How Many Bikes Do You Really Need?
How many bikes do you really need?
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
ON A RECENT TOUR OF NORTHERN Mexico with Pancho Villa Moto-Tours, a bunch of us were sitting around a cantina one night, chasing down the day’s road dust with a few margaritas, when one of the basic questions of motorcycling came up: Exactly how many bikes does a person really need, anyway?
Several of us who had spent more time thinking about this problem than is really decorous in a world filled with plagues and social injustice, quickly reached a consensus.
“Five,” we said confidently. Those at the table without enough bikes were mystified. “Why five?” You’ve got to love it when people ask you questions like this. Makes the brain fizz warmly like a 6-volt battery on full charge and encourages the tongue to speak fond, familiar phrases. The tavern industry owes its very life to these profound puzzles. “Hey Bob, what’s the best deer rifle?” Stand back.
Anyway, after several hours of thoughtful discussion that would have done justice to the First Continental Congress if they’d all been on their third margarita, we finally thrashed out the following categories. Everybody, we decided, needs:
1. A sportbike. Yep, say what you want about your sport-tourers, your dual-sport bikes with sticky street tires or your “Harleys that don’t handle too bad,” there is still nothing like a light, quick bike of roadracing heritage whose single purpose in life is to turn in quickly, grip a corner tenaciously and spit you out the other side like a watermelon seed.
This bike for me is my Ducati 900SS, but it could just as easily be any of a dozen others. If you are a practicing roadracer, of course, any racing bike fills the bill.
2. A sport-touring bike. If you love to ride, sometimes you’ve got to go places with luggage, and maybe even a spouse or close friend. A pure sportbike won’t do here. You could use a big comfortable touring rig, but the best part of every trip is usually the mountains-Ozarks, Rockies, Alleghenies, etc. And if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life staring at trout decals on the back door of a motorhome, a fast sporttourer is the only answer. Incidentally, I don’t own a sport-tourer right now. I tell people I’m “between bikes,” but I’m actually between money.
3. A dirtbike. This can be a pure motocrosser, an enduro bike, a dual-sporter or a bigbore “adventure tourer.” Whatever the choice, it should be a bike that does not force you to stop in sheer terror (or go down like a poleaxed moose) when the pavement ends. A dirt road is a terrible thing to waste, and there are a lot of them out there.
The closest thing I have to a dirtbike right now is my high-pipe 1968 Triumph T100-C, which works okay if you don’t push it too hard, but something more modern and durable is doubtless in the offing.
4. A great big hog of some kind. Not everybody is afflicted with the desire for this kind of bike, but I am. That’s why I bought my Road King. There are days when I don’t want to put on body armor, tuck in behind a noisy windscreen and assume the position. I’m just not in the mood.
I want to thud along behind a big windshield grinning like a fool at the peaceful, passing world. I want to pick up a bag of dog food and a sixpack of Negra Modelo (now that’s a meal!) on the way home and throw it all in the cavernous saddlebags. Or ride to Florida.
This bike doesn’t have to be a Harley; almost any bike will do, ridden in the right spirit of benign detachment and relaxation. It helps, though, if the bike has useful luggage space and wind protection. What we are describing here, essentially, is a car you can’t use in a snowstorm.
5. An Old Crock. Vincent Black Shadow, Honda CB160, Indian Chief, Suzuki X-6 Hustler, Henderson Four, you name it. It has to be a bike from your lost youth or from an era in which you wish you’d lived, symbolic of something important to you, or just beautiful in itself. It should remind you simultaneously of how far we’ve come and how much we’ve lost.
If there is one category in which many of us have too many bikes, it is this one, as it obviously lends itself to collecting. For instance, I presently have two bikes in this category, and I’d probably have a bunch more if I had the money or garage space.
Which leads to a whole other philosophical quandary: Can a person actually have too many bikes?
For me, the answer is yes. I appreciate large, museum-like collections managed by others, but I can’t handle them myself. I’ve had as many as seven motorcycles at one time, and I’ve found that beyond a count of five they start becoming slightly invisible. My appreciation level and riding time are spread too thin, like German troops on the Russian front. Also, I can’t keep up with the insurance, batteries and oil changes.
On the flipside, is it okay to have fewer than five bikes?
Well, by careful mixing and matching of traits, it does seem possible to live with fewer than five motorcycles for a while, as I am doing right now, without actually ceasing to respire. And then there’s money.
Many times-during periods of student life, unemployment, moving or scraping up cash for a house down payment-I’ve had as few as one or two bikes. For a few months after I got out of the Army one winter I had none.
But these are not ideal circumstances, and it is perfection for which we are striving here.
Nope. I think our search for truth in the cantinas of Mexico was right on the money. Five is the magic number. En Cuervo veritas. □
