Why Did You Buy A Spyder?

[pegasus1300]

Been riding over 50 years,had an accident in 2011 and totaled my dream bike (2008 RSTD). Bought a 2008 Royal Star Venture S and 6 weeks later totaled it and put my wife and I in the hospital for 9 days. My daughter said that was enough but I couldn't quit,but I also found I couldn't ride 2 wheels anymore. Big time fear. I bought a Goldwing Trike,put 50,000 miles on it in 4 years but never liked it. Sold it and the next day saw an ad for a 2012 RTL Lava Bronze,Tan seat with only 8500 mi. I fell in love with it and bought it and never looked back. It now has 32,400 miles, 23,900 mi in 2.5 years not bad eh.

 

[vampyregirl]

My reason was 2 fold. I had an "incident" on my Honda Helix scooter and tore my acl clean in half. Then I got a Honda Shadow. My knee kept trying to buckle on me at lights, stop signs, etc, so I never really got comfortable on it. Saw a picture of the Spyder and wanted one!! I did some research and waited a couple of years so they could work some of the bugs out of it (you know, the ones that caught fire early on and such.....). Decided after my grandma died in 2011 that life was too short, so I bought mine!! My face still hurts every time I ryde it: from grinning ear to ear!!!

 

[ARtraveler]

Thanks all for your participation and answers to this thread. Lots of opinions offered and IMO--all good ones. :bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

Based on what I see for the 2018 line up--I like the new dashboard and the color tweeks. It appears no new models or radical styling changes. Not enough for :spyder2: number six for me.

I am still happy with my 2011 and 2014. Guess that will be where I am for another year. :yes::yes:

 

[SpyderConvert]

My Conversion

In October of '14 I bought what I thought was my ultimate ride - a '14 Kawasaki Voyager! I had retired that January and rode every chance that I got. I decided to ride out to Colorado to see a cousin that I had not seen for about 22 years and did that in May of '15. Rotten weather the whole time out there and on 3 occasions, at a stop light, it started to lean over and I could do no more than "soften the blow". The worst part was that I couldn't pick it back by myself! On 1 occasion, I parked it on the side of an on ramp, with the nose pointing down and to the left and couldn't get it off the kickstand. Since my wife had actually started to ride with me, I realized that I needed a ride with more stability so I started looking at trike conversions for my Voyager. The more that I researched, I came to realize that that kind of trike had their own stability problems, so I started looking at Spyders. I purchased my '15 RTL in June of '16 from a dealer outside of Philadelphia and my first ride was bringing it home on I-95. My wife wants to ride every chance that we get and feels much more confident on the Spyder. I'm glad that I made the choice.

 

[Gator37]

Started riding two wheelers in the 7th grade, a Cushman Husky, and didn't stop for nearly 60 years. Started following SpyderLovers in 2013 after seeing a Spyder on a trip to Seattle. In 2015 after two knee replacements I took a test ride on a 2014 RT at Lifestyle Honda and was hooked. Just wasn't comfortable holding up those 800 lb. bikes anymore. Traded in my Harley and Goldwing and have never looked back.

 

[jtpollock]

Just got back on line saw this post: Why did I buy me Spyder well long story. I use to ride a Honda Shadow ACE loved it two wheels put 87000 miles on it. One afternoon I was backing out of a parking space and my foot slipped on the gravel in the parking space jammed my hip and dropped my bike I told my wife I would never do that again. I had been watching the web since 2000 when I saw the first images of the Spyder and took my first test ride in early 2007 on a CAN-AM RIDE DAY. WOW it took until 2012 I was able to finally get my RS and have been riding the wheels of ever since. Love it and have enjoyed every question odd photo ops people taking photos as I ride down the highway nojoke jtpollock

 

[Fat Baxter]

Been riding for 40 years, 32 of which were on BMWs. I started having knee issues and was concerned about dropping my RT. Then, the only BMW dealer in Alabama went out of business, as did my shadetree BMW mechanic, leaving me with a 15 year old bike with 73,000 miles and starting to develop some issues.

I originally was looking at a Ural rig, as they are what BMW used to be: a simple-as-heck machine that anyone can wrench. Plus, their reliability had come way up in recent years (durability has never been an issue -- those things a built like a tank!). But my wife couldn't see the sense in a sidecar. She saw a Spyder commercial and said, go look. So I did, and now have a 2014 RT-S with just over 23K miles.

My biggest concern remains the thin dealer network, but these things seem to be very reliable, so I'll just keep riding.