So, since it seems that I can do this photobucket thingy. The short story of how we got to buying an FJR is that we got our endorsements in 2003. Karyn's Mom had just died at the age of 61 with way too many of her bucket list undone. We agreed that we weren't going to do that, and one of our bucket list items was riding motorcycles. Endorsements in hand as of September 2003, we ventured into the cruiser market. I bought a 2001 Honda Shadow Spirit 1100 and we bought Karyn a new 1100 V-Star Classic. At that time, Karyn had a bad case of double vision, and had to ride with an eye patch. She had corrective surgery in 2007, and has mostly single field of vision now. In September of 2007, we had been on several excursions via motorcycle. By that time, the Honda had 25K (I bought it with 5K) miles on it, and Karyn wanted to go faster than I could go. We had the "what kind of bike" discussion, and decided that a cruiser was called for. And really, any time the spouse says "you need a faster bike" what else can you do...I bought a 1300 V Star 1300 that week.
Our first trip; me on the Honda, Mattole Rd.
Karyn on her cruiser, a later trip
And me and my new V-Star
On our first trip to Yosemite:
So, the other thing that we did was start riding with some women off the Pashnit forum, and we did the first two "Girly Rides" plus some end of season smaller rides. What happened in late 2009 was that Karyn realized that other riders were able to ride faster over the same roads, and not be as beat up as we were at the end of the riding day. We did some research, some talking, and some borrowing, and figured that something along the lines of a Honda 919, Yamaha FZ 6 / 1 or a BMW RT series might be what we were after. More research and some Craigslist activity in October 2009 got us a 2002 FZ1.
Karyn liked how it handles, but the ergos are just a bit wrong. It is really too tall for her, and she cannot ride it for more than 30 minutes without her hands going to sleep and her wrists hurting. I really didn't mind it, because that means I get to ride it. She also does not care for the "naked" look, preferring fairings and hard bags. Well, there is a motorcycle that fits that bill...FJR! After a ride this October where we took the cruisers down to Lassen and Burney Falls, Karyn did more Craigslist searching, and found the 05 that we just bought.
Any questions that we bought her the right bike?
We have completed the mods that we need to: Replaced the seats, used the links to lower it and added some handle bar raisers (and bent the side stand a bit..) Managed to get out for a ride yesterday afternoon before the rains came. Destination was Sahalie Falls, and we used daylight to ride rather than take a bunch 'o photos.
