Today has been a truly wonderful day! Blue sky and sunshine which a temperature just perfect for riding. The mission for today was pure pleasure and the aim was Avila. While there, I wanted to take a nice picture of my Ducati and the walls. It is a new idea I have – to snap pictures of my bike with classical backgrounds 🙂 And Avila is one of my favourite locations and the wall is easier to photograph than the aqueduct in Segovia.
I wasn’t bothered by the police this time, just a friendly Spaniard who wanted to chitchat, but it did scare me when I heard his voice behind me while snapping photos.
When returning, I choose road AV-503 which is possibly my overall favourite road around here. The view is absolutely breathtaking and no photos can ever capture the greatness of the landscape. But off course I tried.
So, if today’s ride was pure pleasure yesterday’s was a bit more duty filled. I had prepared to go and see four motorcycle shops in the centre. In between getting lost I managed to find two of them. At the first they didn’t actually have anything in the shop that I was interested in. I don’t know how that works since there was adds on the internet with bikes I wanted to see. But anyway, the sales agent was very nice and we talked about what I was interested in. Then he looked at my bike, put down the details and was going to contact me if he found something.
Next place was a totally different experience. The sales agent was not especially nice at all. He looked and sniffed all over my bike. I was wondering if he had a special gift or just a runny nose but I couldn’t really ask. After the inspection, he asked how much I wanted and looked on the computer for something secret and then gave me a shameful bid. And it wasn’t even permanent because someone else, who didn’t work today would have to do a more detailed check. After this he didn’t bring the conversation further regarding the bikes that interested me, there was both Kawasaki Versys and BMW’s in the shop. So, I thanked him and left, and I still haven’t figured out if he offered so little because Ducatis are not a brand they really want or because I’m female and/or a foreigner who speak poor Spanish.
So, I haven’t come very far in my practical attempts. But I have done a fair bit of reading on the internet and compared the detailed of the different bikes on my list. Theoretically, it all boils down to three bikes to consider further. The F 650 GS from BMW, the Kawasaki Versys 650 and the Suzuki V-strom 650. In this lot the Suzuki might be a bit clumsy. There have been modifications done lately, but I’m not going to buy the latest model. The Kawasaki will have to be year 2010 or 2011, since earlier models have complains about vibrations that were apparently taken care of. The negative side for the Versys is the top case and panniers, they are only available in plastic and no aluminium square cases that I so dearly want. For the BMW I have not found any year specific changes but I will look into that further. Unfortunately, I have not even sat on a Versy or a GS which I really need to do soon, and I hope to be able to ride them to. Well I was prepared for this to take time, and so it will.
