All the "mid-life crisis" bikes I've owned in the last ten years - Gen 1 1290 Superduke, breathed on (at great expense..) 1098 Streetfighter, Harley LRS, Rocket 3, Ducati 1260 Diavel (and three or four "normal" ones) - I'd have owned when I was 21 if I'd had the money.
It's probably as well that I didn't because I know I didn't have the skills back then either. Like most youngsters, I just thought I did. 30 years of riding experience, hundreds of thousands of miles under my tyres and a more mature brain count for a lot. Doesn't mean I ride slower. I'm without doubt faster now than I was 30 years ago, even allowing for the fact that my bikes now are much faster than the bikes I had then, but I also ride smarter because with age has come at least a smidgen of wisdom. Which is precisely why insurers make it relatively affordable for 58 year olds to ride these bikes and very expensive for 21 year olds.
None of those bikes were bought for posing potential or bar stool bragging rights. Possibly the Superduke because of the claimed numbers, but only on the strength of the two big KTMs I'd owned previously - and what I knew about the spirit of the KTM brand from experience made it a proposition too enticing to trun down.
All the other supposedly OTT bikes were considered purchases made for a particular purpose. The Diavel the most considered of all since I want to slim my garage down to one bike while retaining elements of the three bikes it was bought to replace in a package that would work for me on multiple levels. It was very much a decision of the head over the heart or putatively dwindling hormones. The obverse to mid-life crisis syndrome is the juvenile wannabe. Arguably the more deluded of the two and the more likely to lead to disaster.
One thing I have learned over the years is that a love of biking can apply to multiple apparently opposing genres simultaneously. If I could I'd have kept every bike I've ever owned and added yet more oddities, such as a 1930's Aerial Red Hunter, a '70's Jap stroker (Suzuki T500 would be my smoker of choice), a Greeves scarmbler with lights on, a KTM RC8R and a Goldwing (just out of curiosity), and about a dozen pipe-dream custom builds....
