I took my SM out for a 25 mile spin Sunday evening. Just to get a ride in. Just to keep the battery charged. Just to get my Hooligan on.
At 95K miles, and I will say HARD miles, I tell myself every time I get on, it just can't get any better than this. I have ridden a variety of motorcycles, at the International Motorcycle Shows that used to come through Houston, just for the short group rides they allowed,and was always glad to get back on my SM at the end of the day to go home.
Easy to live with, a decade of unquestionable reliability, and more fun than a man has a right to have with his pants on. There is a lot of eye candy out there, but I'm sold on Triumph, too, and probably will never own anything but.
They sold me with the way they marketed the early Speedmasters back in '03-04 - that spoke to me and still does. Sunday, I made a 25 mile loop into downtown Houston on I-10, then out Hwy 59 to the west Loop. The Galleria, they call it, then back up to Hwy 290 and home. I ran 80-90 mph everywhere I could, TOR's in full cry, in modate traffic. They saw us coming, and knew we were there. Everybody we passed by had to acknowledge we were there, if not get out of the way too. Other riders, whether riding or driving, recognized the garden gate tank badges and knew it was a Triumph. Not just another motorcycle, but a quick, hot-rod Triumph. That handles.
Yes, I'm very happy with my choice. It has enriched my life, starting with this forum, and the many friends here, but oh, that motorcycle!
If your going to ride it, ride it right, and the machine will reward you for it.
High Performance Motorcycles. I got it. I didn't get it in 2004, but after the machine taught me what IT wanted in a rider, I got it. That took about 6 years, and 60K miles. I did not think I wanted a "sport bike", but soon realized I owned one!
I could have never done this on that VTX I thought I wanted. Or any other Jap cruiser, I don't believe, save for maybe a Yamaha Warrior. But where's the soul in that? And pound-for-pound, a Rocket III, or Thunderbird 1600 ( or Storm), would have handled better, performed better, and, had the soul of the Triumph.
You can't bottle that stuff. It's just there, in the DNA.
I keep beating myself up over what my next Triumph ought to be. A Tiger? Which one? A Trophy? Sprint GT? That in itself speaks volumes about how much riding the SM has taught me about riding. Better sense tells me a 2010 Fuel-Injected Speedmaster would be the ticket, if I could find one still mostly stock, with low miles... I'm sure a low-mileage 2010 is out there....
But until or unless catastrophe strikes, or one of my boys decides to take up riding, the 2004 still suites me just fine.
Now where am I heading off to next?
