I've been keeping an eye on winter kijiji deals, and I keep coming back to an old silverwing. I love my little CBR but it sucks at a few things that are important to me: Riding two up (not a huge deal, but may be in the future)
No lockable storage. (Could be addressed with a few hundred dollars)
Tough on the body for long trips (My biggest concern. I'm looking at raising the seat as I'm 6'2", but there's only so much I can do there. I commute an hour to work on it, and I loved the 4000km trip I did on it, except it was getting very painful to be on the bike near the end)
Things I love about it:
Lightweight.
Fun to ride.
Cheap to buy and maintain.
Fuel economy.
Reliable.
Every cool bike I've seen, I've checked out on fuelly.com and cycle-ergo.com . I was surprised to see a lot of bikes (according to the website anyway) wouldn't give me any more room than what I already have. My knees would be even more bent on an sv650 or a gs500f.
Enter the gl650. It seems to keep a lot of what I like and might address the issues I want to fix. Given my penchant for riding in the worst possible weather, that big fairing is looking pretty good. I used to think the old interstates were kind of ugly, but the look is growing on me. The CBR is about as unique looking as a beige Corolla in Brampton. I'm okay with giving up some sportiness for long distance capability, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy a goldwing on my commute.
My biggest concern is the reliability of a bike from 1983, but I don't see much in the way of modern equivalents. My idea is to buy cheap and plan to spend money up front for some restoration.
I enjoyed a test ride on a NC750, but it doesn't have nearly as much fairing. A vstrom would probably suit me well, but they're not cheap. What other models should I consider? Have I overlooked anything in my criteria?
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No lockable storage. (Could be addressed with a few hundred dollars)
Tough on the body for long trips (My biggest concern. I'm looking at raising the seat as I'm 6'2", but there's only so much I can do there. I commute an hour to work on it, and I loved the 4000km trip I did on it, except it was getting very painful to be on the bike near the end)
Things I love about it:
Lightweight.
Fun to ride.
Cheap to buy and maintain.
Fuel economy.
Reliable.
Every cool bike I've seen, I've checked out on fuelly.com and cycle-ergo.com . I was surprised to see a lot of bikes (according to the website anyway) wouldn't give me any more room than what I already have. My knees would be even more bent on an sv650 or a gs500f.
Enter the gl650. It seems to keep a lot of what I like and might address the issues I want to fix. Given my penchant for riding in the worst possible weather, that big fairing is looking pretty good. I used to think the old interstates were kind of ugly, but the look is growing on me. The CBR is about as unique looking as a beige Corolla in Brampton. I'm okay with giving up some sportiness for long distance capability, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy a goldwing on my commute.
My biggest concern is the reliability of a bike from 1983, but I don't see much in the way of modern equivalents. My idea is to buy cheap and plan to spend money up front for some restoration.
I enjoyed a test ride on a NC750, but it doesn't have nearly as much fairing. A vstrom would probably suit me well, but they're not cheap. What other models should I consider? Have I overlooked anything in my criteria?
Sent from my Redmi 4A using Tapatalk