Confessions of a bike-a-holic

Woodswoman

Member
Hi. My name is Chris, and I’m a bike-a-holic.



“Hiiii, Chris.”



I’ve been a rider for 14 years. In that span of time, I have owned a lot of bikes, both as my needs and tastes have changed, and as I have learned more about motorcycling.

The trouble started after a vacation to Europe in 2002, where I came to admire the many and varied scooters that the Italians use instead of a car.

One day the following year, my husband surprised me with a scooter of my very own: a third-hand 1996 Honda Elite 80, just like this one.



I called it “The Bug,” and I spent many delightfully happy months learning to ride it, all over the local back roads. I strapped a milk carton to the luggage rack to accommodate trips to the grocery store.

I remember what an accomplishment it felt like to ride it all the way to my parents’ house and back — a round trip of 12 miles (keeping on the back roads as much as possible, because I had no motorcycle license yet). And I’ll never forget the time I rode The Bug down a long hill, throttle wide open, and broke 40 MPH. It was exhilarating.

Naturally, I began to think about more ambitious travel, and to research bigger scooters. On my next trip abroad, in 2003, I first laid eyes on the Suzuki Burgman 400. One passed our car, with two people in the saddle, on the Italian Autostrade. I liked what I saw.

In early 2004, Mike and I closed the deal on a pair of leftover 2003 Burgman 400s. His was dark gray, and mine was blue.



What a great commuter bike! It could practically do it all, and got excellent gas mileage. I took my first road trip on this machine, riding to the coast of Maine for a week’s vacation.

After a year, Mike decided to upgrade to the Burgman 650, which was really a better fit for a guy his size and experience. (He was returning to riding.) I stayed with my 400 for two years. But then one day while Mike was traveling on business, I yielded to curiosity and rode his 650 to work and back. The smooth power from the 650-cc parallel twin engine hooked me. In 2006, I got my own 650, nicknamed the Gray Ghost.



To this day, the Burgman 650 is my favorite bike. It was a well-rounded, seductively fast bike, with technology that still makes me think of it as a Goldwing wanna-be.

But like its smaller sibling, the Burgman 650 had one abiding problem: The seating position caused me a lot of back pain. I mean, a lot. And because of the design of the Burgman’s seat pan and handle bars, I found no way to change things up to fix the problem.
 

Woodswoman

Member
In the autumn of 2007, a coworker decided to get out of motorcycling, and offered to sell me her 2001 Suzuki Marauder 800 for a great price. The bike looked so darned cool that I took her up on it, and became the owner of two motorcycles.



I was so excited! I could hardly wait to re-learn shifting, which I hadn’t done since my MSF class. Unfortunately, fall turned to winter early and decisively that year. Mike rode the Marauder home for me from Connie’s house, put the kick stand down in the garage, and there the bike had to stay all winter. So it wasn’t until the spring of 2008 that I got to try it out.

Well. Um.

Within two minutes, I knew I’d made a mistake. The bike’s riding position was mild torture, but worst of all was the handling, which was way too ‘twitchy’ for my peace of mind. When it cornered, the Marauder felt like it was diving for the pavement. Turns I could take on my Burgman in absolute confidence left me in fear of going down. I returned home after a couple of miles, safe but thoroughly scared of my pretty new cruiser.

What was going on? Was it me? Should I just give up on cruisers and stay with scooters, despite the grinding back pain they caused me?

The year earlier, Mike had fallen in love with the Suzuki Boulevard C50 (f/k/a the Volusia), and traded his 650 for one. It took a couple of weeks of coaxing after my intimidating experience on the Marauder, but he finally persuaded me to take his Boulevard for a ride.

The contrast was immediately apparent. Where the Marauder had felt squirrelly, the C50 felt composed. Where the Marauder left me feeling cramped at the controls, Mike’s C50 was comfortable.

Not long thereafter, the Marauder was traded on this 2008 Boulevard C50.



No doubt about it, I enjoyed learning to shift. And it was kinda neat having two bikes that I could switch between — one to look cool (the Boulevard) and one that was a sophisticated performer (the Burgman).
 

Woodswoman

Member
But I noticed something very significant: My back didn’t hurt when I rode the C50.

When the 2008 riding season drew to a close, I realized how little I had ridden the Burgman. After 6+ months in its saddle, I also knew the shortcomings of the C50 in terms of power and riding quality. (Yeah, the Burgman had spoiled me.)

