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The mediation by the serpent was necessary. — Kafka
Verily I say unto thee that once there was a Young Rider, who dated and married a Hot Chick, who rode Pillion, and all was well.
But, Young Rider and Beloved Wife begat Children, and Children begat Responsibilities, and Responsibilities begat Bills, and thusly the Begats begat the Dark Ages of Motorcycling, for there was none.
Former Rider and Former Pillion caged about the earth until Behold! there came the Empty Nest, for the Children had Flown, and Bikes returned, and the Dark Ages receded with the return of the Light that shineth forth from Motorcycle High Beams.
For the Sportster came unto the Garage, and the Returned Rider saw that it was Good. Beloved Wife returned to Pillion, and she saw that riding Two-Up, once more, was Good.
Then Revelation came unto Beloved Wife, that Rider is better than Pillion. Therefore she ventured forth, an apprentice to the MSF, then a supplicant unto the DMV, and she returned bearing Holy Writ, her Motorcycle Endorsement. Times thereupon got Even Mo' Betta.
The Riders saw that More Motorcycles is Better than Fewer until the Garage heldeth four motorcycles, thereby filling their Cup to the Brim. There was much rejoicing and they lived happily with their Bikes, Content.
But, alack and alas, not Forever After.
For there came unto the Returned Rider a Serpent, and the Serpent whispered into the Rider's ear, "There, within thy reach, is a Keyboard, and within The Keyboard lurketh the All Powerful Google, and the All Powerful Google will taketh thee unto Motorcycle Forums, and Blogs, and Common Tread, and Reviews, and YouTube Videos. The Mighty Google may well leadeth thee unto Motorcycles that thou does not yet know thy desperately needs."
And the Rider looked askance at the Wife, who wasn't paying attention, and he Clicked and Clicked, and Clicks begat more Clicks, and by this evil design the Serpent led the Rider unto the Motus, and the Rider's Contentment with his Stable was gone as into dust.
Late 2016
The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. — Eve, Book of Genesis
It's a dreary, rainy November day in Western Washington, which means that "dreary" and "rainy" are superfluous descriptors. It's not riding weather, not even close, but our garage holds four carefully selected and maintained motorcycles that my Beloved Wife, Teri, and I each ride.
The Ural sidecar rig sits plugged into its battery tender, needing nothing. I recently changed the oil on the 1973 BMW R75/5 and it, too, sits on its tender, ready to roll, although it has a to-do list that I look forward to wrenching on.
The Sportster asks only to be let out to play, and the BMW R nineT, my partly basic, partly sophisticated street and track hooligan bike, sits next to it in the middle of an off-season LED lighting upgrade. I should be content but, alas, I am not.
Damn you, Lee Conn and Brian Case, founders of Motus Motorcycles. And you, Serpent, minion of Google, damn you too. Our stable was complete, but I kept wandering into the various motorcycle corners of the internet. We do not need another bike, but the Motus has been revealed to me, and I must seek it out.
In my neck of the woods, a Motus is not very easy to get one’s hands on. It is not quite a unicorn, because the company has about 25 dealers as of this writing, but it does take effort to end up standing in the presence. This seeker contacts the dealership listed on the company’s own website but that shop, part of a multi-brand dealership group, refers me to another store. I call them and they say they've never heard of it.
Persistence leads me to a third location within the same oligarchy, and they confess to possession of the demo bike. I make an appointment.
January, 2017
Has any botanist set down what the seed of love is? Or upon what different soils it can fall, and live unknown, and bide its time for blooming? — Owen Wister, "The Virginian"
Todd Krider, salesman, wheels out the Motus MST. Behold.
Smaller in real life than I expected. Lower. More compact. Muscular in a toned way. Potent. Promising so much in the form of that clean-sheet engine and frame design. An American pushrod V-four with headers that sweep down and aft in perfect formation at the perfect angle. Goodness gracious me.
He invites me to start it. I swing a leg over, retract the side stand, and look it over from the rider’s perspective at last. The seat narrows forward and flares aft to give a wasp-waisted shape to the bike from above. Helibars are perfectly positioned for my hands. (Destiny?) The color TFT display comes online as I turn the key. I hit the starter in tingling anticipation of finally waking the Baby Block beast within.
A motorcycle’s identity begins and ends with its engine, everything else is just the wrapping around the essence. Harley’s “potato potato" defines Milwaukee iron and sport bikes reveal themselves once the revs climb north of 10,000 and the demon-shriek begins. The Baby Block turns, catches, and the Motus essence appears, center stage, wrapped in stars and stripes. It is motherhood, apple pie and hot rod. American hot rod captured, distilled, double-rectified, bottled and barely corked. A pushrod, two-valve engine with the cylinders canted left and right just as Chevy, Ford, Chrysler, and God intended.
