The day a red V4-powered machine set the course for a lifetime of two-wheeled adventures.
It started the way so many good stories do – with a brochure.
Dave handed it to me sometime in the fall of ’97. The more I read, the more enthralled I became. Page after page, spec after spec, it called to me.
All those miles on the GPz had led me right to this place. I knew exactly what I treasured about riding that bike – and just as clearly, I knew what I was longing for. Everything I read spoke to both, and it spoke to me.
Before I knew it, I was standing at Christman’s, laying down a deposit on a bike I had never even seen in person.
In early 1998, I got the call. 1998 Honda VFR #195, the 5th generation of the model, had landed at the dealership and was being assembled. Dave and I quickly made our plans to bring her home to the apartment Karolyn and I shared.
At Christman’s, Barry offered to throw a dealer plate on her and let me take her for a quick spin before we loaded her into Dave’s truck. I swear I had a helmet on and was halfway to the shop door before Barry even finished the sentence.
With nervous excitement, I threw a leg over, thumbed the starter, and was instantly smitten with the growl of that venerable V4 motor, gear-driven cams whirring away.
Once I was familiar with the controls, I nicked her into gear, released the clutch, and pulled out onto Route 5 headed toward Palatine Bridge.
Throttle, shift. Throttle, shift. Throttle, shift. Comfortable that I was now moving down the road in a modest third gear, I glanced down to be sure I wasn’t edging too aggressively toward the 45 MPH speed limit.
65?!?! Holy crap – this bike was smoooooth! Quite the departure from the buzzy, almost angry, redline-calling character of the inline four on the GPz.
Yes, oh yes – this was going to be a beautiful relationship. If only I knew…
Once back at the apartment, Dave and I grabbed a six-pack and headed to the garage, intent on exposing whatever secrets were hidden behind that arrest-me-red bodywork.
With the body panels off (who the %^$# invented those damn self-destructing clips?!?), we stared in marvel at what little of the 781ccs of fuel-injected V4 goodness we could see, nestled within the twin-spar frame and between those now characteristic side-mounted radiators.
You could almost feel its RC45 racing DNA pulsing beneath the surface – a lineage built not just for the road, but for the track.
I would become very familiar with every nuance of these spaces over the years, as I modded, farkled, and tweaked this machine to make it more and more mine – and an extension of me.
All those years of that relationship – over two decades of them – will be the subject of a number of future posts.
And those are stories for another ride.