Geezer with a Grudge: Despicably Cool

May 3, 2011

Despicably Cool

The 1997-2011 Honda VTR250 is one of the hippest motorcycles ever built. The faired, sportbike version of the VTR was imported into the US from 1988-1990, but it was too small (layout-wise) for most US riders and the 1989 pink graphics turned off anyone who didn't carry a purse. Being a lifetime courier bag kind of rider, I owned a 1989 VTR for several years and loved the bike.

I sold it to my brother and he went on to put even more miles on the little guy. He hasn't forgiven me for neglecting to warn him about the pink lightning bolt, though.

Honda intermittently imports the VTR to Europe and Australia, but their Asian sales of the little Monster-clone keeps the production line busy enough without bothering with EPA/Euro 1-5 export/import issues.

For my money, the red paint/black frame 2002 model is the coolest looking version of the bike, but I'd go for any iteration if it ever became available here. 2009-and-newer models have fuel injection, which makes them at least 200% hipper.

1 comment:

Chris said...: way cool bike. my wife would love the modern naked one.; 5/4/11, 3:33 PM

The Geezer Story

I stumbled upon this column name (Geezer with a Grudge) almost 20 years ago, in 1999. The first Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly editor I worked with, in late 1999, complained that the magazine was getting no mail and the editors wanted to know if any readers were still out there. I fired off a sarcastic note, as a joke, intended to provide a little humor and some feedback. He published it as an article and later called me to say he'd received more mail on that letter than he'd received in the past year! I followed that with an offer to write a monthly column attempting to piss off a particular section of the magazine's readership to see if that tactic would generate some mail.

It did, probably more regularly than the magazine wanted at times, and I wrote a monthly column for MMM until the magazine died in 2018.

I plan to post an occasional old Geezer article into the blog, followed by short comments about the current status of my perspective on our activity/sport/vehicle of choice.