When I was thinking of buying Bumblebee lots of motorcycles were to tall or heavy for me. My dad said you don’t have to carry your bike and he is right. But if you have to push or pull it out of the garage and move it around it is very nice if you are able to do this alone 😉 First I wanted to buy a Kawasaki ER6F because I had also ridden this bike during my lessons. It was not love at first sight with Bumblebee for his looks. I was more drawn to the agressive fast looks of sportbikes and had basically striped him off my list, because he would be to chunky and tall for me anyway.

I was destined to do lots of touring with my new bike and read and viewed lots of reviews of bikes in magazines and online. I noticed that lots of people were complaining having wrist aches when riding to long on their sportbikes. So I decided to check out two second hand bikes at a local bike store. An ER6F and a Versys 650 (Bumblebee). For some reason I have something with the colour yellow for a bike, so the thing they had in common apart from the same parallel twin engine was the yellow colour (although lost of people say Bumble is orange, the colour is pearl solar yellow).

I didn’t dare to ride Bumble because of his height, but they lowered the suspension a little bit for my test ride and I rode off.  After a nerve wrecking first five minutes I felt completely at ease on Bumble. So easy to stir, so light and with power when twisting the throttle. Coming back to the bike store my dad walked already towards me preventing me from acting to enthusiastic, because we still had to get some money off the prize. I could hardly lose the giant smile on my face. This was going to be my first bike!

After buying I rode it and noticed that if the road was flat I had no issues putting my toes to the ground, but when  it was bumpy at traffic lights I had to beware not to tip over. This made me feel insecure so I searched on the internet for solutions. There are boots that make you a little bit taller (2,5 cm) from Daytona with an inner sole that lifts you up. You can also buy after market saddles that lower your seat 2 cm. Last but not least you can install a progressive lowering kit. I did this with a Hyperpro lowering kit and never had any regrets. It is not only lowering my bike the 3 centimeters so I can reach the ground but also improved comfort, road stability and breaking distance.

Since buying Bumblebee I already rode the 8800 km to 64000 km in the last 4 years and love the Hyperpro suspension. You value it even more if the road gets bumpy and filled with pot holes. I also learned that it is nice to have a bike that looks good, but in the end you must pick a bike on which you feel confident and that fits the thing you do most. Some people only ride their bikes during summer when the weather is good but since I ride it all year round I appreciate the extra comfort of heated grips, bigger wind screen and the straight up position. Of course I still love the sportbikes and if money would not be an issue I would buy a sportbike to complete my bike stall but you have to keep on dreaming 😉 So what is your favourite bike and why?