My Ride

I enjoy riding motorcycle everywhere, I do not really remember when the first time I felt so excited was riding my motorcycle. My parents bought my first motorcycle in 2002 and it was a cub or underbone from Suzuki and in Indonesia called by Suzuki Satria. There were two version of Suzuki Satria at that time, the automatic and manual clutch and I chose the automatic one because at that time I did not have enough confidence yet to ride a manual clutch motorcycle. It had 120cc engine capacity and two strokes engine. Although the engine was not quite big, it can run fast and I had my first motorcycle speeding experience, around 120 KpH, with it. Because of its two strokes engine, the pillions always had their clothes smelt like smoke from the exhaust pipe and drastically decreased the price when finally I sold it because of the rumor that two strokes engine motorcycles were banned from entering the city streets.

In 2006, on my second year in college, I changed my old Suzuki Satria with the new four strokes Suzuki Shogun 125, it was the third generation of Suzuki Shogun in Indonesia and I Owned the Sport Production version. What made that version different from the standard version is the application of manual clutch and the size of the carburetor. Although so, this was no match for my old Suzuki Satria it term of the speed and power.

With this motorcycle, I started to do some short touring trips out of the province, but the most distant I have ever gone was only about 280 km. This is the starting point where I realized that I enjoy riding so much.

I bought my third motorcycle in 2012 right after i went back from the apprentice program in one of my office`s branch in Panama, Central America, ( I will write other post about this later), because I thought that my old motorcycle my parents gave to me was to small in therm of the size and the engine capacity and also because I wanted to take touring more seriously.

Bajaj Pulsar 220, was the motorcycle I bought, there were so many reasons and considerations that I had to think about before choosing this motorcycle like the engine capacity, riding position and lastly, but not least, the price. Actually, Bajaj is still quite popular up to now in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta, because Bajaj was the name people gave to the one of the infamous public transportations in Jakarta that had three wheels, noisy two strokes engine and usually in bright orange color.

This is a general-purpose street motorcycle or in Wikipedia, it categorized as standard class motorcycle. It has 220 cc, 4 strokes, oil cooled engine and it can burst around 21 bhp. I am still using this motorcycle and still do not have any plan to replace it although it has clocked almost 30,000 km. With this motorcycle, I started to explore further and there already so many places in Java and Bali Island that I have visited. I also have many big touring plans with this motorcycle like to go to Flores or Timor Island.