Be a test ride timewaster
You’ve been in lockdown for a year. Make up for all that lost time by test riding the motor cycles of your dreams, just like ex-denizen of Bike Ben Miller did…
It was every bit as good as I thought it’d be, and all the better for not having cost me a penny. My RT obsession built slowly, like a hairline crack in a pipe that eventually brings down a whole ceiling. First, I hit 40. Then I wanted to ride to the Italian GP at Mugello and realised that if I took my BMW HP2 Sport there’d be drawbacks. Its punishing ergonomics would surely see me sell it halfway down France, and I’d be restricted to so little luggage (a rucksack) I’d spend the whole trip being too hot, too cold, too wet or too foul-smelling to enter the long-lunch trattorias of which I daydreamed. Massive panniers, a top box and a back seat big enough for a BBQ – where do I sign? (Sorry, that was a rhetorical question – I don’t actually want to sign.)
So, I booked the HP2 in for a service and, while they were pouring fresh angels’ tears into its crankcase, fluttered my eyelids at the finance guy and said something like, ‘I have no idea what something like this would cost on a PCP – no idea at all… [pregnant pause].’
Next thing I know there’s a sheet of numbers in front of me to look at (necessary evil), another sheet to sign and, a few minutes later, a key in my hand.
The R1200RT and I spent a fabulous couple of hours popping bugs on that massive screen, slathering someone else’s warm rear Bridgestone all over a couple of great B-roads, and dreaming of a summer together, racing across arid Spanish wildernesses and rehydrating each evening to such an extent as to make siestas mandatory the following day. ‘So, shall we sit down and do some sums?’ Sorry, gotta dash.
A week or two go by, and I don’t bother any dealers. Not seriously, anyway.
‘I have no idea what something like this would cost on PCP – no idea at all…’ Just 20 minutes later I’m trying to work out how to ride a Ténéré 700, hands a mile apart like I’m windsurfing, knobbly tyres freaking me out until I learn to relax. (Similar, then, to the twin-clutch Africa Twin I
made earnest enquiries about a week previously, and rode to see a mate who couldn’t see any obvious link between a used BMW R1200RT and the brand new Honda adventure bike. I told him he was over-thinking the whole thing.
The Yamaha thrash started as an idle Friday mid-morning electronic mail. By midday I was wending my way southwest on someone else’s motorcycle, wallet untouched but for a token £4 splash of fuel. What a way to spend a hot and sunny August lunch hour(s)? Honestly, I don’t know how these guys make any money.
Oh, they don’t? Stop trying to guilt me. That guy did – with the Yamaha, like Moby Dick finally harpooned, I signed on the dotted PCP line.
Because in the end reality eventually catches up with every dream, even the greedy testride timewaster.