A search ensued. After much reading and poking around dealerships, I drew a deep breath and traded both my Burgman and C50 on a leftover 2008 Kawasaki Vulcan 1500 Classic. It was another case where I could only look at the bike in my garage for several months while it snowed. But I sure had fun dressing up my new ride while I waited for spring. Pretty darned motorcycle.



Two years went by. I rode Big Red for thousands of miles. And while I liked it, I realized I was never going to love it. It was heavy in the wrong places for me, and had a touchy hydraulic clutch that I came to almost fear. The ‘friction zone’ was very small, and almost seemed to not be in the same spot from one ride to the next. I stalled so often that I learned to always ride in the rear of any group.

In 2010, Victory motorcycles introduced their new line of touring motorcycles. Several good friends of mine test rode them, fell instantly in love, and whipped out their wallets. While I lacked the confidence to ride my friends’ Cross bikes, I sat on them repeatedly, and was impressed by how easily I could pick them up off the side stand.

That fall, I confessed to Mike that I wanted to visit a Victory dealer and take a Cross Roads out for a test ride.

The handling was as outstanding as I’d expected. Once under power, it didn’t feel like it weighed 800 pounds. ’If I can ride this bike and not stall it,’ I said to myself, ‘I’m buying it.’ Half an hour later, I was asking the Victory sales guy how much he’d give me in trade for my Vulcan.

I named the bike Doctor Pepper.

 

Woodswoman

Member
Such dreams I had for this motorcycle! Mike was preparing to retire, and we’d talked often of doing a major road trip, perhaps across the USA, when he had the time. Doctor Pepper was made for that sort of thing. I found him a real handful to manage in parking lots and garages, but when the big road trip happened, he’d be the absolutely right bike for the job.

But a kinda sad thing happened. Mike retired, but he no longer wanted to take a cross-country motorcycle trip. I hinted and hinted, then slowly came to realize it was never going to happen. And here I was, using a heavy touring bike primarily as a commuter.

When Honda introduced the CTX700 in 2013, I was immediately interested in the dual clutch option. All those years and something like 15,000 miles later, I still missed the convenience of twist-and-go that I had in my scootering days.

I stopped by my metric dealer, where a 700N was on the floor. Threw a leg over it, picked it up, and promptly said to myself, ‘Good grief, it’s a tinker toy.’ No way could this plastic-encased thing perform well. And I dismissed all thoughts of trading my Victory for it.

But after doing some online research, I conceived of the idea of keeping the Victory for longer trips, such as to motorcycle rallies around the northeast, and using the Honda as a commuter.

And that’s how Flicker joined the stable in early 2014.



The CTX700 proved itself to be an excellent commuter. I quickly adapted to and began enjoying the dual clutch, with all of its modes. After years of making my own shifting decisions, I especially appreciated the option to manually override. But the biggest surprise of all was how composed Flicker proved to be on the interstate. It behaved like a bike weighing much more than its 500 or so pounds.

While still loved and admired, Doctor Pepper began spending a lot of time in the garage. In late 2014, I sold him to a friend who puts on the kind of miles he was made for.

I thought it would be difficult to downsize, especially so far. But it’s like this: The Cross Roads was the bike of my dreams. The CTX700 is the bike of my reality.

In May of 2015, some friends invited us to come with them to the mountains of West Virginia to ride our motorcycles. I laughed at the irony of having parted with my awesome touring bike only a few months earlier, leaving me to do a road trip with my ‘tinker toy.’ But you know what? Flicker did everything that my friends’ and husband’s bikes could do, while getting smashing gas mileage at the same time.







My name is Chris, and I’m a bike-a-holic. But I won’t be looking for a different motorcycle any time soon.
 

randy1149

New member
A great post Chris. My entry to the MC community was not quite as interesting. I went with a friend on a lunch break to buy a shift lever for his Honda 305 Superhawk. While waiting I wondered into the show room and sat on a Honda CB175. I had no MC license or experience. I had always an interest in MC but never the opportunity to get one... this was my opportunity time! I had no way of riding one home. I asked the salesman if they could put the bike in the trunk of my 1978 Cadillac DeVille... a trunk you could sleep in. The salesman said sure we can which cemented the deal and into my trunk it went. When I pulled into my driveway my wife came out and I told her a guy ran into me on this bike and it fell into the trunk and the guy ran away for whatever reason... she didn't believe me?

The rest is history of buying and selling a bunch of Honda's, Kawasaki's and Suzuki's. Yamaha and HD are the only bikes I've never owned. My only real touring was the Edelweiss Alpine Tour thru the alps with my son and a couple of friends... 5 days of riding thru 5 countries.

I'm on the CTX700D because at my age 76, I don't have the same equilibrium and pulling the clutches became a problem because of arthritis. My last 2 bikes where a Wing and a Voyager, both around 900 lbs. With the high center of gravity of the V-twin Voyager was an ordeal in parking lots. I could not handle them anymore. The CTX has given me some more years of riding. It has all the characteristics that fit my needs.
 
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burdicda

Member
Although I don't have pictures of all my bikes...I feel the same as everyone here seems to feel...
I have been riding since I was probably 12 starting out with a Honda 50..65...90..S90...150..160...300..305...350..then a Yamaha RD250...then went silent for many years...having children...two separate retirement careers...later...I had my 2nd childhood and my wife bought me a Virago 250 ....that got me started..from there a Suzuki VS1400...my bad boy days of leather...I won a brand new Harley Davidson Road King Classic in a raffle...and someone gave me a 1988 Honda Goldwing that I had completely restored...to mint condition and took the goldwing and completely immersed my wife and myself with rides everywhere...Gettysburg, Outer Banks, Blue Ridge Parkway...wow if I ever did a huge tour again...a brand new Goldwing would be the only way to go...but I like Woodswoman found I grew weary of pushing an 853 lb elephant to go get a cup of coffee...half a mile away...So after alot of reading and seeing one in the show room...I schedule a test ride and I guess my wife could see it in my eyes when I came back...she said "What do you want for your birthday? and before I could answer...she said "I'll buy you a new motorcycle"...I went back to the dealership a week later and paid cash for my new 2016 CTX700 DCT ABS w/fairing on 19 July this year...and can't stop riding it...I got rid of all my other motorcycles....I am 63 yrs old live in Melbourne Florida just down from Kennedy Space Center and have no health problems forcing me to ride an automatic but I just enjoy it and I love the technology....I always tell em "Hey I had a Harley and a Goldwing but they are gone now and you see what I'm riding"...
I'm leaving first thing in the morning for a 500 mile ride to see my wife who is on a work assignment in Georgia....I drive up every week to visit her (she took a 4 week part time work assignment) but our friend a female is riding to New York and I told her if she left tomorrow I would ride as far as Georgia with her....CTX700-cropped.jpg
Goldwing.jpgHarley.jpgSuzuki.jpg
 
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Steven

Member
This is turning out to be a good thread. I love the part... “My name is Chris, and I’m a bike-a-holic. “

I've not owned as many bikes as you folks, but I've ridden a few others that I didn't own.

My story starts back in 1968 when I was in the Army stationed at Fort Gordon which was based just outside of Augusta Georgia, I was 18 years old and had never ridden a bike. One weekend I was roaming around Augusta when I came across a bike rental shop. The folks there explained how to shift gears so I hopped on a 65cc something or other and away I went. I killed the engine a couple of times, had people yell at me to learn to drive it or park it, but I had a blast. The thing I remember the most most was the freedom I felt.

After about a year or so and a tour of duty in Germany, I ended up at Fort hood Texas. I found another bike rental shop, but they had 200cc machines, so needless to say, off I went on one of those. At that time of my life the 200cc felt like a big bike and I really felt like I was “cruising” down the back roads of Texas. A friend also had a 150 Honda Dream which I would ride occasionally. We got a flat on it one day and similar to what happened to Randy, a good samaritan put it in his trunk and gave us a ride back to the post.

In 1971 I bought a Suzuki 250 and I had a blast scraping the foot pegs around corners and seeing how fast I could go. I finally sold it to my cousin and it ended up in Florida. At that time I also tried a Yamaha 350 2-stroke. If you liked wheelies that was the bike to have back then. I couldn't keep the front tire on the ground.

In the middle 70's I bought a Kawasaki 750 Mach III. It was the crotch rocket of that time period. I played my part as a squid, as many do today on crotch rockets, and survived. That was another bike that would wheely at any time and at any speed and it was fun fun fun. One day I decided to go for a ride down the Interstate and a just didn't want to stop so I kept going. About 500 miles later I ended up in Omaha Nebraska, two states away, three if you count Illinois. The next day I road home and that set the stage for my next bike, something for longer distance.

Shortly after the 750 I bought a Kawasaki 900. I was still hot rodding around, but one day I found myself on vacation with nowhere to go, so I threw some stuff on the bike and took off. Seventeen hours later I found myself in Denver Colorado visiting an Army buddy. That was really my first long trip. I did this many times in the years after. I also rode it out to Las Vegas to visit another friend.