It burbles. It lopes. It rumbles.
I twitch my wrist. The V-four revs and the chassis tries to rotate around the crankshaft. My oh my, goodness gracious, shit oh dear. This is a bike made to go to a Fourth of July picnic on the beach, vault the continent, and catch the fireworks show on the other coast that same evening.
Todd leans in for a last word. He knows I’m an experienced rider, but the Motus is its own kind of beast and he wants both his demo bike and his sales prospect back in one piece.
“Take care, especially at first,” he says, over the classic loping V-eight — I mean V-four — idle. “The bike doesn’t have any bad habits, but the power can be... startling.”
A very fair warning, and one I intend to heed. The MST puts out 165 horsepower, which is exactly 50 percent more propellant than the bike I rode to get here. Furthermore, there is not a single artificial intelligence mastermind that knows better than me mediating between my right wrist and the application of those ponies to the pavement. If I demand more power I will receive it — regardless of consequence. Off I go.
On this demo ride the MST somehow presses every motorcycle button I possess.
Hot rod sound and power virtually everywhere in the rpm range, perfect sit-up, feet-under riding position. It turns in, carves, stands up, hauls ass under throttle and hauls down under braking. It's a symphony of metallurgy and chemistry and motion and I'm the conductor waving the baton and giggling. But, again, there are no electro-nannies hovering about to save me from myself. Unrestricted degrees of wheelie are available at virtually any time, no toggling through screen menus required. Rain mode? Hah! If it’s raining then, um, ride like the road might be, you know, slippery.
ABS? Not. No silicon-chip fairy godmother will step in to save you from yourself or the unfairness of the world after an awkward bootful of Brembo. A Lee Conn quote from a Motorcyclist article comes to mind: “It has one riding mode, and that’s ‘ride yer damn bike’ mode.”
One can get core, visceral, electric, primordial, impossible-to-explain connections with people, animals, places and, strangely enough, with machines. My wife is part of me, there is music that sends a chill down my spine every time I hear it, and with two airplanes the symbiosis reached the point where I wasn’t sure where they stopped and I began. This magnificent beast of a bike is, for me, striking those kinds of chords within.
But, this Alabama beauty costs over $30,000. Heavy, heavy sigh.
I return it to the store in one piece, hand over the keys, and ride home on my own lesser machine. I have indeed sampled the apple, and it has opened my eyes to new temptation.
Spring and summer, 2017
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have. — Socrates
Screw you, Socrates. What the hell do you know, an ancient Greek who has been moldering for thousands of years and never rode a motorcycle in the first place? I'd drink hemlock, too.
The thing is... life is good and the motorcycling marvelous. Why do I want more?
We attend the Chief Joseph Rally in eastern Oregon and go on great rides with new friends. My sister and brother-in-law fly in to ride with us at the Vashon Island TT. I do two days at California Superbike School and discover how the Coyote, riding an Acme missile, feels while chasing the Roadrunner.
And the Motus lurks in my brain.
We don’t need another motorcycle. We love the four we have, the garage is maxed out, and if another one gets bought one of the four will have to go. Besides, we have almost everything covered. We have Bavarian vintage, American iron and modern nakedness in the oh-so-fun R nineT. We have a Russian-built sidecar rig, for God’s sake.
Wait a second, almost everything covered?
Well, yes, almost, come to think of it. As currently constituted our fleet does not provide us with high-speed, two-up touring capability. Indeed. Hmm. Maybe we need some of that. Hey, empires have been founded on less of a whim.
Hours of discussion with Beloved Wife distilled: We need to test ride it two-up. If she doesn’t like the pillion seat, or the pegs, or the power delivery, or the lurking hooligan the bike rouses in me, or anything else, then I can lay the ghost and move on with my life.
Late summer, 2017
Happy wife, happy life. — Anonymous
We ride the MST together.
To give peace a chance, I keep the front wheel on the ground, but I judiciously achieve injudicious speeds in order to properly demonstrate the marvelous suspension coping with the Burma Road sections of the nearest freeway. Beloved Wife never glimpses the speedo but, in a later honesty-is-everything-in-a-marriage conversation, I confess. She likes the bike and likes the ride but worries about its propensity to bring out the 20-year-old in her husband.
The bottom line is that she refuses to veto the idea.
Damn, no pawning off the responsibility for the decision. Furthermore, later on, exasperated by my endlessly circular I should get one/no I shouldn’t palaver, she throws up her arms and tells me to just go buy the damn thing, if that's what I really want.
