What?

So I needed a motorcycle. Truth be told, I've actually been looking at motorcycles secretly for years. I kind of knew what I wanted, but needed a little push to actually commit to a bike.

For the past 8 years or so I've spent a lot of time in Seattle. Primarily I've been there for work, but Seattle is a place that grows on you beyond the normal bounds of work travel. Yes, the weather is interesting, but it is an incredibly beautiful place - mountains and water and music and great people. Buying the bike in Seattle just seemed to make sense, and it gave me a great excuse for the trip.

What bike though? Over the past 8 years I've made a few friends in Seattle. So when I mentioned the motorcycle conundrum to a friend who's a longtime dirt bike guy, he told me, "You need to talk to Joe."

Joe is a BMW guy. Which was good, since I seemed to be spending lots of time on the BMW website looking at dual-sport bikes. When I mentioned my fixation on BMWs to Joe, about 5 minutes after I met him, he smiled and handed me a motorcycle magazine with a review of the bike I was looking at, offered me space in his garage to keep it, and offered to help me get up to speed riding it. Two weeks later I was the proud owner of a F800GS.

Well, it wasn't quite that easy - next post I will get into the details of how NOT to buy a motorcycle.