In an attempt for the fourth week running to go to BMAD's weekly bike night on Paignton seafront I met up with a mate last night for the 25 mile wazz down the A380. Fate, of course, placed a wall of cloud over the coast that the Met office assured us contained biblical rain, making us decide to give Paignton a miss and just go for a blast on an around Haldon hill where we would be able to see the bad weather breaking and run for home ahead of it. This would also give us a chance to swap bikes, something I was keen to do because they are virtually identical RR2's except mine is bog standard apart from an Oxford tank pad and an Optimate charger cable but his has got a couple of little mods that I was interested in. For a start he's got a double bubble windscreen against my standard one. I'm only 5' 8" but I do take a bit of a battering at motorway speeds and I not sure about the looks of a spoiler screen. He's also got a GPR steering damper that I was interested in trying and a Remus slip on can. Mine came with an Akropovic slip on in a box so I wanted to see just how much of a difference this simplest of performance mods might make. It was horrible! The steering felt like the front tyre was half flat, the windscreen may have been an improvement but not noticeably so and the muffler didn't feel like it added anything in either performance or noise to my bogo one. But I realise now what was wrong. It's because they are in essence the same bike and I'm so used to how mine sits on the road, sets up in the bends, sounds, responds and feels. And his was just slightly different. It was like somebody had been in my house and moved the furniture slightly. When I was growing up I lived in a block of flats, three on either side of a central stairway and mirror images of the floorplans. Going into the opposite flat was just weird, but if I hadn.t been so familiar with the layout it wouldn't have been so bad. So my conclusion is that I would have learned more if he'd had a Gixxer or a Ninja. What was worse was that it didn't rain until 10:00.
Interestingly I had an RR1 (see my pics) and I loved the bike, it handled very well and I was more than comfortable on it. I now have an RR5 with only 2000 miles on the clock which to me is a new bike and you guessed it, I miss my old blade, this new bike does't handle as well and even after 4 months I'm not settling down with it? I live in Lincolnshire and have never been to the Paignton meet but I've heard its quite good. I have a Bros inlaw and nephew down there that go quite often. Harley and KTM, no blades I'm afraid.
Ps That head bangging make your blogs dificult to read, can you stop his bloody head from moving whilst I'm reading LOL
Sorry Carl, it's like my signature Signature. I started using it primarily when emailing customers (I work mainly with students and artists), the irony is usually lost on them but there ya go.
Thanks mate, I'd hate to have to give him up. It's one of those images that makes me laugh, like this one and this video... Ape With AK-47‏ - YouTube Chimp's with guns... Hilarious!
