The Potential of Emptiness: Honda Thoughts

The garage is looking pretty spacious this weekend.  The Concours sold yesterday so the Tiger is alone in the bike-cave for the first time.  I ended up selling it on if I could sell it for what I bought it for, which I did.  I owned it for five years, rescued it from retirement, doubled the mileage on it, had some great adventures riding around Georgian Bay and down to the last MotoGP event at Indianapolis in 2015.

I was ready to go in 2016 when the Concours wouldn't start.  With the Canadian motorcycling season agonizingly short I lost my patience, but then a Tiger appeared as if by magic and suddenly the Concours wasn't a necessity.  It's hard to believe I've had the Tiger for three years already; it isn't going anywhere.

With the money from the Concours set aside, I'm already considering my next project.  I'm aiming for a bike that is significantly different from the Tiger, which is a great all purpose machine, but it's heavy; a lighter specialist is the goal.  The guy I sold the Concours to already has one and half a dozen other bikes.  Having that many bikes would be a handful, I've always been about a functional garage.  Jeff, the motorcycle Jedi, has three very different bikes, that's the direction I'd like to go in.

In a perfect world I'd have the Tiger, a sports bike and a light dual sport.  A generalist, a tarmac specialist and an off-road specialist.  Time to peruse the Ontario used bike market.

There's a dual sport in need of some mechanical sympathy.  These typically go for twice what he's asking.  Parts are accessible and not particularly expensive.  There is a complete, virtually new head on ebay for about $760CAD.  If I could get the purchasing price down to $2200, I could have a virtually new Honda dualsport for three grand that would be worth twice that.

The worrying bit is this guy managed to blow a Honda engine, which are famous for being bulletproof.  If it has been abused (the dent in the tank suggests it's been dropped, though it's a dualsport that goes off road, so I shouldn't read too much into that) then the engine could have more major damage and require big end cranks and such, which could make this a money hole.

The fact that it runs is promising and it does sound like a top end issue - but I'm guessing it's a head replacement or major remachining situation.  It's an air cooled single cylinder, so after the complexity of  the water cooled, four cylinder Concours, this'd be lawn mower simple.  I'm tempted.

I've always had a soft spot for VFR Interceptors, and this lovely example is up for sale at a pretty reasonable price considering how much work has gone into it.  Hugo, the editor of BIKE Magazine recently got one of these and went on and on about how bullet proof they were, so even an older machine like this would be readily usable.

With this RC-36-2, last gen version you get a VFR at the pinnacle of its Honda evolution.  It's technically considered a sport-touring bike, so you don't get caned in Ontario's ridiculous insurance system, and it weighs less than 200 kilos, which would make it the lightest road bike (ignoring the KLX250, which wasn't really a road bike) I've ever owned.

If I could get it for $3500, I'd be able to ride it for years.  Rather than depend singularly on the now 16 year old Tiger, I could split duties between a generalist and a road specialist.  This too is tempting.

It'd be nice to have both, the XR as a project and the VFR as an immediate gratification machine; they would make for a very diverse garage.  I think I could have both on the road for just over six grand CAD.

Toronto Bike Show 2015

The Toronto Bike Show at the Direct Energy Centre at the CNE was once again a nice day out.  What made it even better was that somehow managed to convince my highly educated, non-biking wife to join us, and she too had a great time.  I'm glad she picked this show as her first.  The TMS is a manufactures' show case, so far fewer pirates and half naked girls and a much more professional presentation.

Here are some pictures from the show... 



The Honda NM4: a bizarre styling exercise that I could get into because it's supposedly based on the bike from Akira... the seating position was so weird and cruisery that I shrugged and walked away.  Would I like to see more anime themed bikes?  You bet, but not if they are ergonomically set up like American cruisers.  

The more bikes I sit on, the more I prefer the good 'ol standard riding position (every tall adventure bike I sat on was awesome) for long distance riding and the sport position for hard riding.  Anything else isn't for riding, it's for preening.

Way to go Toronto Motorcycle Show!  You got my wife out to a motorbike show!  Why would you want her there?  Well, she makes six figures, has two undergrad degrees and a Masters, has a huge social media presence and teaches other teachers how literacy and technology work.  That Indian Motorcycles produced the beautifully modern and yet classical Scout and it caught her attention says good things for the future of the TMS and the Scout!







There are some bikes that just make you go all wobbly.  The Suzuki Hayabusa is one of those for me.  It also happens to be one of the few bikes out there that will get me to one of my bucket list items.  That something this powerful also happens to fit me better than smaller bikes while looking so fantastic makes me think I'd rather be on a Hayabusa rocketing into the future than on the Honda NM4 pretending to.











The Ducati Scrambler.  This bike is supposed to be designed for 'hipsters'.  I'm not sure why preening pretty boys should get dibs on this lovely machine.  The Scrambler is a light, Swiss-army knife of a bike that does what bikes used to do before marketing types decided what you should be doing with them and engineers started designing them only for niches.

