The odometer on my 2006 VFR800 is going to turn 11,500 miles on the way home from work today. That’s the miles since I rebuilt it last year and had to replace the instrument cluster. The old odometer had 11,108 when it was damaged so overall the engine has 22,600 on it. Not too shabby for a bike that I got new off the showroom in early 2008 and that’s owned by somebody with family and a full time job. I go into the office 3 days a week and the round trip is approximately 35 miles so that’s about 5000 miles a year right there. If I can make it to about December 31, 2010 I will have gone a full year without driving a car to work once.
I’m lucky that for most of my trip I have an HOV lane to ride in. If I had to go that full distance in traffic, I’d just take a car or the bus. I wouldn’t want to be in stop and go traffic on the freeway on a motorcycle for several reasons not limited to getting run over, it’s really stressful in traffic on a bike, and in the summer it’s REALLY hot in among the cars with little air flow.
Anyway, I have to keep adding the miles. I bought a service plan when I got the bike that covers all regularly scheduled maintenance for 3 years and I think that’s up in March. I want to get to the 24,000 mile mark because that’s a pretty extensive service interval that would likely cost $700-$800 if I had to pay for it. The service plan cost me about $1200 when I bought it and I’ve already gotten double that amount out of it.
