I had a thought to change after a long weekend away two weeks ago in the Dales, we were riding down some very poorly surfaced roads with very undulating surfaces, and for the first time I was wary of my feet dangling in the air when I went to put my feet down over some gravelly surfaces, this has never been apparent before as I hadn't been riding in such conditions with full luggage and a pillion, and there were just a couple of moments when I could have done with longer legs.
This is when I thought h'mmm maybe the next bike could be the lowered option, anyway I rang up Piddy's last Friday to get a price for a pair of new PR4's and my 6000 miles service, we got chatting as you do, and I asked about the lowered suspension bikes, salesman said he had one and also had a buyer for my bike, yeh, I know it's probably just sales pitch, anyway he offered my a very good deal on my bike and then when I considered that I was just about to pay £500.00 plus for the new boots and service I thought it made good sense to do the deal, just like that! If I wasn't going to be carrying a pillion with full luggage on poorly surfaced roads then I wouldn't have bothered. I'll miss the 2013 'full-on' bike.
I hope that I've made the right decision as my 2013 bike has been just brilliant, I think that if I can have the same bike that is just 30mm lower it will be just the ticket, expensive 30mm? maybe, but not if it helps me keep it upright in tricky conditions.
My mate has very recently got the low bike and when I tried it I thought it was really handy, not a lot of difference but just enough, he loves his low bike to bits!
Anyway we'll see how she goes, I'll keep you posted.
