As a young person I would ride one of my two older brother’s motorcycles when I could, or ride on the back with them when they’d take me along.
We grew up on the edge of the Black Hills in South Dakota so we had plenty of room to roam, build forts, sled, ride bicycles, shoot our bb guns and generally stay out of the house on the weekends so our parents would have time to relax after us kids did our chores.
My two older brothers saved up their paper route and lawn mowing money to buy second hand enduro motorcycles. Jeff had an early 70s Kawasaki 90cc and Jerrod a Yamaha 125cc bike. I was still too young to have my own, but they were kind enough to give me a ride once in a while. As I grew older I learned to ride and it opened up a world beyond pedaling…although I still thoroughly enjoy riding my pedal bikes.
After I left South Dakota for six years in the Army I ended up in Tempe, AZ where I was able to trade for a broken down Honda CBR 600F2 that I rebuilt with the help of friends, borrowed tools, a local motorcycle junkyard, and a lot of eBay purchases. I really enjoyed getting this bike running again and boy was it fast. I had a lot of fun until I was hit in 2000 in downtown Phoenix. I wasn’t injured, but it was too close and I was pretty freaked out by the fact that people are doing everything else while driving, except for paying attention to the road. Arizona is such a dangerous place to be on a motorcycle, bicycle, or even as a pedestrian.
I took a break from riding until 2012 when I decided to try an adventure bike after months of researching motorcycles that were easy to maintain, ran well, were bulletproof and could carry a lot of gear. I settled on a 2006 Suzuki V-Strom DL650 (WeeStrom) and liked it from the start.
I stopped riding in the city or commuting as much as possible because I did not want a repeat of what happened on my CBR. Since I lived near South Mountain I spent a lot of time getting familiar and comfortable on the bike riding up and down the curvy roads heading up and down South Mountain. Beyond that I’d hit the trails east of Phoenix around Canyon Lake to focus on some desert off-road riding.
In 2017 I decided to upgrade to the Honda Africa Twin (CRF1000l) and could not be happier. As before I wanted a bike that would be easy to maintain, durable, and provide a better experience on my long rides while traveling at highway speeds as well as a more capable off-road bike. This bike has satisfied all of my requirements.
My Sondors Metacycle finally arrived and I’m loving it (after replacing the seat).
This site was created to share my travels.
