Being new to the forum, this thread actually seems the best place to introduce myself.
In the early 80’s I got my first bike – a Honda 350. I rode this bike, with my wife as a co-rider, around Little Rock for about three years. When my wife and I found out we were going to have a little girl, we sold the bike.
Fast forward to June of 2005. We are now in North Carolina, the “little girl” is 20, and is going to App State up in the mountains. I decide to fulfill my long time dream and proceed to buy a 1990 Honda Goldwing with 100K miles on it. Wife and daughter go with me to the dealership, about 50 miles away from where we live, and since the paperwork is taking so long, wife and daughter decide to head home. I finish the paperwork, get on the bike, and have an epiphany. I haven’t ridden a bike in 20 years. I have never ridden a bike larger than a 350, the wing is a 1500. I’m 50 miles from home. Hmmmm, something’s definitely wrong with this picture. What was I thinking? Oh, I wasn’t!!!
Well I survived the trip home, and, with many bruises and sprains over the next several months, learned to ride. Within a month of getting the bike, daughter decides she wants to ride so we buy her a Honda 450 nighthawk. Within a month she’s up on my Wing, and can take it in a tighter circle than I could at the time. Within the year we sell the 450 and get her a Suzuki 650 V-Strom.
Over the next four years after getting the Wing I put over 100K miles on it. I’d like to say riding in the mountains with my daughter, but truthfully most of those miles were getting to and from the mountains. We got to know almost every mountain road there was in NW North Carolina and the border areas of eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia. Having made new friends amongst the music community around Wilkesboro, I continued riding out west almost every nice weekend even after daughter graduated in 2008 and, fulfilling her dream, moved to Japan. It was supposed to be just for three years, but with the economy in shambles here, who knows when she'll come back.
Then in September 2009, in a moment of stupidity on I-40 coming down the mountain east of Asheville, I took the Wing into a concrete dividing wall at over 70 mph. Needless to say, the bike was toast, and I spent 8 days in critical condition in intensive care, followed by another two weeks in the hospital. Just starting to get better, five months later I suffered complications from the internal injuries received, and wound back up in ICU for another week.
You can question her judgment, but finally in July of 2010 my daughter loans me her bike, and I start to ride again. So now I ride a V-strom. It’s a great bike, and I love it, but I dream of one day perhaps being able to ride a Goldwing again. Don’t know if it will ever happen, but I can dream.
So that’s my tale. As to my philosophy on what bike’s the best – I’m glad there are so many of them. There’s enough expense and danger in riding that I think everyone should ride their dream. My dream’s obviously a Goldwing, but there are obviously a lot of dreamers on the highways and byways, each, I hope, riding theirs. So yes, I tell Harley jokes, but I wave at every rider I see, and am glad they’re enjoying the dream.
Nope, can't do 190MPH, but people sure look at you funny when you pass them on the freeway. 8)
