My red and silver Bol D’or is a chick magnet! It’s long, overweight, has dated lines, acres of plastic, and is straight from the 80s. How can this be?
I work in a female-dominated environment and sometimes ride a motorbike to work. Over recent years my colleagues have seen an assortment of machines in the carpark, with nary an affirmation, faint praise, or any expressed admiration. A Triumph Daytona 675 (scorched yellow), BMW S1000RR (red, white, blue), KTM Adventure 990 (white), Aprilia Tuono V4 (yellow); each has come and gone without positive comment. Though one woman described the Tuono as having a transformer ‘face’. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment.
Earlier this week I rode the Bol D’or to work. It was an instant (and completely unintentional) hit. Several women said ‘what a lovely bike’; others started reminiscing about past boyfriends who used to ride; and my 60-something secretary wistfully sighed ‘ah, it must be wonderful to ride off on a bike like that’. So there you have it gents, no need to waste money on a Panigale just to strike up a conversation with the opposite sex. Someone could have parked a 2016 Honda RC213V-S street legal MotoGP replica beside the mighty Bol D’or and it would have been shunned, all $200,000 of it.
My theory? Angular lines, confusing colour schemes, carbonfibre, titanium, complex shapes and panel infills, don’t cut it with the uninitiated. By comparison what does the Bol D’or offer? A classic shape, generous curves, lustrous candy apple red paint, and an inviting seat.