Top 10 Reasons to Buy a Motorcycle

Evans Brasfield
by Evans Brasfield

You’re reading a motorcycle-focused website, so the fact that we would suggest that you actually buy motorcycles should come as no surprise. Still, if you’re bike-curious and are on the fence as to whether you’re going to jump in to the motorcycle pool, then we encourage you to hold on to your hats and take that leap of faith. We’ve got tons of good reasons to get you to take that first step.

10. No One Will Ever Ask You to Use Your Bike to Help Them Move

Isn’t it funny how popular you become when you buy a pickup truck? Friends from all over suddenly remember your phone number, but it’s not you they want. It’s your truck – and its carrying capacity. When they move, they’ll call on you. They just found a sofa on Craigslist? Your phone will buzz. However, aside from all the pleasure you get from actually riding your motorcycle, you’ll never again be asked to help your friends carry 1000 pounds of steer manure during lawn-feeding season again.

9. Can Fit Several Motorcycles in a One Car Garage

Although most people believe that garages are for storing their excess junk, they were really designed for holding vehicles. Shocking, we know. Still, the size of most single-car garages nearly prevents you from climbing out of your car once it’s parked. Buy a motorcycle, and your garage becomes roomy. There’s space to store things and wrench on your bike. If you succumb to Multiple Motorcycle Syndrome, you’ll have room for several bikes in the space that could barely hold a car. Think about it: Eight motorcycles in the space required for a single car …

8. Inexpensive to Operate

Motorcycles are a thrifty way to commute or run your daily errands. Even the manufacturers seem to be remembering this. Just look at bikes like the Honda NC700X or the Vespa Sprint 125. Motorcycles can be had for reasonable prices (even more reasonable if you buy used), and as long as you don’t get all sporty and aggressive with the throttle inputs, you can expect to get 35 or more mpg! Then there’s the biggest benefit from buying a motorcycle: While you’re riding to work or school – burning less fuel and saving money – you’re riding a motorcycle and enjoying this Top 10 list’s nine other advantages.

7. Instantly Become Cool

Really? We need to explain this? Just look at Marlon Brando in the above image and consider how, even if he weren’t Marlon Brando, he’d still be cool because of of his bad-ass expression and, of course, the motorcycle.

6. Easy to Park

Cars are big and require lots of space to park. (Remember list item 9?) Well, the rule for parking in garages also applies to parking lots. And street parking. Motorcycles consume less real estate. For those of us who live in metropolitan areas, finding a place to park is a daily – perhaps multiple times daily – concern. Motorcycles can just slip between parked cars on the street. In parking lots, all those funny shaped spaces that won’t fit a car just cry out for a motorcycle to fill them.

5. Good Hair

Some people spend tons of money on cutting and maintaining their hair – only to have it flat and messy the next morning when they wake up. Why do they exert all this effort? Who knows. Motorcycles can solve this problem. Although some riders claim that having the wind blow through their unhelmeted hair provides the best styling, experts have studied the effects helmets have on hair and have come to the scientifically derived conclusion that helmet hair is a style that is impossible to create through any other form. So, we advise you to just pay for your helmet once and receive years of hair styling for free!

4. Chicks Dig Bikes

They might not dig you, but they sure do dig motorcycles. At the very least, you could be the one they mention for the rest of their lives when people want to know what got them into riding motorcycles. So, go ahead. This could be your chance at immortality.

Who knows, you might just get the girl, anyway.

3. Cool Clothes

You grew up watching the Power Rangers and their cool outfits on TV. Now, you can live a double-life, too. In your street clothes, you’re just your average person, living out a life of quiet desperation. Slip into your motorcycle gear, and you can become Cruiser Man, Racer Girl, or Ira Iron Butt. Stir in a motorcycle, and the combination become a recipe for an active, fulfilling life. Take that, Thoreau!

2. Fun Commute

Jobs are a necessary evil. Without a job, you don’t have money (unless your earned it the old-fashioned way by inheriting it). Without money, you will never get food, shelter, or the comfort of another human for intimate body contact. Oh, you won’t be able to buy a motorcycle, either. So, why not make your commute fun by doing it on a motorcycle? You get to swagger into the office wearing cool clothes with stylish hair. Your brain also gets some exercise away from glowing screens and ringing phones. You’ll probably arrive at work with a smile on your face. You are a motorcyclist. You stand out in a crowd (and not just because of your hair).

1. True Love!

The love one shares with a motorcycle is of a purity that rivals that of parenthood. The bond you create over the miles will be one that grows as the numbers roll over on the odometer. Also, if you find another motorcycle to love, your bike will understand.

Motorcycles are motorcycles, and we are the people that ride them.

Evans Brasfield
Evans Brasfield

Like most of the best happenings in his life, Evans stumbled into his motojournalism career. While on his way to a planned life in academia, he applied for a job at a motorcycle magazine, thinking he’d get the opportunity to write some freelance articles. Instead, he was offered a full-time job in which he discovered he could actually get paid to ride other people’s motorcycles – and he’s never looked back. Over the 25 years he’s been in the motorcycle industry, Evans has written two books, 101 Sportbike Performance Projects and How to Modify Your Metric Cruiser, and has ridden just about every production motorcycle manufactured. Evans has a deep love of motorcycles and believes they are a force for good in the world.

More by Evans Brasfield

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 36 comments
Next