Hi
I thought that I would introduce myself to you COG folks.
My name is Danny and I’m a newish Concours owner.
The reason I say newish is because it’s not my first Concours. This Connie is number 3.
I’ve been into and on motorcycles since the age of 14 and I am now the ripe old age of 52.
I’ve had a couple of dozen of different models and have bought two models more than once. One being, the awesome VFR and the other the under rated Concours.
My first Connie was bought on a whim, after finding out the main bearings on my GS1150EF were on the way out. The GS had taken me for a Canada/USA 12000km trip the year before and I decided it was time to change. I had the bike a couple of weeks and on July 8th (my birthday yeah!) I took off for a solo tour of the USA/Canada. Up to May of the year a good friend of mine was “going to buy a bike and come with you”. In the beginning of |June he informed me he wasn’t coming after all….YEAH!!!!!
The year before I had set out with a good friend of mine and things went bad when he decided to take off because he found my pace “a little “”quick”” “. So somewhere in the darkness of the Big Sky state of Montana he decides to “leave”. The bad part was he never said a word, just vanished into the darkness. I spent the next 60-70 hours looking for him and badgering police and hospitals to see if he’d turned up somewhere.
Short story was he left, went home at his own pace. A$$hole.
So with that experience behind me I wasn’t looking forward to babysitting a newbie across 2 countries.
So on my birthday I kissed my girlfriend goodbye, said I’ll see you in a month and blasted off into the sunrise! I visited as many National Parks as time would allow. The plan was visit in the morning and ride like hell in the PM, and ride I did. Estes Park, Grand Canyon, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Bryce, Monument Valley, Canyonlands, Crater Lake, Waterton-Glacier, Banff , Redwood, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, Badlands, Mese Verde…..I even went to WALLDRUG !!! Incase you don’t know about it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Drug) Suffice to say I didn’t sleep much and I burnt up some rubber that trip. I ended up only being gone for 17 days in which I traveled 11000 miles. The remainder of my month vacation was spent touring eastern Canada in a cage with my girlfriend. I surprised her by driving straight from Sioux Falls SD to home just out side of Montreal Quebec in 24 hours and left the same day for the Maritimes!
That trip defined me in a way. It proved to me that there are tons of GREAT people out there in this supposed “big bad world”. I camped in camp sites the whole trip. Every night in a different place, every night people offered me food and drink and best of all great company. From the busload of (young) women kayakers in Flagstaff (yeah) to the couple I met in BC traveling on there bikes with their two kids and even the 4 sorted fellows in the 8 foot tall barbed wired KOA camping in Vegas!
It was during that trip I stood at the base of General Sherman and thought how insignificant my years on this planet were compared to its life here. It’s tuff to compete with something 2300-2700 years old!
I could go on and on about “that” trip, as well as the subsequent ones. I wouldn’t have had the travel bug if my mom hadn’t decided to buy me National Geographic’s when I was a kid. I remember seeing places and saying “one day…”. Later they came out with Traveler and that really got my juices flowing. I probably owe my ex-wife some credit too. It was that summer when I decided I needed time to think about where I was and where I was going after our divorce. The answer was throwing some old Vetter bags on the GS and RIDE!! After that trip I was hooked. Covering most of Canada and the USA in the years that followed, one thing was very clear to me, we live in a couple of the most BEAUTIFUL countries in the WORLD!
Moving along to more recent times, 1999 to be exact, I had met a woman who would become my second wife. The plan was to introduce her to motorcycling since it was a BIG part of my life. Excited, I retrieved my VFR from its winter storage and prepped it for her first ride. After supper I popped a nice new shiny Shoie helmet we had purchased for the event and rode off for a leisurely first ride. We rode for about 20 minutes to a nearby town and I checked to see if everything was “alright”. Up to this point in my motorcycle life I was never really comfortable having a passenger. I was so happy she was enjoying it! I was being extra careful to pick smooth lines on the very bad winter beaten roads. Life is GOOD. BANG WTF? The violent impact was a mystery to me. After everything stopped, I called out to my wife to see if she was ok. She said she thought she was and we must have killed the DEER! This is all bad I thought. Looking down at my leg I knew something was wrong. Wife all good, Danny not so good.
