Adventure Bike Rider Forum

catcitrus wrote: ↑Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:10 pm The whole bike shed/hipster thing bubble is bursting--simply because the bikes are not really practical outside London--buy an Enfield Himalayan!- people are trying to make money simply by taking things off perfectly good old school iron--and 12k for a "new" one !!

OB1 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 07, 2018 9:08 am

catcitrus wrote: ↑Thu Sep 06, 2018 6:10 pm The whole bike shed/hipster thing bubble is bursting--simply because the bikes are not really practical outside London--buy an Enfield Himalayan!- people are trying to make money simply by taking things off perfectly good old school iron--and 12k for a "new" one !!

I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with the part where you say that some of these bikes aren't practical outside of London. I think that it is more likely that we have been lead to believe that they are impractical for anything other than scooting around the big smoke. It's just a matter of what we have become used to, just like you need a huge 4x4 to pull a caravan.

I spent all of my youth in rural Lincolnshire earning a pittance, so all that I could afford was mid-sized 1970s and 80s Japanese motorcycles. This, however, didn't stop my yearning to travel. Some of the highlights over those years were: Lincoln to Leicester on a Honda CD185 Benley; 23 counties of England, 2-up with luggage on a Suzuki GS450, Lincoln to Duisburg, Germany, 2-up with luggage on a Harley-Davidson 883 Sportster and Lincoln to Faro, Portugal on a Honda GL500 Silverwing (3,500 mile round trip). Even now, my current bike is classed as mid-sized (Triumph Tiger 800 XCx) on which I have done plenty of 600+ mile days.

So, when someone says that a modern, 1200cc motorcycle can't be practical for anything other than short spins around our nation's capital, I have to object and tell them to get some perspective.