Kove Crisis Fun

Author: ryan.vansickle

  • Great A/C and Awesome Dirt Roads

    Great A/C and Awesome Dirt Roads

    That night I arrived home with my shiny new prize in the back of the pickup. It fits perfectly set diagonally in the back of a 5.5 foot F-150 bed with the tailgate closed. Everything was going well.  Then at dinner when I excitedly mentioned the new acquisition I’m pretty sure the A/C kicked on at full blast.  It remained chilly in our house for sometime afterward. It took a while to explain why I wasn’t a hair-brained, selfish, man-child.  I’m not sure my explanations and justifications for being self indulgent hold much sway.  To my sweet wife’s credit she has mustered some level of acceptance or maybe resignation.  The reality is that I am extremely blessed to have a companion that supports me through so much. She loves me enough to question whether jumping off the deep end is a good idea.  She also helps me learn to communicate my crazy ideas which for me is not an innate ability.  

    Perhaps some day she will provide a guest editorial on her perspective of the whole situation.  I am not sure that type of language would be allowed on a kid friendly site though:-)  

    My kids still simply hold the opinion that I am having a midlife crisis.

    Get to the details already…

    Now that I have alluded to what the impact getting involved with a home wrecker might have on one’s family relationships, I know you are all dying to know what it is like.  In fact the first and perhaps only comment my first blog post had was:  “How do you like it?”  I think this is the moment to nerd out and supply all the technical specs. 

    From the Users Manual:

    The  first thing that you will notice is that everything in the User’s Manual is in metric.  I lived in South America for a couple of years. I figure it’s not a big deal. I can cope.  In real world terms what are the important numbers?  It fits diagonally in the bed of my pickup.  It’s tall. I can touch the ground on both sides on the balls of my feet, not quite touching heels. Weight wise it weighs more than me but less than my 6’6” grandpa did.  I hope that clears it up on all the technical details for this machine.  Next post I can get into what the technical specs really mean for me, my riding style, and why I chose to go Chinese instead of my first impulse of Japanese since after all I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and we all know that Japan makes the best motorcycles in the world 🙂

    Here is a link to a site I found with some great information on these motorcycles: https://koverally.info

    Just as a preview to things to come I am having more experiences with this motorcycle than I have time or talent to write about. I am capturing notes, photos, and soon to come videos of the adventure. I plan to continue to roll out the story, but it may be over the winter since I am busy experiencing it now. Lets just say the first real ride happened the day after I brought it home. Fifty miles, paved and dirt roads, and some wildlife. It was great and more description to come.

  • Investing in the Dream:

    Living in the Columbia River Gorge

    You might have guessed. The mid-life crisis idea continued to fester over the weekend.  I had visions of riding down our gravel lane, turning left instead of right, and finding myself in the middle of nowhere. I would be exploring the mountains, rivers, and streams that I haven’t seen yet. 

    Mount Hood Sunset
    Sunset over Mount Hood

    I have lived in the Columbia Gorge for 20 years. There is small subset of the wonders here that I have been able to experience.  I often envy those that vacation because they come with the full intent of experiencing the gorge.   In the rat race of being able to live here, I’ve at times lost the wonder. I end up focusing on the hard parts.  The whole adventure bike idea was an opportunity to “carpe diem” up and change that. 

    Not Getting Old

    Another aspect of desiring more adventure in my life at the age of 47 is that I still feel young.  Most days… OK sometimes… Don’t ask my kids. If I am honest with myself that first day at the dealership when I threw my leg over the Kove, which is a rather tall bike, my calf decided to cramp up something fierce.  It took 2 days to stop aching. I try to tell myself that I was probably just dehydrated. I’m not getting too old.  In truth this has been something nagging at the back of my mind.

    The thought of, if I wait to retire to have adventure in my life then I will never be able to mount such a stead.  I would probably have to relegate my adventure to what I could see from a Honda 90 or a Bandit scooter.  When I look at my family history for the last couple of generations I have a 50/50 shot of even being around in 20 years. I mentioned this idea to my co-worker. He thought idea of doing something before you get too old was the most justifiable justification he had ever heard of.

    Buying Stuff

    With these doubts and aspirations bumping around in my head I figured out how to transfer around some savings. I headed back into the Mid Columbia Marine and Motorsports the next week when they opened on Tuesday.  I once again rode the Kawasaki and the Kove. We then worked out a deal for me to take the Kove home that day. This included a hook up for a bunch of accessories.  They helped me load up the new bike, helmet, and oil change kit into my truck.  I left the dealership with less money in my pocket, but as the proud owner of a Chinese motorcycle designed to race the Dakar Rally. 


    What could go wrong?

  • Crisis Emerging

    Crisis Emerging

    In the days of AI generated web content for people scrambling to generate a buck online I am going to embrace my retro tendencies and start a good old fashioned blog.  The reason behind my blog is mostly to give me a forum to express my ideas and experiences and hopefully create something interesting or useful to share with the world. 

    The story begins a few weeks ago when I found myself at the local powersports dealership.  I had intended to look at a Kawasaki KLX 300 dual sport dirtbike.  I really didn’t intend to purchase anything but the idea of a motorcycle to commute down the windy road across the Hood River bridge into work then back again had entered my mind again.   A random online article had planted a daydream in my mind that morning and a web search indicated that Hood River Powersports had one in stock which inspired action during my lunch break. 

    You might be able to predict how this story goes.  The very helpful and effective salesman showed me the KLX which was almost exactly what I had expected, but then redirected my attention to the 2024 Kove 450 Rally which he was very motivated to move.  This was not something I would have even entertained before, but after a ride around the parking lot and a discussion of what it might set me back I extricated myself from the dealership and got back to work.  The idea of a rally bike that is somewhere in between a dirt bike and an adventure bike started to work on my psyche.

    The youtube videos I watched probably didn’t help anything either.  Here are the three of the offenders that had influence over my thoughts: 

     

     

     

    That night I floated the idea of getting a motorcycle around the dinner table.  As I expected it floated about as well as a lead balloon.  So if this was something I really was interested in I knew it would generally be met with the head winds of family disapproval.  To illustrate this point the question I got from one of my teenagers was,

    “Dad, are you having a mid-life crisis?”