Ridin' For Harambe, Part 29

I bless the rains...

Some guys have all the luck. From I COME IN PEACE, recently famous for his remarkable old Ford van, we have a new episode of Ridin’ For Harambe. Want to be featured in this? You know what to do. ( Actually, maybe you don’t know. What you do is: email me jbaruth@gmail.) Now I’ll let the man tell his, ahem, adventurous tale:

While I had a completely normal childhood riding and doing things on bicycles, I'm a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to motor-driven two-wheeled vehicles. There was a brief stint during fourth or fifth grade, when the kid who lived down the street from me let me putt around the neighborhood on his brand new red Honda Gyro. But I didn't really catch the fever back in the mid '80s, and it wasn't until my 30's when I started to slowly, slowly wade into the shallow end of the CycleWorld pool. 

Fate and circumstances had brought me to the west coast, and eventually deposited me in Silicon Valley. I was living only a few miles from my employer and I could have easily commuted by bicycle due to the local flat geography, but I just wasn't in that frame of mind. It may have had something to do with the still newish 2006 VW GTI I had, it may have had something to do with my dipshit neo-hippie burn-out boss. He lived in SF proper and took CalTrain to the south bay daily, riding his tiny-wheeled foldable bike between home/office and the train stations. (This was not the last time I met someone with a truly awful commute in the Bay Area.) 

For some reason I can't remember, I came into possession of an old metallic red Motobecane Mobylette outfitted with motocross tires and cafe bars. Thinking this moped was a cool way to zip to and from work daily without having to hassle with a CA M1 endorsement, it soon became more of a hassle getting the Motobecane to run well. The throttle linkage was never right and so off it went to a couple of young doofuses from Cupertino. Then I bought a new Tomos Sprint which was upgraded a bit and ran reliably enough for a daily short commuter. I also acquired an old Puch Magnum on the side, which, you guessed it, ran like ass too — and had shot races. I was involved with 'Moped Army' at the time, which was like VWVortex, but for ironic hipsters who formed their own moped gangs, the most 'notorious' of them buzzing around the streets of San Francisco (without the cool theme song).

I changed jobs about a year later and now had a longer commute on a local expressway where top speeds were 50 mph+. No more fuckin' around with the mopeds, so I got my M1 sorted out and started riding a flat army green Honda Elite CH150. I didn't care about cooler-looking, faster motorcycles that needed to be shifted because I wanted something boring and utilitarian. The bigger scooter did pretty well, but after a while I became less and less enamored with 2 wheel commuting. One too many close calls. Plus the usual tropes and the general local rat-race attitudes. Not to mention the desire of seemingly everyone-else-on-the road to 'get ahead' of everyone-else-on-the road by any means necessary. It became the impetus to hang up the helmet and reassess.

It took over a decade until CycleWorld was on my radar again. I had probably taken subliminal mental notes of several motorcycles over the years, the Brammo Enertia being one. I was now living close to Zero Motorcycles and frequently saw them out on test rides. I remember back when they were just starting out thinking 'meh' because their bikes were kind of ugly, expensive, and like the Brammo, not quite practical. But now their aesthetics had really come around the corner. I seriously considered one, but never having owned an electric anything other than a Norelco, I was cautious. I threw that caution to the wind and shelled out a couple of bills on a Talaria Sting, a.k.a. the Sur-Ron V.2 to get my feet wet. My commute vaporized during the 'vid, I was barely driving at all, so why not...

The Talaria/Sur-Ron is an interesting oddball. It's a weird mix of MTB/downhill and MX parts built around a controller and battery. The throttle is hilariously binary and so of course it's a wheelie machine. I outfitted mine with signals, a brake light, registered it for $24 as a moped (you only register and pay once for mopeds in CA) and called it a day. This thing handled the step hills in my town with ease, but topped out at around 45 mph. So, while it was fun around town, I soon got to know first-hand what 'range anxiety' was all about. I knew this going in and was mostly interested in seeing if it was a liveable compromise. As an occassional runabout, it was ok, but longer rides were buzzkilled by squinting at the readout checking the battery level every so often.

So let's really quit fuckin' around for once and get a real motorcycle. I was interested in a relaxed, upright riding position, a modern UJM. Narrowed it down to a Honda CB500x or NC700x/750x. After trying out a NC700x with the DCT, I was pretty much sold. Brought home a high mileage, but well-kept silver 2016 NC700x with all the OEM cases and proceeded put 2,000 miles on it. I could carry a ton of crap on this bike because of that frunk plus the luggage. An Akrapovic exhaust made it sound better, but didn't add any noticeable performance. The downside to the NC was that it was a windy-ass ride. My legs were the most unprotected; to relieve my upper body from the buffeting required the most goofy of windscreens to be used, and even then the issue was not 100% eliminated. One day, I saw a late model Africa Twin one day and all my subliminal mental moto notes came rushing back to the front of my brain. I loved how it looked when they brought it back but I had filed it away in the 'one day....' database. I did the math and put the NC back on the market, it sat for a couple of months but finally sold. 

I found a guy local to me on FB Marketplace basically selling his silver '16 Africa Twin DCT with all his gear, farkles, extras, etc. It had half the miles on it that the NC did - but the chain was orange and so were some other bits because the seller lived about 4 blocks from the ocean, and he parked it outside. He had taken it to Moab, Baja, Cabo etc. and had laid it down on more than one occasion (obviously). This bike was rode a little rough and put up wet. The seller made indications that his girlfriend/wife/lady whatever wasn't much into riding and he was basically giving it all up. Pussy! (just kidding.) I shook his hand, gave him his money and drove back with my van to carry the huge pile of extras home first - KLIM pants, KLIM jackets, KLIM gloves, a KLIM helmet, a bunch of MOSKO bags, a bunch of other top-shelf ADV gear and a box of parts. The gear that didn't fit me was easy to sell and it offset the purchase price by a lot. Whatever I kept was put to good use, so I was SET! The power upgrade was well received, and I felt like I was sitting in the bike, not perched on top of it like the NC. My legs and upper body were barely feeling any turbulence at all. 

This AT needed some deferred maintenance stat - a new chain, fork seal, brake pad and a service. It had an Öhlin shock installed already and being a Honda, it ran just fine. I loved how this thing rode, either in manual push-button mode or any of the 'sport' / traction modes managed by the software. The DCT and the 998cc engine are a much better combination than the pokey but respectable 670cc of the NC. But I sold it months later...why?! Well, our family had our second child, so I thought (wrongly) that I was out of the game for a while

(Editorial interruption: this man thinks he’s ‘out of the game’ about as often as I’ve announced that I’m giving up various other salacious pursuits — jb)

and didn't want to see the bike just sit on a tender and rot. I also thought (wrongly) my tax burden this year was going to be brutal. And to be honest, this silver AT still needed cosmetic help even after repairing busted fairings, removing rust, etc. So, easy come, easy go and it got flipped...I'm like 3 for 3 at this point. When the AT's new owner rode off, listening to it's burble recede down the road, I felt instant regret. And somehow naked. 

After the baby dust settled, I soon realized that my gorilla math was wrong and we ended up owing less Federal taxes; I was utterly gobsmacked when I got money back from the state of CA. Then I remembered that this state was still robbing me the other 364 days of the year and grudgingly went back to sit in my slowly boing pot of water. To Craigslist! Within a few weeks I found another screaming deal, this time on a 2017 Africa Twin DCT in my favorite color combo, red, white and blue with the golden wheels. It had half the miles of the silver AT, came with a bunch of great bolt-ons, was nearly immaculate and rode like new. The owner was moving for work to the east coast and just wanted it out of his hair so he could move ASAP. I'm going to stop there, because I feel grateful to have had this weird and random trip in CycleWorld, and I finally can say that with this new Africa Twin, I have found 'the one'…

Thank you, I COME IN PEACE. From the astral perch to which he ascended when he was murdered by Hillary Clinton before he could share his secrets with the world, the great Harambe examines the Africa Twin with both attention and unfeigned joy. “Just when you thought you were out,” he muses, “they pulled you back in. And unlike the idiot who runs this website, you had the sense to focus on bikes that are actually useful on a daily basis. Well, now you have what is arguably the best of breed. The world on two wheels is different. You’re not watching television through a screen, as Pirsig would say. Go forth and rack the miles, friend.” Welcome (back) to the club.