A Brief History of My Motorcycles, Part 1: The Starter Bikes

          Me, circa 1977

I won’t bother counting as 'motorcycles' the first motorized two-wheelers I rode.

The first was a hand-me-down Puch Maxi moped I got from my brother when I was 15 when he’d moved up to having an actual car. Likewise, I rode it until I got my own first car at 17. 

The second one was my girlfriend’s Honda C90 3-speed step-thru scooter that I rode for about a year when I was 18.

So excusing those underpowered laughingstocks, my first ‘real motorcycle' was a 1982 banana-seat Suzuki GS450L, which I got in 1988 when I was 25. It was a silly little learner’s machine so uncool that other motorcyclists averted their eyes out of embarrassment for me. 

My neighbor Larry sold it to me for nearly nothing, quickly and at night. The poor thing had already had a hard life before falling into my incompetent hands – it was sagging, rusting, and leaking. It needed a new chain, a tune up, new tires, brakes, some electrical fixes, and the registration was way out of date. But for all that, it was my first machine with a clutch and I rode it proudly, knowing that I had finally graduated to ‘real motorbikes’. You know – the kind that can be legally ridden on the freeway. For months I did nothing but fill it with gas and ride it, until I met Rex. I didn’t even have a full motorcycle license in those days, just a 90-day learner’s permit, which had expired. What’s that saying – God looks after drunks and fools? I was no longer drunk in those days, but calling me a fool would have been generous.

Rocket Rex, who rode a naked ’83 Suzuki GS1100E, helped me fix the worst squawks. He also taught me about basic maintenance, and staying alive in city traffic while I learned to ride. 

I met Rex while I was riding to a 12-step meeting that I needed at 25. He pulled alongside me at a red light on his mighty 1100, gave me a nod through the visor of his full-face Arai. (I wasn’t wearing a helmet, in accordance with California law and my stupidity at the time.) When the light turned green, he pulled away from me, and then, to my great alarm, slowed down, opened his visor and rode next to me for a few hundred yards, frowning at me. “What the fuck is wrong with your bike?” he shouted at me. “I don’t know!” I squeaked, and promptly took the next right turn to get away from the scary man on the big motorcycle.                                                                           

Rex's extremely cool 1983 Suzuki GS1100E

I took an alternate route to the meeting, and as I parked, was horrified to see the 1100 turn the corner from the other direction and come park next to me. Turned out we were going to the same meeting. He just glared at me and went inside. After the meeting, Rex walked up to me, scowling, and demanded – without a hello or what’s your name – “What are you doing this Saturday?” “Nothing.” I answered weakly. “Yes you are,” he said, pulling out a scrap of paper and writing on it. “You’re coming to my house and we’re gonna work on your bike. You need a new chain, a new front tire, and I don’t know what all.” He handed me the paper on which he’d written his address. “Be there at ten.” I was. Yes, he was scary and brusque, but that’s how Rex is, and he also turned out to be indescribably helpful, and mercifully patient with my vast ignorance of all things mechanical. Some weeks later his old housemate moved out of the half-duplex he rented, and I moved in. We went to a lot of 12-step meetings on our bikes, which made me feel as cool as his 1100 looked.

In early 1989, having never actually registered the little Suzuki, I sold it back to Larry the original owner at a loss, and replaced it with a Honda Nighthawk 650 for the compelling reason that I guy I knew was selling it. I had never heard of one until then.

Sidebar: In Europe the Nighthawk 650 was dubbed the CBX650, without the silly avian moniker. Another time that happened was with the Kawasaki GPz900, the bike made famous in the movie Top Gun, which was named the Ninja 900 for the American market. (It’s a Ninja? Really? Wow.) The silly-name-game is not only for the Americans, as evinced by Yamaha when they called their YZF600R and the YZF1000R Thundercat and Thunderace for the European market. That’s some spectacular silliness right there if you ask me. (It’s a Thunderace? Really? Wow.)

The Nighthawk was foisted on me by an old guy I knew named Lyle who’d bought it cheap from a distressed seller and wanted it out of his garage. It looked fast and it ran well, but it had a dodgy front end. The dark blue front fender didn’t match the rest of the black bike, so I guess some or all of the front end had been replaced, something I only noticed after I’d handed over the money. The front wheel had a tendency to tuck under if you took a corner sharply, which provided some exciting moments for the ol’ sphincter, but most importantly it looked cool and was considerably faster than the Suzuki in a straight line. That inline four (with self-adjusting valves!) was simply bitchen* compared to the sorry parallel twin of the Suzuki 450, and anyway, all the really cool bikes in the ‘80s were inline fours (like the Ninja 900).

