Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 28 JULY 14, 2015 P125 mer sponsor, the other a past teammate and rival of mine. I had almost forgotten how much fun it was to hit the hills with a couple of old friends, roosting each other and trad- ing stories. Malcolm is simply amazing on a motorcycle, the more technical the terrain, the better he likes it. Bell is cer- tainly no slouch, either. It was an epic day of riding in the San Bernardino Mountains and it whetted my appetite for trail riding again. The other thing happened a couple of years later. Scott Russell, who owns a hugely successful Honda/KTM/Ka- wasaki dealership in Oregon called MotoSport Hillsboro, contacted me on Facebook and invited me to come visit his shop during the week of the Washougal Motocross Nation- al. As a youth growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Scott was a big fan of motocross, and especially of DG Performance Specialties, my long-time race sponsor. He picked me up at the airport and when we got to his shop, he had at least a dozen old Cycle World maga- zines and half a dozen posters of me, laid out and ready to sign. He even had a poster of me that I had never seen be- fore! It made me feel good, a little embarrassed, but the best was yet to come. MotoSport Hillsboro is a fantastic shop, more like a museum. Scott has been col- lecting motorcycles for a long time and he has some rare and beautiful machines. He also has a showroom and shop full of used bikes of every make and model. He told me I could choose any bike I wanted and use it during my trip. I picked a beautiful, almost-new Honda Gold Wing and I have to tell you, that bike impressed me. He had plugged in a couple of different routes on the GPS to get me to the big Thursday night race at Portland Interna- tional Raceway, as well as to the Washougal track, located just across the Columbia River from his store. It was my first real experi- ence of carving through the scenic Northwest and the big Honda handled excellently. As I was busy scraping the floorboards and plastic off that Honda, it occurred to me that I had ridden Harleys quite a few times, borrowed and rented, and they were no comparison. I cannot understand why any- one would want to buy one of them, compared to a modern Japanese or European bike. They seem so archaic and other than their distinctive ex- haust note, I just do not get the attraction. I hope I don't lose any street cred because of this, but I would prefer a works Honda CRF450R to a Hodaka Combat Wombat, any time. So I bought a Big Red Pig, aka a Honda XR650R. It is a 2003 model and it was almost new when I bought it three years ago. It still had the original tires. The owner had the dealership install a Baja Designs lighting kit, IMS pegs and skid plate, ProTaper bars and some other stuff, then he just parked it. I have ridden the heck out of it, almost entirely in the street. I want to ride it in the dirt, but let's face it, the BRP is heavy, really heavy. I'm torn. One part of me thinks that if I had the suspension set up for me I could get away with riding it in nearly any off-road conditions, the other part says to throw some 17-inch Super- moto wheels on it and use it in the street. Luckily for me, I know when to throw in the towel and I decided it would be better to sell it and get something else, but now I have a real dilemma: Should I buy a true dual-sport, like a KTM 500 EXC, or should I get something more street- friendly, like a Yamaha Super Tenere or KTM 1190 Adven- ture? On the other hand, I could restore Dad's old CT-1, save a ton of money and never have to worry about that inkblot thing. First World problems, I tell ya. CN

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