The Scrambler feels like a throwback to a time before marketing dictated riding, and I, a forty something bald guy, want to be considered for the ride!












The nearly weightless and astonishingly powerful Ducati Panigale 1299!  It's like putting on fantastic Italian shoes (I guess).

Wow, what a machine!

















What goes where on the Panigale 899.  


















Ducati Diavel... Ducati's idea of a cruiser also appears to be my idea of a cruiser.  This bike fit like a glove, and was stunning as well!

I was surprised at how impactful Ducati was on me this time around.  The Scrambler was magnetic, the Diavel was stunning and the Panigale was otherworldly!  These jewel like machines deserve more attention from me.













The Triumph Bonneville... and some photo-bomber guy.



















The Triumph Speed Triple.  What a beautiful machine!  With Triumph dealers so far away, I'm not feeling able to make the leap to a manufacturer that represents my homeland so well, but I hope to one day!

Like the other big adventure bikes, The BMW GS fits a tall guy nicely.  I'm hard pressed to find other bikes that feel as comfortable and capable as this kind of motorbike.  The Suzuki V-Strom was also a mighty comfortable fit, as was the Kawasaki Versys.











We're two hours in and the little guy is about done... the last bike I sat on, the BMW R9T.  A beautifully put together bike that didn't give me the same charge the Ducati Scrambler did.

I also bumped into Glenn Roberts from Motorcycle Mojo and James Nixon from Cycle Canada.  Glenn has a photographic memory of the hundreds of people he must talk to at these events, remembering the bike I rode from our last chat a year ago!  The talk with James got into how photography isn't the only way to graphically support a story in a magazine.  It was nice to have a few minutes to chat with representatives from my two favourite Canadian motorcycle magazines.

Once again, the Toronto Motorcycle Show was worth the 3 hour round trip down to Toronto.  That it managed to be the focus of a great family day out and also managed to impress my new-to-bike-shows wife puts it in a special category of awesomeness.

We'll be back next year!

Possibilities

A friend's daughter came by last night because she was interested in The Ninja.  I'm rabidly interested in riding as many different bikes as I can, so when they asked if I wanted to follow along on the Honda Firestorm she'd ridden over I quickly grabbed my gear.  With aftermarket everything on it, the Honda backfired loudly and took off like a scalded rabbit.  The steering geometry on it is very vertical and the grips small, making the bike turn in very quickly even though it feels heavier than the Ninja.  It was definitely a young man's bike, riding it for more than an hour would be agony, but I totally get it, it was a blast!

The test ride ended up not fitting the rider (she found the Ninja tall and the riding position too upright), but the possibility of Bike2.0 got me thinking...

They have a nicely-looked-after '06 Concours at Two Wheel Motorsport.  It's an athletic mile eater that easily 2-ups and is in its element as a long distance tourer.  This particular one is low kilometres (~50k) and well maintained, it would run for ever with no problems.

I'm pretty weight fixated after riding the Ninja and doing a lot of thinking about bike dynamics, and the Concours isn't light even if it is light on its feet for a big guy.  I was wandering Kijiji yesterday after suddenly facing the prospect of maybe being bike-less and came across another interesting choice.  I've been doing a lot of reading on the new VFR800f Interceptor.  This is another athletic mile eater that is at home in the twisties, and at over 150lbs lighter than the portly Concours it plays to my sense of what athletic means in a bike.  I've always been a Honda fan, I had a picture of one on my wall when I was a kid, it'd be cool to own one.

The VFR on Kijiji is an '02, almost half the miles of the Concours for sale and 'meticulously maintained'.  Not to be an English snob or anything, but the add is nicely written too:

Mint condition, meticulously cared for, very low mileage (28000 km) VFR 800 VTEC with ABS. The VFR 800 has the distinctive single sided swingarm, ABS and the legendary Honda Interceptor V4 engine that is famous for producing one of the most intoxicating exhaust notes of any motorcycle powerplant... it's music. This bike is just as comfortable eating up corners in the twisties as it is taking you on multi day trips in comfort. It comes with 2 seats, the stock one and a Sargent seat, 2 windshields, stock and a tinted Zero Gravity windshield, solo seat cover, PDF Honda VFR800 Service Manual and a set of frame sliders still in the box. Also installed are the 2006 VFR clear tail light and smoke front turn signal light lenses. $5700 or best offer.


There is something about a rider who knows spelling and grammar that gives an air of competence.  When this guy says it has been meticulously maintained I believe him because he knows the word meticulous (and how to spell it).

I've got such an itch for this bike that I'm tempted to give him a call and ride down to Hamilton to give it a go.  I only wish I had the money aside to snap it up if I liked it as much as I think I might.  The process of selling the Ninja means that the VFR might be long gone by the time I'm ready to pull the trigger.

That was quick.  I'm glad he sold it, but sad too...