* bitchen is Southern California surfer slang for amazing, fantastic, very cool. Not related to the word bitch.

Truly, now that I think about it, other than that inline four, the rest of the bike it was pretty much crap. But at the time, I prized it beyond reason. I knew nothing of decent brakes, or suspension, or how to evaluate a bike’s handling qualities.

I never left town on either of these bikes, they were purely city-runabouts. I just wanted to be – and even more, to be seen as – the kind of guy who rides a motorbike, and these were the machines that made that a reality. They were the bikes that brought me into the lifestyle, culture, and mentality of being a motorcyclist.

Rex packed up and moved to San Francisco for a job in late ’89. I sold the Honda and moved into a small rented room in some stranger’s house from an ad in the paper, and started learning to fly airplanes.

During the next five years I didn’t own a motorcycle, as I poured all my money and attention into flight training and flying. By early 1995 I’d worked my way up the aviation career ladder far enough to have rented a nice house with a big garage, and it dawned on me that I could also consider owning another bike. 

End of Part 1.

A Brief History of My Motorcycles, Part 2: The FJ1200 Era

           The FJ1200A – ‘A’ for ‘And the Real Fun Begins’

In April 1995 I went out for the first time in my life and bought a motorcycle on purpose.

I had somehow decided that I wanted a Yamaha FJ1200, a model whose popularity had long faded in the American market, and whose technology was antiquated alongside the last decade’s worth of improvements in other models. But an FJ was what I wanted, dammit, so an FJ was what I was gonna buy.

And, I finally went through the MSF rider’s training course and got my full-fledged motorcycle riding license. Legal at last.

I stopped in at a dealer who was advertising a used 7-year old FJ in my price range, but it was too junky for any serious consideration with its rusty pipes and furry cylinder heads. In the showroom, however, I found myself looking at a brand-new FJ1200A (A for ABS, actually) that had been languishing, unsold, for two years. The dealer had just acquired it at auction from Yamaha of California, after Yamaha had taken it back from another dealer who’d gone bust. The asking price was about double what I expected to spend, but with a quick call to my bank and I discovered the concept of financing, and then, for the first time in my life, at the age of 32, I bought a brand-new vehicle of any kind.

Actually, I left the dealer that day and went around asking all my friends what they would do. They all said the same thing, “BUY IT!”  It was about a week later that I did the deal and rode away on my new scary big bike.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, you owe it to yourself to do it someday, to put the first mile (or kilometer) on the clock, and to do the break-in yourself. It’s incomparably satisfying. You also get to be the one who puts the first scratch or dent in it, which is considerably less so.

I remember the first time I took the FJ on a trip out of the city limits, feeling that rush of uncertainty that means you’re about to have an adventure. I had seldom been out on the serpentine backcountry roads of San Diego County, and there are many, so I was more than a little concerned I might get lost. Fortunately, owing to my familiarity with the county’s geography from the air after hundreds of hours of flying over them on training flights (as both student and, later, instructor), I eventually found my way back, my chest swelling with the bravado of conquest. I started scoping out new riding roads and memorizing landmarks from the air during my daily flights while instructing. Every weekend ride I went a little further afield. It seems odd to me now that it didn’t occur to me to try to join a group or find experienced riders to show me around. I guess I liked the adventury feeling that I, alone, had discovered something special, something nobody else knew about because, after all, I hadn’t known about it.

Packed for travel

About three months after I bought the FJ, I loaded the Tourmaster soft luggage for a 4-day trip to San Francisco and to Monterey to watch the World Superbike Races (SBK) at the world-famous Laguna Seca racetrack with Rex. My new girlfriend (now wife) Sabine had to work on Friday morning, so she caught an afternoon commuter flight from San Diego to Santa Barbara, where I picked her up after threading my way through the dreadful traffic of Interstate 5 in Los Angeles and Highway 101 through Ventura.

Leaving Santa Barbara we rode Highway 101 up to Highway 1, the beautiful coast road that runs right along the Pacific Ocean, and stayed the night in San Luis Obispo. We rode the remainder of the amazing coast highway on Saturday, stopping often for photos and roadside attractions.

Unprepared for changing weather, but we look good!

