Perfect Motorcycles, and Other Fictions

Originally published in “On the Level,” the official magazine of the BMW Riders Association. My friend James has owned a succession of “perfect” motorcycles—a couple dozen, at last count. You’ve never seen such a parade of perfection. With each new acquisition, he’ll call and say something like: “You can’t believe this bike I just bought: the suspension, the brakes, the ergonomics, the power delivery is all, well, perfect.” But, as I have learned lo these many years, his concept of perfection is decidedly imperfect. Throughout his long and prodigious motorcycling life, there has been a trail of these bikes, each one supposedly better than the last. Which, of course, makes the entire concept a fallacy: if the last one was perfect, how could this one be more perfect?

Not long ago he put a deposit on what he decided was the absolute pinnacle of perfection—a Honda Africa Twin. He rode it twice and sold it after two weeks. Apparently, he couldn’t stand so much perfection in one motorcycle. This was quickly followed by a Triumph Thruxton (gone in two months), a KTM Adventure R (six months), and a bellowing, leg-breaking, kickstart Honda XR 500 vintage motocrosser (two months and three visits to the orthopedist).

It’s this way for many of us. My neighbors think I run a temporary storage facility for orphan motorcycles, given the way they come and go, like migratory birds. And yet, undaunted, we press on in the relentless pursuit of two-wheeled perfection, draining bank accounts and jeopardizing marriages across the ages and the continents. Among motorcyclists, it has ever been thus.

Perhaps without even knowing it, we all seek the One Bike to Rule Them All. You know someone has this illness when they say something like, “Now that I have this (Kawiyamazuki) I don’t need any other bikes—it does everything so well!” With that statement, the Lie-o-Meter flashes bright red, and you can bet a new bike purchase lingers just offstage.

As Melissa Holbrook Peirson notes in her evocative book, motorcycles may well be “The Perfect Vehicle.” But within that broad category, there are in fact no perfect motorcycles. Only approximations of perfection, in a constant state of evolution. Perfection is like the concept of infinity. We can devise a formula that approaches it in an ever-increasing arc, but we’ll never actually get there. And that, after all, is why we find it so compelling.

The vaunted BMW GS is everyone’s favorite perfect motorcycle, because it does everything so exceptionally kinda well. You can take it to the track and, with sufficient skills, leave sportbike pilots hyperventilating in your wake and create cool little hillocks of rubber on the edges of your Dunlops. That afternoon, if you have the energy, you can do some singletrack trails, or maybe load the thing with camping gear and head for Ushuaia and continents beyond. It checks a lot of boxes—except, perhaps, in the area of aesthetics. I love my GS in the way one unconditionally loves their three-legged dog. It’s no one’s idea of beauty.

The most perfect motorcycles of all may be the ones we no longer own. Our memory of them has been finely honed with 400-grit paper, deburred of unpleasantness like oil leaks, hinge-like frames, and anemic brakes. Thus cleansed of such annoyances, our memories fill with the juvenile-delinquent pleasures of screaming down childhood streets in a cloud of blue smoke, neighbors shaking their fists all the way. Now that’s perfection.

Due to the opaque nature of memory, fundamental flaws like wobbly handling and two inches of suspension travel become endearing traits that fall under the general rubric of “character.”  The Honda Trail 70 I had when I was 13 was perfect right up until the moment my paper route provided the Jeffersons to buy a Yamaha LT2 100. Now that bike was perfect. Until, of course, I sold it to buy a Triumph Bonneville, and so on. Learning comes slowly to humans. 

I’ve restored two vintage Triumphs, which are probably the most imperfect perfect motorcycles in history. With their wasp-like tanks, airy, athletic profile and soulful sound, the Bonnie might just be the most alluring motorcycle ever made. Good thing too, because their unfailing good looks helps soften the blow when the air cleaners rattle off, they ingest valves, or you have to mop up the garage-floor kitty litter for the 1,000^th time.

Not long ago I restored a Honda CB750. With its four cylinders, front disc, and leg-saving electric thumb, it surely was perfect for its age. Even today, in an era of unmatched motorcycle competence, it’s a remarkably competent motorcycle. But this picture of perfection suffers somewhat from the daunting task of synchronizing four carburetors, arrayed in a formation that looks like the interior of a mainframe computer.  

I’ve also owned a Kawasaki KLR, which, like Volkswagen Beetles, are the preferred vehicles of the great unwashed: pragmatic transportation known to withstand prolonged and callous thrashing. The KLR is a common choice for around-the-world trips, harrowing ventures into rebellious countries, and even more harrowing trips to the corner store in Anytown USA. In short, a perfect motorcycle. After just a few months of ownership, it was also the most pedestrian and boring bike I have ever owned. Out it goes.

My Honda VFR, which has a war chest of “best sportbike” honors dating back 25 years, was perfect right up until the moment I lost the front in Turn 5 at Laguna Seca, and then again on a freeway on-ramp. It became less perfect each time I crashed, both in my imagination, and its bedraggled appearance.

I was pretty sure that my Suzuki V-Strom 650 was perfect. It did everything well, and made me smile every time I rode it. Which, if course, meant that I had to sell it. That bike, perhaps above all others, was just too much perfection. It had to go.

I just recently acquired a 1978 BMW R100/7. There are so many things that are perfect about this motorcycle, for its age. It’s faultless at 70 mph and 4,000 rpm on the freeway: quiet, smooth, arguably more pleasant than my modern, water-cooled BMW GS, which sounds clattery in comparison. It’s perfect in its faultless, 950-rpm tickover, which commences at the slightest touch of a button. It’s perfect because it was new the year I met my wife. It must look perfect to others as well, judging from the crowds it draws at the café. It’s less perfect when it comes time to change fluids (there are four); when dislodging fillings over sharp-edged bumps; or when getting on the binders when Bambi jumps out from the roadside vegetation.

The perfect motorcycle is a Frankenbike of oppositesthat is as impossible to resolve as pi—light and nimble enough to be your friend in a parking lot, but heavy enough to be planted at speed and in crosswinds. It has an engine that’s sufficiently tractable to be fun, but not so powerful as to summon the devil on your shoulder; upright enough to sit on all day, but aerodynamic enough for triple-digit speeds; simple enough for a roadside valve adjustment, but sporting futuristic rider aids like lean-angle ABS and traction control; and of course, it will be shod with tires that are as soft as Play-Doh but last 12,000 miles. One could almost pity the manufacturer who must meet these contradictory requirements, like trying to make non-alcoholic beer. Happily, for us and the motorcycle makers, it’s this vain pursuit of perfection that keep us entertained, and the company coffers full. It’s the fuel that feeds the entire enterprise.

Which makes me think of the ride I did yesterday on one of my motorcycles. It doesn’t really matter which one. At the moment I was on it, it was perfect. That’s because the only truly perfect motorcycle is the one we’re on right now—with all its imperfections.