A question for ex-motorbikers...

[Profpointy]

Couple of snags with motorbikes - as high or higher running costs, and they more or less fall to bits if used as transport all year round. Satisfactory, secure luggage is also a problem.

If you buy a £12k bmw, 2 of the above 3 problems possibly solved.

Still, I'd like another

 

[Lance Jack]

I had a Yamaha DT50MX, a Honda CB125, Kawasaki GPz 305 and then a GPZ 500 and then a mortgage. A few years later my dad gave me his Yamaha T80 Townmate and that started me off again. Instead of buying a bike for speed (the GPZ500) I was now looking at how easier they where to ride, I wanted a relaxed trip. Next bike was an automatic scooter, a Yamaha 125 and then a Honda @125. The Honda was the last bike I rode, an elderly woman with her mother (!) tried to turn right out of a T-junction in front of me. The bike was embedded in the wing of the car and I ended up knocked out against the drivers door. I was lucky, see starts for a while but a good helmet stopped it being worse and a few bruises. The end of my motorcycling but not the end of me on two wheels.

 

[yello]

The misses has a motorbike too. If we go anywhere together (and we pretty much go everywhere together), it doesn't make any kind of sense to take 2 bikes. Not that sense has got to take the leading hand in this!

There are virtually no advantages to motorcycling these days. It's one of those things you have to enjoy. And if you don't enjoy it particularly then the questions will naturally come to mind.

I was looking new BMWs just last week. My honest thought was 'no way would I spend that much on a motorbike'!

 

[Cubist]

Didn't own a car until I was thirty years old. My last seconds on a motorbike was a 60 mph SMIDSY which hospitalised me for a fortnight, left me off work for 27 months and meant we had to have IVF to start a family. I was riding race replicas at the time, and thought nothing of pushing the envelope on every bend and fast stretch of road I could find. Ironically Mrs Cube quotes the moment t she saw me in hospital with a leg they worked hard to save as the moment she decided it was time to have kids, she realised how close she had come to losing me.

I missed riding for a few years after that, especially if we were driving anywhere on a sunny day and saw the bikes out enjoying what had been an absolute passion for me. Being a Dad made me stop diving too, especially after a mate of mine got a spinal bend on a straightforward 30 metre training dive. He did nothing wrong, and was shown to have obeyed every rule in the book according to his computer, but still uses a zimmer or sticks at the age of fifty.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Especially not with BMW's current reliability record.

The days of motorbikes being cheap transport are long gone (unless you seriously chase down your options and even then a small car is probably cheaper over the year). So you're right, you have to know why you want to do it to make it worthwhile. My advice, if you aren't using the bike, sell it. If you find you want another one, you'll buy one. There's little worse for a bike than being left sitting around doing nothing and when you realise you should have sold it two years ago it'll be worth next to nothing in the condition it's ended up in.

I find it odd that motorbikes are percieved as that much more dangerous than bicycles though. While I agree a single vehicle accident on a motorbike has a lot more potential for serious/fatal injury, the numpty caused accidents can't be that disimilar. Maybe it's just that so much of my riding is done in urban environments so I don't see it as *that* different.

I know which kit I'd prefer to be wearing if I came off because of a mechanical at 25mph though.

 

[yello]

Good points well made w00h00.

I know which kit I'd prefer to be wearing if I came off because of a mechanical at 25mph though.

I know what you mean. There's a set of downhill hairpins near where I live; I reckon I'm faster down them on my bicycle than the motorcycle! I shudder to think of the state of my skin if I came off my bicycle yet I don't give it a thought, whereas I'm very conservative if on the motorcycle. I know, it's just plain weird.

 

[Saluki]

I got taken out by some daft coo in a 4x4 who clipped the back of my bike while giving me a very close pass. She cleared off leaving me in a heap of twisted metal and bits of flying plastic everywhere (the bike was a Gpz 550 - one of the early monoshock jobs) with a broken pelvis, broken wrist and a couple of cracked wrists. To top it all, I was a an IT Contractor for a company who were not willing to wait for me to heal enough to travel to work on the train (can't blame them I suppose). Bike was a right off, I was out of action for 6 months or so.
When the insurance came through I bought a car as my hips were too stiff to ride a motorbike any more.
I still remember being a dizzy in London very fondly. In my memory it didn't rain so much.

 

[hopless500]

you nicked me picture

 

[Saluki]

you nicked me picture

Actually I think that I found it first

 

[hopless500]

I beg to differ. I think you'll find I had it at 12..01 today

And when do you fancy a meet up - maybe this weekend? White Hart???

 

[User269]

British or Italian....?

BSA C15 of course!

 

[slowwww]

I had a CBR600, a YZF 750 and then a Fireblade and loved them all. Impending fatherhood put paid to that.

I still daydream occasionally about buying another one, but I always liked quick bikes and I'm conscious that my reactions are 10 years older than when I last rode in earnest, and so I'd almost certainly be a danger to myself, other roadusers, and various hedgerows in the South of England.

 

[fossyant]

OK guys, bear with me. Motorcycling is generally safer than cycling, so some of you have given up because of safety. OK I accept with a crotch rocket you'll push it, but we 'push it' on a pedal bikes too - 50 plus MPH on less than 10kg of bike, and flimsy lycra ?

I appreciate if you've had a bad crash then that will make you stop.

 

[Blue]

Someone nicked a lot of parts off my Honda CD175 and as I didn't have anywhere secure to keep the bike at the time I just sold what was left and never bothered again.

 

[srw]

OK guys, bear with me. Motorcycling is generally safer than cycling,.

That's not what the evidence says, on whatever basis you look at it. There are plenty of comparative stats around the forum.