New Ride for Summer

Apr 27, 2014 | blog, featured

Well, I finally made a move and bought a motorcycle this spring. This is something that I’ve wanted to do for several years, and I guess it took me a while to decide on what bike I wanted.

A couple of years ago when I had started looking into which bike I would get, I found that the Yamaha FJR 1300 really stood out among the crowd of models. However, after a year or so of drooling aver the FJR, I found myself not so enthusiastic about the “sport bike” aspect, and started taking a close look at cruisers.

It didn’t happen overnight, but I have found that I really, really love the classic lines and sound of a cruiser V twin over the revy whine of a sport bike. As I looked into what was available from both domestic and metric cruisers, I liked what I saw more and more.

In the end, I fell in love with the new 2014 Indian Chief models that Polaris brought out late last summer. These new Indians brought a lot of new technology, with traditional Indian styling. Just what I really want!

Trouble is, it just didn’t make sense to buy what ends up being a $21K for a first bike. So then I started looking at something a little more “affordable” for a first bike, a Victory Gunner, which at $13K was a lot less. Since I’ve been thinking and planning about this for quite some time, my “sensible” side kicked in. I realized that I should take some of the great advice from friends, coworkers and many folks online and go with a used bike to begin with. So that’s what I’ve done.

Not that I haven’t ridden before, it’s been about 25 years since I was in the saddle, and it was a much smaller bike. Back in my youth, I had a mini-bike, and then later, an on/off-road metric bike (we called it an “enduro” back in the late ’70s) that I road through high school and a little beyond.

So with that in mind, I felt pretty comfortable picking up a used 2009 V Star 1300 Tourer for my first bike. So far I haven’t been disappointed. My thinking on it was that I really needed a reliable bike that was easy to handle, but had a little “growing room” that I feared a smaller bike wouldn’t have. I didn’t want to buy a bike this spring and be looking for something bigger by the end of summer.

So, I’m back on a motorcycle and with a little good weather this weekend, I’ve been able to rack up a little north of 200 miles. It feels good to be be riding again, and I’ve got a few plans for some weekend trips, including some camping ones with it as well.