Quote:
Originally Posted by DannoXYZ
I'm seriously looking at ST1300 for longer rides that take more than 10-hrs/day. Although that takes me from S.F. to Phoenix and I haven't needed to go further than that.
Or putting top-box and saddlebags on Ninja 250 for camping gear. My brother & cousin do live in Portland.... hmmm...
|
STs are great bikes. I should have bought one back in the day when I got the sport-touring bug and wound up with a BMW. I had a k1200gt and while it was super nice, I did not want to tackle any of the maintenance. I did what I had to do to take care of it, but wound up off-ing it when I got north of 50k miles. There was just too much to go wrong on that bike. It never did, but I knew a ST1300 or a Concours would have been a much better buy.
I also found it to be a massively different riding experience than anything else. Sport-touring, in general, is great if you commute or put down massive miles, but my reasons for riding changed a lot over the years. The BMW was point and shoot:
it handled all the riding for me and I felt very disconnected from the riding experience. My riding buddy had a BMW 1250 and felt the same way. Now we race each other with my 250 and his 300 and have way more fun. Big powerful bikes are for the birds, I'd rather have a good time.