On July 15, 2023, I purchased a new bike for me.

 

Before I tell you about that though, I want to tell you what led to this bike.  

 

2018 Honda Rebel 500

 

2018 Honda Rebel 500

Back in 2018 I bought a new 2018 Honda Rebel 500 to replace my Honda Phantom 200.  This was a great bike, and we did a lot of rides on it, lots of lovely trips.  The first trip we did on this bike was a trip from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to Sangkaburi to Sai Yok to Nakhon Prathom to Bangkok.  It was such a lovely trip to get used to the bike.  We have also done multiple trips to Khao Yai and a trip to Sukhothai and a number of lunch runs with friends and multiple safety courses with Honda.  

 

This was a lovely bike, which I loved to ride, with lots of memories.  The whole time I had this bike, I only dropped it twice.  The first time was when I did a slow u-turn in the middle of a major road here in Bangkok and the person on the back of the bike wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and leaned over and I wasn't expecting it and the bike fell.  The second time was when I was on one of the safety courses, and it was late in the day, I lost concentration on what I was doing and I leaned the bike over too far and then felt the bike start to go, gave it a little extra throttle to set it back up, but the back tire broke loose and then I caught the platform and the bike went down hard.  

 

One thing was, after owning the Rebel for about six (6) months, I started looking at other bikes.  One of the youtubers that I follow, Ryan FortNine (https://www.youtube.com/@FortNine), rode a 2015 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 and he did two reviews on in.

 

 

 

 

Because of these two videos, I started looking at the cost of the Suzuki V-Strom.  One of the things I noticed, at the time, is that they were a little bit cheaper than the Honda Africa Twin.

 

2024 Honda Africa Twin

When my Honda Rebel 500 was almost paid off, I decided to sell it and get a bigger bike.  I felt like I was ready.  I was at the local Honda dealership and they showed me a Honda Rebel DCT 1100.  I took it. for a test ride, and it felt nice.  I went home and talked to @hirondelle about it, and she said that if we were going to get another bike, she didn't want another Rebel, because after about thirty (30) minutes on the back of the bike, she starts to not feel so good, and at about forty-five (45) minutes, she needs a break, and an hour, she needs at least a thirty (30) minute break.  It had a lot to do with the leg position for her on the back of the Rebel.  So we looked at what Honda bikes would be good for a pillion rider, and it was recommended an Africa Twin.  I started looking hard at Africa Twins.  I took a couple for a test ride, and I had @hirondelle go with me for a test ride.  She actually loved the feeling of riding on the back of that big machine.  We talked about what we needed to do to get one, and crunched some numbers.  We originally decided to get a new one, but then later on, we decided to get a used one, and save quite a bit of money.  

 

Triumph Tiger 1200

One day, I had a Triumph Tiger come up in my feed on Facebook, so I looked at them.  Even the second hand ones were coming up as more expensive than a new Honda Africa Twin, but something weird happened when I was doing that.  I was reminded of all the research I did on the Suzuki V-Strom 1000.  So I decided to go back and take a look at the research I did on the V-Strom and the videos that Ryan FortNine did on the Suzuki V-Strom.

 

This convinced me to take a second look at the V-Strom.  While I was doing that, @hirondelle looked for bikes that are comfortable for the pillion rider.  She shared with me four (4) lists.  On those four lists, the Honda Africa Twin wasn't listed at all.  The BMW GS1200 (a bike my friend owns) was listed on two lists (2), and the Suzuki V-Strom was on all four (4) lists, so this kind of convinced me to start looking at them.  I looked at the Suzuki web site and saw that their bikes were about the same price as the Honda Africa Twin.

 

Buying a 2018 Suzuki V-Strom 1000

I decided to look at used bikes.  The Honda Africa Twin was going for about 370,000 Thai Baht, which is about 10,500 USD, and the Suzuki V-Strom was running about 320,000 Thai Baht, which is about 9000 USD.  The day I started looking at used Suzuki V-Stroms, I found a 2018 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 for 270,000 Thai Baht, which is about 7,500 USD.  I left it for a couple of weeks to see if it would go, and told @hirondelle about it and showed her pictures.  She liked how the bike looked, and we both liked that it came with a top box on the back.  After a few weeks went by, I reached out to the seller and asked for a discount, and he knocked of 10,000 Thai Baht for me, about 300 USD.  Didn't seem like a bad deal, so I asked to go have a look at it.  Tracy went with me to look at it and for me to test ride it.  I started it up, and the motor sounded good, no strange noises or anything.  I took it for a test ride and it rode smooth and felt really comfortable.  I made him an offer, that he said he couldn't do as he was selling it on consignment, so the best that he could do was 260,000 Thai Baht.  @hirondelle and I talked about it and we felt this was a good price.  Put a down payment on the bike and came back a month later to pay it off and rode off the lot with my new motorcycle!  

 

This bike is so comfortable for me, and for @hirondelle.  Our first big trip on it was a trip to Hua Hin, and it was so nice.  @hirondelle also said that she felt really good on it.  We both had to learn a new way to mount the bike as it was so tall, but now it's so natural for use to get on the bike this way.  We have also done a number of lunch runs with some friends on this bike and we love it.  

I have been keeping a journal for the rides that I have done on this bike, which is something new for me.  To go with that, recently, I have started using the Riser app, which a great app for riding mapping motorcycle rides and also diving directions.  You can decide if you want a curvy route, a supercurvy route or a direct route, which is pretty good.  Also, there is an option to add friends when we ride together so nobody gets lost.  I haven't tested this part yet, but I plan on it.

 

So, my idea is I will be making journal entries of my rides here, and I will also post my route, so people can have a look on Riser to see where I went.  I'm quite excited about this.  When I have a chance, I will post my journal entries here, but they won't have the map, but all rides after this will have the map and any images I take.  I'm really looking forward to it.  

 

Always Remember:  Ride your own ride, not somebody elses rides.