“Essentially what I want from you,” Editor Hoyer said over the phone, “is a list of four reasonably modern motorcycles you would buy if somebody gave you 20 grand to spend on a small collection of bikes.” As if to steer me away from the usual ancient British iron and Honda fours on which I’ve frittered away so much of my life, he added, “We could probably start at around model year 1990.” Well, this was certainly a concept I could sink my teeth into. As a semi-retired person recently reborn into the Church of Fiscal Sobriety, I spend about half my time pondering bikes in exactly this category. And of course the Internet and want ads are rife with great motorcycles from this period, at prices ranging anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000, depending on mileage and condition.
Here are a few standouts I’m always looking at: Ducati 900SS: 1991–1997 To me, this series of Ducati sportbikes (to include the Superlight and SP versions) is among the best looking of post-bevel-drive Ducatis, surpassed, perhaps, only by the 996 series. The latter, of course, are wickedly beautiful but pretty uncomfortable for anything but a trackday. The 900SS (pictured in the magazine layout above), on the other hand, has a riding position that’s more sport-touring than sportbike, with higher bars and reasonable leg room. I’ve owned two of these bikes, a white-framed ’91 and a 1996 SP, both with full fairings (my aesthetic favorite), and I took them on long road trips without a moment of regret. Okay, there were a few moments. The rear suspension is pretty stiff and can beat you up on a rough road, but otherwise the travel experience is serene and relaxed—especially with the very high (almost too tall) gearing these bikes have. Many people drop a tooth or two on the front sprocket. Other problems? That slab-sided fairing makes them something of a kite in strong crosswinds, and the hydraulic clutch slave cylinders have a short life. Also, you have the usual desmo valve adjust ritual, which requires you to detach the rear shock and/or disassemble the synchrotron drive in the Large Hadron Collider, if I remember my shop manual correctly. Just kidding, but it is harder than adjusting the valves on a BMW airhead. The upside? You get in a lot of really good riding in between those well-spaced service intervals. The bike is light, charismatic, makes wonderful sounds—particularly through aftermarket mufflers—and, when not being ridden in winter, radiates a beautiful red glow into the darkest corners of your garage.
KTM 525 EXC: 2003–2007 Yes, this is a street-legal dirt bike with a headlight, so it’s probably only of interest to riders who run enduros or—in my much less frenetic case—occasionally do some cow-trailing in the hinterlands. And cow-trailing was, literally, what I used my last one for. My friend Randy Babcock used to host trail rides for his buddies on his ranch in South Dakota, along the Cheyenne River. The place had sweeping pastures, real Western buttes, and challengingly steep hills (cliffs, almost) running down to the river, and nothing worked better for me in this varied terrain than my 525. It was light and nimble in the tight spots and yet had big-bore, rock-flinging torque on some of our seemingly endless near-vertical climbs out of the valley floor. Friends warned me this bike had explosive power and was well above my pay grade as a casual dirt rider. It was indeed eye-wateringly quick on the upper end, but it was also friendly and tractable down low, and I found it easier to ride than the 450 EXC I previously owned. At a mere 251 pounds, it was like having a weightless British 500 single with real suspension and more top-end wallop. More wallop everywhere, actually. What the KTM 525 is not, of course, is a roadbike or an adventure-tourer. (My Suzuki DR650 is a much better broad-spectrum choice.) The KTM is highly tuned, has a very small oil capacity, and exhibits occasional fragility on the utility side of things. Sidestands are notoriously prone to snapping off, for instance, and mine did. These bikes are often seen leaning against trees during off-road rest breaks. But they are an extra-ordinary buy—you’ll have to look hard to find one as costly as $5K. My riding buddy Mike found a good runner with a few scuffs and nicks last year for $3,000, instantly throwing me into a funk of EXC nostalgia. The KTM 525 is pure motorcycle. Light, spidery, and hard-hitting, it’s high-tech and elemental at the same time. 
BMW R1150RT: 2002–2005 When my fellow club member Greg Orr broke a second main shaft in the gearbox of his Norton 850 Commando, he bought a beautiful slate-gray BMW R1150RT. He plans to repair the Norton sometime but hasn’t quite gotten around to it. As a former RT owner myself, I can understand his procrastination. The RT is a great all-rounder. If you live in a northerly climate, an RT with heated grips and that excellent fairing can extend your riding season by about two months. And it can do so while providing one of the most flickable and stable platforms you can hustle down a winding road, two-up or solo. The wide bars give you nice leverage to tilt the horizon, and the electrically adjustable windshield provides either plenty of cooling airflow or none when you don’t want it. It also has excellent stock hard bags and mounts. My wife Barb and I did a 4,000-mile trip through Canada on our 2004 model 10 years ago, and our only complaint was with the dreadful stock seat. Friends warned us, but did we listen? No. We stood up like Paris-Dakar riders half the way home. It’s best to have a stock-seat burning party and then go to the aftermarket. There are two other favorite BMWs from this era I also might have picked (the lithe R1100S and the in-between R1150RS), but the RT might be the best all-purpose boxer of those. It handles as well as its sportier brethren and lets you start the riding season early and stay out late. 
Honda VFR 800FI Interceptor: 1998–2001 You could pick any bike among the long line of VFRs, from the 1990 750 version onward, and hardly go wrong, but I chose the 1998–2001 fuel-injected iteration of this classic Honda V-4 because (1) I owned one, (2) I just happen to like the styling, and (3) I wasn’t quite as enamored of the nonlinear power delivery on the later VTEC engine. Regardless, these bikes have won so many Best Bike accolades and other awards that they hardly need any introduction. Why so? Well, hardly anything on earth feels as precise, complete, comfortable, and competent as a VFR. It has a level of refinement that makes you wonder if it was made by a manufacturer of micrometers or fine dental instruments (but without the implied threat of novocaine shots or drooling). It works as a superb—if slightly heavy—sportbike, but it’s also comfortable and civilized enough for solo or two-up touring, particularly with a set of aftermarket bags. The engine idles with subdued manic impatience and has a nice raspy growl when revved. It makes good midrange torque but also howls to an endurance-racer frenzy on the upper end. Barb and I often tour with our friends Randy and Marilyn Wade, who have a 2001 Interceptor they’ve owned for about 15 years. At some point on all these trips, Randy always tells me he can’t think why he’d ever own a different bike. I just shrug. I can’t either. Other than the restless urge for variety to which some of us pathetically fall victim.
On that note, attentive readers may notice that I’ve actually owned all the bikes written about here but no longer do. It’s true they’re gone, but if a tornado hit my workshop tomorrow and swept all my current bikes off to Oz, I could easily take the insurance check, buy the four bikes listed above, and live happily ever after without missing a beat. Don’t give me any ideas.
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