The other weekend I went to Southern Oregon to visit family. It was raining when I went down Friday night so I caged it.
Lets back up. My dad kept insisting that when I come to visit next I take his Vulcan 900 for a spin. So I took along my RSD leather jacket (it just wouldn't due to ride a cruiser with my crotch rocketeer leathers) and picked up a pair of armored Bilt jeans at Cyclegear.
Saturday morning my brother was feeling ill, so I decided to take his Sportster 883 (low rider) on the ride with dad. I put on my gear and blasted down the freeway to Dad's house.
I'd never ridden a Sportster 883 before, so this was a new experience to me. The brakes are anemic, the power band is narrow, the suspension has no dampening or compression, and it needs a sixth gear for the freeway. Still it was fun to throw the thing around and make a lot of noise.
Anyways, I got down to Dad's house and we took off towards Jacksonville. The Medford cops were running a speeding enforcement photo van on 62, otherwise nothing to note. We got into Jacksonville and stopped for gas.
The Sportster has a tiny tank and gets blah gas mileage, so I needed to fill up before heading into the boonies. Like a total derp I asked my dad when we were parked at the gas pumps "Does this thing need premium?". The lady working the gas pumps was appalled that I wanted to put regular into the bike "But its a HARLEY!" she said, to which I said "Its just a 883". She didn't find that funny.
Nothing much happened until we blew past some cars out of J-Ville and got into some nice 35mph corners. Going through a fast right hander I scraped my boot on the ground. I thought to myself "whoa, lets do that again but with the bike!" so I shifted my boot higher on the peg and leaned into the next corner. Sure enough, scrapped hard parts. One of my accomplishments of the day!
We twisted out past Ruch into the Applegate and ended up on some no name dirt and gravel road that Dad wanted to find, then turned around. While taking a rest break Dad challenged me to "lose him" on the next section. So I did. Unfortunately I couldn't burn the chicken strips off the tires because with that bike you're scrapping hard parts before you get to the edge of the tire. Made me miss my CBR.
Once back on the highway Dad and I switched bikes. His Vulcan 900 weighs about a hundred pounds more than the Sporty and only has a few more CCs. The tires are bigger, the forks are bigger, and it has a humongous windscreen.
If the Sporty handles like a goat (you can toss it around because its light, but the suspension doesn't really try to grip the road) then the Vulcan 900 handles like a water buffalo. Its heavy, underpowered, resists turning in then dives, and has a annoying heel shifter on the floor boards. What it does better than the Sporty is absorb bumps in bad road surface, and stop. The brakes and forks are much more sophisticated feeling. I found myself short-shifting constantly with the narrow power band.
We finished off the day with a BBQ while discussing the finer points of motorcycle design and rueing that there was no "perfect" motorcycle design.
