One Hell of a Ride

Happy New Year to all of my dear readers!

Season 2009 was truly an amazing motorcycling experience. Yerevan started really getting on two wheels. A lot of riding events took place. New dealerships, motorcycling clubs and pubs opened!

As 2009 goes into history, it leaves only wonderful positive motorcycling memories. This was my most intense riding season, I put about 9000 kilometers on my odometer and I’m planning to do nothing less in 2010! During the rides there were of course wonderful friends and ridemates to share the joy and the most wonderful places and roads to discover and explore! And of course I blogged a lot!

On this I want to wish us all a very happy, a very exciting and a very passionate 2010. Let’s ride through it on two wheels and be safe, healthy and excited in doing so! Vroom!

Some of my memories from 2009 are in these pictures, and they are clickable too! Muah!

My shiny CBF500 right from the dealership!

The Abovyan Petrol Station is where most north-directed rides kick off

First Ride Ever, Tsakhkadzor - Bjni Section

Just arrived at Odzun

Reckless Riding in Stepanakert

Ed & Su Wedding Takeoff

Ed & Su Wedding Run

An abandoned petrol station break at Metsamor

Preparing to take off for Ijevan

Sardarapat

Armenia-Turkey Border, a Watchpost

A Turkish Mosque on the other side of Arpacay Reservoir

Parachute Jump at the Arzni Military Airport

Our Parachute jump Helicopter in the Arzni Military Airport

Somewhere between Goris and the Karabakh border

White Shirt Riders!

Norayr & Vahe discussing CBF500 in Urtsadzor

Gyumri Downtown

Gyumri Main Square

Arzni Racing

Two more motorcycles arrive at the racing event in Arzni

Lamb barbeque in Haghartsin

Vardaghbyur-Stepanavan Offroad Section

Fellows posing on a truck in Berd

Top of Selim, the highest motoring road in Armenia

Sevan - Shorzha, Vishapi Coast

Maneh & Zhirayr in Sevan

Esther and Guido on Northern Avenue

My new helmet, the stylish AGV Dragon

Vardaghpyur - Stepanavan Middle Section

They Painted It Red!

The pictures are also available on my Picasa account for your viewing pleasure!

Other parts of the series can be found here.

So you take your motorcycle on a ride every day, and on the weekends you trip the countryside. You quickly accelerate on the intersections and smile at the girls who look at you from the cars. You enjoy the sun glaring on your chrome while you’re chilling at a cafe and you bet with every 5-series BMW in the town that you will beat them to the next intersection. You do it for a year. Two years. Three years. But with every kilometer rolling on the odometer, the motorcycle whispers to those who listen: motorcycling is not about speed or looks… well, not primarily.

Being a fresh rider, I used to hate rides with no destinations. I remember the old riders looking at me with indulgence when I rushed to get there, and how I thought they were old cripples to not push their motorcycles to the limits. But when you hold on to the grips for too long, the motorcycle does whisper to you.

It is not about where you go. Not at all about where you go. It is not about how fast you get there.

It is about the road you take to get there. It is about how you ride that road. Not about how fast. Just about how. And then this realization strikes you and you stop for a moment. You breathe, you look around. You realize you don’t want more destinations. You want more roads. And what you once hated very sincerely becomes the most beautiful vehicle to your eyes that could ever be designed.

I used to hate offroad motorcycles. I knew, I was certain that an offroad motorcycle was going to be the last one I ever own. Turned out so, but absolutely not in the negative way I meant it to be!

So after my current CBF500 I know exactly what am I going to own next. I cannot wait. And who could? I am finally going to ride a vehicle that is really essentially designed to be a ground vehicle, from its core. I am going to experience freedom of movement unimaginable with any other vehicle. It is going to be fast. Not too fast. It is going to be sexy. Not too sexy to the ones non-transcended. It is going to be a Honda.

Remember, kids. If you think Enduros are not cool, you are wrong. If you think motorcycling is about speed, it might be — but only for the select few like Valentino Rossi and on very specially designed tracks and events. If you think motorcycling is about style, and you’re ready to spend that much on style, way to go — give me a call to have some beer together! And especially, if you are just starting to get into riding and you’re wondering about what you want to stick to, give the offroad a second thought after you initially disregard it. Keep in mind, it is very probably that offroad is where you will get anyway, with time. Just in case, watch the Long Way Round starring Obi Wan Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman.

