Since I commute 75 miles a day, and I used to drive either a V-6 minivan or a Ford F150 with a V-8, in March I began seriously considering an alternative mode of transportation. I initially wanted a little 35 mph scooter that would get me 100 miles per gallon. I would have had to have lived with travelling on the surface streets.

My brother, Carl, had recently bought a Yamaha XT225. That’s a dual-purpose motorcycle that will travel off-road, but it’s street legal, including the freeway. He boasted 68 miles per gallon average, even though he was heavily on the throttle most of the time. He told me riding it on the freeway was really pushing it, as the top speed wasn't much over 65 mph.

He started sending me URLs from Ebay showing me different bikes he was looking at. I started doing my own browsing, and pretty soon I was smitten with the bike bug. No more scooters for me.

After several weeks of intense study and comparison, I decided I wanted a cruiser. One of the 250cc Hondas or Suzukis would do just fine. Carl instructed me as per his experience that even though the gas mileage would be nice, I would tire of the small engine in two weeks. A few other friends of mine offered similar advice, that I should look for something at least twice that size.

Having done my research I found a used Honda V45 Sabre at a local bike store via the internet. I lit out on a Saturday morning to go buy it. But I should have called ahead, the place advertising the bike had sold it a few days prior. I began inquiring about the Honda VLX, and the salesman seemed to have already written me off. He told me Honda’s financing program wasn’t accessible on the weekend. Say what? I walked.

I remembered from my Internet research a place that was fairly close by, Del Amo Motorsports, so I drove over there on a lark. They didn’t have much in the way of used bikes, a few Buells and some other sport bikes. But cruising the showroom floor I found my dream bike, and sat on it. Two hours later they tied it down to the bed of my F150 pickup, a brand new Yamaha V-Star 650 cruiser.

It’s not a fast bike, but it’s faster than the fastest car I’ve ever owned, at least from 0-60. It has a top speed of 90 mph, which I’ve done on it, and it scared the pants off me. Even today, 5 months later, I see no reason to do more than 70 on it. The 650cc V-Twin engine puts out 40 horsepower, which is plenty for a bike. And it gets me an average of 50 miles per gallon. Ahhhhh….. Sometimes I wish it had more power. 65 mph is livable, but at a hair-raising 6000 rpm. It might be fun to be able to pass the occasional hot-dog driver at, say, 150 mph. But I’m not 20 anymore.

I remember telling Carl I'd bought the bike. He still had the Yamaha XT225. Now he was jealous. He had the same fight with his wife I had. The Bike Fight. Heh…. At least his wife had passed the danger stage, so it was only a money argument. My bike was only $5,600. Carl’s dream bike was the BMW K1200LT. At $22,000 it was more expensive than a lot of cars. But with an acceleration rate of 0-60 in 4.6 seconds, it would out-accelerate most sports cars. After winning the Bike Fight, he found an ideal 2002 K1200LT with only 5,000 miles on it in a town only 200 miles away. He drooled over that page on Cycletrader.com, until one morning he opened the page and the seller had dropped his price to $13,000. He closed the sale minutes later on the phone, and picked up the bike later that week. It’s awesome, of course, with a 6 CD changer, 4-speaker stereo, cruise control, motorized windshield, trip computer - oh, man, what a bike.

We’ve taken a few trips together, around the great state of California. My first one, with only two weeks riding experience, was a ride from northern Los Angeles County where I live, to his place in Fresno, then to Yosemite National Park. I’ll never forget that ride as one of the best experiences in my life. Even though we were hailed on (I donned my Eddie Bauer rain suit) we had a great time! The ride (for me) encompassed one day, from 3:30 am to about 10:30 pm, and I put 650 miles on the bike in that period.

On our second trip, Carl rode down to LA from Fresno, then we headed west through the mountains north of Santa Barbara. While blasting west on route 166 I discovered the meaning of life. Biking is absolute freedom, there is nothing quite like it. Except for sky-diving, Carl says. We eventually intersected route 101, and travelled north to Morro Bay for some great pictures. Then we continued north to route 46, and headed east. We split up to head home, each in his own direction, at the infamous intersection of highways 46 and 41, where actor James Dean was killed in 1955.

Our third trip was a monster. I blasted north and met Carl at noon at Fresno-Yosemite International Airport, where he works as a flight controller. I watched the action there for an hour or so, until he got off work. We headed to his place, got packed, then headed for Northern California. Dinnertime saw us in Napa, in the heart of California Wine Country. We were a bit miffed with it, though, since a large county fair and a stock car racing event pretty much booked every hotel room in the area. We had dinner at about 10:30 in Santa Rosa, where we discovered, thanks to a wonderful waitress at the Denny’s just off route 101, a motel in Ukiah where we made reservations, and finally crashed at 1am. We were back on the road at 7am, after a glorious continental breakfast (ha-ha-ha) then picked up route 20 and followed it across the state, all the way to Lake Tahoe. We got some great pics, then grabbed some back roads through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains back to his place. Wow, what a trip.

A week later I took a solo trip along the San Andreas Fault, then up into the mountains to Big Bear, visiting Lake Arrowhead along the way. It’s nice going solo, you’re the captain of your own journey. But I missed the two-way radio system we’d been working on, replacing it with a CD Walkman stereo, who’s headset fit nicely into my helmet.

The TV season has begun once again, and I’m back to work. Instead of paying 10 bucks a day to commute, I’m down to just under 3 bucks. Yeah, this is going to work just fine. And the realization that I could die at any minute is a total thrill! You should try it!

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