Recently it occurred to me, 100,000+ miles and 8 bikes later, I’m still evolving as a motorcyclist. Looking back at all my bikes, I can definitely see how I arrived here today. But it was a slow process as I figured out my riding style over the last few years. Now I ride a dual-sport, a sport-touring bike and sport bike, but what will I ride in a few years?
I didn’t start riding motorcycles in order to tour on them. As a matter of a fact I rode for a couple of years and never even considered doing trips on my motorcycles.
2006 Yamaha XT225
My XT225 has close to 3,000 miles on it, I've been riding it since October 2006 when I bought it new. After a year, I’m still learning to ride off-road, there just isn’t that many opportunities to ride off-road around here.
For me, the biggest difference between riding pavement and dirt is the mileage. I’m a high mileage rider, I ride far and I ride often. My longest day on pavement so far is 1,021 miles, I did that in 21 hours. On dirt a 100 miles is a long day of riding. And depending on the road conditions, sometimes even 50 miles can tire me out. To this day, the most miles I have put on in a day on the XT225 is 350 miles - 100 miles of those being dirt, the rest pavement.
It’s fun exploring the less traveled dirt roads, that’s pretty much why I wanted to start riding a dual-sport. There are just too many places I can’t go on my street bikes and to me a dual-sport bike is a nice addition to a sport-touring bike. Now there are no roads that I can’t explore.
I didn’t start riding motorcycles in order to tour on them. As a matter of a fact I rode for a couple of years and never even considered doing trips on my motorcycles.
2006 Yamaha XT225
My XT225 has close to 3,000 miles on it, I've been riding it since October 2006 when I bought it new. After a year, I’m still learning to ride off-road, there just isn’t that many opportunities to ride off-road around here.
For me, the biggest difference between riding pavement and dirt is the mileage. I’m a high mileage rider, I ride far and I ride often. My longest day on pavement so far is 1,021 miles, I did that in 21 hours. On dirt a 100 miles is a long day of riding. And depending on the road conditions, sometimes even 50 miles can tire me out. To this day, the most miles I have put on in a day on the XT225 is 350 miles - 100 miles of those being dirt, the rest pavement.
It’s fun exploring the less traveled dirt roads, that’s pretty much why I wanted to start riding a dual-sport. There are just too many places I can’t go on my street bikes and to me a dual-sport bike is a nice addition to a sport-touring bike. Now there are no roads that I can’t explore.