The Enduros opened my eyes in a way no other motorcycle ever could. They opened whole millions of roads to ride in my small beloved country. They turned Armenia into a paradise for motorcycling.

Motorcycling stopped being about the speed, so I stopped noticing the next-year ultra-cool Sportbike JAP-09900XXX year 2050 riding along Baghramyan. It stopped being about the style, so I stopped noticing the 10o-years-old style shiny and loud Darley Havidson sinking in its own chrome.

It started being about the adventure.

Other parts of the series can be found here.

“Լավ աղջիկը էն չի, որ մոտոյով հետը տեղ ես գնում ու ամեն ինչ լավ ա…”

— Hett

Other parts of the series can be found here.

I really loved the Honda Shadow. I kinda hated the one in Honda’s European model lineup, but the American model was my dream bike. I was riding my Rebel and dreaming a Shadow, so much that at times I got real close at purchasing one!

Honda Shadow VLX on the road to Yeraskh

At times I considered purchasing other cruisers…

Suzuki Marauder

But in the end it was really Honda’s Shadow that had my heart.

So I rode my little cruiser getting annoyed with its low CCs, thinking of switching it with a big cruiser instead. I remember a friend telling me that my age is not yet that of a cruiser and that I should enjoy other types of motorcycles before I’m 40, but I didn’t pay attention to that until my business trip to Germany. In Bielefeld I had an opportunity to rent a motorcycle (thanks to my colleague Mr. Klein), and when they said they didn’t have a Shadow, I immediately recalled my friend’s sayings, thinking that I should give the naked bikes a shot. The guy on the phone said I could rent a Suzuki Bandit 600, and I went with it.

My Suzuki Bandit parked in Bielefeld

I remember the first feelings of the high-rev sporty engine in my hands and that was the moment I figured out that the naked streetbikes were way sexier than the cruisers. They were created for urban riding and urban riding was what I was mostly doing. Agile in the traffic among the cars, fast to accelerate and to brake, and finally — sexy almost like the sportbikes! I rode my Bandit a lot. I rode it on the german Autobahns and for commuting locally as well as cross-town tripping and just riding around. The class had proven to be very comfortable for tarmac and I loved the little slice of performance that it offered.

Naked was sexy because the engine was out for anyone to see and it made the motorcycle look very straightforward, rational and somewhat aggressively beautiful. The plastic fenders, covers and fairings of the sportbikes made them look like plastic toys in my eyes and so inside my brain the streetfighters actually beat the sportbikes in terms of the style. And man was that retro headlight hot!

Aside from the style, streetbikes seemed cool because they were created for being ridden in the city. Adding this to the naked engine style, their intent was put out so daringly that an engineer type of a person like myself was in love at once!

I rode the motorcycle for two weeks in North-Rhine Westfalia and flew back to Yerevan determined that my next bike is going to be something like the Bandit, except it had to carry Honda’s logo on the fuel tank. After coming to terms with my finances for a while, I paid a visit to the local Honda dealership and saw this:

Honda CBF500

Other parts of the series can be found here.

Other parts of the series can be found here.

I think these series will contain some interesting aspects for people who are not yet into motorcycling as well as those who already ride, as you will probably find similarities.

So when I did not have a motorcycle yet (and did not make any sense in the types of motorbikes), my vision of a motorcycle was that of a sportbike. Of course I knew the cruisers (I ignorantly called them ‘Harleys’) and I knew the classic bikes and I had a very small knowledge of the offroad motorcycles which I hated, but if I would be shown different types of bikes and had to point my finger at the one I thought was coolest, it would definitely be the alienish designed sexy sportbike. And no wonder, because I knew they were fast and when you don’t actually ride, motorcycling feels all about speed.

Honda CBF1000RR Fireblade

However, back then I could not just simply buy the bike I wanted (not even the class of the bike I wanted!), and the circumstances brought me a small Honda cruiser — the excellent Honda Rebel CA125. I learned to ride on it and travelled a lot, falling in love with my small cute chopper that felt so big on the first day it was brought to my garage from Vedi.