We had poor riding equipment, amounting to jeans and leather jackets made more for fashion than for protection from the elements. At least I can say we wore gloves, and we did have matching Arai helmets. 

I had no idea what was available then in the away of good riding gear; I’d been given meager advice from the sales staff of the motorcycle shop and almost no help at all from a couple of guys I knew who rode police bikes for a living. They rode in short-sleeved shirts and stretchy polyester trousers. The only useful information they gave me was the name of a guy who custom-made deerskin gloves and jackets. I bought two pairs of gloves and a fighter-pilot style jacket. I still have them. They’ve held up quite well all these years, but they’ve no armor nor weather protection beyond being oiled leather. I still wear the jacket around the airport to look like a pilot and the gloves for driving the car in winter, but I’m considerably better equipped for all-weather riding these days with made-for-motorcycling apparel, including textile jackets and trousers, proper boots and gloves – all fully armored and Gore-Tex lined. Sabine too. We’ve also got stretchy neck tubes, active-fabric base layers, decent socks, and – a marriage preserver – a good intercom.

The difference in the July climate of California from Santa Barbara south and the central California coast from Santa Barbara north is the difference of sweltering hot and rather cool. You go from trying to let all the air flow through your clothes to trying to keep it all out. Mark Twain said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was one summer in San Francisco,” and he wasn’t even riding a motorcycle. The Pacific Ocean runs cold and deep, and it keeps the coastal air chilly and damp. Ride a motorcycle on the coast highway in porous clothing and the damp-cold goes right through to your bones. You quickly learn about wind chill factor, and tricks like stuffing the front of your girlfriend’s fashion jacket with old newspapers from the diner to block the penetrating wind.

We arrived at Rex’s house in Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco, mid-afternoon on Saturday, and warmed up with hot tea and homemade soup. For that afternoon’s ride, Rex lent Sabine a powder-blue ski overall to battle the cold. She looked comical, but she was quite a bit more comfortable as we explored the wilderness areas and coastal roads in the cool breezes of the Pacific.

We rode all over the mountains between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, over Woodside and La Honda and down to Pescadero, through Big Basin Redwoods, and spied on the elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Park. Sunday morning we rode down to the Laguna Seca Raceway and watched the World Superbike races. If I remember right, Anthony Gobert and Troy Corser each won a race.

Sabine proved herself to be durable and uncomplaining of discomfort, able to enjoy the adventure of motorcycle travel as well as the drama of a major racing event – a keeper. I hadn’t consciously meant for the trip to be a test of any kind, I just wanted to have a fun trip and bring her along. But by the time the trip was over, I was pretty sure I wanted to share a lifetime of adventures with her. All thanks to the FJ.

She flew back to San Diego on Monday morning, while I headed south in the stifling heat and straight-line boredom of Interstate 5 through the Central Valley.

In one section of the I-5, they were repaving the northbound lanes, while the southbound lanes had recently been repaved. I counted four CHP cars (California Highway Patrol, the state highway police) doing traffic management on the other side from me, and reckoned that there very likely were no officers left over to do speed control on the southbound lanes, and that this was my chance. New pavement. Sunny and dry. Mid-day traffic lull. No cops. The road was mine.

There wasn't nearly this much traffic when I risked it all for guts and glory

I ducked behind the windscreen and rolled open the throttle, and watched as the speedo needle swept the dial. At 145 mph there was more to come, but I held it at 145 for a minute … and then … chickened out, and dropped back down to my usual cruising speed of about 90, staring with paranoia into the mirrors, waiting for my pursuers to appear. There’s no story beyond that, no cops, crash or other drama. Just that I’d seen the fastest speed on two wheels of my life to date.

That 145 mph (233kph) stands to this day, even though I can now go as fast as I want on the German Autobahns. The FJ was simply a faster bike than anything I’ve ridden since. I haven’t eclipsed that one-time maximum, but I’m pleased to report that I do go more than 100 mph (160 kph) on the Autobahn – legally! – every week in my car, just because I can. I feel it’s my duty, for all you poor bastards who mustn’t. When I take the bike onto the Autobahn, which is rare, I generally get it up to 120 mph (200 kph), but that’s all there is on tap with the GS’s I’ve owned here. So it’s legal here for me to break my previous record, but I can’t overcome the laws of physics to do so.

We kept the FJ for five fun years of travel and adventure, exploring southern California’s many backroads, and journeying north to visit Rex every July for the SBK races. And what a golden era for SBK! We got to see both Troys (Bayliss and Corser), King Carl (Fogarty), Frankie Chili, James Toseland, Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden, among many other famous racers of the day. Now we watch and keep up with the whole of the MotoGP season, as the TV coverage of that series is very good here, but not so good for SBK.