Around 1981 I bought a Suzuki GS1000G. I was still a hot rodder, but I did take one trip on that. I went to Wyoming for a couple of weeks and stopped over in Denver on the way back. All the trips I took on bikes were wonderful and exciting. Many times I did take that bike about 600 miles south to visit a friend in Alabama, but I don't count those as touring. Oh, I almost forgot, I also rode to Texas on it.

In 1993 I bought a Suzuki GSX1100G and I did take a couple of trips on that bike, but I really didn't like it because it was top heavy and no fun in the turns. I still have it, but about 10 years ago I just quit riding it with only about 12,000 miles on the odometer.

Jumping ahead to last year, I bought the CTX700 DCT for many of the same reasons you folks did. I've got 14,000 miles on the odometer and still haven't gone anywhere, I'm saving that for next year.

As for hot rodding, I grew out of that and now I have really begun to appreciate what a beautiful world we live on. I mostly find myself on the back roads, away from people, seeing things and places that I didn't know were there. The bike itself isn't that important, how it makes me feel and what it allows me to do is all that matters now.

That's my story.
 

popeyoni

Member
I guess I'm rather a motorcycle newb. I'm 50, and until 3 years ago I'd never had any interest in motorcycles whatsoever. This is how I got hooked.

My oldest son was about to start college (a 35 mile commute) so I knew I had to get another vehicle.
However, my commute to work was a measly 4 miles, so I thought I could get a scooter for myself, give him my car and save big $$$'s.
So I took the MSF course, bought a slightly used Honda PCX 150 and started riding it to work.

What I didn't expect was that it would be so much fun. I just loved riding that scooter 4 times a day (I go home for lunch).
I started taking the long way home, and grabbing any opportunity to ride.
The only problem with the PCX was that it topped out at about 60mph (with effort), so I was limited to roads with a 55mph speed limit or less.
I needed something faster but I didn't want to spend a lot of money, I didn't want to shift and I didn't want to stand on one foot at traffic lights.

I looked at several maxi-scooters (too expensive) and the NC700X (too tall) but the CTX was just right for me.
I've now had it for 2 years, I'm still in love with it and have no plans to replace it.
 

casper

New member
Great stories everybody. I had a bunch of bikes in the early 70s and after dumping mist of them decided I wasn't a very good rider. A very fair assessment. My favorite one of the time was a cb350. Anyway. Gave it up because of it and never looked back. In 2005 my fiance and I admired the genuine scooter stella, and imagined fun with them. She is very conservative so when she suggested we buy a pair I decided to give it another go. She bought a Kymco people 50 and I bought a tgb delivery scoot 150. Had a ton of fun on those just tooling around. Then I bought a majesty 400 and traded that in on the burg 650 which like Christine I loved. My wife then got a Piaggio mp3 250 which we still have as a scoot for the camper in the summer if some buddies want to ride and I don't have the ctx. The mp3 is a great bike and really fun. Quicker than you think it is. Then I got the bug for another ride and finally decided on the ctx 700. I've come to love this bike for its capabilities. Dct is great. Dont care for the somewhat rough jerk in drive at lower speeds so I often ride in sport. Meanwhile my wife bought the can am spyder rt limited and she likes that alot. I do too. It's a fun ride. But I like 2 wheels better for now. But I could see another can am in my future.

But great stories people. Funny thing though. I have a photo of every car I've owned since I was 16. The fun ones as well as the boring ones. Keep them in my hs yearbook. But none of my bikes, yet I'm more passionate of and for my bikes. How weird is that???
 

MJC

Super Moderator
DSCF3815.jpg
This is my bike I have now. Over the years I have had many bikes, spent many hours working on them and many more hours riding them. The funny thing is I saw the cxt700 2 or 3 years ago never thinking I would own one and to be fair was not sure what the ctx700 was it was so different it did not really fit into a class of bike. After over 35 years of riding it came to getting something I did not have to swift or give up riding, so I was kind of forced into getting this bike. After meeting someone who owned a ctx700 and him letting me test ride his bike, I got my own, 2014 used one with about 1000 miles on it. I still remember thinking about the bike I HAD to give up and sell, I loved that bike, it was going to be my last. After getting my new to me ctx700 home, changing a few things in the 1st days of owning her I put 3000 (local) miles on her in 4 weeks, I just love this bike. And I now know what class of bike she is...In a class all her own. Still fine tuning her with mods but riding every chance I get........Yes this will be my last bike and with over 500,000 miles of riding on many bikes, she is one of the best. Different in a nice way.
 

burdicda

Member
What kind of top bag is that?
Exhaust ?
Back rest ?
Just asking....because I'm looking at adding those next maybe....tnx
 
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