October 25, 2005 @ 8:53
Comparos and Shootouts
Like most motorcyclists I read a number of motorcycle magazines. The postal service brings four to my mailbox each month and I regularly visit bike sites on line. I subscribe to Motorcycle Online and visit a variety of special interest sites as well.
The motorcycle press is especially valued during the hot stove riding season, when many of us across the country are snowbound and the bike mags become our wish books and dream books.
(Not so true for those of us here in the desert southwest where we ride all year long, but they still feed our fantasies about bikes we’d like to own and places we’d like to ride if only most of the country weren’t buried up to its collective hips in snow.)
I love the latest reports on and comparisons of exotic machinery I’ll never own, or wouldn’t suit my riding style if I did own. I even like to read about gadgets like GPSs that would tell me, as I ground out miles on I-40 that yes, by God, I was still on I-40.
All of this is fun, but the hard truth is that for many of us these magazines are only the stuff that dreams are made on. For the most part they are not real-world useful.
Example: MO recently did a five bike "Comparo" of ‘sport-touring’ bikes with prices from $12,498 to over twenty grand. It was fun reading but I really needed that as much as a moose needs a hat rack.
If my 1990 K75 is stolen, run over by a nitwit who can’t park a truck, or lost in a flood, garage fire, or other disaster I’ll need to replace it with a good used bike. 20 grand new? Fugedaboutit.
Here’s what we need, motorcycle journalist guys:
Regular reviews and comparisons of used bikes in various classes broken down by age groups. What’s out there I might replace my touring K bike with that’s, say, in the 1999-2000 model year? Reliability records, service costs, parts availability, reasonable prices, road tests.
One last word. New bike costs have kept up with inflation, but for many riders wages have not. More of us need to buy used if we are going to keep doing what we love. The motorcycle press could help.
