A Tale of Three Motorcycles

The past year has been a good one for us, all things considered.

We did learn this valuable lesson: don't sell your motorcycle unless you're sure you're done riding.

Last summer, Cliff got to thinking about the dangers of riding a motorcycle; then he started having some peculiar "light-headed" spells, and began to imagine what might happen if he had such an incident while on the motorcycle. He told me more than once his biggest fear was that he'd end up hurting or killing me in a wreck.

So he put our lovely blue Gold Wing up for sale on Craigslist, where it sat for a month without our receiving a single inquiry. Then out of the blue, we got a call from an interested party. He bought our bike. Cliff let him have all the extras that went with it: luggage, cover, the ice chest he'd rigged up to go on the back... everything.

The next weekend, Memorial Day weekend, Cliff and I sat brooding in the living room listening to motorcycles roar by on 224 highway. We knew we'd made a mistake. Oh, and the "spells" Cliff was having? Whatever the cause, a little pill prescribed by the doctor put an end to them.

I suggested we buy an older Gold Wing, so there wouldn't be so much money invested and we could ride. We found one, and were on the road again. Picnics, museums, all the stuff we'd been doing on our other Honda. I noticed that on this 1100 cc model, my knee bothered me more if we rode very long. But at least we could ride.

Cliff's cousin had purchased a 1998 Gold Wing earlier in the summer and found out he couldn't handle it, so he'd put it up for sale almost as soon as he bought it. The older Gold Wing we now had wasn't as comfortable a ride as the one we'd sold, nor did it have the power to which we'd been accustomed. It was noisy by comparison, too. And Cliff's cousin sure did need to sell his white motorcycle.

So we now own two Honda Gold Wings.

Since I was the one who strongly urged Cliff to get back into the motorcycle business, he says he no longer worries so much about hurting me. It's like, if something happens, I practically forced him to get another motorcycle... so it isn't all on his head. It was my decision. Sounds silly, I know. But whatever it takes to let him enjoy riding, I'm all for it. Am I sorry we sold the blue bike? In many ways, yes. Had we kept it, we'd have saved a small fortune. But it was a good thing, too. People really don't appreciate what they have until they've lost it, and it took that holiday weekend of sitting helplessly at home for us to realize how much fun we'd been having. I've had several people say, "You can get in the car and go for long drives, just like you do on the motorcycle."

I guess you have to be a biker to understand why that doesn't work.