What expression?

[Coaln]

I'm growing determined to get another motorcycle after taking a break from motorcycling for some years.

In the past, I focused a lot on riding skill. I did a lot of clinics, track-days, classes, multi-day schools. I traveled quite a bit to go to schools all over. Then I got into road racing. I was a bike builder, crew chief, and rider. At the time, it was popular to train on XR100R flat track bikes. I built one. I would also ride trails on mine. There were a lot of things even about motorcycles that were crowded out by racing. I decided the superbikes were taking too much of my life and I wanted to do other things.

Now I miss motorcycling and want to get into it another way. I always enjoyed bike building and riding. I'm a serial builder. I need a new build. I've done some four-wheel builds while I was away from motorbikes, but I don't have any more parking. At least they're all running. Only one of them's a project and it's finished for now.

Before I got into racing, I was riding British classic bikes, when I wasn't working on them. I don't think those would be good for me now. They never held up well, the shop where I used to get parts is out of business, and the dwindling supply of bikes and parts has caused prices to soar. There's really nothing about the modern, liquid-cooled interpretations of them that are 150 pounds overweight and wear fake carburetors that turns me on. The thoroughly modern Triumphs, on the other hand, certainly would have appealed to my former tastes.

I want to avoid riding too fast. My old XR100 taught me that a lot of fun can be had on anything where you can pin the throttle even with reduced speeds and danger. I suppose the present-day equivalent that's street-legal would be a Honda Grom. I remember riding pit bikes like that and they can be a blast, but whether I got a Grom or a small-displacement dual-sport, they would have a hard time on the Interstate where the flow of traffic is 90 mph, and even on the state highways where traffic is often in the 70's or 80's. I don't want to trailer it. Trailering ends up turning what could be an hour ride on weekdays into not going 'cause I don't have the time.

I've moved to Nevada. Off road riding is nearly unlimited here. Again, because I don't want to trailer it, I'd need a big dual sport to ride the highways and the trails. A 690 Enduro or an old XR650R come to mind. I have a hard core 4x4 so I know the trails. A 600 pound "Adventure" bike is not well suited despite being unequivocally better on the highway. Still, I can't help but worry one of those aforementioned bikes will end up turning my back yard into a Baja 1000 every weekend. I want to go slow. I need to stay slow. Like KLR slow. I don't know how much of that is will power and how much is the bike.

As a builder, I always admired the things some people did to custom cruiser bikes, the Harley Davidsons. I can't say I ever saw a dual-sport build that turned me on. I never cared for much for choppers or baggers. I always like the cafe racers but I'm moving away from that. I also liked the bobbers, their simplicity and minimalism. I'm not talking about the Indian Bobber. That's anti-thematic. I'm talking more like pan or shovel hard tails with magnetos, suicide clutches and jockey shifters, Paughco springers and no front brakes. So clean. I never really fit the "dirtbag" image of their stereotypical rider though. I admire the "outlaw" biker -- not in the criminal sense, but in the sense of being outside a sanctioning body and its rules. My first bikes never had mirrors or turn signals or reflectors and crap like that. They predated all those laws and were exempt. Nowadays it's even worse. It seems like you can't even build a bike with a carburetor anymore. What's worse, it's like there's an unwritten rule that you have to have a USB charging port and some kind of app on your phone. I hate that. It makes me want to go full-on punk rock.

The thing I realized about those old bobbers is that they were a great expression of non-conformity for their original builders, but it's not original anymore. Building one now is like a conformity. To what? To a formula. What is that formula good for anyway? Bar hopping? I don't even know, so I think for me it would be like some kind of "cultural appropriation."

I used to like the stripped-down FL's like the Softail Classics, Fat Boys and Road Kings, but I don't know what I could do with one of those besides ride in a parade. I rode a Road King one time and scraped the floor boards just going around the block. Where I live, it's all mountains. They used to be expensive, but they're cheap now. The boomers bred them like rabbits and a lot of them outlasted the riders. The worst thing about them is they're cheap to buy now, but very costly to build, and the build costs have no resale value.

I think the most practical thing for me would be a dual-sport. The builder in me wants to express myself with more than polyethylene bodywork, a vinyl seat and scuffed metal. Seeing the profligate application of electronics makes me want to rebel. I was never a luddite. Most of my race bikes had electronic fuel injection and data logging. I just can't stand to see motorcycles become nothing more than another phone peripheral.

