13-52-2013: Two of our favourite pastimes

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March 31, 2013 – Does it get any better than this? Boats and bikes. Two of our favourite pastimes. My bike in the foreground, our boat is in the marina in the background.

This is my new ride. I was sad to see the SV go, I loved that bike, but my back didn’t. This was the first season I didn’t ride all winter long and when I got back on the SV I thought “Maybe I’ll keep it, it’s such a fabulous bike, so much fun to ride…”

Then we went for a ride and I needed a painkiller.

Time for a change. The decision is sound.

I’ve been looking at this bike for over a year. Almost bought it last spring, but then Kirk had his accident and riding sort of took a downswing for a while and I opted out. I looked again last fall, and when I saw the new colour was white, my heart skipped a beat (not really, but you know what I mean). I have always liked white bikes. My scooter is white, and when I went to buy the SV I thought I’d buy the white, until I saw that it had a blue stripe down the midline. So I ended up with a black bike. Something I swore I’d never have.

So I looked this motorcycle over again in Seattle in December, then again in January in Abbotsford. I pretty much made up my mind and committed to it when I picked up hard cases and an aftermarket mounting rack specific to the bike, in January after the show.

So then I just waited for some nice weather to get me thinking about getting out again. And it arrived mid-week. So I sent an email to the salesman and told him the price I’d consider, and that I wanted to trade in what I had. I’m a haggler by nature, but I just couldn’t haggle in person with this guy because I knew him. That just makes it too personal and difficult. So I used email.

He came to the price I wanted to see, but then the issue was what I would get for my current bike.

I got a crazy stupid deal on my SV, brand new, right out of the crate, I paid about $2000 less than what it should have been. Then I rode it for three seasons and put close to 25,000km on it. It was due for a major service that would have set me back $600 – $800. So I said what I wanted, knowing he’d come in $1000 less, which he did. We haggled a little bit and got the final deal to $92 less than what I’d decided I would pay. So in the end, I got the deal I wanted, and a little bit better.

On Friday we did a last ride to Squamish on the SV and then we headed out to Langley Saturday to say goodbye. I will truly miss that bike, it taught me an awful lot and took me to some fabulous places and made it a blast.

And as a fun little cap to the day, as we were waiting for the business manager to find a slot for us so we could finalize the purchase, a fellow waiting for his bike to be serviced sat down with us and started chatting. Somehow we got onto places we liked to eat on the road and we mentioned the Longhorn Saloon in Edison and the fact that the menu had grits on it. I mentioned that old show with Flo as the waitress who always asked “Would you like some grits with that?”. I couldn’t recall the name of the show, and he looked at me aghast, said “Alice, Mel’s Diner, but you aren’t old enough to have ever seen that”. I laughed and said I certainly was. He said that I was younger than his eldest and she is 40. I loved this man instantly! Particularly when I indicated that I was well past 40 and he said that I wore it well. Flattery like that will get you everywhere 🙂

So now the new motorcycle and I are getting to know each other. She’s a whole lot more bike than I previously had. It’s a Kawasaki Ninja ZX1000, and the reasons I picked it are:

1. It is more upright, so less painful
2. It is designed for touring luggage
3. It is still a sport bike with full fairings
4. There wasn’t a single bike in the 800 class that I liked other than the VFR
5. It was ranked motorcycle of the year in 2011
6. And most importantly, it was the lightest bike I could find in the class I was looking at

There are a few things that made me a touch anxious about the purchase:

1. It has close to twice the horsepower (138hp claimed vs 72hp) with only a little more weight (445lbs vs 509lbs)!
2. It is a litre bike! I only wanted 800ccs and certainly wasn’t looking for that much horsepower!
3. It is an inline four, and therefore twitchy as anything compared to my v-twin!

The new bike is bigger, wider, taller, shorter wheelbase, and significantly more powerful. Height isn’t an issue as I have long legs and easily reach the ground, but everything else is good cause for pause. I prefer to underestimate my abilities in these types of instances, as overestimation can be lethal.

I have a healthy respect for this new machine that I will wrap myself around. We have a good period to get to know each other though. For the first 200km we must be gentle as the tires are brand new and need to be scrubbed in. The first 600km we also won’t go over 4000rpm, and for the following 1000km we are limited to 6000rpm as the engine breaks in. That’s a good period to get the feel for such a different machine.

Yesterday and today were great, she handles like a dream, and cornering feels far better than I expected in such a different riding position than I have become accustomed to. She is very snappy, and just sounds and feels like raw power underneath me. And damn, is she aggressive and sexy looking. We stopped in at Starbucks out at Horseshoe Bay this afternoon and we saw two people stop to take photos of it. That was kinda weird.

I think we will be together for a very long time!