And I said orange was dead. Ha! A few weeks ago I started thinking it might be time to have a motorcycle again. Started poking around the ‘net, thinking about what I might want. Even though I loved the 1974 R75/5 that I had for few years, and I would love a new R1100S, I haven’t managed to to justify a BMW yet. Something about paying five figures for a bike… Remembering the thumpers I rode growing up here in SF — starting with the Honda XL350 my dad bought me when I was sixteen (!) — I ran across some of the relatively recent supermoto bikes.

These are big European singles derived from dirt bikes and enduros (dual-purpose bikes) but set up for the street. I once had a Yamaha XT500 with a KZ650 front end that was a sort of early pirate version of this concept. I went down to Monroe Motors and suffered the usual motorcycle shop attitude to get a ride on a Husqvarna SM450R they had lying around. A beast - and not really set up for the street, but I got the idea. Unfortunately for Husqvarna, the SM610S isn’t shipping yet, and I didn’t want to wait…

Scuderia West had less attitude and KTM’s instead of Huskies. Lots of orange there! They had a load of SMR’s they were trying to unload, but when I descibed what I was looking for, the guy said I should look for a “Duke”. Not quite knowing what that was, I went back to the net and found at least one glowing review, and then checked for listings on Craigslist. I hadn’t noticed before, but once you do a search on CL, you can subscribe to an RSS feed of new search results. This is actually useful — a couple of days later, I saw a new item in my “KTM Duke” feed inbox. “2002 KTM Duke II, 1140 miles, like new.” Called, drove to Menlo Park. Just to check it out, you know.

An hour later I called X looking for a sanity check and asked her what she though I should do… “Buy it!” says the woman, and I did :464->image:. We put it on the truck :465->image:, and soon enough I was riding the old loop up to Twin Peaks. :463->image:

Now that I’ve had it a couple of weeks: wow. This is a machine. It pulls like a tractor, and has a serious bark. I finally got in a good ride last Friday, up over Tam to Bolinas, out to Pt. Reyes Station, back through Nicasio. Very light traffic let me open it up on the road to Olema and again towards Nicasio, and the bike loves it in the 30-90 mph sweeper range. Slower than that I haven’t figured out how to ride it smoothly yet… There are a series of uphill twists going North near Dogtown that are almost always clogged with cars. I hit it empty, and Big Poppa (that’s the sound it makes: “poppa, poppa, poppa, poppa”) ate it up.

Now, part of the rationale was to see the Vespa, and then the difference wouldn’t be that much. But I find so far that I still like the little bee a lot — it can’t be beat around town, especially downtown and in business clothes, etc. The Vespa is also a far better grocery-getter, with the under-seat compartment and space between the knees. I can easily carry 2-3 bags of groceries home on the Vespa, which would be impossible on the KTM. Anyhow — I guess for now I’ll keep them both. Besides, they make a nice little family :466->image: