An unusual new Royal Enfield owner

Perhaps there is no "typical" owner of a Royal Enfield motorcycle. Josh Moore of Kansas says he doesn't "fit the typical demographic of Bullet owners," and he is probably right about that. Here's the story of this first-time Bullet owner and how he came to buy a Royal Enfield:

"I'm a 25-year-old college student with little-to-no motorcycle experience. I used to ride dirt bikes when I was about 13, but that's really the extent. My father has been a bike owner and rider his entire life, and has built his own bikes for the past 15 years.

"I first decided that I absolutely needed a motorcycle this past summer. I have traveled around much of the world for the past five-to-six years, but for the past three years I have been spending my entire summers in North Africa -- in Morocco, to be specific. I have been doing ethnographic fieldwork among a small Berber tribe who live between the world's largest desert, the Sahara, and North Africa's tallest mountain range, the Atlas Mountains.

"On this most recent trip I brought my girlfriend Jasmine with me to help with my research; basically, she could get into the world of women in ways that I could never dream to, as Morocco is a traditional Islamic nation and the Berbers are very deep-rooted in time-honored traditions.

"When we arrived in Marrakesh, we were strolling through the open-air markets, and after seeing a horde of little scooters zooming by, I made the comment that it would be really neat to rent a scooter for ourselves and use it to take us all around Morocco. A passing comment turned into an obsession over the course of the next few days. I vigorously tried hunting down a scooter that I could rent, to no avail. Upon hearing my plans to ride the scooter up and over the Atlas Mountains and through parts of the Sahara Desert, they all deemed me 'crazy' and told me that such a trip was utterly impossible on these little 49cc scooters.

"So I just bought one. We found a shop that would sell us a brand-new one for just under a $1,000. A few days later, we were packed and ready to go. The impossible turned out to be very possible. Our little scooter, christened 'Jamiyla' ('the little camel' in Arabic), took us up and over the tallest mountain range in North Africa with little problems. We took the scooter out to the Sahara Desert, despite numerous warnings that this would be utterly impossible, and only manageable with a four wheel drive vehicle. In all, we ended up putting over 3,000 miles on the scooter in about two and a half months.

"The trip was breathtaking, fascinating, and opened me up to a whole new world: two wheels and the open road. I told Jasmine that immediately after getting back from the trip, I would have to get a motorcycle. My initial intention was to just get a cheap little scooter similar to what I rode around Morocco. I did some looking after I got back, and I always hesitated when I found a scooter that seemed like it would be decent enough. Then I happened upon the Triumph Scrambler. I was an inch away from making the $8,000 plunge to pick up the Scrambler, as its vintage look really appealed to me."

Next: Buying a Royal Enfield

To read about Josh Moore's journey to the Sahara on a motor scooter check his www.IndianaJosh.com blog. Be sure to watch the touching video at the end of one post, with Josh's girlfriend Jasmine singing The Star Spangled Banner beautifully inside a Berber tent.