Triumphrat

Redsparky · 02-08-2008

This topic my have been discussed before?

Devil Girl is recovering from knee surgery and needed some special massaging to her upper left leg. So, she found a massage business in our area with professional therapists who handle all types of massage techniques. This business is part of a chain and quiet nice.
It just happens that the person working on her rides a Triumph Speed Triple and is in his mid twenties. She asked him about riding motorcycles and he said "I can not imagine not having a motorcycle to ride, the feeling is indescribable".

That is how I felt many years ago when I bought my first bike a Kaw-kz400.
I always had trouble trying to explain what is was that I liked about being on a motorcycle. Know Devil Girl has the same feeling and she to has trouble putting it to words.

How goes it with the rest of you?

HiDesert · 02-08-2008

Let's just say the motorcycleless times have not been happy times. I could live without one if I had to. Kind of like I could become a vegetarian if I had to. And hidesert's first culinary rule is 'if there's no meat, it's not a meal.' In the months between wrecking Whisky3 and buying Misty, every motorcyclist I saw seemed to be saying 'get off your @$$, numbnu#s!

Every motorcycle I've ever owned has excited me more than my first car did. Four wheels just can't compare. Not much can, actually. I understand how some people devote their lives to motorcycles. I'd sell every guitar I own before I'd give up my motorcycle. Heck, I may sell them all to get a second motorcycle; I can't play for %$#^ anyway. Motorcycling taught me to live my life, not wait for it to happen.

With apologies to Benjamin Franklin, motorcycles are God's way of telling us that he loves us, and wants us to be happy.

ruscook · 02-08-2008

+1 to that hidesert. I did the obligatory 10yrs without a bike when paying the mortgage the kid first came along. Until I got back on to bikes I didn't know what I was missing! I reckon my bike should be a medical expense - it keeps me sane (relatively). 'Nuff said I suppose

Russ

erikmustride · 02-08-2008

I had to sell my first bike (1971 Honda cb750four) in 1999 to pay for a college that I later dropped out of. I have since bought the bike back. I went without a bike, bumming rides on my friends bikes until about five years ago when my wife bought me my 2000 Honda shadow, which I bobbed, and then sold last april for my Speedmaster. Ya'll know the feeling. Getting back on a bike that you own. I didn't realize how much it meant to me until I got back on it. I put 6000 miles on my Speedmaster since april (it's been a crummy year in the OKC weatherwise) and had logged 40,000 on my shadow over the last 2 years. While my truck has gotten about 6,000 put on it in the same amount of time. I usually drive the truck in the ice, or just to make sure the motor doesn't freeze up. I love to ride. Not just on long rides, but around the city, to work, and just to lunch or dinner.
God forbid something happen to my wife. I would wind up a drifter on the back of a bike. Working at a job just long enough to get the gas money to go to the next place.

Pauljo · 02-08-2008

I'll ride until the day comes that I'm not physically able to, and I hope that's a long way off.

I've tried to give up riding 2 or 3 times in the 43 years I've been riding. It didn't last very long each time. The last time was in 2002 when I moved from Connecticut to Nebraska. Sold my motorcycle instead of moving it. Thought I'd maybe buy a small boat and take up fishing or something. It didn't happen. 6 months later I bought a new motorcycle. Never did buy that boat. There is no recreational activity that can compare to riding for me. After 40 years, and about 350,000 miles of riding - its time to just accept that as my destiny. I'm a motorcyclist. And I'm OK with that.

gumpt1oo · 02-08-2008

I've been lucky, ever since I was legally old enough to ride, I have always owned a motorcycle. (31yrs)
I can't imagine ever being without one!
I'd rather stick pins in my eyes!

rndtaylor · 02-08-2008

I had been off of bikes for many years, til I saw a T-bird in the window of a dealership.I hid the fever for about a month, then asked my wife to go with me to look at one. She made the mistake of saying "Buy it if you want it." I have had the fever bad since then. Sold that bike in a fit of rage, regret it still. Bought the Rocket Jan. 24 last year, after the divorce, put over 16,000 miles on it before November. Since then, I have been travelling, and the weather sux, so I have only put about 12 miles on her.

It is killing me to not ride.

I cannot imagine getting rid of this bike, and I want a Bonnie.

Eyun_G · 02-08-2008

I got the bug when I was seven and my mom's boss took me for a ride on the back of his Harley. Then when I was probably 10 my Dad's midlife crisis led him to buy a suzuki maruader. I still remember the day we went and picked it up. I spent my days in high school looking at all kinds of bikes, and the summer after my freshman year of college I bought my first bike, the Triumph legend. Almost 3 years and 13,000 miles (pretty good considering I live on campus 6 months out of the year). If my house caught on fire, the bike would be the first thing I would rescue, given that my fiancee is on her way out too.

BishRat · 02-08-2008

After being a 100% biker from the age of sixteen, and then through a few years of racing, I sort of got tied up with the whole wife/mortgage thing and stopped riding when I hit my late twenties. By my mid-thirties, I was getting twitchy and bought a BMW R65... happy man again. Then In my early-forties I moved to the US, and always promised myself a Harley (I know, don't go there)... then when I started seriously looking around, I rediscovered the Triumph...

Apart from the inherent visceral pleasure associated with riding, I find it feeds my inner child, my need to recapture a simpler time (I know, nostalgia with rose-coloured glasses). To try and fulfill something I left hanging. I'm not someone that harks back to "if only...", generally I try to play the cards I'm dealt and make the best of it. But I have one real regret...

Back in '79, I dumped the 250 Yam heavily after an imaginative line around bottom bend at Brands Hatch... the soon-to-be wife said she didn't think she could live with the danger I was putting myself in, and basically gave me a choice... I really think I made a gross miscalculation. I was getting better all the time... I'd landed some (minimal) sponsorship and things were looking good... but I'll never know how good.

Catenaccio · 02-08-2008

My father, when he was younger, was very strict about certain things he believed were dangerous. Emphatically, he stated "I will never own a motorcycle or a handgun. Never! And as long as you live under my roof, you won't either!"

Being the ever obedient son that I was then...I bought a Honda Trail 90 without him knowing and kept it at a friend's house. My dad didn't mind me "borrowing" my friend's Trail 90 and riding the wheels off it as long as it wasn't parked in his garage. My second Honda - a street going 175 was more difficult to explain. I managed to keep it from him for only a few weeks, but my credibility had long since tanked for other of my antics. He was furious and demanded I sell the bike. I did and held a grudge for years.

About 10 years later, my dad called to inform me he'd purchased a S&W revolver. I reminded him of his oath from years before and asked him "What's next, a motorcycle?" About 2 after that, he called to tell me he had purchased his first bike - a Honda Silver Wing. Liberated, I went out a bought a handgun - my first of many since, and another Honda.

He hasn't complained since. In fact, although he is pushing 80, he likes to target shoot with me whenever I visit. Last summer, he thanked me for bringing my bikes to the family reunion. He thought it was great I shared my hobbies with my extended family.