The FJ was not just blisteringly fast, it was astonishingly smooth. The motor’s huge power output arrived with all the commotion of an electric rheostat being turned up. The only thing that changed between a legal 65 mph and a lose-your-license-and-go-to-jail doubling of that speed was how fast the scenery went by. No vibration in the bars, no clatter from the valvetrain, no howl from the end cans. Just a little more wind noise on the helmet. After a while, you normalize to the sensations of high velocity travel, and legal speeds seem like a crawl. It’s dangerously addictive.

I worked most days at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, a city 35 minutes east of my home in coastal San Diego, and most days I rode there (in 25 minutes). I began to notice that I seemed to be having problems staying under the ton (that means 100 mph in British slang) on the 15-mile east-west length of Highway 52 that took me there. I knew that if the CHP caught me doing more than 95 – or more than 30 mph over the legal limit anywhere – they’d be likely to charge me not just with merely speeding, but with the far more serious charge of Reckless Driving, which not only would cost me a small fortune in fines, but when reported to the FAA – as it would have to be – I’d lose my Commercial Pilot’s license along with my Flight Instructor Certificate and my precious designation as an FAA Pilot Examiner, upon which I made my living. But nothing seemed to slow me down. Oh, how the male mind can rationalize the pursuit of that which it desires most – and on the FJ I wanted speed!

Fortunately, a cure was available.

ZRX1100 in Germany

In the summer of 2000, Sabine and I went to Germany for a holiday, and went motorcycling in the Alps for the first time. I found a dealer near her mom’s house who rented Aprilia and Kawasaki. I arranged to rent an Aprilia Futura sports-tourer (anyone remember the Futura?) but the rental model had been sold just before I arrived to pick it up. So instead, they sent me out on a Kawasaki ZRX-1100, which was very much like the FJ in ergonomics, performance, power, and handling. It had the unfortunate specification of the passenger footpegs being located approximately six inches below the passenger seat. Sabine said she had no problem keeping her ears warm – with her knees. Her legs went to sleep within half an hour, and we always had to stop soon after that to let her walk around a bit and get some bloodflow back in her feet. If I haven’t mentioned it, she’s 5’11” (180 cm), with a 34-inch inseam. She clearly doesn’t fit the Kawasaki design department’s idea of what a rider’s girlfriend should be shaped like. They must have been thinking of a Japanese girl. Age 11.

So after a challenging week in the Alps, we headed back to the dealer. All he could offer us as an alternative to the Zed-Rex was an Aprilia Pegaso 650, a single-cylinder enduro-style bike with 48 hp. We shrugged, sighed, and took it.

It turned out to be a blast.

Aprilia Pegaso 650 - fun, fun fun (on the right roads)

What a revelation! The sit-up-and-beg-for-a-treat seating position with knees comfortably bent at 90 degrees – well why on earth not? You can ride all day without ever getting cramps in your knees or a strain in your back muscle – you know that one I mean, that one under your right shoulder blade that connects all the way down to your wrist when you twist the throttle, the one that after a few hours makes you understand what Caesar was feeling when he said “Et tu, Brute?”

The Pegaso’s gentle motor had enough power (well, just enough) to move one or both of us up to speed and down the road in a manner befitting a motorcycle. The wide handlebar, light weight, and 19” front hoop all made for a machine far more suited to the minor farm roads that dominate the hinterlands than the bigger, heavier, and substantially overpowered ZRX. I’d been so busy being dazzled by the stunning scenery of the Alps that I hadn’t really been bothered by the shortcomings of the ZRX, but now, on the Pegaso, I felt like I’d been unshackled and allowed to come up for air. The bike was made with these little roads in mind! (A little more power wouldn’t have been a bad thing, though.)

We enjoyed our last week of our holiday, not zooming around the Alps as you might expect, but simply puttering around the farms, fields and forests of the area called the Allgäu (pronounced ‘All-Goy’), those rolling hills on the north side of the Alps where Sabine is from. And smiling. A lot. And that’s when I decided I was going to have to dump the FJ.

Nice landscape shot of the Allgäu. Click to embiggen.

End of Part 2.

