PARALLEL LIVES

Two guys, two bikes, same hearts

- Kartik Ware

The more things remain the same, the more they change. Do excuse the rather languid restructuring of the cliché, but I couldn’t think of a better way to describe these two motorcycles. The Thruxton is still a café racer and the Bonneville is still a classic standard street bike, but they couldn’t be more different, both from their past incarnations as well as from each other. Inescapably, however, the fact remains that both still do share the same 1200cc heart; they’re cut from the same cloth, as it were, though it’s funny how one seems to demand slider-shod leather riding pants, while the other looks happy between a pair of oil-stained jeans.

Speaking of differences and similarities, there’s Kyle Pereira and me. Both of us are 33 years old, both have a congenital and terminal love for motorcycles, both began truly living their lives in the pages of this very magazine in 2008, and both might one day face exile from society due to our shared fondness for unpolitical correctness. But that’s where the likeness ends. You see, when we started out being the motorcycle guys at Motoring, it was the differences between us that defined us. Or rather, we let them.

Kyle was and still is the wrencher, while I liked to believe (still do) that I was the faster guy. He liked solving problems in his garage, while I had a tendency to create them. The resulting friction wasn’t always welcome, but motorcycles and Motoring formed a bond between us that is far better than what Kyle can manage with a welding machine. We’re closer friends now than ever. Our digs at each other, though, haven’t improved much. Or at all.