Just what Robert Frost had in mind with the road not taken, I don’t know, but my puzzle begins years ago, just after CBS bought Cycle World.

CBS founder Bill Paley asked CW founder Joe Parkhurst, “Why do people ride motorcycles?” and Joe said, “It’s fun.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Paley, who went on (to his credit, in my book) to protect the magazine from the corporation.

Next step came when I was in line at the movie complex in a shopping center, and I noticed that the gym next door had valet parking.

No kidding, honest. The fitness fans were paying kids to walk across the parking lot so they—the fit folks, I mean—could spend more time on the treadmill.

Of course, I realized, for exercise to pay off, it must be wasted exercise. If you actually accomplish something with your sweat, it doesn’t count.

It’s not fun.

Which led to my dismissal of the noble-in-purpose Ride to Work Day, which, to me, is like abusing your elderly mom 24/7/364 and then sending her a mushy card on Mother’s Day, on grounds it brings the account into balance.

By the same token, if you got your motorcycle because riding is fun, using the bike to commute makes it less fun or no fun. So, hundreds of thousands of motorcycle owners use the Bonneville or the Ducati or Ninja or whatever for fun on Sunday and drive the 12-mpg Blazer or Durango to work or school.

(And don’t try the electric-car gambit on me, greenies. We get half our electricity from coal—carbon to the core—so, every time you plug in the charger, you help produce greenhouse gases. And, by the way, solar power puts 12 percent of the collected heat into volts and 88 percent into the atmosphere, but those are stories for another time.)

Okay, so we aren’t gonna ride to work, question answered if not problem solved.

Why don’t some bike owners ride?

Funny questions, eh? It began a year or so back, when I decided I needed to own a Triumph Trophy Trail, the 1973 dual-sport 500cc Twin, as seen in the ISDT.

I went on the web and presto! there was one for sale, a fair price and only 8500 miles in 37 years. I bought it, and no sooner did I haul it home than I was offered another TR5T, closer to home with fewer miles, then another, used only on nice days by an old guy, and another still, kept in a heated garage and only used during the man’s two-week summer vacation.

A Trophy Trail is the motorcycling equivalent of a comfy chair: easy starts, goes anywhere except the Interstate, and yet a significant share of the limited-production run seems to have spent its life in the barn.

Worse is the find that began as a rare example of common sense.

Kawasaki’s 250 Ninja has been the brand’s best-seller for years, never mind all those silly cruisers and bruisers. Five years ago, we did a petrol-pinching comparison, and I realized that the 250 Ninja was all a practical rider needed, as in 300 pounds, 75 mpg and power enough to beat the traffic.

So, I set out to get one. Dial up Craigslist and presto! there was a selection just waiting for my money.

But wait. The yellow example near Boston had a handful of miles. The blue job down the road from me showed 1062 miles on the odo and, my goodness, the black one near Las Vegas had done only 175 miles. In five years.

What happened? Or more accurately, why didn’t it happen?

The Vegas bike was advertised with a home video, titled, “Fred’s New Motorcycle.” (The name’s been changed to protect the guy.) Here’s Fred, kind of big for a 250, but skip that. He’s grinning ear-to-ear as he rides up and down the neighborhood, and it’s a nice neighborhood, with new cars, tended lawns, etc.

This surely was a good day, and yet five years and 175 miles later, Fred’s ready to bail.

Too much bother? When Mike Anson and I worked for Road & Track, we used to borrow bikes from the Cycle World garage—we shared a building. One day, Mike said people said they didn’t ride because of the danger, but really, he reasoned, it was the bother—putting on the gear, then taking off the gear at work or school or shop, stowing the stuff, putting it back on and so forth. Easier, he said, to jump in the car; no bother.

My guess is, that’s right. Plus, riding a motorcycle requires paying attention to what’s going on, while as anyone with a license can attest, driving means you just sit there listening to the disc jockeys.

All of which is a boost for we serious few. I got the Ninja from down the road, absolutely flawless and shiny, for a good price. Okay, I had to pay extra for the tag ’cause it hadn’t been registered for two years, but because I put 90,000 miles in 15 years on my 1986 Sportster and 60,000 miles in 10 years on my ’01 XLCH, I expect to get equal use from the Ninja.

Even so, I’m sorry that a portion of the motorcycle-buying public has missed out on the fun.

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