A little over a year later I’m walking without a stability apparatuses YEAH. Here comes Connie number 2, a sexy Burgundy gal with nice bod and ready to roll. Well she rolled, not far and not for long. After a couple of short rides I had a bad vibe and not from the bike (pun). I would subsequently park her and not long after sell her. With our first born on the way I made the decision that it wasn’t the “right” time to renew my 2 wheel passion.
Fast forward and couple of years and here comes VFR number 2. While this time I don’t get the bad vibe thing, I’m not 100% sure it’s right either. It could be the addition of Willy, my second son. I ride once and a while trying to share my free time with the family. Motorcycles are not a family oriented hobby unless you and your wife ride and kids can tag along and that’s provided they are at least 10 years old. In the month of October we had couple of unseasonably warm days for this part of the world. So I played hooky from work and booted to my favorite stomping ground, the Adirondack’s of NY and Green Mountains of Vermont. I was home for supper with about 450 miles under my belt and told my wife “if I don’t ever ride a bike again, at least I’ll have had the best ride I’ve probably had in the last 10 years”. As the story goes, the bike was stored for the winter and sold in the spring.
Fast forward to a month ago. Gas prices here in Quebec, Canada are out of control. I drive 45 minutes one way to get to work and that’s not traffic. So I come up with a plan….save gas, get a bike… Lol So my wife says do what ever you want (she knows me well). I look around for a “cheaper” bike with the intention of bringing my 10 year old with me from time to time and my wife said her “day” of riding was over. My choices were pretty much narrowed down to Concours, ST1100 and a BMW if the $$ would allow (dreaming).
I decided I’d pay a little more for a Concours with less mileage and some add on already there. The good part was a found a 2005 in nice shape but a little neglected in the tune up department. No biggie since I can do that part. So I haggle a little and make the deal.
$4200 with Givi top trunk, nice Arai helmet of the right size, bar risers, peg lowers, a CD for service, nice new totes for saddlebags, a too-tall for me Cee-Bailey windshield, cheapo bike cover and 26000 miles on the clock . All in all I’m pretty happy EXCEPT for one thing….the COLOR!
So as they say “I’m back in the saddle again”!!! I’m looking forward to joining a few events and meeting new people that share THE passion.
Hope I didn’t bore ya’ll to tears and please forgive my spelling and sentence structure as well. I’m a rider not a writer!
Thx
Danny
I thought that I would introduce myself to you COG folks.
My name is Danny and I’m a newish Concours owner.
The reason I say newish is because it’s not my first Concours. This Connie is number 3.
I’ve been into and on motorcycles since the age of 14 and I am now the ripe old age of 52.
I’ve had a couple of dozen of different models and have bought two models more than once. One being, the awesome VFR and the other the under rated Concours.
My first Connie was bought on a whim, after finding out the main bearings on my GS1150EF were on the way out. The GS had taken me for a Canada/USA 12000km trip the year before and I decided it was time to change. I had the bike a couple of weeks and on July 8th (my birthday yeah!) I took off for a solo tour of the USA/Canada. Up to May of the year a good friend of mine was “going to buy a bike and come with you”. In the beginning of |June he informed me he wasn’t coming after all….YEAH!!!!!
The year before I had set out with a good friend of mine and things went bad when he decided to take off because he found my pace “a little “”quick”” “. So somewhere in the darkness of the Big Sky state of Montana he decides to “leave”. The bad part was he never said a word, just vanished into the darkness. I spent the next 60-70 hours looking for him and badgering police and hospitals to see if he’d turned up somewhere.
Short story was he left, went home at his own pace. A$$hole.
So with that experience behind me I wasn’t looking forward to babysitting a newbie across 2 countries.
So on my birthday I kissed my girlfriend goodbye, said I’ll see you in a month and blasted off into the sunrise! I visited as many National Parks as time would allow. The plan was visit in the morning and ride like hell in the PM, and ride I did. Estes Park, Grand Canyon, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Bryce, Monument Valley, Canyonlands, Crater Lake, Waterton-Glacier, Banff , Redwood, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, Badlands, Mese Verde…..I even went to WALLDRUG !!! Incase you don’t know about it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Drug) Suffice to say I didn’t sleep much and I burnt up some rubber that trip. I ended up only being gone for 17 days in which I traveled 11000 miles. The remainder of my month vacation was spent touring eastern Canada in a cage with my girlfriend. I surprised her by driving straight from Sioux Falls SD to home just out side of Montreal Quebec in 24 hours and left the same day for the Maritimes!
