The Continued Quest for the Perfect Bike

Ah yes the so called "perfect" bike. The search continues. I had a good discussion this week with one of my fellow pilots at work, who happens to ride a Moto Guzzi Stelvio, about what makes the perfect bike. We concluded, and duh, no one bike is perfect. There will always be a compromise.

So I harkened back to the good ol' days, before motorcycles became so specialized, when one bike in the garage did it all. It was a time when there were no sport, enduro, cruiser, naked sport, full fairing sport, sport touring, touring, adv touring, dual-purpose, etc, etc,  and insert new category here. Oh ya Scrambler is the new in thing now.

Bikes were bikes and you did it all. Maybe that's the perfect bike for me. Maybe I was born 50 years too late. What happened to the basic motorcycle? Well they still do exist, except now we call them retro. Mind you the HD Sportster is a basic bike and has pretty much remained unchanged for decades. For some reason it gets lumped in as a cruiser.

So last week, my Stelvio riding friend, Chris and I rode up to Moncton to have a look at motorbikes. Moncton has every bike dealer except for maybe Indian.

I did have a bike in mind, it was the Ducati Hyperstrada. It was a used 2013 model. However, no demo ride for me, the dealer had robbed parts off it for another customer, and when I went to look at it.......well lets just say, someone had been doing some off road riding with it. It was filthy. What dealer trying to sell a bike leaves it in that condition? Was not too impressed at all. Plus the sales person had absolutely no explanation for it, and pretty much ignored me.

So cross that one off my list of possible bikes. 

So how does this relate to basic do it all bikes? I'm getting to it. So this led me to look at the Triumph's, Scramblers and Bonnie's. Nice bikes, but they somehow didn't do it for me.

Then I spotted the Ducati Scrambler. Even nicer in person than the pictures.

Loved it, especially the Full Throttle Edition. But $11K is rich for a basic bike. I know it's a Ducati, and that is cheap for one, but crap. Paying for a name again. I mean I can get new Vstrom 1000 for that.

It was like pulling teeth to get info out of any sales person, so we decided to hit the Guzzi dealer down the road. If I could have attracted the attention of at least one interested sale person who said "would you like a test ride" I'd probably have one in the garage now, price be damned.

Off to Guzzi we went. Chris had to order some new rubber for the Stelvio, something with a little more bite on the gravel, and I got to go checkout the V7 Stone and Classic's. 

Beautiful bike. I really liked it, even though I never let on to Chris, told him I wanted the Ducati. The V7 was old looking, plain Jane, with lots of character and charisma. Looked like the prefect bike for almost all my riding. Big gas tank (500km to a tank). Small, light, easy to ride, and I can tour on it. Not many around either, which is something I really like, and get this.............it's $7700. Yup. Me likey.

So after a long hot day, 30C in Moncton, we headed for home. This time I took Chris's Stelvio for a run, rode from Dieppe to Salisbury. Nice bike, comfortable, lots of power, easy to ride, nice light clutch, and it has the Guzzi rumble. Beautiful sounding bike. Unlike my Strom where you sit in it, the Stelvio you sit on top, up high. Felt very much like riding a 1200GS. The damn thing is tall, I was on my tippy toes at stop lights. Too tall for me.

So after a few days of mulling things over.......get a new bike, not get a new bike, I think I'm gonna go test ride the Guzzi V7, and see if I like it. I emailed the dealer today, and they have a demo bike I can take out. So hopefully later in the week I can get up to Moncton again for another look and ride.