The Cruiser Quest - an unexpected twist

I went to the GP (that's the doctor GP, not the motoGP) this morning, to get my xray results. The good news is that my bone has mended. The bad news is that it's going to be pretty fragile for a while yet, so I need to be careful. I was given the heads-up about that by my lovely GP a while ago anyway, along with the exhortation to 'get thee a cruiser' - so, no surprises there.

Next stop was Eurotune, the Triumph dealership in Queanbeyan. Helen & Anders were really helpful. I sat on an America - HUGELY imposing and very heavy. It was parked on a very slight slope, but I couldn't haul it upright off the side-stand, so that was that. Bye Bye America. Next -  the lovely Bonneville. The T100 was, alas, too tall. The SE was a much better fit, although I still couldn't get my feet flat, possibly because of the position of the pegs. Who on earth put them right where I would put my feet in order to get them flat on the ground? I wonder whether the pegs can actually be moved? Straddle-walking the bike would be pretty much an impossibility, coz my little legs won't touch the ground if I stretch out past the end of those bloody pegs. Sheesh, I hate being this short! I booked a test ride anyway, for next Monday.

That sweet Harley Sportster 883 Superlow has really taken my fancy, so I headed to Robbo's Motorcycles back in Canberra to have another sit on it and to book a test ride. Lo and behold, Blake, the sales guy, said I could have a ride on it this arv. I fanged home to get my gear and fanged back to Fyshwick in record time.

And then I couldn't do it. (This is the bad bit. Look away if you don't want to see a grown woman cry.) I sat on that nice, low, easy-to-ride, beaut little bike and the last 6 years of riding just evaporated. I was back at Stay Upright with my heart thumping out of my chest and tears in my eyes, so terrified that I couldn't move. WTF?

Blake was brilliant. I would've been fine once I actually got out on the road, and I think he knew that. Another few minutes and all would've been ok, I think (maybe). The boss, though, told him to pull the pin on the test ride. How farking embarrassing. Blake was an absolute champion:

"Don't beat yourself up over it - the last time you were on a bike you fell off and broke your pelvis. And this is an unfamiliar bike, unfamiliar riding style. Why wouldn't you be nervous? Be kind to yourself."

I still felt like the world's biggest loser. I'm giving myself tonight to be a big sook, then tomorrow I'm going to give myself a very stern talking-to. I wonder whether it would be useful to get out on the road on something more familiar, just for my first ride, post-accident? A little GPX or something small like that? Despite the sporty ride position, it'd get me out there in the traffic on two wheels, juggling levers etc.

The other thing that I guess has bothered me is this - I've never taken a bike for a test ride in my life. I've never ridden anybody else's bike. I've never test-driven a car. I'm so nervous about the possibility of damaging someone else's ride that I just can't do it. Maybe THAT's the problem (in which case the previous paragraph about test-riding a little GPX is rendered null and void!)

I think if I were to just buy the bloody bike I'd be able to ride it out of the showroom, no probs - but then, what if I hated it after 50kms? That has never happened with any of my other bikes - I've fallen in love with each one (especially my last SV) almost instantly - but what if??? What if this horrible fear means I've lost my nerve altogether?  Wouldn't I know it already? Wouldn't that have manifested as a "Hmmm, don't think I'll bother getting another bike" mindset? Surely my desperate need to get back on a bike means that I haven't lost my nerve, right? That this is a temporary setback, yes?

Okay, so tonight - perhaps some self-indulgent snivelling, maybe even a pizza - and definitely a Wild Turkey while I feel sorry for myself... Tomorrow, a big bowl of HTFU for breakfast, and it'll be a new day. Thank goodness.

Betty's Cruiser Quest

Bikers are a clannish lot. If you ride a sportsbike, it’s the only sort of bike worth riding. Cruisers are for fat old men or outlaw bikie gangs, and don’t get me started on girly scooters! And then there’s the marque loyalty and stereotyping. BMWs are for old people and accountants, Harleys are for outlaws or weekend warrior accountants, Ducatis are for poseurs and speed freaks with too much money (but probably not accountants).

I’ve always ridden Jap bikes, mostly Suzukis of the sporty type. I’ve never wanted to ride anything else. And I'm just as prejudiced and clannish as the next sportsbike rider.

There was something a bit karmic, then, in my doctor’s suggestion that I get a cruiser. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. You need to be sitting on your arse (that’s a medical term), and not your pubic bone, he said. The bottom line, then: cruiser or nothing, for the foreseeable future. It’s surprising how attractive the concept of a cruiser suddenly became.

And then I sat on some.

Japanese cruisers have taken the essence of the cruiser motorcycle and vamped it up to make it more muscular than its American inspiration, and that, I think, was a mistake. Even on Suzuki’s entry-level M50 (with chrome-painted plastic!) I felt like a pimple on a pumpkin.  If motorcycles were horses, sportsbikes would be thoroughbreds and cruisers would be Clydesdales. (I suppose that would make scooters those little Shetland ponies you ride at school fetes. Ooh-er, slap my wrist, tee hee!)

My latest quest, then, is to find the perfect Betty-sized cruiser. After sitting on (but not test-riding – yet!) millions of the things, I have refined my wish-list.

It can’t be a 250cc jobbie. Tiny tank, no guts – and they feel like a postie bike (which is fine if you’re a postie). I want a bit more road-presence than that. And a decent-sized fuel tank.

It can’t have footboards – I find them uncomfortable. Let’s face it, I find that whole feet-forward thing weird anyway – and what I’ve noticed is that the bikes with footboards tend to be the biggest, most muscular cruisers, made for people with feet the size of New Zealand. Footpegs for me, thanks.

And while we’re on the subject of footpegs, I’d like them not too far forward. The long wheelbase of a cruiser and the shortness of me means that in order to sit with legs stretched forward to reach the pegs, and arms stretched out to reach the bars, I’m not going to cruise comfortably – I’m going to be bent like a paperclip.

No chrome! Okay okay, we're talking cruisers, and that's going too far. How about 'as little chrome as I can get away with'?

Is anybody else hearing the strains of The Impossible Dream right now?

My quest has taken me to just about every bike dealership in Canberra, whenever I could steal out of Marking Hell for an hour. What an adventure. Even being a pimple on a pumpkin is preferable to huddling over piles of exams. Sitting on a motorcycle, even one that doesn’t fit, puts a grin on my face like nothing else can. 

Watch this space.