As in my previous post, I owned since Fall 2016 a Triumph 1200 XRT (Explorer). By the summer of 2020, I had put on a little over of 35,000 wonderful miles. But, there was a ‘however,’ which I identified in my previous post: its weight in absolute numbers (perhaps 700 pounds) and the distribution thereof.
As a matter of safety and self-reliance, I concluded that I should not own a motorbike that I could not lift after a drop or fall. So, I did one final test on Nicodemus. I removed all the gear–both panniers, the top box, the tank bag–and had less than half a tank of gas. Then I gently laid it down on my front lawn.
First shock was that without the panniers, the Triumph lays at more than 90 degrees down from the vertical. That should be obvious, but when you are looking for the first time to grab a handle on something and can barely find where any are because they’re below grass blade level, it’s an aha moment and not a happy one.
From there, the shock turns to awe. The bike is so so top heavy that I could not seem to lift it at all without a life or death effort (which I was not inclined to attempt with two surgically repaired knees). The butt against the seat and leg extension method was utterly useless as the bike was below the horizontal. It would be impossible to lift it in such manner by anybody. Further, getting it lifted a little by squat raise with straight arms so you could do the butt against the seat combination method cannot work unless you had a helper who could put a log or some such under the bike after you had lifted it enough to get a positive angle with respect to the ground for the butt to push against.
Once again while puzzling over what have I just done to myself, and Nicodemus, help arrives, this time a Fed X driver stops, and being a Harley guy, understood my predicament. He did a vastly job than me lifting the bike by the face it and haul it up method but even he alone would not have gotten it up, as it took the two of us.
So, that settled the decision to part with Nicodemus, which was actually a sad decision because of what we had gone through together, and how he had taken care of me, so faithfully. But he was going to have to do his service with someone much stronger or who always rides in pairs or groups.
Now what bike, if any, to get next? I went though so many in my head. It was a challenge because I need a pretty big bike for me and my travels but it had to be a lot lighter than the 1200. I’ll leave out all the details of the options and tradeoffs. I traded the Trump in for a new, but model year old, 2019 BMW F850 GS (but not the Adventure). The advertised weight is 515, and as a parallel twin it is angled closer to the ground that the Triumph’s upright triple, and is at least 100 pounds lighter.
When I rode it, literally for the first time, as I was purchasing it, it did indeed feel much lighter. But, can I lift it? I still don’t know. But there’s another story there that I will tell another time.
So, in the Summer of 2020, I said goodbye to Nicodemus the Triumph and welcomed home Barnabas the Beemer. And me and Barnabas now have about 4,000 miles including one longish trip from mid-FL to Columbus OH by various roads and byways, including a ‘sand-crash,’ with no injury to the bike but some to me. Story to come later. All is well.