What Should Your First Motorcycle Be?
Published June 04, 2021 · 8:36 · 211,042 views
About This Video
A first-motorcycle recommendation that grounds every suggestion in biographical experience rather than spec sheets. Van does not compare horsepower and displacement. He talks about what different bikes teach you, and the teaching is the recommendation. The right first motorcycle is the one that makes you a better rider. That is the only metric.
211,000 views confirms that motorcycle-buying anxiety is universal. Most recommendation content fails because it prioritizes the machine over the rider's relationship with the machine. Van inverts this: start with who you are, and the motorcycle will name itself.
Transcript
the following is a reenactment of actual events did this twice
neither a lender nor a borrower be polonius said that in the hamlet play
neither a lender nor a borrower be amen this spirited man was the last to use
isabelle's tw and it's low on gas so according to the code he must fill it up
[Music] low on gas yes but not so low that he can't take the dirt road new tires [Music] normally i would never do this but i am on fumes and i'm gonna go through this little
closed section even though it says security cameras in use
[Music] [Music] so plenty of gas but when i click it into gear it just dies even if i redline it and like dump the
clutch it just cuts out no no don't wake him up i could but i think that'll take three hours and if i push it to the top of the hill and
then coast down that'll be one hour and you know time is the thing
yeah no i'm i'll i'll call you if uh yeah we'll call me if he wakes up and won't go back to sleep
call me okay yep i will thanks love you okay bye sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar well he eats you this spirited man has been pushing
broken motorcycles since he was 13 years old that's 33 years
and today was the day he decided to quit so he thinks
it's one thing when you get a flat out in the baja desert but in town
four miles from home this is a problem from now on that he'll
throw money at that's what he's earning right now no more yankee thrift when it comes to motorcycles he's earned it
[Applause] so another thing is that this isn't my bike to break like four years ago when isabel found
out she was pregnant we had just been on this incredible
yosemite trip on motorcycles and she tried riding on the highway pregnant knowing she was pregnant
and she just started weeping and had to pull over because she knew it would be years before she could ride again
and now is the time that she can ride again and i busted her motorcycle i'm going downhill but the
tires are so fat that even downhill it barely rolls
[Applause] the t-dubs is a terrific bike if you're looking for a first bike man or woman go with the tw 200. it goes 65 reluctantly but she'll get there
here's the tw in the snow in new york city fired right up after this storm too
the mechanics got her running again but she needs an upper engine rebuild and barely has any power
but enough to finish our reenactment atta girl truth be told we destroyed it
riding it flat out up and down giant mountains for five years isabel commuted to work on it
flat out on freeways it's 19 years old and isabel's outgrown it she needs a
bigger bike so the thing to do is to get it into the
hands of someone with more time and more tools than us so that they can love the hell out of it like we did you
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Yamaha TW 200 essential — recommended first motorcycle for men or women, 'terrific bike'