Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Oct 25, 2007

Bringing the bikes home: 19th & 20th October

One of the things I’d been racking my brains about how to do was bringing the bikes home. I can’t drive the van–I don’t have a class C licence–and there was no way we were going to leave the cats in a van or the storage shed even for a few hours. It seemed like one of those conundrums that had to be figured out, and fast.

My bike

Bringing my bike home was easy. Don just drove me to its parking space on a residential street and I rode it home. I had, however, never ridden Don’s bike. It was too big. Too powerful. Too-too.

But it was pretty much the only solution, in the end.

Thus it was that, my mind filled with thought of doom, I found myself preparing to ride a tall v-four for the first time. The Honda Magna V65 (1100cc) was once the fastest street bike available, and has something like a 32″ seat height. As I have something like a 32″ inside leg, this would be interesting. I could just about tippy-toe the thing…

Tippy-toe

Don took off the seat and we added layers of padding under a cargo net until I could get at least the balls of my feet down and had enough comfort to not worry about being unable to walk the next day. Then all I had to do was ride the thing.

Removed seat

I have this residual dislike and fear of riding unknown bikes, especially those I perceive to be too big. As it turns out, however, I also appear to have come a very long way since I first switched from a 125cc bike to a 535cc one. There seems to be a kind of disconnect between those two facts: the fear of the unknown vs. the knowledge that I have thousands upon thousands of miles more experience since even the last time I switched bikes.

In other words, it went just fine.

The riding position was very different: straight up and down. I had noticed that there were very few bikes that allowed for that position here in the USA, whereas in the UK it is a lot more common. I was much taller and therefore more susceptible to the gusts of wind as I rode along the various freeways east. Yet the handling was very sensitive, unlike my own bike, and it was effortlessly fast. I could start to relate to why Don always grumbles at my speed–this thing could get up to 70mph in seconds and it didn’t feel at all as though one were going that fast. It had two more gears than mine, and I tried them all–even overdrive, or sixth gear. ;)

Riding it

The ergonomics of the bike were not good for me–I had to overcome my horror of stopping the bike when the pain in my throttle hand became excrutiating–a long break did the trick but it’s still not a bike I would take on a long ride.

Freeway riding

I was very proud of myself when we finally pulled in at the storage unit and squeezed the bike into its temporary garage. Now, we were no longer residents of the Bay Area.

Let the (fun) adventures begin.

Proud rider