How to buy too many motorcycles

Last summer, as I was shaking Jake's hand at Moto Union in Milwaukee on a transaction for two brand new Royal Enfields, a glint of sunlight off a rear view mirror caught the corner of my eye.

"Oh my, what is that?" I cooed as Italian gravity pulled me into orbit around something resembling a motorcycle, but far more celestial.

"That," said Jake, "is a MV Augusta Dragster RR… RC… SCS." He paused nonchalantly between nomenclature. Jake, as good salesmen do, understands how to manipulate the pull of gravity with subtlety and nuance.

A certain fizzing sensation started somewhere behind and below my belly button as Jake rattled off words like 798 cc triple, ride-by-wire, and single-sided swingarm. I'm sure he was speaking in complete sentences, but the fizzing had gone to my brain and I didn't catch any of them.

Sitting on the Dragster with an already calamitous case of the googoos, I looked up directly into the cyclopean gaze of a Superveloce parked directly across the showroom. I don't remember much of what happened next, other than somehow my partner, Aces, and I rode our new Royal Enfields home and my checkbook was locked behind several inches of steel security safe.

The only thing I knew for sure was that the moment I'd swung my leg over and gripped the bars of that Dragster, I had already started shopping for my next bike.

Planting the seed

When we originally went into Moto Union a few weeks before, Aces and I were looking for a bike to share; one that would be a downsize for me from a poorly chosen BMW K1200RS while also being a good introduction to motorcycling for her. I’d pitched the Himalayan (oddball bikes have always been my favorites), but she fell in love with the Interceptor 650. We test rode each, and they were such charming machines at such an accessible price point that I started questioning why we had to share one bike. All it took was a weekend MSF course for her to get her license and me to refresh my skills, and some back-of-the-napkin math to come to the conclusion that a) we could afford both and b) two bikes are better than one.

We spent the rest of the summer, autumn, and even a bit of winter putting miles on them, and they're the kind of bikes that are so charismatic that their flaws just make them more lovable. Every time I rode, I was more certain we'd chosen exactly the right motorcycles for their intended purposes.

And yet, the seed planted by my 30 seconds in the saddle of the Dragster was growing into a chestnut tree. Thoughts of the things the Himalayan couldn't deliver — hasty acceleration and the thrill of some serious lean angle — kept cropping up. At some point during every ride, I'd find myself pulled into a supersport tuck, which is a peculiar phenomenon on a Himalayan.

Great Lakes winter set in, "Illinois Gray" took over (a Midwest phenomenon; from November through February, there will be a constant layer of clouds shrouding us off from sunlight and thrusting us into a monochrome existence), and the bikes got bundled up and plugged into trickle chargers. I started reading motorcycle reviews and obsessively searching through CycleTrader and Facebook Marketplace for the right alternate bike to slake my thirst.

Winter in Wisconsin is the perfect time and place for this sort of contemplation. With the Zen-like bliss that comes from knowing I'm not there to spend any money today, I made a nuisance of myself at every dealership within 100 miles of Milwaukee, getting temporary hopes up for powersports salespeople stuck in the doldrums of the snowmobile marketplace. Sitting on dozens of different bikes, listening to them run, flicking my left toe through the gears, and talking about bike love with other people who love bikes was a fun way to spend the self-medication months and helped me navigate through all the mind-boggling developments in motorcycle technology that transpired over the decade I had been away.

By January, I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for: everything. I wanted all of the bikes. Aces pointed out that things had gone off the rails when I started shopping for farm houses with good barn space. It was time to set some boundaries.

Structuring the search

To be clear, I'm not good at boundaries. Obviously, I went shopping for one bike, came home with two, and immediately started shopping for a third. Pondering how I might regain a bit of control, I looked over my guitar rack.

I'm not a good guitarist. I've only been playing for a few years. The first one I bought for myself was a gorgeous green Gretsch Electromatic. Followed by a Fender Classic Player Triple Telecaster, a black cherry ESP LTD EC-1000, cream G&L S500, an orange Squier Affinity Telecaster I got for modding, and a Seagull acoustic. Just to highlight my madness, this isn't even accounting for the several not on the rack, nor the ukulele and mandolin. Looking at them, it occurred to me that maybe I have a problem.

