Oh No, Not Again

I've been reading motorcycle magazines for as long as I could remember. When other kids were into Hot Rod I was reading Cycle World, Motorcyclist and the now defunct Cycle. Others read Mad and Cracked, I read Cartoons magazine. Somewhere in my posession is a box chock full of old Cartoons issues. Crass and Bernie, Ellefson's creative cartoons. I had Evel Knievel stunt motorcycles. Even went as the guy for Halloween one year.

My parents tolerated my friends bringing small displacement motorcycles over and "tuning" them in their garage. Mini bikes, two stroke enduros. Harley Sprints. Seemed like any given week would find something under four hundred cc's with a story to tell, somewhat torn apart in my parents' garage. We learned about points. We learned about a lot of motorcycle oriented mechanicals by stumbling through trial and error. Sometimes it was frustrating but it was always worth it in the end.

I write this because I did the belt and rollers on the LX150 this morning. Normal maintenance, yet in some way it feels like more than should be necessary. Its a bit of a job to do an auto transmission on these modern bikes. Still a little foreign feeling to me. Odd.

Granted I had the bike up to about 50mph on the country lanes outside my neighborhood , but it wasn't far. Everything feels as it should. Still, I wouldn't mind a four stroke shifty scooter. Only because after years of wishing for one, Genuine Scooter Co. is going to have one out later this year. Less maintenance. Or an excuse to get something new?

I must be in that mode or something. You know the one. You have some unyet unspoken desire to have something new but you just don't know what.

So I visited the Honda motorcycles site and noticed they're releasing a machine that almost made me fall out of my chair when the page opened up. A 700cc liquid cooled V twin with shaft final drive. Built in saddle bags. Its a mid sized touring bike. Honda quality throughout.

So I'm torn. Another scooter, albeit something I would really like and that I could easily afford versus something which could take me out of scooters in an instant if it delivers the way Honda always seems to. The Stella would be less than half the cost of the Honda NT 700.

But I want the Honda more.

Need to find a way to get there from here.

Harv