There's something else to it too: the freedom of people to ride their own builds. I can't say that anything that I do in that respect will make any difference. I just hate to conform to the choices I've been given while I still have that freedom, only to find that someday, nobody else thinks that choice is necessary. "Who would want to change their motorcycle? With something that isn't even in the factory app store?" "Who would want to even build their own?"

[redeem ouzzer]

“Builds” are pointless unless they enhance the riding experience, I.e. more power / less weight. Anyone who modifies a bike for “individuality” should be shot on site. Bikes are a tool to do a job and not an expression of art or lifestyle. Unless you are looking for specific performance gains stock is always best.
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Be a REAL MAN!

[Nobby the Bastard]

I thought that the usual method of 'customising' HDs was to just throw a fuckload of chrome tat bought off the shelf at it...
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Triumph Sprint ST 1050

[MCN]

The Road Traffic Act Construction and Use section should keep you pointed in the correct direction.

If it doesn't pass scrutiny for Road Safety then it would be a very limited market.
For a lot of effort.

Painting on canvas may be more rewarding an art form.

Or one or two make a go of graffiti on bus shelters and railway bridges etc.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[pepperami]

WOW!that’s a lot to take in!

Why not flick through the the for sale adds and come up with a bike you like of and then the Mighty BCF can offer an opinion.
Chances are someone will tell you what you don’t want hear about it.
But we’ll try to be neutral
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I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[A100man]

Take a look at advrider.com projects page and see at people are doing with basic 'lightweight' 500 cc twins like GS500.. to give them some off road capability.
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Now: A100, GT250A, XJ598, FZ750, SL1000

Then: Fizz, RS200, KL250, XJ550, Laverda Alpina, XJ600, FZS600, Skorpion

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

[stinkwheel]

Ok.

I suggest you build an XS650 based grasstracker.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[MarJay]

[droog]

[chickenstrip]

If you're brought up with bikes from a young age, and you get heavily into them such that they're more or less all you're interested in, never giving much of a thought to anything else, pretty much your whole world revolving around them, does that make them a 'lifestyle' choice? I just see it as the thing I'm most into, for me, not for anyone else.

I never thought of them as "a tool to do a job" either. A tool is created to do quite specific things, whereas bikes have involved me in a wide range of things - touring, racing with mates for fun, racing with myself for fun, just a day out for the pleasure of riding and maybe visiting somewhere interesting, and an entire social life at times, although that has ended up encompassing other things for which a bike isn't needed. Sometimes they have also been how I've earned a living. Bikes mean much more to me than just a tool to do a job. Maybe you could see them as some kind of multi tool if you wanted, but I don't see the point of thinking about them in that way. They're just something I 'do', and love to do.
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Chickenystripgeezer's Biking Life (Latest update 19/10/18) Belgium, France, Italy, Austria tour 2016 Picos de Europa, Pyrenees and French Alps tour 2017 Scotland Trip 1, now with BONUS FEATURE edit, 5/10/19, on page 2 Scotland Trip 2 Luxembourg, Black Forest, Switzerland, Vosges Trip 2017
THERE'S MILLIONS OF CHICKENSTRIPS OUT THERE!

[redeem ouzzer]

[chickenstrip]

For the OP, although you don't appear to have asked any specific question, if you're searching around for what to do next in bikes, that has to come from you I think. What fires your imagination about them now? I wouldn't try to do something because I thought it's what I ought to be doing, but because it's what I really desired to do. And if what I wanted to do had been done before, I wouldn't make that a consideration if I thought it was something I'd enjoy.
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Chickenystripgeezer's Biking Life (Latest update 19/10/18) Belgium, France, Italy, Austria tour 2016 Picos de Europa, Pyrenees and French Alps tour 2017 Scotland Trip 1, now with BONUS FEATURE edit, 5/10/19, on page 2 Scotland Trip 2 Luxembourg, Black Forest, Switzerland, Vosges Trip 2017
THERE'S MILLIONS OF CHICKENSTRIPS OUT THERE!

[chickenstrip]

[CorriganJ]

[hellkat]

What about a little flick through some past issues of Greasy Kulture magazine? I think they have Instagram.
https://greasykulture.com/collections/frontpage

Worth a look.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[jeffyjeff]

[hellkat]

oooo mmmm ggggg
why have I not known about that until right now?



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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[jeffyjeff]