That trip defined me in a way. It proved to me that there are tons of GREAT people out there in this supposed “big bad world”. I camped in camp sites the whole trip. Every night in a different place, every night people offered me food and drink and best of all great company. From the busload of (young) women kayakers in Flagstaff (yeah) to the couple I met in BC traveling on there bikes with their two kids and even the 4 sorted fellows in the 8 foot tall barbed wired KOA camping in Vegas!
It was during that trip I stood at the base of General Sherman and thought how insignificant my years on this planet were compared to its life here. It’s tuff to compete with something 2300-2700 years old!
I could go on and on about “that” trip, as well as the subsequent ones. I wouldn’t have had the travel bug if my mom hadn’t decided to buy me National Geographic’s when I was a kid. I remember seeing places and saying “one day…”. Later they came out with Traveler and that really got my juices flowing. I probably owe my ex-wife some credit too. It was that summer when I decided I needed time to think about where I was and where I was going after our divorce. The answer was throwing some old Vetter bags on the GS and RIDE!! After that trip I was hooked. Covering most of Canada and the USA in the years that followed, one thing was very clear to me, we live in a couple of the most BEAUTIFUL countries in the WORLD!
Moving along to more recent times, 1999 to be exact, I had met a woman who would become my second wife. The plan was to introduce her to motorcycling since it was a BIG part of my life. Excited, I retrieved my VFR from its winter storage and prepped it for her first ride. After supper I popped a nice new shiny Shoie helmet we had purchased for the event and rode off for a leisurely first ride. We rode for about 20 minutes to a nearby town and I checked to see if everything was “alright”. Up to this point in my motorcycle life I was never really comfortable having a passenger. I was so happy she was enjoying it! I was being extra careful to pick smooth lines on the very bad winter beaten roads. Life is GOOD. BANG WTF? The violent impact was a mystery to me. After everything stopped, I called out to my wife to see if she was ok. She said she thought she was and we must have killed the DEER! This is all bad I thought. Looking down at my leg I knew something was wrong. Wife all good, Danny not so good.
A little over a year later I’m walking without a stability apparatuses YEAH. Here comes Connie number 2, a sexy Burgundy gal with nice bod and ready to roll. Well she rolled, not far and not for long. After a couple of short rides I had a bad vibe and not from the bike (pun). I would subsequently park her and not long after sell her. With our first born on the way I made the decision that it wasn’t the “right” time to renew my 2 wheel passion.
Fast forward and couple of years and here comes VFR number 2. While this time I don’t get the bad vibe thing, I’m not 100% sure it’s right either. It could be the addition of Willy, my second son. I ride once and a while trying to share my free time with the family. Motorcycles are not a family oriented hobby unless you and your wife ride and kids can tag along and that’s provided they are at least 10 years old. In the month of October we had couple of unseasonably warm days for this part of the world. So I played hooky from work and booted to my favorite stomping ground, the Adirondack’s of NY and Green Mountains of Vermont. I was home for supper with about 450 miles under my belt and told my wife “if I don’t ever ride a bike again, at least I’ll have had the best ride I’ve probably had in the last 10 years”. As the story goes, the bike was stored for the winter and sold in the spring.
Fast forward to a month ago. Gas prices here in Quebec, Canada are out of control. I drive 45 minutes one way to get to work and that’s not traffic. So I come up with a plan….save gas, get a bike… Lol So my wife says do what ever you want (she knows me well). I look around for a “cheaper” bike with the intention of bringing my 10 year old with me from time to time and my wife said her “day” of riding was over. My choices were pretty much narrowed down to Concours, ST1100 and a BMW if the $$ would allow (dreaming).
I decided I’d pay a little more for a Concours with less mileage and some add on already there. The good part was a found a 2005 in nice shape but a little neglected in the tune up department. No biggie since I can do that part. So I haggle a little and make the deal.
$4200 with Givi top trunk, nice Arai helmet of the right size, bar risers, peg lowers, a CD for service, nice new totes for saddlebags, a too-tall for me Cee-Bailey windshield, cheapo bike cover and 26000 miles on the clock . All in all I’m pretty happy EXCEPT for one thing….the COLOR!
So as they say “I’m back in the saddle again”!!! I’m looking forward to joining a few events and meeting new people that share THE passion.
Hope I didn’t bore ya’ll to tears and please forgive my spelling and sentence structure as well. I’m a rider not a writer!
Thx
Danny
