After two years of living on two (powered) wheels, I'm beginning to see why people don't do this.

It's impractical. It involves a lot of mental and physical acrobatics to carry anything, to stay warm, to defend oneself from weather and from hurtling 4,000 lb mech weapons trying to kill you.

And it's not really, well, that much cheaper. I feel like a traitor to the cause when I tell people that for transportation they are better off buying a $1000 beater Escort rather than a $700 beater CB450. But it's true. For MOST people, motorcycles are and will be a pain in the butt. You're always buying tires or chain or a valve adjustment or repairing damage from tipovers, or something, and if you're not buying the labor, you're spending every living minute doing it yourself. And you have to own at least two , so that when one is broken you can still get about.

So it's not practical, but somehow, as long as I live where I can ride most of the year, I could never be without a motorcycle. I think the chief advantage of motorcycling is not practical but psychological. Riding is, for one thing, a means to evaporate all stress and problems right out into the wind after a hard day of running and cursing. But on the other hand, It's using Only as Much as You Need, rather than the wretched excess of four seats and a big trunk and a steel frame, to get yourself from here to there. It can be a work of simplistic art, a representation of ingenuity and willingness to think outside the box. And this last is very important. There are artists who represent impressions of sense experiences, and there are artists who represent impressions of the machinations of the mechanical muse...and motorcycles and bicycles are most uniquely positioned to be the canvas for such art.

So yeah I could use a car (especially now that the Rains are coming!) but could never sell the Motorcycle to get one....