larst orderz

Yesterday evening I did the last ride from work to home, and this morning, the last ride from home to work. At the end of the working day I’m going to take the Black Bitch on one last journey to my folks where she’ll be covered and locked to await her new owner. I have to say it feels a little emotional. It’s the longest I’ve owned a single machine (over 10 years) and she’s been fast, furious, enormous fun, life affirming at times of bad luck and desperation and despite being subject to regular thrashings, virtually trouble free. Even now the engine is as sweet as honey.

In the last couple of years Speed Triples have become increasingly popular, almost passé. When I bought mine they were still quite a rare sight on British roads, largely because they were trailing a new path. Neither balls out sportsbike or teeth shuddering cruiser, they appealed to an unclassified sort of biker, and obviously I fitted the pitch or I wouldn’t have stuck with mine for so long. If it wasn’t for this ambiguity I’d never had been able to afford a nearly-new one. The fat bastard I bought it off simply didn’t get along with it, though he’d already spent a few hundred quid on instantly deprecating extras… factor in the 1999 model aesthetic which remains the prettiest of the range (the earlier and later models have a sort of ubiquity about them) with the livery existing only for that one precious year and, of course, a bit of Piqued input over time made the Black Bitch unique. You’ll never see one like mine, it’s not possible.

I’ve previously stated on these very pages that if you don’t ‘get’ the motorcycle thing (whatever the ‘thing’ is, a mental condition probably) you will not understand why a mechanical object can inspire genuine emotion. This isn’t me projecting my desire onto the machine; this is something that comes from the physical nature of the motorcycle, the way riding makes me feel, and the look and sound of it prior to, during and after. I don’t look at pictures of motorcycles. I look at pictures of motorcycles and my mind starts it, and rides it, and I get an emotion back…

Either tomorrow, or Thursday, I’ll take public transport to Bermondsey and after some simple paperwork the money granddad left to me will be exchanged for a brand new Husqvarna SM610. I’ve never owned a bike from new but have had the frustration of running an engine in following a top-end rebuild. To put it bluntly I’ll have to ride the new bike gingerly for a few hundred miles until all the mechanical components have settled into their groove, quite literally. Having said that this doesn’t diminish the prospect of having a new bike one iota.

Like the Speed Triple, the Husqvarna -though off the peg- is unique by default. Well sort of, of course, others exist but they’re absurdly rare. I’ve never seen one in London (apart from the one I test rode) either in black or in the more popular livery of yellow and blue. The fact that mine had to be specially imported from the manufacturers in Italy bears this out. If it wasn’t for the fact I have a dedicated dealer virtually on my doorstep, replete with parts and service facilities, buying one would negate all the practicalities of owning a Supermoto. This may explain to a certain extent why they’re so rare, not much point in owning a machine if you can’t get the parts for it, and there are hardly any Husqvarna dealers in the UK.

Unlike the Speed Triple, the Husqvarna isn’t all things to all men; it’s a purebred (ironically born of a hybrid, it’s half sportsbike, half motocross bike.) The fact they look beautiful (to me at least, IC isn’t convinced) isn’t a reason to buy one if, for example, you were commuting on a daily basis to the South coast it’d be an impractical choice. But for what I need it for it’s perfect, it’s made for fast city silliness and will eat country roads, although getting to them on motorways is where I’ll notice the bikes commitment to do two thing exceptionally as opposed to everything adequately.

Having said that, what really sold me, what actually caused me to go from, ‘I want one’ to ‘I will have one’ is the sound. A large single-cylinder 4-stroke that thumps out the sound of hell. It’s lumbering doom metal at tickover and death at full throttle. Reminiscent of the golden days of British bikes but cutting a sharper, more defined note, this bike is guaranteed to frighten the all piss out of London.

Still, I’m going to miss the Black Bitch. Thanks Black Bitch, wuv oo.