It's glandular, Luv
You can justify, reason and spreadsheet your motorcycle choices until you’re blue in the face. Ultimately, GUIDO reckons it comes down to glands…
Why do people buy what they do? Rob Blackbourn sent out an email recently, demanding to know from various staffers what their choices would be for the ‘perfect’ three-bike shed, and why – for this edition’s Trader Advisor feature.
It quickly became apparent how tough that choice really is. In some ways it’s more difficult than picking just one, because the possible combinations are myriad and far greater than a mere human brain is designed to cope with.
Mathematically, if you have to choose one, you select from a possible (for argument’s sake) 400 models. Expand the fleet to three and now the combinations number in the thousands.
This doesn’t seem to have defeated reader Phil C, who sent this wonderful email:
“Buon giorno Guido,
“Am a long time reader of your ramblings. Currently own a 900 Trophy and a Dyna Twin cam Convertible. Have been seriously influenced by your biased reporting on 1200 Daytonas.
“Just purchased a ’96 1200 in Diablo Black with 30k on the clock. Looks as tho' some of 'em might've been a trifle hard, but basically a good thing. (She passed all the tests in the current edition of the Trader – number 205.) Can't get the smile off my dial!
“I live in the Adelaide Hills & have just had 2 days of glorious autumn weather tooling around my favourite roads midweek. What a bloody great bike – only scared myself 2 or 3 times.
“I might mention that I'm 57, have had a quad bypass & a stroke, but, hey, you're a long time dead.
“I might also mention that, back in about 1967 or ’68, I was offered a Sunbeam very similar to Winston for something like 20 or 30 bucks – I declined. I wish you the very best of good fortune with it…”
Let’s not even begin to tackle the quad bypass issue, though I have noticed folk who’ve suffered serious health problems tend to lean towards big performance bikes. Just ask mate and legendary Two Wheels columnist Pete (Mr) Smith, who knows a thing or two about strokes and is having the time of his life punting, of all things, a recently-acquired and very quick VMax.
I’m beginning to wonder if there are bike shops out there, in secret locations, serving folk who’ve just escaped from the outpatient wards of local hospitals. Maybe there’s a special prescription: “J Bloggs is to take one large and hideously powerful motorcycle for a run twice weekly until the rash, or stroke, clears.”
Something that continues to drive me mad is that, over the years, I’ve had BMW’s various iterations on the boxer twin all-rounder GS adventure bike theme solidly placed close to the top of a personal list of choices. Worse, every time I’ve reviewed one, it’s been given a comprehensive thumbs-up and I walk away wondering why on earth there isn’t one in the shed.
There’s really no excuse. In current guise, it’ll leap small countries in a single bound and goes like the proverbial cruise missile in most circumstances. But truth be known, I’ll buy a naked K 1200 R – now there’s a really interesting hot-up project (mostly because it doesn’t need it…) – long before a GS will ever make it into the shed. To me, that confirms motorcycle buying is glandular rather than rational.
In any case, having one bike is a fine and dandy thing. Buying a second means you’re a little indulgent but can probably still justify it on some vaguely rational argument (they’ll keep each other warm at night: I’ll use the smaller one as a runabout…etc).
Getting a third is the tipping point – you have now entered the long and slippery slope of becoming a nutter.
Just ask spouse Ms M senior, who has essentially given up the tussle on my toy-buying addiction (seven in the shed, this week) but is nevertheless fighting a brave rearguard action.
When I handed her the latest edition of Motorcycle Trader, she asked, “Is there anything in here that we own that I don’t know about?”
“Nup,” was the fulsome reply.
“Are you sure?”
“Nup…”
You’re always welcome to get in touch via the palatial MT offices at locked bag 12, Oakleigh 3166; Or on the wire via guy.allen@traderclassifieds.com.au.
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