Geezer with a Grudge: Don't Look Back

Jul 17, 2012

Don't Look Back

It's hard not to look back, but I work at it. When i sell a motorcycle, I rarely ever think about owning it again. There have been three, maybe four, exceptions to that rule: my '92 850 TDM, my '86 XT350, my '86 TY350, and my '83 XTZ550 Vision. Yeah, I know; all Yamahas. If I could find an XT350 for the right price, I'd buy it. The same goes for the TY. A friend owns a TDM and I ride it occasionally. That usually satisfies that jones. I am not a collector personality.

I taught a BRC II this weekend and one of the students brought his '83 Vision. It wasn't in great shape, but only had about 18,000 miles on the odometer. I flashed back to my old Vision (see photo) and discovered that I missed the bike. I missed the drive shaft, the comfortable seat (mine had a custom Corbin), the narrow profile, exceptional touring handling, the full coverage fairing, the freaking fairing heater, and the retro-modern spacey look.

I took that picture in front of my house in Colorado, while I waited for a guy from California to pick up the bike to take it back to California. The only thing I don't miss is the 48mpg that I consistently got from the Vision. Not good enough then or today.

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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.