I ask you, dear reader, what do you do with a woman like that? (Answer: You marry her, dummy.)
No. This is a very, very expensive motorcycle. I will be resolutely strong and fiscally responsible. I will not buy a Motus.
Fall, 2017
Indecision is the key to flexibility. — unknown Naval Aviator
We’re both still working and the riding season is short, so a Motus, or any touring bike, really, is not very practical for us. So I join the Motus Facebook group and download a factory photo of the MST for my computer screen background. Somebody please kill me now.
The thing is, if I’m annoyingly frank, we can pretty much afford it, if I really want it. We’ve been quite fortunate, Beloved Wife and I, in having had first-rate, healthy kids, good health ourselves, and fairly stable employment over a long period. We’ve clipped coupons, avoided extravagance, put money away, and both have minded the best financial advice ever, which is "keep thee thy first spouse."
However, the lifetime of frugality that has enabled us to afford this frippery is precisely the lifetime habit which makes it so hard to spend the money. No, I am not going to buy it, that would be fiscally stupid. Far smarter to put the dollars away for retirement.
But, my friends are telling me to get it. Besides it always being good fun to help spend other people’s money, I think the selfish bastards are secretly hoping they’ll get to ride it themselves. Hah, they might be allowed to touch it, if they’re lucky. Sit on it? On their birthday, maybe. Ride it? GTFO.
Wait, what am I talking about? I’m not getting one, so never mind.
You only go around once. You can’t take it with you. Life is short then you die.
How many clichés can I drag into this?
I email Motus with some questions. Get prompt answers from Lee Conn, one of the two founders of Motus. Nice. When was the last time Mr. Harley, Mr. Davidson, or Mr. Honda personally answered your inquiries?
He thanked me for contacting him. Said I’d be happy with an MST or MSTR. Said it would be six to eight weeks to complete an order in the winter, longer come summer. Contact my dealer when ready. Dammit, Lee, I’m not ready because I can’t decide.
December 2017
Now is the winter of our discontent. — William Shakespeare, "Richard III"
The bean counters at RevZilla corporate contact me via Lance Oliver, Common Tread’s editor, to obtain my tax data to report to the guvmint. While I have his ear, so to speak, I pitch my Motus article idea to him once more.
“And if you could just give me an advance of, say, $35,000 on the story, then I will finally buy the motorcycle and you’ll get a first draft that much sooner.”
I must confess that the sound of his laughter, emanating in Ohio but audible in Washington, hurt a little.
Sighs begat sighs.
It’s late January, the rain is endless, I’ve ridden twice in the entire month, and I can’t stop myself from making lunatic proposals to my editor. (I do so love to go around referring to Lance Oliver as “my editor,” however.)
I never should have followed up by updating my proposal from a $35,000 advance to a $30,000 grant. Haven’t heard from him since.
February, 2018
A penny saved is a penny earned. — Benjamin Franklin
I have laid the ghost.
Seriously, I've pretty much decided that there will be no Motus. Retirement is still a few years away and will be so much better if fully funded. Far smarter to pump up the IRAs and 401ks. Don't want to be a burden to the kids.
I email Lance (my editor) and tell him the Motus story is probably not going to happen. As far as I can tell he does not burst into tears at the news, but I almost do.
March, 2018
I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. — Mae West
Well, dear reader, you knew all along I was going to buy one, right?
I mean, a story relating endless months of agonizing, waffling, soul searching, dithering, and prolonged wailing and gnashing of teeth over this motorcycle would be rather anticlimactic if it ended with "So I decided not to get it; now let me tell you about my index funds."
The decision came, as the bigger ones tend to do for me, without fanfare. One day I woke up and realized that I should just get the dang thing.
There. Done. Feels right.
We choose an MST in the Iron Ore burnt orange color (the MSTR’s extra 15 horsepower arrive near the higher redline, and I shouldn't be at redline often). From the short options list we add heated grips, dual heated seats, dual rear Powerlet outlets, Givi top case, Ohlins rear shock and optional Clearwater lights. As configured, our invoice totals $32,396 before taxes.
A $2,000 deposit reserves us a spot on the production schedule and we decide to do this right and pick it up at the factory in Birmingham, then ride it home to Gig Harbor, Washington. We juggle vacation days and work schedules to create a three-week window and inform Motus that we’d like to pick the bike up on April 24. They say it will be ready.
A photo arrives.
They have built it. It exists. It is drop-dead gorgeous. It is waiting for us in Birmingham. Gulp. What have I done? How can this bike possibly live up to my expectations? The only way to find out is to ride it as it is meant to be ridden, two-up, all the way home.
See Motus operandi, part two: The 4,413-mile test ride home.
