So many riders, especially in the United States, treat their motorcycles as works of art. They keep them clean and polished, carefully choose just the right accessories to make the bike their own. The motorcycle becomes an extension of their identity and they wouldn’t think of going out with the motorcycle dirty any more than they’d leave the house with a big, fresh ketchup stain on their shirt.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it is limiting.
And that’s why I think that every serious motorcyclist should have a rat bike, especially if your first motorcycle is your dream bike, one you care for meticulously and probably spent a lot of money to buy (and then more money to farkle to your tastes).
What do I mean by a “rat bike?” I mean something cheap, something with no pretensions at impressing the neighbors or the crowd at your local bike night. Something you keep in good running condition and is reliable, but a motorcycle you don’t give two thoughts to in terms of appearance.
It’s liberating to have a rat bike. It lets you ride more and worry less. Thinking about riding to work on a day with a 60% chance of rain? Then you consider that your 20-minute ride will also require 30 minutes of cleaning up your pride-and-joy motorcycle if it rains on your way home and all the highway scuzziness gets slathered all over your shiny fairings or chrome pieces. You play it safe and opt not to ride. Or maybe like me you live in the northern parts of the country where roads are crusted with salt for months. I know some riders who won’t take their motorcycle out of the garage from the time the road crews lay down the first layer of salt in early winter until after a couple of spring rains have washed it all away. For me, that’s too many months without riding. There’s always days in January and February when the sun’s shining and the temperatures are reasonable and I can get wherever I’m going on a motorcycle, giving me a fix of riding in a long winter drought. But if I had to worry about dulling the finish on a motorcycle I paid an uncomfortable amount to buy, I’d surely skip it.
Having a rat bike opens up those days and keeps your riding skills from totally atrophying. While some may choose an older standard-style street bike or even a streetfighter (get a rashed sport bike, strip off the fairings, add a higher handlebar) as a rat bike, In my view, the perfect rat bike is a small dual-sport. And with that, let me tell you about the best rat bike I ever had.
Scuffed and scratched and nothing impressive, in terms of either speed on the street or ability in the dirt. But my 1989 Honda NX250 gave me years of service at just pennies a mile.
The best rat bike I ever owned
More than 20 years ago my wife and I moved from Puerto Rico to Ohio as I took a job at the American Motorcyclist Association. My only motorcycle at the time was my 1997 Triumph Speed Triple, which was then still fairly new. Winter was coming on, and I wanted to be one of the hardy employees who continued riding to work through the winter, on days when the roads were clear of snow and ice. I needed a rat bike and due to contemporary circumstances, it had to be cheap.
I found a Honda NX250 for $1,100. It already had a few cracks and scratches in the bodywork, but the miles were low and mechanical condition was good. The NX250 was an odd bird. Its larger and smaller siblings, the NX650 and NX125, both had air-cooled engines and typical off-road-sized tires. The NX250 had a four-valve, liquid-cooled, single-cylinder engine and odd wheel sizes: 19-inch front and 16-inch rear. It was more street-oriented than the other two and had a style that today we would say showed hints of rally bikes.
The odd rear tire size meant I only had one or two choices of tires, but they were perfect for my use — essentially 50/50 dual-sport tires — so it didn’t matter. I commuted regularly on the NX250, even when I moved and my commute added eight miles of I-70, getting better than 70 miles per gallon even when I was wringing the throttle as hard as I could. Over a few years, I put 20,000 miles on the “Hondita,” as my wife called the little bike, then sold it to a new rider for $600. The only real repair I ever had to make was replacing a seized brake caliper — probably all that salt — but I got a used one on eBay for under $40, so no big deal.
It’s interesting that two of my most experienced motorcycle writer colleagues at RevZilla, Ari Henning and Zack Courts, two guys who regularly test the most advanced and powerful motorcycles on the market, insist on having a scooter in the garage. Need to make a quick run to the corner store? It just so easy to hop on and go, compared to any other transportation option, and it’s about the cheapest option short of walking, too. For me, the NX250 served the same purpose, reminding me of the joys of small motorcycles. Only the NX250 had the added value of being able to let me do some light dirt-roading, as well.
It was one of the best deals I ever got on a motorcycle, in the balance of what I put into it and what I got out of it. I only sold it because I found another good deal on an even more versatile dual-sport. But that’s another story.
If your dream bike is sitting in the garage unused, maybe now is the time to take advantage of the slow, beginning-of-winter season to scout for a deal on something small, something cheap, something rattish. Something that will let you ride more and worry less about tarnishing your pride and joy. Because having a rat bike brings a different kind of motorcycling joy.
