Five types of NYC motorcyclists

Riding through the city, I keep running into the same types - but different riders - over and over again. This has led me to the conclusion that downtown NYC is dominated by five types of bikes/riders:

1) Ducati S2/800 riders: there seem to be dozens of Ducatis roaming about on any given weekend, and hundreds more parked curbside on side streets. I always see more riders standing next to their bikes, talking to other people, than I see actually riding. This leads me to a broad, sweeping generalization that these folks are mostly novice riders, students or young professionals with a fleeting fancy to ride, but mostly into it for the social image of riding. These bikes turn over like hot cakes on Craigslist, which only confirms my assessment.

2) BMW folks: not surprisingly, there are quite a few BMW bikes in the neighborhood. This makes sense, since there's a massive BMW dealership in midtown West. Funny thing is, I almost always see these riders on the West side highway or FDR, which makes sense, because I can't imagine trying to pilot one of those massive bikes through street traffic. I imagine if I had a BMW on the weekend, I'd be hitting the highways for Jersey, Penn, or CT just as fast as possible.

3) Buellers: surprisingly, I seem quite a few fellow Buell bikes parked on the streets. Mostly, I see them parked in midtown, or on Park Ave., which leads me to believe their riders are working professionals, commuters, and probably live out in one of the boroughs. I've yet to meet one of these guys riding on the weekends.

4) Temporary sportbiker: there's this poor sportbike over on 2nd ave that gets more abuse than any other bike I've seen. The poor thing is chained, locked up, and very well secured, but seems to be on its side every other weekend. I think this typifies the NYC sportbiker's experience; frustration. You'll usually catch a glimpse of one of these bikes for a week, and then you'll never see them in the area again. I've concluded they either get stolen, or the owners never come to grips with their paranoia and park them in a garage somewhere.

5) Dormant cruisers: they're everywhere, sitting on side streets just taking up space. I mean really, someone's got to move them on street cleaning day twice a week, right? So why don't I ever see these guys? It's amazing. Cruisers win the award for lowest ratio of hours ridden to hours parked of any class of bike in NYC. For the record, I've heard that Harley's get stolen very often in NYC, which explains why the only ones you see parked on the streets are retros from the 70's or 80's.