The more things change…

Bobby and Cristen came over tonight and exchanged US dollars for one 2001 Suzuki SV650S.

I’d been contemplating selling the SVS for a while — pretty much ever since I realized there was no way I could afford the Z without doing so, but I most likely wouldn’t have sold it to anyone other than these two. Sport-tourers of the highest degree, Bobby and Cristen have been known to ride hours just to get to Sport-Touring.net monthly dinners. Bobby’s ridden all over the US, and with Cristen, is headed towards Alaska this summer.

The SVS will be Cristen’s — she’s a new rider and is looking for a shortie-friendly bike that’s fun for both day trips and possibly touring. Sound familiar?

So there’s a big bike-sized empty spot in the garage now. I admit to shedding a tear when they left tonight, taking with them not only the SVS, but the extra parts, the oil filter and sparkplugs I hadn’t yet installed, the maintenance notebook, the service manual. I have literally bled on that service manual.

I’ll bet most of my readers have only known my SVS. Can you believe this journal is almost six years old? A year older than the SVS, in fact. Six years of journalling, five years of the SVS.

Tomorrow starts a new chapter, the Z chapter.

I went in for some dental work this morning (the first of three appointments, joy), and my jaw has been in so much pain that there was no way I could wear a helmet to pick up the bike this afternoon.

So, for tonight, I’m streetbike-less.

Tomorrow, I’ll be a sport-tourer again. I’ll have another bike to learn every inch of, every trick about, every little nook and cranny and nuance.

But right now, there’s an SVS-shaped hole in the garage.

The sport-tourer is gone; long live the sport-tourer!