My Honda Rebel CA125

At first I was pretty unhappy with riding a cruiser, but it has slowly revealed a whole new dimension of motorcycling to me that I could never discover otherwise. I started to feel that motorcycling was not really as much about speeding as it was about the philosophy of riding, the philosophy of control, some danger, adventuring, freedom, freedom and freedom. I think this was very good for my motorcycling experience as a whole, because I figured that the pleasure of motorcycling was much richer and bigger than that of speeding in the open air, becoming forever ‘whacked by the motorcycling bug’. However low in its CCs, the Rebel was great at injecting these concepts into my body and soul (changing it permanently) and after a couple of seasons I realized I’m a cruiser type of a guy. You know when you’re a teenager you wanna choose and stick with one thing, easily labeling yourself and the others! Having ‘found’ myself, I did not expect this would change, but it was a juvenile thing to think!

One significant future-changing permanent impact that the Rebel had left on me though was my huge and long-lasting love affair with Honda. I was amazed by the engineering talent put behind my small machine and the quality of production was just astounding! I knew since that all my future motorcycles were going to be a Honda, and this determination is alive to this day.

It still touches my heart when someone talks positively about Honda, and I am ready to engage in an endless debate with the ‘R1 is better than Fireblade‘ type of fellows having Honda’s bulletproof ‘gearbox’ argument in my arsenal.

So the first major battle inside my head after starting riding was won by the cruisers, and I already knew I was not going to own a sportbike in a very long period of time. The cruisers felt way cooler, very attractive and stylish with an enormous spirit about themselves, and the rumbling of the engine was so addictive that I didn’t understand anyone who wanted to ride anything else. So my dream motorcycle at the time became Honda Shadow — Honda’s flagship cruiser.

Other parts of the series can be found here.

Thanks to Maneh :* and Zhirayr :* for making my stay at Sevan so fantastic!

It looks as though the ice is melting in Yerevan — slowly but very firmly. And how could it be otherwise when the weather is so hot and so are the girls!

Season ’09 has started to prove my old claims that Armenians in their essence are people of two wheels, not willing to give up any freedom for any security. I can spot and hear more and more motorbikes in the streets of Yerevan and that makes me excited! I remember how different everything was back in the day, how riding a motorbike was considered outlandish and how criticized the very idea of riding a motorcycle was.

An SUV has stopped me 10 minutes ago as I was approaching the restaurant where I’m posting this from and a charismatic guy in his early thirties asked me how to get into motorcycling. Earlier in the day I was discussing the same with a colleague from my company during a coffee break… And everywhere seems to be this cool atmosphere of people who are tired of watching more TV in their car cages.

This gives me a profound feeling of responsibility. I’m going to do my best, making sure that their starting experience with getting on two wheels is most pleasant and smooth. It freaks me out to think that maybe I had my unbelievably small contribution in making these people want to ride. That perhaps it was my motorcycle they saw in the street that got them thinking. That perhaps it was me entering a curve that thrilled them. These very thoughts get me into this groovy mood! Every time I pass by a child in a car who looks at me with these specific burning eyes and dropped chin, I smile and think that perhaps —  just perhaps — I will remain a vivid memory in his small neural network and as years pass — one day, after an intense conversation night with parents, he will open the local dealer’s door with that distinct determined look. I hope his chin drops again, with that same childish amusement he used to have over the motorcycle he gets!

Thank you everyone who has been riding. Thank you all who will be riding. Thank you. Everything will be fucking awesome.

Just hit the fucking road.

My bike in Germany last year, the sexy Suzuki Bandit 600. It was crucial in my understanding of the naked street bikes followed by my purchase of Honda CBF.

There was a lot of rain those days, but my rides on the perfect tarmac of the german roads as well as the A2 Autobahn, travels through Gütersloh, Bielefeld,  Melle and Dortmund were unforgettable! I miss Germany a lot these days.

Here’s a Honda Rebel CA125 (my first motorcycle) in Gütersloh:

A  retro BMW:

A nice custom Honda in Bielefeld that belonged to the owner of the Polo motorcycle apparel store, an old woman of non-traditional sexual orientation who has generously shown me around the city:

And finally, an ubercool custom Harley in Dortmund:

Riding in Germany was a shit load of fun and I miss it badly. If you happen to visit it, don’t forget to rent a motorbike — it’s only about 200 euros a week!