Bikers and Motorcycles: Never Satisfied and Always Looking
If you own a motorcycle, it seems almost an axiom that dissatisfaction with that bike is inevitably going to boomerang back if you think you have finally found the perfect one. See my article entitled "Bikers and Motorcycles: Never Satisfied and Always Looking" on this topic at: http://www.born2razehell.com/Out of My Experience/Out of My Experience.html
Buying the ideal bike - or the bike for you - is a lot like going to a gym and doing body-building work. For example, if you want to build up your shoulders, you can pick up a good weight-lifting book and find numerous exercises that you can do for that purpose. A color-coded muscle building book will highlight exactly what muscles are being affected when you start heaving cold steel into the atmosphere. Some of those exercises will pin-point the exact muscle you want to train and ONLY that muscle. Other exercises will target THAT muscle, but they will also secondarily work up to several other areas as well, such as the back and arms and chest. Those exercises are called compound exercises. THOSE are the exercises one wants to do if he doesn't want to spend all day in a gym and go for the world title. Do compound exercises, and you will make sure you hit all the muscle groups well with fewer exercises.
Now, motorcycles are just like this. There are bikes out there just for cruising, and just for touring, and just for going like a demon. And I mean that is about all you would want to do with them. Oh, you can try - and even accomplish - other things if you really want to, but they were designed for singular purposes primarily. Then there are other bikes out there that will soothe several major itches you want to scratch, but they will also do more than just titillate some of those other purposes you hanker as well. Unless you want to just do one thing with your motorcycle and nothing else - such as haul it to Bike Night and stand around and watch everybody go ga-ga - then you want to buy one of those bikes that slakes as many of your thirsts as it can. For example, get one that will dart around town handily and that you ENJOY riding all the time. But make sure it also can tour to your satisfaction, accessorize to your content, carry pillion and provisions comfortably, gurgle a sound from the pipes that is not embarrassing, provide weather protection, and get lots of looks too, depending on how you have set it up. No bike can hit all of these objectives equally, but a few can nail several goals head on and do enough of some of the others to make you content for a pretty long time. That is the bike I look for. I can't buy every piece of weight-lifting equipment in the gym for every muscle I want to make bulge when I flex, but I can buy a pretty good universal gym that will essentially accomplish the same things.
Not knowing what I know now, I thought I had that bike in a 1997 GoldWing one time. Nope. It could tour till the cows came home (even though I felt like I had a saddle block when I got off of it). Forget cruising and trekking around town. Every time I climbed on that thing, it was like hitching up the horses with all those cords and doodads on it. Once I thought it was the 1998 BMW K1200RS. Not this one either. It left everything out of sight and toured like Man Mountain Dean but was not good for much else. Another time I thought it was the 1994 Harley Dyna Wide Glide. Wrong again. Yes, it was the cruiser preeminent, and I took that thing to California and back on an 8,355 mile trip. But I barely could pass an RV going up a mountain, and it left me exposed to weather. When I got home, I was nearly deaf. I was pretty certain I had the bike in my 2004 Honda Shadow Sabre. Another strike out. You see people traveling hill and dale with these things, but it is not a two-up tourer and just other things that I could not put my finger on. It is just something that you know. Each of these jiggled a certain nerve ending really good, but they couldn't make the rest of my desires convulse with gratification. I still believe there is something out there that will do all I want because I can only buy one bike. So far, the bike that has done the best job for me on all of these points is my 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan Nomad. For you, it may be something else. Whichever one stops the voices, that is it.
Buying the ideal bike - or the bike for you - is a lot like going to a gym and doing body-building work. For example, if you want to build up your shoulders, you can pick up a good weight-lifting book and find numerous exercises that you can do for that purpose. A color-coded muscle building book will highlight exactly what muscles are being affected when you start heaving cold steel into the atmosphere. Some of those exercises will pin-point the exact muscle you want to train and ONLY that muscle. Other exercises will target THAT muscle, but they will also secondarily work up to several other areas as well, such as the back and arms and chest. Those exercises are called compound exercises. THOSE are the exercises one wants to do if he doesn't want to spend all day in a gym and go for the world title. Do compound exercises, and you will make sure you hit all the muscle groups well with fewer exercises.
Now, motorcycles are just like this. There are bikes out there just for cruising, and just for touring, and just for going like a demon. And I mean that is about all you would want to do with them. Oh, you can try - and even accomplish - other things if you really want to, but they were designed for singular purposes primarily. Then there are other bikes out there that will soothe several major itches you want to scratch, but they will also do more than just titillate some of those other purposes you hanker as well. Unless you want to just do one thing with your motorcycle and nothing else - such as haul it to Bike Night and stand around and watch everybody go ga-ga - then you want to buy one of those bikes that slakes as many of your thirsts as it can. For example, get one that will dart around town handily and that you ENJOY riding all the time. But make sure it also can tour to your satisfaction, accessorize to your content, carry pillion and provisions comfortably, gurgle a sound from the pipes that is not embarrassing, provide weather protection, and get lots of looks too, depending on how you have set it up. No bike can hit all of these objectives equally, but a few can nail several goals head on and do enough of some of the others to make you content for a pretty long time. That is the bike I look for. I can't buy every piece of weight-lifting equipment in the gym for every muscle I want to make bulge when I flex, but I can buy a pretty good universal gym that will essentially accomplish the same things.
Not knowing what I know now, I thought I had that bike in a 1997 GoldWing one time. Nope. It could tour till the cows came home (even though I felt like I had a saddle block when I got off of it). Forget cruising and trekking around town. Every time I climbed on that thing, it was like hitching up the horses with all those cords and doodads on it. Once I thought it was the 1998 BMW K1200RS. Not this one either. It left everything out of sight and toured like Man Mountain Dean but was not good for much else. Another time I thought it was the 1994 Harley Dyna Wide Glide. Wrong again. Yes, it was the cruiser preeminent, and I took that thing to California and back on an 8,355 mile trip. But I barely could pass an RV going up a mountain, and it left me exposed to weather. When I got home, I was nearly deaf. I was pretty certain I had the bike in my 2004 Honda Shadow Sabre. Another strike out. You see people traveling hill and dale with these things, but it is not a two-up tourer and just other things that I could not put my finger on. It is just something that you know. Each of these jiggled a certain nerve ending really good, but they couldn't make the rest of my desires convulse with gratification. I still believe there is something out there that will do all I want because I can only buy one bike. So far, the bike that has done the best job for me on all of these points is my 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan Nomad. For you, it may be something else. Whichever one stops the voices, that is it.