Here's some continuation to my story:
As I grew into riding, I sold the GS650 and purchased a 2002 Suzuki Bandit 600S. That was a really great bike, I really wish I hadn't sold it. No pictures of it, but it was a GREAT bike. I took my first trip to Deals Gap, kept dragging my foot (n00b riding position) and thought that I needed a bike with better cornering clearance. So, away went the Bandit, and then, this came home in its place:
2002 GSXR-600
That was a QUICK bike. It was "just" a 600, but was simply a rocket. Light, easy flick back and forth, and just a hoot to ride. Sadly, bad decision making and poor judgement sent it into a Blue Ridge Parkway guardrail at nearly 100MPH. It only had 1700 miles on the odometer. Luckily, I walked away. I was a bit of a squid, so I was REALLY lucky. Tennis shoes, jeans, leather jacket and helmet was the all I was wearing when I crashed. I really miss that one too, it was a fun bike.
Post crash (crashed in May) in July, I found "Molly." 1999 Monster 750 that the PO had recently crashed. It started life as a Monster Dark, but was repainted yellow.
How she looked when bought & on first ride:
A bit later, still in same form:
First trip to Deals Gap in 2003 (still hadn't learned to wear full gear like I do now)
I still have Molly. My wife and I left our wedding on it, in tux and wedding dress and all! I've had a great relationship with that little M750. I've redone forks and the rear spring to make up for the bottom-end suspension the Darks used to get. I've nearly traded Molly twice, but never have been able to part with her. One of them, I had even picked out and named the new bike. It was a gray w/ black stripe Monster S2R1000. I had picked the name Mileena for it even. In the end, I couldn't do it, Molly is special to me.
Over the years as the desire to tinker came along, I also have a couple other noteworthy bikes come and go.
The most notorious in this house was the Suzuki GS1150ES. That was only bike my wife has ever been scared of. She took one ride with me and said "Never again will I ride on that one." With those, you had a pile of power (mine even more, it had a cam designed for drag racing) but the frame, suspension, and brakes were NOT up to the task of controlling the power the motor put out.
The GS1150:
I wrote a whole story called "The Dinosaur Affair" about that bike too. Riding it was fun, challenging and scary all at the same time.
The last one to come and go:
Late one January night, I won an ebay auction. That auction was a repo'ed 2000 Supersport 900 in the same yellow as Molly. It was a match made in my mind. The next day, I went and picked up "Syreena." We drove home in a snow storm, so bad that when I got home, the entire bike was caked in ice. It was bad.
Syreena:
We had some great times. The "wheelie-on-command" of the 900 was a hoot. So was that nasty snarl from the airbox and the rumble from the Sil-Moto carbon mufflers. Sadly, I sold her a couple years ago now. Fun bike, but as I spent time riding and wrenching, putting in a clutch pack & replacing the chain at 15,000 miles, it was obvious the bike had been abused so I let her move on.
I went on to write a nifty comparison of the Monster 750 and the Supersport 900 as well.
That's the rest of my story for now.
JM
