Spotter's Guide To Issue 1/2020 Of Cycle World (With Article Link)

I didn't put this in the Roundup yesterday because I didn't have a free link for it yet. In this quarter's issue of Cycle World you can read my retrospective on the Suzuki GS500. While researching the article I was reminded, yet again, of the stark difference between Gen-X and Millennial/Zoomer motorcyclists. These kids are more than happy to start on a Yamaha R3 (which is what Danger Girl rides) or Ninja 300, neither of which has the motivating power of, say, my 1975 Honda CB550. Were the GS500E to come back today, with its fifty horses and low-maintenance durability, I betcha some of these dudes would buy it. The Reddit motorcycles forum might as well be the Reddit Sub-600cc Motorcycles Forum. These young riders don't have any desire to show off, go fast, or go face-first into oncoming traffic.

By contrast, the first streetbike I ever rode back in 1991 was my pal Sherman's ZX-7RR. When I bought a 1986 Ninja 600 (75 horses, twin front discs, 135mph top speed) shortly afterwards, Sherman and my other new motorcycle pals were not complimentary. "Man, n***a, that's a pussy-ass bike right there," was the universal verdict. "You gonna want a Gixxer 750 in, like, a month." Nobody in Gen-X wanted to ride anything slower than a front-line 600 --- and that was seen as a "beginner bike", something for the 90 days before you sucked it up and got a ZX-9R. Sherman's opinion of me was not improved when I bought a new YZF600R in 2000. If they ever let him out of prison maybe he'll approve of my ZX-14R. Maybe. Most of my time is spent riding my (newly JW-Speaker-LED-Adaptive-equipped) CB1100. It's not a fast bike by the standards of my peers, but it's a rocketship compared to a Ninja 300 or Rebel 500.

Why were we all so driven to get bikes that we had no idea how to ride and which would kill us in a heartbeat's worth of inattention? Why did the GS500E gather dust on showroom floors while the 165-mph CBR600F3 became the universal "learner bike" in the United States? I suppose it was that "toxic masculinity" of which you hear so much nowadays. We were all looking for something against which to test our mettle. We had this idea of manhood as something you earned rather than as an identity that any creature could choose at any point in its life sans effort or consequences. I'm not sure we've completely leached that toxicity from all of our young men. Sometimes I will watch my son prepare himself for a jump or obstacle he hasn't done yet and I can see his whole body shudder as he forces himself past whatever fear he's feeling at the moment. If I have any sense, I'll make sure the keys to that ZX-14R are well hidden a few years from now. Would he be satisfied, I wonder, with a Suzuki GS500E?