Ha! ... I said Ha .. !
Yer know what? Spookily, Mr Sparks has bloody stolen my thunder
Today I've been out and was going to write, tonight, something along the lines of 'you lot are a bunch of complaining old women ... !' and the bastard's beaten me to it
We've had, (in no particular order..)
It's lost its GS soul
Pointless electronics
Had enough I'm buying a Harley
My panniers don't fit
Head shakes
Rear pad wear
Whining noise ....... and a shed more complaints if I could be bothered to look them up. (not least the gearbox)
So today, I did the 30 miles of cross country A and B roads to my dealer to pick up my panniers that have been on back order. (Yep - they weren't with the bike when I picked it up and that didn't phase me, and I didn't whine about it
)
I relatively bimbled there. I-pod on and cruised in that 'GS character ' way. Luvverley. Birds, bees, Vaughan Williams and all the zips down on my jacket in the soaring heat.
The gear box was absolutely fine and I had the most stress free journey there imaginable. That GS soul? That 'thing' the GS has? It still has it
It'll pootle about with yer missus on the back. After a long day it'll cruise to the Rogart railway carriages with the wild stag looking down on you while you soak up the sunset
. Easy life! Spades of 'character'.
On the way home, I put the i-pod away and hooned it.
Now I'm sorry to sound arrogant, and maybe a bit cocky, but if i'm going to hoon a bike, I'd challenge most people to try and keep up !!
On a selection of smooth, bumpy, nadgery and fast flowing rural back roads, I have just ridden this bike like I've stolen it. And I genuinely say this; On the roads that I was on (bearing in mind I work full time as a motorcyclist and have Blades and Gixxers at my disposal and can pretty much ride 'em as fast as I want..) short of a dedicated, purely focused hooning machine (something like a 690 SMC), I cannot think of a bike that would have ridden it any quicker. Honestly!!
Yep - there's a few occasions when it's on its throttle stop and yer thinking 'c'mon catch up .. catch up ..' but those odd occasions are outweighed by the floating active suspension on bumpy nadgery stuff, where you're able to put all the power down in complete confidence - your Blade or Gixxer would be completely out of it's comfort zone.
Amongst the traffic you can see well - making scanning and planning a doddle, it has beautiful mid range grunt that just picks off overtakes in the blink of an eye ... and the yin and the yang of instant grunt means instant engine braking - shut the gas and float in between the traffic as you pick them off one by one. And you could sit on it and do it aaaaalllll feckin' day
Fuck me this is a good bike.
Now I'm sure one or two of you may well have a dodgy gearbox, but mine is as sweet as as a sweet thing. Yer wanna short shift it?? Yer wanna hang on to the gears and stretch the revs? Yer wanna ride all systemised and only take a gear as you approach that hazzard when you need it? Yer wanna just bodge yer boring roadcraft book a tad and bring it hard down on the gears as you come into that tight right hander instead of using the brakes??
Mine does it all, without a care in the world. Use the clutch on the way up? Bin the clutch on the way up? Mine's like a knife through butter.
Is the road just a tad bumpy here? I had one bit this afternoon that had quite a bit of broken tarmac - lumps and bumps and a poor surface. At pushing three figures, I've softened the damping without even looking at the dash and have deliberately tried to get the bike out of shape under throttle stop acceleration round a long left hander.
Not phased one iota. The bike just sat there, squirming, squirreling but ultimately glued to the road.
Yer wanna hoist a minger coming off the lip of that bowl shaped roundabout without the ASC kicking in?? Enduro Pro took about one and a half seconds to select.
I was thinking about the 'balls of yer feet thread'
Bloody hell you can haul this bike about! In particular is the way you can pick it up
out of a corner. Push that peg into the floor as you haul that bar up to straighten the bike up .... what a hoot
It's like riding a big grown up super moto bike ...
My indicators are perfectly fine, my horn is right where I want it, my Remus sounds perfect and the screen is spot on.
And tomorrow ... tomorrow ????
I'll probably bimble out at half six with her indoors on the back, and do no more than 30mph. we'll take moss and grass strewn lanes for a lazy pint while supper warms in the oven, and in September we'll load her up, cruise down to Corsica, nip over to Italy and enjoy long days in the saddle loaded to the gunnels with shoes, more shoes and bloody hairdryers.
Not only is this bike is a very ... very good bike, but it does it all
We're not all the same - yes we're all Gods little children, but some want adventure, some want economy for commuting, some want touring, some want hooning on the weekend with their mates ...
There's nothing this bike won't do
So stop bloody whining .... yer bunch of feckin' house wives ...
. Well stated Sparky!
