Not being a motorcycle rider, and having had a bad back all my life, the Ninja doesn't look like a comfortable ride for long distances, being bent over like that. The Harley and the far Yamaha do look comfortable for distance rides.
I haven't ridden a Ninja, so I only have the same intuition that you do; plus, there's nowhere to store anything on it, so you'd have to carry anything you needed in a backpack (adding to the discomfort over time).
That Harley I've ridden on thousand-mile rides; it's perfectly adequate to the task. The big Yamaha also, perhaps even moreso given the wider saddle and larger cargo capacity.
I never have had a cruiser type bike, but the older I get, the taller the bars and the lower the pegs.... It is not just the position, but the speed- at 80 or so with an unfaired sport bike and low bars, the wind pressure on the chest takes the weight off the wrists- at 50, not so much. I don't ride very fast anymore, just cruise around and enjoy the ride. -old biker story.. the Columbia River Gorge is famous for wind, west to east and hence a mecca for windsurfers. Back before time began and windsurfing was even invented, I was running a 750 sportbike up the gorge to Idaho to visit friends. Wonderful ride, late in the day with glorious golden light and about a 40mph tail wind. It was so strong I had to lean the bike over to go straight crossing the river from Oregon. Sorta shaky with those grated bridge decks. There are parts of Washington Highway 14 along the north side of the Columbia where it is a long way between gas stops. Having pushed my luck a bit , I consulted an Oregon map and noted a little town along the river a few miles east and decided that would be the gas stop. Locating the turn off I rode down to the town only to discover that the road ended smack dab into the river- no town to be found, as the Oregon map folks had not bothered to note the WA town I was looking for had been flooded out by the dam many years before. It was only a mile past the Oregon border.... Now running on reserve I tucked in tight, laid on the tank and was very grateful for the tail wind as the next gas stop had me coasting in , in the dark by this point, on a thimbleful left of fuel. The joy of running 80 or so with an effective 40 or 50 mph wind blast was exhilarating..
That's a great story. My wife and I once had a map that clearly indicated a bridge that had never been built; it was across the Ohio river, and neither Kentucky nor Ohio could agree how much the other should pay. So it was official enough to have gotten on the maps, but not official enough to have been constructed. We had to go miles out of the way to find another crossing.
Yes- and I think it has gotten worse with google maps- there are a host of stories out there of people blindly following directions until they end up is some completely untenable corner. AKA "don't ride into no box canyon's, y'all."
I've had a couple of bad experiences with Google maps, and I think Grim mentioned in a post having to rescue folks that Google has lead on to roads they shouldn't have tried to traverse. I deserve some of the blame for not doing a sanity check on the suggested route but I've noticed that as Google has added more and more marginal roads to their mapping and leaned their routing algorithm more into 'eco-efficiency' that it now has a tendency to direct you on to those kind of roads more often when it would be safer to follow a longer but more heavily traveled path.
6 comments:
Not being a motorcycle rider, and having had a bad back all my life, the Ninja doesn't look like a comfortable ride for long distances, being bent over like that. The Harley and the far Yamaha do look comfortable for distance rides.
Eric Hines
I haven't ridden a Ninja, so I only have the same intuition that you do; plus, there's nowhere to store anything on it, so you'd have to carry anything you needed in a backpack (adding to the discomfort over time).
That Harley I've ridden on thousand-mile rides; it's perfectly adequate to the task. The big Yamaha also, perhaps even moreso given the wider saddle and larger cargo capacity.
I never have had a cruiser type bike, but the older I get, the taller the bars and the lower the pegs.... It is not just the position, but the speed- at 80 or so with an unfaired sport bike and low bars, the wind pressure on the chest takes the weight off the wrists- at 50, not so much. I don't ride very fast anymore, just cruise around and enjoy the ride.
-old biker story.. the Columbia River Gorge is famous for wind, west to east and hence a mecca for windsurfers. Back before time began and windsurfing was even invented, I was running a 750 sportbike up the gorge to Idaho to visit friends. Wonderful ride, late in the day with glorious golden light and about a 40mph tail wind. It was so strong I had to lean the bike over to go straight crossing the river from Oregon. Sorta shaky with those grated bridge decks. There are parts of Washington Highway 14 along the north side of the Columbia where it is a long way between gas stops. Having pushed my luck a bit , I consulted an Oregon map and noted a little town along the river a few miles east and decided that would be the gas stop. Locating the turn off I rode down to the town only to discover that the road ended smack dab into the river- no town to be found, as the Oregon map folks had not bothered to note the WA town I was looking for had been flooded out by the dam many years before. It was only a mile past the Oregon border.... Now running on reserve I tucked in tight, laid on the tank and was very grateful for the tail wind as the next gas stop had me coasting in , in the dark by this point, on a thimbleful left of fuel. The joy of running 80 or so with an effective 40 or 50 mph wind blast was exhilarating..
That's a great story. My wife and I once had a map that clearly indicated a bridge that had never been built; it was across the Ohio river, and neither Kentucky nor Ohio could agree how much the other should pay. So it was official enough to have gotten on the maps, but not official enough to have been constructed. We had to go miles out of the way to find another crossing.
Yes- and I think it has gotten worse with google maps- there are a host of stories out there of people blindly following directions until they end up is some completely untenable corner. AKA "don't ride into no box canyon's, y'all."
I've had a couple of bad experiences with Google maps, and I think Grim mentioned in a post having to rescue folks that Google has lead on to roads they shouldn't have tried to traverse. I deserve some of the blame for not doing a sanity check on the suggested route but I've noticed that as Google has added more and more marginal roads to their mapping and leaned their routing algorithm more into 'eco-efficiency' that it now has a tendency to direct you on to those kind of roads more often when it would be safer to follow a longer but more heavily traveled path.
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