I have two motorcycles: a rough, knockabout dualsport, and a swift, silent, sports touring continent-crosser. I find it impossible to have three motorcycles -- I've found that I simply can't ride or work enough on three bikes. It would be like a man with a wife and two mistresses....it simply can't be done. Two passions are all that nature allows; one might manage a wife and a mistress, but three? Disaster would surely follow.... and so it is with motorcycles.

I love my bikes for different reasons. I love the sports tourer for it's ability to cross a continent is less than a week... for it's ability to carry all that Red and I require for an eight week tour....the bike sings to me in the sweeping corners, it can climb a towering mountain range without strain, run all day on the super slab at ninety miles per hour... the engine's subtle vibrations seep inexorably into my soul and become fused with my blood. To ride my Honda ST1300 is the ultimate motorcycle experience.

But I also love my Kawasaki KLR 650, and for an entirely different reason. The bike is simple and manageable. It stands always ready for a trip across town or a trip across state. One cylinder, one carburetor, one spark plug....engine and chain and wheels...it is motorcycling boiled down to the basics. There are no computer chips imbedded in this bike; Edwin Curtis, revered motorcycling and aviation pioneer of the early 20th century, would be instantly at home with this machine. Anyone with just a modicum of mechanical skill could nurse this beast around the world, and many do. I have been deep in it's innards for a part swap out, and I've changed flat tires on the road.... Recently my speedometer on the bike gave up the ghost. I googled the net, and traced the problem to a cogged washer that transfers the spin from the wheel to the cable running to the instrument panel. Over time, the washer becomes warped and deformed, and no longer functions. I tried to order a replacement part, but found that it is hopelessly back ordered. Undeterred, I took the speedometer hub apart, placed the offending washer in a bench vise and squished it flat, and then took an ordinary hammer and pounded it flatter. Without much hope, I reinstalled it and took my rough Kwakker for a ride. The speedometer works like new. One cannot help loving a bike that can be fixed with a hammer and a vise!

If I had to choose between the two, I just might choose the simpler bike, the dual sport. There is a sense of mastery to it, a sense of control, perhaps illusionary, that does not come with more complicated machinery. With a few simple tools, and a credit card, of course, I could ride my KLR 650 to the ends of the earth.... There are so many aspects of our society that are now beyond our control... Have you tried to figure out insurance clauses lately? Taxes? Medicare? I think that our contemporary spiritual malaise often can be traced to the sense that we are not in control of anything. It is the lack of control or the lack of a suitable response to trouble that drives men and women insane.....

I am sane when I'm on my Sports Tourer, but I feel "more sane" when I ride my KLR....