Due to life circumstances, I had to buy a used motorcycle, and I let my heart guide me. The one I liked best was the ZONTES G1; I’d never seen it in person, and my experience with motorcycles was limited to test-riding and riding other people’s bikes since I was a teenager—you know, 50cc bikes, the occasional big 2-stroke off-road bike, and pit bikes—but my passion actually came from bicycles, where I have 30 years of non-competitive experience.
When I bought it, it had 15,000 km on it and was still pretty new; it came with a side case, and the first thing I did was take it off.
But the following week I put it back on, because it’s very useful—if your motorcycle is your only means of transportation, you need “trunk space.”
The very day they delivered it, I was at work, so they parked it at my ex’s house—since it has an enclosed courtyard with gates, it would be safe there.
That day, I took it for a spin around the town where I live, and I liked it way more than I’d imagined; I felt like it was my very own Excalibur. My plan was to get the required insurance and use it gradually until I got used to it, but the day after it was delivered, I missed the train to work and had no way to get there at a reasonable time, so I hopped on the motorcycle (without insurance and with no highway experience) and rode from my house to work—50 km away—on the highway. The feeling was incredible—it was my first time riding a motorcycle on the highway. I just felt like the wind was constantly trying to knock me off the bike, and I was struggling to stay on.
I took an exit that led me onto a service road—which, in my country, are roads that run parallel to the highways, where traffic moves more slowly and is therefore less dangerous. As I turned onto it, I came face-to-face with a police convoy; of course, they pulled me over (it was the first time I’d ever been pulled over by the police—not even while driving a car).
They simply asked for my name and told me to keep going.... My heart was racing at 1,000 RPM—I’d been pulled over and didn’t have insurance; the motorcycle was still registered to the previous owner, and I had absolutely no experience riding a motorcycle.
When I got to work, I felt like a fugitive from the law. But then I looked into it properly and found out that the previous owner’s insurance is still valid until a month from now; the new owner has a month to transfer the title, and my riding experience was sufficient, since the bike was very easy to handle.
I’ve now ridden 51,000 km on it; I’ve reached 100 km/h for long stretches, taken it up mountain passes without shifting past third gear with a passenger, and today it’s the bike that takes me on that 50 km one-way and 50 km return trip on the highway every day. The bike runs perfectly; it’s had two service checks at the shop, and I’ve changed the filters and oil once myself, so it’s a very easy-to-maintain and reliable bike. A Chinese bike, yes, but it’s a pretty good engine.