A Brief History of My Motorcycles, Part 3: Goodbye Japan, Hello Europe

Arriving home in San Diego from Germany I went straight to my local Italian bike dealer, GP Motorcycles (GP stands for Geoff and Paul) to negotiate with Paul the vending of an Aprilia Pegaso 650.

My only concern was that the minimum power requirements for riding the small winding roads of the Allgäu and the Alps are quite a bit less than those needed for navigating the major freeways of Southern California, where a burst of speed can mean the difference between a long happy life and a fiery death under the wheels of an enormous SUV.

While browsing the showroom, I happened upon an oddball from the nearly-unknown (in America) Italian maker Cagiva, called the Gran Canyon. It was lipstick red and had apparently lost the d in its name. It had nearly the same ergonomics and geometry as the Pegaso, but was equipped with a Ducati 904 motor, the 90° 2-valve L-twin of the 900 monster. The Duc motor produced 73 hp and 78 Nm of torque (57 ft-lb), half again as much power as the Pegaso. A two-up test ride later, and, for the second time in my life, I purchased a brand-new motorcycle. I opted for the full set of paint-matched luggage.

I sold the FJ to an incredulous buyer who couldn’t believe his luck at finding his dream bike in such perfect condition. Remember, I’d bought it new when it was already two years old. He’d brought a bank check for the full amount I was asking, but before showing it to me, he tried to negotiate a lower price. No, I told him. You’re the first to look at it. If you don’t buy it, the next guy will because there’s no cleaner example anywhere out there. He agreed and sheepishly handed over the check. I hope he managed to keep it in equally good condition, and stay out the hands of the CHP.

Now, here’s the saving grace of the Gran Canyon: you can’t help but notice when you’re getting up over 90 mph. There’s wind blast galore, engine and exhaust noise, and hand-numbing vibrations in the bars. It was just the cure for my hyper-speed addiction. Freed from the ballistic missile that was the FJ, I could now be happy speeding like any other Californian in a cage, going 85 in the 65 zones (with one eye in the mirror), without the risk of an “endo careero” moment on the roadside in police bracelets.

Rare that I stopped by Mom's house on two wheels - she hates bikes

The Cagiva’s ergonomics were a wonder – I stopped having to take ibuprofen before during and after a day’s ride. I started to enjoy the scenery more (as it was going past slower). And it was ridiculously fun. The torquey motor made it quick – very quick – off the line. In fact, the front wheel could be brought up with little effort, something that never happened on the FJ. On the backroads it was oh-so nimble, heaps more than the FJ, whose only real claim to fame is that it was faster than an F-14 until rotation. 

Maneuverable? Holy cats – jumping on the GC after the FJ was like switching from a circular saw to sabre saw. 

The FJ made me feel good, but the Gran Canyon made me laugh out loud, often.

Unfortunately, the pillion seat was less than luxuriously appointed, and Sabine – who, as I’ve mentioned is not a small person – would become uncomfortable after an hour on the rear perch. We tried various solutions (like an Airhawk seat pad), but what it really came down to was that the two of us together were just too big to fit in front of the topbox and behind the gas tank without one or both of us feeling a bit crushed. Consequently we didn’t tour as much as I would have liked. Solo, I loved the bike. Two-up, not so much. 

A year later, the summer of 2001 saw us spending five weeks in Europe while I was between jobs, and on that trip we discovered the BMW shop just blocks from Sabine's mom’s house also had a bike rental program. We rented nearly all the models they had on offer, one after the other, including the K1200RS – which reminded us of all the flaws of the FJ – and various R1150 bikes including the R, RS, and RT models.

           

        R1150R

R1150RS

R1150RT

I liked the naked R, but it was the RT – the bike the CHP had started using that year – which Sabine liked the most. At first I thought it was too big and too heavy, but in motion it felt hardly any heavier than the R, and in action it was just as maneuverable on the backroads while at the same time offering great wind and weather protection, and, best of all, it had an extremely plush saddle, both front and back. Nearly Gold-Wing plush. And I won’t be the first to remark that the low center of gravity of the boxer motor and the amazing suspension package delivered a ride way better than you’d think it would by looking at it. Just ask the CHP.

Sabine's charming hometown of Wangen im Allgäu

Sidebar: It was on this trip that Sabine and I decided to move to Germany. It was really my decision, as after spending a month riding here I didn’t want to go home. The decision was based almost entirely on my desire to live where I could go riding in the Alps a lot, and not, as some meager minds speculated at the time, a decision Sabine thrust upon me that I grudgingly went along with. Hardly. Plus, western Europe in general and tidy southern Germany specifically is hard not to fall in love with, and I was smitten. Charming doesn’t even begin to describe this area. It reeks charm. Rolls around in it and tracks it in on the carpet. Charm spills out of every crack and cranny, wherever cracks and crannies are allowed (there are rules, of course). 

