[Short break while retreiving millionth + 1 cup of tea from microwave]
i love the internet.
Ann and Kim and I are all on AOL's instant messenger chat. We're talking about
putting stickers on our helmets and shiny silvery mudflap girls and reflective
tape and zipper pulls, and we've all matched our font colors as close to our
hair colors as possible. See why I love those girls? :)
Ann's bike is in the damn shop *again*. Apparently she's been having problems
with it starting up fine, warming up, and then stalling when she tries to
actually go anywhere. The general consensus now is that she might be
flooding the engine by leaving the choke on for too long.
my horrible sprint 900 drama.
So, a couple of months ago, I noticed that the exact Triumph Sprint 900 that
I'd been drooling over was for sale on cycletrader. Right model, right color, lots of stuff included
for a really good price. Only trouble was, the bike was in Tucson, so I
shrugged and said, "eh, I'll wait for one to appear around here." So, every
once in a while, I'd check cycletrader and see if any Sprints were showing
up in the Bay Area. Over the past couple of months there were less than
a handful, and they were all not only the wrong color but were way over my
price range. So, on Monday, I decided to bite the bullet and email the
Tucson guy (his ad was still up).
He wrote back and said that yes, the bike was still for sale, and still for the really good price including all the extras. I had previously only seen his email address in the ad, and when he wrote back personally, I thought his name looked familiar...a quick mental database lookup revealed that I had read a post he had made to a Triumph owner's website when I was initially researching the bike. I mentioned this in my next email to him, and asked some specific questions related to his post. I also happened to mention that I was pretty short and that I'd heard that the bike was somewhat top-heavy, and what was his opinion?
His immediate reaction wasn't too encouraging for me: "you know, I don't think a spine-frame Triumph, except maybe that cruiser-style one, is gonna suit you at five feet...". Not one to be easily discouraged away from bikes by the tall folk, I immediately fired off a post to the Short Biker's List asking if anyone had ever ridden a Sprint 900 and found it to be a problem, or if was just another tall person assuming that anyone shorter than them couldn't possibly ride a motorcycle. Unfortunately, both of the people who responded directly (one man and one woman) said that they'd ridden a Sprint and had indeed found it to be distractingly top-heavy, and difficult to maneuver at low speeds. Since both of them were also taller than me (and therefore had longer legs to help with the top-heavy balancing act), this wasn't good news.
Meanwhile, the Sprint owner had sent me another email saying that he'd talked to his local Triumph dealer and had mentioned that we'd been in contact. "We discussed the advisibility of an individual five feet tall riding a Triumph Sprint and decided it was un-good. You'd never feel secure in lowspeed manouvers." He mentioned that the dealer suggested that I try a nice, low cruiser -- advice that I'm sure was given with good intentions, but that sort of advice always annoys me: if I wanted a cruiser and cruiser posture and etc., wouldn't I have been in the market to buy a cruiser in the first place, instead of a sportsbike? Just a thought. Grr. If I had a dollar for every tall person who tried to convince me that I wanted either a cruiser or a 400cc (or lower) "small" bike, I'd have enough to buy the nice sporty SV650S that I actually *do* want! ;)
Since, however, the SBL seemed to be in agreement that top-heavy + short legs = bike on ground, I emailed the owner back, thanked him for his time, and make a friendly comment that maybe once I was a little more experienced and more comfortable in low-speed maneuvering in general, I'd re-visit the Sprint. His reponse was, essentially, that Triumph just doesn't take shorties into consideration when making the bikes, and so experience wouldn't help at all. I happen to personally disagree, and so it was a little difficult for me not to take his email personally or interpret it as being overly-condescending...email is an evil death trap sometimes for those of us who can be overly-sensitive to tone and underlying intent. ;)
So that's my sob story of finding and then having to give up a nice Sprint for a great price. But, as I told Kim, it frees me to single-mindedly persue the SV650S. :)