What's the first bike you ever saw yourself on?
Not whatever you ended up actually getting, necessarily. I mean the first bike you saw yourself riding in your brain, whether it ever actually materialized or not. The kind of bike where it didn't matter whether it was even practical for you; the one where the heart wants what it wants, and damn the consequences. Have you got it in your head?
For me, my first moto-crush was a mid-2000s Triumph Scrambler. The styling absolutely spoke to me; those high-mount pipes, the saddle, and everything else were just perfect. It was a time period before there were scramblers and retro-styled bikes everywhere, so it stood out a little more than it would later on. To my eyes, the styling was everything I wanted. Eventually, new-rider me would go to a Triumph demo truck event and ride a whole bunch of bikes. That's also when I'd come to realize that my short little corgi-esque legs and the Scrambler were absolutely not a match made in heaven.
But at that demo truck ride, I also found that parallel twin and those standard ergos to be pretty darn agreeable and accommodating, even when I was a relative newbie. Isn't that what you want? Well, even though I may not have wanted to admit it, the real-world experience of throwing a leg over a Scrambler back in the day made me quickly realize it wasn't the right bike for me. But it's hard to deny the supremely agreeable nature of a Triumph parallel twin, particularly in the Bonneville family. Some might even say it's too agreeable. Too safe. Too friendly, if such a thing is possible. Not exciting enough.
In the intervening years, I've ridden plenty of other bikes, both from Triumph and other manufacturers. My 2024 moto-BFF, as I've previously gone on at length about, is a Street Triple. And at first glance, apart from both bikes being made by the same manufacturer, you wouldn't think the riding experience would be that similar between the two.
You'd, however, be wrong.
