Mountain Bike Addicts
Sport Bike Soul Stuck in a Cruiser Cycle?
I’ve been riding for three years now. I started on a 1980 Honda CX500 which was a great learning bike, nimble enough for a 6′ 3″ guy at 215lbs. After a year on that I moved up to a ’99 Kawasaki Nomad 1500. I loved that bike, all the way up until I realized I’m addicted to the canyons up here in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, I don’t really need the bags, as I could strap what minimal gear I’m not wearing down for a weekend trip out of town. I’ve only ever learned about cruiser bikes when I was making my purchase for the Kawasaki, I don’t know much about the sportier bikes, so with this riding style (and locale) in mind, I’m just looking for a direction in a newer bike. I won’t be buying new, and I’m just looking for a few to test ride. Really the bike will end up speaking for itself, they always do.
Thanks in advance!
You want a sport-touring bike. This is a huge category today, partly because real sport bikes have become so extreme and single-purpose (Honda CBR, Suzuki GSX-R, etc.) The sport-touring idea goes back to a time when a ‘touring’ bike was any bike you could bungee a sleeping bag to, and a ‘sport’ bike was a standard that you modified yourself with stiffer springs, lower handlebars, more aggressive tires, etc.
The first sport-touring bike was the BMW ‘airhead’, and it’s still a great bike if you can find a good used one (I have one). Today some mfgrs use the term ‘sport-touring’ for their standard bikes. But there is a large category of motorcycles big and comfortable enough for touring but still good-handling enough that you can enjoy twisty mountain roads, throwing the bike into corners, etc.
Actually there is a range of sport-tourers from sport to tourer. Some are more towards the sporting end of the spectrum (Honda VFR, for instance) and some are touring bike with sporty pretensions (like the Honda ST1300). There is a compromise between bigger, more stable, more comfortable vs smaller, faster, better-handling. And the range is fairly wide. Look around and you’ll see.
Ryan Meader – Bike Addiction Staff Video
