In the grand scheme of motorcycling, it wasn’t really that big an accomplishment. But still, when my 1997 Triumph Speed Triple rolled over 90,000 miles yesterday, I stopped to take a photo.
Some people will look at 90,000 miles on the odometer and shrug. I once wrote a magazine article about people who put big miles on their motorcycles and kept them for decades, not years. We’re talking 300,000, or 600,000 miles. Or more.
Most people, however, are shocked to see 90,000 miles on a motorcycle odometer. It surprises me a little, really, because people routinely go well into six figures on their cars, and today’s motorcycle engines are the same liquid-cooled, close-tolerance designs as car engines. There’s no reason motorcycles can’t last as long as a car, despite their higher revving nature.
The real explanation, I realize, is that for many people in the United States a motorcycle is a weekend “toy,” not true transportation. But my Speed Triple was my main transportation for many years, so it’s not surprising that it reached 90,000 miles. After all, that’s only a little more than 6,000 miles a year. Most years, it did a lot more than that, however, because it spent most of two years in storage and almost always shared garage space (and mileage accrual) with at least one other motorcycle.
Having bought it when it was one year and 6,000 miles old, I’ve now owned the old Speed Triple longer and ridden it further than any other motorcycle. It plays a prominent role in a chapter in my book titled “Bonding,” in which I try to understand why we become attached to some bikes for the long haul while we never really grow fond of others, no matter how competent or appealing they may be on some level. In the end, it’s kind of like trying to describe why we fall in love. Facts and logic and psychology may provide some insight, but they’re never the full explanation.
Clearly, the Speed Triple is now with me for life. Even assuming someone would consider buying a scratched-up 90,000-mile, 14-year-old bike in a world awash in low-mileage used motorcycles, it is certain they would never pay me anywhere near what it’s worth to me personally, after all the miles we’ve shared.
Now that it has hit 90,000, the Speed Triple is enjoying semi-retirement. Other, younger bikes do the heavy lifting. Like its middle-aged owner, the Speed Triple still looks OK from a distance but holds up less well to close scrutiny. It emits more creaks and groans, is a little loose around the joints and has developed a few new quirks with age. We’re both at that stage of life where it becomes clear that we have more miles behind us than in our futures, but neither of us is quite ready to shuffle off to the junk yard just yet.
Happy birthday, old friend.
