Went out for a ride this fall and I stopped at a grocery store to pick up some coffee cream (gotta have coffee cream) when a young man aged fourteen or fifteen approached me.
I remember being that age, and young men approach me all the time to talk bikes and I always indulge them.
With out so much as a hello he said, "What did you buy that bike for, the new six hundreds are faster."
I was dumbstruck. Did he mean on a drag strip, top speed, a roll on from a dig, around a road race course? Is faster the only criterion that a bike is to be judged by? Why does anybody buy a particular model of bike? I'll grant him that on a road course with equal riders who can extract a bikes maximum performance a six hundred would be faster, but I doubt he but that much thought into his statement. Did he not realize it was a Busa?
Then I was struck by inspiration, why swim against a huge river of ignorance when you can go with the flow. So standing there next to a bike with thousands of dollars of mods, in full leathers, age fifty and an Arai helmet tucked under my arm I said, "Well this is my first bike and I didn't know much about bike when I bought it."
That seemed to satisfy him and he said, "Yeah the new six hundreds are faster, I would have bought a new six hundred, my friend has a new six hundred, and it's faster."
To which I replied, "Buying this bike was not my first mistake in life and I'm sure it won't be my last."
He looked at me for a second longer and without so much as a "See ya later" he turned and walked away.
I think I made the right decision to go with the flow, what say you?
cheers
ken
I remember being that age, and young men approach me all the time to talk bikes and I always indulge them.
With out so much as a hello he said, "What did you buy that bike for, the new six hundreds are faster."
I was dumbstruck. Did he mean on a drag strip, top speed, a roll on from a dig, around a road race course? Is faster the only criterion that a bike is to be judged by? Why does anybody buy a particular model of bike? I'll grant him that on a road course with equal riders who can extract a bikes maximum performance a six hundred would be faster, but I doubt he but that much thought into his statement. Did he not realize it was a Busa?
Then I was struck by inspiration, why swim against a huge river of ignorance when you can go with the flow. So standing there next to a bike with thousands of dollars of mods, in full leathers, age fifty and an Arai helmet tucked under my arm I said, "Well this is my first bike and I didn't know much about bike when I bought it."
That seemed to satisfy him and he said, "Yeah the new six hundreds are faster, I would have bought a new six hundred, my friend has a new six hundred, and it's faster."
To which I replied, "Buying this bike was not my first mistake in life and I'm sure it won't be my last."
He looked at me for a second longer and without so much as a "See ya later" he turned and walked away.
I think I made the right decision to go with the flow, what say you?
cheers
ken
:thumbs:
