MO Survey: What's The Best Kind Of Motorcycle?
We’ve traveled down this path before when we asked what types of bikes our readers have owned. What we learned there, frankly, didn’t surprise us too much. You’ve owned a bunch of different motorcycles. That makes you a lot like us. We like motorcycles – all motorcycles. As an industry friend once said about our profession, “All motorcycles good; we investigate.”
Within this simple truth – being that there are no truly bad motorcycles anymore – there lies another truth: All motorcycles are good; some are more good than others. (With apologies to George Orwell.) All of the MO staff have their personal favorites. You may even suspect that you know our writing well enough to surmise our leanings. Thank you for reading so closely.
Now, we want to turn the lens towards you, our readers. What is your favorite type of motorcycle? It may be a hard choice, but sitting down and thinking the prospects over will probably remind you of all the good times you’ve had on two wheels. So, where’s the harm in that?
So, go ahead. What is your favorite type of motorcycle? FYI, there is a correct answer.
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.
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My first experience with a moto was way back when at my cottage on a friend's dirtbike, haha. I was a total goof and super nervous just sitting on it when my bud was walking me through how to shift and such. Started just fine, but when I got going I panicked hardcore, pinned the throttle, and ditched myself. Lmao. Cleaned his bike up and wussied out ever since.
Seven years later I've got my first bike in the garage: A 2007 Kawasaki Vulcan 500 that's seen its fair share of use but's been taken care of excellently, haha. It was the previous owner's first bike as well and it was great talking to them at length about it.
I'm a 6'2" skeleton at 145lbs on a good day with a real heartache for cruisers, and I've heard no shortage of amazing reviews praising the 500 as a great beginner bike. I really wanted to get into cruisers-- if only to experience them before settling on something else as a second (or third) bike down the road, and it took me ages to find something that would fit my lanky frame. It was a toss-up between a 1986 Honda
Nighthawk 650 and the Vulcan 500, and while they were both amazing/seriously great looking bikes and fit me amazingly (got to sit on a friend's Nighthawk since the one I was looking at was on the other side of the provice), what sold me on the Vulcan was the better condition, comparative newness, and proximity. It was only an hour away from where I lived, which was just about as good as I could find haha.
Doing my courses a month from now and I'm really looking forward to cranking out the kilometers until it (or I) rust to dust. A damn beautiful bike, and in stellar condition. I've not ridden anything but bicycles before picking this thing up, so it'll be an interesting experience. Thinking about the Vulcan S and then the Victory Octane as my next steps if I don't end up going with a Star cruiser, one of the new SV650s, FZ-07 or something else crazy different, hahaha. I'd sure love to ride them all.
Anyone here been in the saddle of a Vulcan 500?
The best? It's a Yamaha vstar 950 tourer!