I bought another motorcycle!

Yes, yes, I hear you now, “Didn’t he just buy a bike a few months ago?” Yeah, I did, but while it was a good bike to get my bearings on, it was way to small for the sort of day-to-day riding I wanted to do. The top speed on a level road was 80 km/h, and on a steep grade I might only be doing 50-60 km/h by the top. Since even my commute to work is on country highways which average 80-90 km/h and since much of my riding has been on the highways around Ottawa instead of the streets of, that bike wasn’t cutting it.

So this weekend I bought a bigger bike, a 1985 Honda Shadow 750:

Candice drove me down to Smiths Falls (about an hour away) to pick it up yesterday and I rode it back. What a difference! I can keep up on the highways now. Candice says it fits me, where the other one was like a large bicycle (or, as they’d put it on reeky, “like a monkey humping a football”). This one’s in pretty good shape; only four owners in the last 20 years, new seat, new rubber, new paint. The pipes, once again, are off a Harley. This amuses me because I’m probably the last guy to care if I get a Harley sound, but original pipes rust out and need replacing — and since everyone who buys a Harley gets custom pipes installed by the dealer, Harley dealers always have a bunch of stock Harley pipes for sale cheap. It’s a 750cc V-twin so it’s got that cruisery “rp rp rp rp rp rp rp” sound. It’s growing on me quickly.

I wasn’t really expecting to look for a cruiser; I checked out a couple of sportbikes that weren’t in ready-to-ride condition, but more than that they didn’t feel right for me. It’s a pretty sensible riding position — feet aren’t too far out, reach to the bars is average. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the season now, where I was getting tired of trying to make the old bike keep up with traffic. Just need to get it inspected next week and move my plate over (it’s on a temporary permit right now) and off I go!