When you own a motorcycle for a very long time (read 9+ years), you tend to personalise it a bit. In the case of my Himalayan, as many of this blog’s posts will prove, I made changes almost every summer. After accessorising the bike to the gills- with auxiliary lights, crash guards, top box, tank side mounted luggage, hard panniers etc, I ended up stripping it down and settled on the lightest avatar of the bike for the last two years of ownership. Over time, it’s dawned on me, I’ve been happiest and most content with lightweight versions of all the motorcycles I’ve owned.

When I purchased the Moto Morini X-Cape 650, I was perhaps blind to this particular aspect of my motorcycle ownership. To my mind, the Italian Adv was already cumbersome at 215 kgs, and I was concerned about tipping it over. On went the assortment of crash guards, including hefty side bars to the fairing. Even though I found these in poor taste, I justified putting these on as a mount for auxiliary lights, and for the rare instance when these would save the fairing from impact. I told myself I needed auxiliary lights to ride in pitch dark (or in rain). A well crafted (read heavy) aluminium top box was of-course essential, to accommodate my laptop bag and other knick-knacks on daily commutes. Now this top box, sat on a fairly robust rear rack with a solid steel plate under-mount. Some flawed logic informed me that heavy adventure motorcycles are well balanced by design to carry top boxes and large aluminium panniers- I should not feel the drag like I used to on the Himalayan.

More than 6 months of using the bike in this format, has me convinced otherwise. As the first year of ownership rolled by, I took stock of how comfortable I was, handling the bike. I realised, I’ve just been a tad hasty in my ‘speccing up’ the bike to make it ‘tour ready’. Mind you, I haven’t been on any tours yet. I have been on day rides which included short off road sections-where the bike hasn’t inspired a lot of confidence. I reckon the ‘don’t drop the new bike’ anxiety prevails- in-spite of all the extra protection with crash bars, engine guards and the like, I am still hesitant and super careful, even on the lightest trails. All of this added weight, suddenly didn’t make sense. One day, on a whim, I started removing these accessories one by one. I never put them on a scale, but am fairly certain I removed around 15kgs from the machine!

Familiarity with the motorcycle should mean I can slowly up-skill my riding and start using the bike to its full potential. One week of rides sans the upper crash bars, aux lights, top box and the rear mount transformed the way the bike handled, and the way it made me feel. I’ve retained what I’d call the real essentials for crash protection-a compact OEM engine guard with sliders, aftermarket hand guards with aluminium bars, stock rear rack and the sump guard. I will look at ways to reduce more, but for now, I’m loving the newfound sense of comfort, agility and lightness.