That photo reminded me of when I owned a motorcycle and would ride to work at KSUS when we lived in Lake St. Louis, Missouri. We lived where there wasn't a lot of traffic in the early 1980s. I sold the motorcycle after moving to Arvada, a suburb of Denver, which was more congested, even then.
I've gone through on-off times riding.
Bought my first one in December 2004, a 1984 Kawasaki KZ700 with over 100,000 miles on it. Lied to my mom and told her a friend asked me to pick it up for him when she yelled about having it in the back of my pickup. Kept that for 6 months, sold it for a profit. At the end of the summer I picked up a Suzuki Bandit 1200S (similar to the one
@jesse had, although mine was older). Kept that around 9 months, sold it for a profit, too. I rode the Bandit to my MSF courses when I took those.
After I moved to PA and started my career, I bought a Yamaha VMax, which I kept for about a year and sold. That bike had one great thing about it - the engine. The suspension and brakes were crap. It also had been geared for acceleration, which was fairly ridiculous for that bike. Ended up selling that in the summer. Had a few close calls on it that were enough to scare me for a bit.
That winter I bought a Honda Interceptor 800i. Great bike that I got for a great price. Rode it some, but decided it didn't have enough torque. Ended up selling it and bought the VTX 1800, which I rode to Osh.
Somewhere along the line I ended up getting the RC51 Frankenbike, which had been wrecked and I un-wrecked. That was a great bike that I loved riding around the twisties in PA, although there was something with that bike where it wasn't happy going under 90.
When Missa got her FJR1300 I rode it home from CT to PA for her. Eventually she realized that the FJR was not a good starter bike (she received plenty of advice on this prior to her purchase decision), so I bought that from her, rode it a while, and sold it. That was a great bike. Laurie and I actually had our first riding date on it. The only problem with it was that it sounded like a dishwasher. I always thought the FJR1300 needed the engine from the VMax, and then it would've been about near perfect.
Picked up a TL1000 that didn't work sometime, flipped that. A friend of mine wanted to learn to ride out in PA. I taught him to ride and got him a good deal on a friend's Yamaha Seca II (great starter bike). He also got a KZ1000P (start singing the CHiPs theme in your head now) which we rode around some. At one point there were 5 bikes in the garage - Laurie had her Harley Sportster 1200 and the Triumph Daytona 675 I got her, which was a whole 'nother story.
After we got married we got me the Ultra Classic and traded her Sportster for a Street Glide, and that's basically been it for bikes in the household.
I like riding the Harleys more now, mainly because I can happily cruise along in them at any speed. With the sport bikes, it felt like if you weren't racing you were riding them wrong. The FJR was sort of a good in between there. Problem with the Harleys, though, is they're slow and their handling is pretty poor. On the sportbikes I do overall feel safer just because I can out handle, out brake, and out accelerate everything. My Harley is also pretty anemic, being one of the 96" variants. Part of me wants to put a bigger engine in just for more power and more options.
So I think that makes 9 bikes I've owned in a 13 year motorcycle career, with another 5 or so that I had effectively owner-type access to.
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