It’s hard to know where to start in explaining the eleven months since my last post. For now I think I’ll leave it as saying I’ve had a career change, and I’m now working where I probably should have been a long time ago – in a motorcycle dealership. There’s of course plenty more to it than that, but to write about it isn’t something I can do just yet – there are too many tangled threads to pull together into a post that wouldn’t help me as the narrator or you as the reader to gain anything from it. Perhaps my brain, which had for so long worked to wrap structured models around complex scenarios, has finally accepted defeat in a war that it was never going to win anyway.
Enough crypticism.
The almost-year since my last post has been a time where I have managed to get much more clarity on why I own motorcycles, and by that I mean own each individual motorcycle in the current crop of eight (I swear that’s the last of them mum). I’ve worked out that, for me, it comes down to one of several things – sparking joy, doing a particular job, or providing me a connection to something of meaning. I’ve also worked out what it isn’t about – having the most horsepower, the best technology or the highest price tag. Working at a motorcycle dealership and having the opportunity to ride many more bikes than I ever could in the past has really helped me get this clarity.
So lets recap on the current collection.
As I look back to the bikes I’ve already written about, the 1990 FZR is a connector to my early twenties as well as the catalyst that got me working on bikes a few years back. It taught me more than I ever realised I could know, and I don’t think I will ever part with it. Even if I do, I’ve now got some of it (and other snippets of the collection) tattooed on me to remind me of what this period of life has helped me learn.
The track-based FZR600 is the R&D branch of the FZR family, and is now probably more of a backup should I ever need replacement parts for the ‘good’ FZR.
The multicoloured YZF600 sparks joy in the responses I get from others when I take it out.
The two R6s do a job of representing two bonkers middleweight bikes that blew everything else away when they were released, and they are still silly fun to occasionally ride.
This then brings me to the three latest additions (there was a beautiful Anniversary Edition R7 in there as well which I didn’t keep – lovely bike, but I’ll talk about that one later).
First up, a classic Owned-One-As-A-Youth-And-Wish-I’d-Never-Sold-It job – a 1985 RZ250R. Cost me stupid money but had been given an 8.5/10 restoration and it ticked the box in terms of one for the collection. It also gets more conversations going when I take it out than any other bike, and it is still an absolute giggle and hoot of a ride. I can see why they banned two strokes like this as learner bikes.
Second, one that ticks a whole lot of boxes and is possibly my favourite of the lot – a 1972 LS3, which is 100cc of two-stroke commuter glory packed into a 100kg bike. I get more giggles riding this up and down the coast than on any other bike. It helped me check off a childhood dream of being in the Bay to Birdwood. It is the same age as I am. It does 85kmh flat out and it is a white-knuckle 85 given the dismal suspension, poor brakes and pizza-cutter tyres. I love it.
Finally, this is the one which will be the subject of a few more posts – a 2022 Royal Enfield (no, that’s not a misprint – I now own something that isn’t a Yamaha) Continental GT. The look of this bike captured me as soon as I saw it, and once I had taken one for a ride I was hooked. I’ll leave it at that for now, as this bike will be the focus of a series of posts ahead.
So that’s where we stand at the moment. A year of major change, of self discovery and of new beginnings. I’d like to thank those close to me who have been so supportive throughout it all. I’m not there yet, but I’m on a better path now than I have been in a long while.