Honda's Only V-Twin

There are many ways to garnish positive attention while riding a motorcycle, all of them satisfying. Whether it is dumping the clutch with the revs high and hitting balance point, or burning a little rubber as you pull away from the stoplight, they all seem to soothe the existential itch of lacking intrinsic value. But there is something deeply satisfying when your bike is so sexy that you don’t even have to try to turn heads. I arrived at this revelation in my quest for a budget bike with a v-twin configuration. Who would have thought I would have ended up here?

I had been obsessed with the two wheeled-life for over four years before I had heard that Honda had a v-twin standard bike. It was only after riding bikes, like the Indian FTR and KTM Super duke among others, that I realized a v-twin naked bike was the bike for me. The problem was that these bikes are simply out of the budget of a scientific researcher. Maybe a stock broker or some other no-skin-in-the-game fragilista can buy these bikes without thinking twice, but I won’t be in the market for one of these for a while. After looking through the history books, I found that two of the big four manufacturers produced 1000cc v-twin standard bikes up until the mid 2000s. The one I ended up getting my hands on was a 1999 Honda VTR 1000f.

Most bikes lose value as their mileage goes up, but there are some that depreciate with time- even with low miles and mint condition. I was able to acquire my VTR 1000 for about 3,000 euros and was the second owner. The odometer showed only 16,000 kilometers. It was garage kept and mint condition, without a single scratch. It also came with a full exhaust system to scare small children. The tires still had lots of tread too. Shortly after delivery I swiftly proceeded to crash the bike within 15 seconds of riding it. It turns out that the front tire was also vintage 1999.