Well after a 4-month hiatus from riding a bike I couldn’t take it any longer.
The withdrawal symptoms were ever-present. A bike would drive by the house and my ears instantly heard that soothing sound of motorcycle mufflers. Driving home in a car on I-17, I-10 or Arizona 60 — stuck in traffic at 18 MPH — 
then seeing a bike, or five, cruise by in the HOV lane was the worst experience of the symptoms.
I had a good reason for getting rid of the bike–two reasons actually. First, I felt I was overshooting my safety boundaries with speed and second, my adult daughter needed the van I was driving because she was moving out. That left me with only the motorcycle and no transportation on inclement weather days (I prefer not to ride in the rain). So I traded my 2011 Triumph – cafe racer style – Bonneville on a 2011 Mini Cooper S. While the Mini is a lot of fun to drive it simply cannot match the feeling of riding a bike.
So my search ended when I found a 2012 Yamaha FZ6R 
at Victory BMW in Chandler, AZ. It was a good price, but had almost 20K miles on it. I’ll have the bike delivered tomorrow and then I’ll be ‘back in the saddle.’
Stay tuned for more about the new bike. While the FZ6R is a cool-looking bike, I’m not a fan of the full fairing, so I’ll be doing some modifications to convert it to a naked, streetfighter-like bike.
See how I transformed this into a streetfighter.