Room. I didn't have enough room for all my toys. Luckily, I did have Aces, who redirected my wandering mind with a swat from a rolled-up newspaper when I started talking about buying a Charvel Pro-Mod.

Focus, that's the problem. Obviously, I can't have all the bikes. At most, I could have one more (and to be honest, that's probably two too many already). With the multitude of motorcycles available, I needed to put some structure around making a decision. I came up with some criteria.

What kind of experience am I looking for?

I was looking for more sport. The Himalayan is a no-frills, back-to-basics tractor, and in that role it delivers smiles for miles. It can take me places other bikes can't and calmly cruise the highways (I assure you it really can) the rest of the time. What it can't do is make me feel like I've just been electromagnetically catapulted off the USS Gerald R. Ford, or dig into a decreasing radius hairpin with sparks flying from the footpeg. Truth be told, I probably can't do the latter, either, but I'd like to have a bike that could if I ever wanted to find out my pucker factor limit.

Moreover, for once in my motorcycling life, I wanted something current. Before the Enfields, I'd never bought a brand new bike and probably never will again, and the Enfields aren’t exactly what I'd call "current," despite fuel injection and ABS. It would be exciting to experience all these things I keep reading about, like traction control, ride modes, adjustable suspension, TFT displays, and (gasp!) self-canceling turn signals. Cruise control is still one step too far, though — my Luddite lizard brain can't quite conceptualize that it even exists. Baby steps.

Also, as much as my insides felt woozy every time I listened to a Yamaha YZF-R1 rev or threw a leg over a Kawasaki ZX-6R, I knew supersports were far too committed an experience for me. I'm an overweight midwesterner in my mid-40s with arthritic shoulders and abused knees; that GSXR-750 I've always lusted after would become a very expensive paperweight very quickly.

Right, so, the field got narrowed down to quick, light motorcycles with some modern conveniences and a modicum of comfort. Luckily, lots of options exist in the middleweight naked sport bike category.

What's my budget?

Despite my predilection for expensive toys, I suffer from pathological thriftiness. In other words, I'm a cheap bastard, or perhaps you could call me a "value shopper." I'm also debt-averse, so there'd be no taking out a loan and bringing home an MV Augusta. This would be a strictly disposable income purchase. Factoring in living expenses and other costs to which I'd already committed, I came up with a number: $0. I had zero dollars to spend on another motorcycle.

I looked at my guitar rack, then peeked in the open door of the storage closet where guitar cases lurked in the shadows.

"You know, Sideburns," I said to myself, "you only ever play two of these."

With a visit to Wade's Guitar Shop and a stop at Cream City Music (both fine establishments I highly recommend), I suddenly had a budget and motivation to file my tax return. Back home, I plucked out "Blackbird" on my remaining Telecaster and thought through all the bikes I'd perused all winter long.

Which bike is the one?

Over the last few weeks, watching and waiting to spring like a crocodile as the dealerships around me stocked up for the season, I narrowed things down to two used bikes: a Kawasaki Z900 and a Triumph Street Triple R, both in startlingly immaculate condition, both within a 30-minute drive, and both alluring in totally different ways.

Aesthetically, I'd never been a big fan of either, based solely on photos. The Kawasaki reminded me of an anime fever dream, and the only word the Triumph conjured in my mind was "strabismus." In person, however, both were striking machines. Razor-edge brutalism radiated from every crease on the Z900, and the Triumph bulged with muscular curves that a camera's two dimensions could never accurately capture. Only one of them made that spot behind and below my belly button fizz when I threw my leg over it.

The purchase

On March 4, a rare 50-degree day at this time of year in Wisconsin, as I was shaking Rhett's hand at Triumph Waukesha on a transaction for a gorgeous black-and-red 2018 Street Triple R, a glint of sunlight off a rear view mirror caught the corner of my eye.

"Oh my, what is that?" I cooed as British gravity pulled me into orbit around something resembling a motorcycle, but far more celestial.

"That," said Rhett, "is a Triumph Speed Triple… 1200… R… R." He paused nonchalantly between nomenclature. Rhett, as good salesmen do, understands how to manipulate the pull of gravity with subtlety and nuance.

Aw, crap.