At the age of 30, I bought my first bike, a 2006 Honda Shadow Spirit 750. This wasn’t only my first bike, but it was also my first time to ride a bike on the street. So I wanted a lightweight bike that I can easily handle. First thing I did after buying the bike was to take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation beginners course, $180 well spent. Not only did it teach me most of the basics that I have never had the chance to learn on a dirt bike, but it also qualified for the riding portion of my license exam in Texas (plus it gave me a 10% discount on my insurance).

Nine months later, I had turned that Shadow into my daily driving vehicle, commuting to both work and school rain or shine in the slightly damp weather found in Houston. For several reasons, I decided that if a bike was to my daily driver, I wanted a bigger bike like a touring bike for power, comfort, storage ability, a radio, and cruise control. I looked at Yamaha’s, Harley-Davidson’s, Victory’s, and Honda’s offerings. Yes, I know that there are other tourer’s out there, but I stuck with the dealers that were somewhat close to my house. The Honda Goldwing and the Victory were definitely the most modern of the bunch. The Victory’s and the Harley-Davidson’s are air-cooled V-Twin engines and the Yamaha has a liquid cooled V4; but all 3 of these look as the manufacturer just modified a cruiser frame with saddlebags, trunks, and front fairings and called it a touring bike. I wanted something more substantial for the added price over the cruiser models.

That left me with the Goldwing. For price reasons, I chose to shop the used market for a 2001 and up body style, preferably a 2006 or 2007 model. After about 3 months of browsing, I found a great deal on a 2006 demo model. This Titanium Goldwing featured the navi/comfort package, and it had 3,100 miles on it. Check out my reviews on this bike that I update from time to time.