effort thereafter to sell the Hornet. There were a couple of Indian-made Bullet 350s available locally for cheap, but Royal Enfield friends talked me out of buying one of them as primary transport. So, today I hit 'Buy it Now' on eBay and will soon pick up another wonderful bike, which is cheap, reliable, and young enough to do the daily commute, while having a little something...a Virago 535. Essentially a v-twin SR500 :-) Or the poor-man's Sportster. It should appear on the blog in a few week's time.
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