There is too little not to like about southern Germany to bother trying to put it into words. You might complain that it’s full of Germans, but even the Germans don’t get up my nose like some other nationalities I could mention. Say what you want, they bloody well behave themselves. 

We left Germany with a plan to come back permanently in about two years. That would give us time to get Sabine her dual citizenship (which would allow her easy return to the US should things not work out in Germany) and for me to get an education that I could use for employment. Specifically, a professional teaching certificate as an English teacher.

Charm galore. Click to embiggen.

German Technology Overcomes Italian Charisma

And so, once again, upon arriving home in San Diego I went to a motorcycle dealer for the third time in my life to purchase a new bike. In this case it was to the BMW dealer to negotiate the vending of one R1150RT with the idea that Sabine and I would spend our last bit of time in America aboard a proper touring bike, exploring ever further the wonders of the American west. We discussed visiting the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce National Parks in Utah, the Sequoias and the Coast Redwoods of California as possible destinations. The world was our oyster.

As it turned out, we made the next two annual trips to Laguna Seca and went on some relatively local rides, and never managed to make the big tours we'd talked about. For one thing, I was swamped with work – which meant income we would need to tide us over when the big move happened, and for another thing, the year 2003 saw a tremendous heat wave standing for months across the western states, whose high temperatures discouraged us from donning our riding gear and heading into the scalding deserts of the southwest.

Sabine and the RT in Lompoc, on the way home from Laguna Seca

We did plan a trip up the cool coast to the redwoods between San Francisco and Arcata, but when we approached my mom about dog-sitting Susie the Beagle, she reveled in her memories of having seen the mighty redwoods many decades before, and cried “Oh how I’d love to see the redwoods again before I die!” Feeling guilty about the fact that we would soon be leaving her behind when we moved to Germany – and taking her ‘granddog’ with us – we switched plans to involve two extra wheels and two extra passengers: our Volvo station wagon, plus my mom and Susie. The travel budget for the year was shot.

Back to motorcycles: The first time I took the RT to work at Gillespie Field, I swept around the rippled asphalt of the constant-radius freeway ramp at a speed which would have worried the suspension of the Cagiva, but which seemed yawningly normal on the RT. The patented BMW Paralever/Telelever suspension is like nothing you’ve experienced, unless of course you’ve experienced it. That suspension brought a whole new level of smoooooth to the riding experience. The motor was every bit as vibey and chunky as the Cagiva’s Ducati had been, but the whole of the RT’s chassis just shrugged it off and went about its merry way without the slightest hint of distress from all the torn asphalt, uneven expansion joints, Botts’ dots, potholes, and anything else the bankrupt State of California's roads cared to throw at it. 

Tip: You'll have to go at least 80 mph to get the foot peg down

Jeff Sabo borrowed the RT one day when he was in town, and came back wide-eyed about 6 hours later, saying “It’s the ultimate man-machine interface. Your neurons are linked directly to the controls. You think, and it does.” And that was 15 years ago, in terms of technology. They’ve only got better since. 

As you know, I switched to the GS when I got here, a model that was born and bred for this environment. First I bought an identically powered and suspended 2002 R1150GS, and then in March 2014 I upgraded to the the vastly improved 2011 R1200GS. Like the RT, the GS models sport the same wondrous Telelever/Paralever suspension and similar boxer motors, all delivering the amazing man-machine interface Sabo raved about. The technology behind these bikes is nothing I'd forego without a serious fight. In fact, as I often say these days, I may well have bought my last motorcycle with the R1200GS. It may be the last petrol-powered machine I own, before I switch to a solar-electric-hydrogen scooter in my 70's. Watch this space.   

The R1150RT in front of my house in San Diego, a week before I moved to Germany

And that, friends, is the history of my motorcycles. My German biking history is pretty well documented starting with the earliest of my blog posts. Thanks for reading this far. And thanks for all of you who have clicked on my blog the last years, driving my readership to more than 5600 clicks. I just recently discovered that statistic and was amazed there have been so many clicks, from as far afield as Poland and Sweden and Canada and France, not to mention lots from Germany and America. Again, many thanks!

End of Part 3, End of this Series