Month: July 2017

More bikes!

I know. This is of no interest to anyone but me. I’ve given up imagining anyone but me reads this, so that’s alright, then. It’s been a rollercoaster ride. I was trying to be sensible and sell the two bikes to pay for that gorgeous, fully sorted one. But I kept looking at it, then looking at every other VFR750 up for sale, then back at it. None of the others were sorted. Some were tidy, some were low miles, but I would have still had to splash out on fork springs (£118), rear shock (£300), on some of them the stainless steel exhaust system (£300) etc… I drove Wendy nuts with my obsessing. She told me to get the bike just to shut me up. Win! I texted the guy, but it was an 18 day old advert. No reply. I was despairing thinking he’s sold it. Tried an email, some people don’t like texts. He replied, still had it! Joy unbounded! I arranged to go and see it, arse-end of beyond. Got the cash out, bought the train ticket, (£47, nearly 5 hours trip) arranged the insurance, went to bed all full of new bike joy. Woke up to “DO NOT TRAVEL, BIKE SOLD!” Devastated beyond words. My perfect bike, sat there unwanted for 19 days, I was on my way to make sure it was as described then hand over the cash, and some bastard snapped it up. I lost £20 cancelling my insurance, and the £47 for the train ticket because I’d booked it in advance. But that was just salt in the wound. So gutted. So, as ever, I changed my plan. I thought, “Bugger it. There is nothing wrong with my bike. It’s a bit scruffy but the engine is solid as rock, I’ll just sort that out on the cheap.” I window shopped all the prices, it came to over £600 in bits, some of which were hard to fit, the mechanics charge £63 per hour labour, so over a grand. And I’d still have a scruffy bike. I was up for it. But Wendy who is, as I say, (justifiably) heartsick of me fucking about about with bikes, said “Why not just bite the bullet and buy the new (2014, £6,500) one? You won’t have to do anything to it. For ever.” I was sorely tempted. I want, I want. But it’s so much money. I spent hours googling. It turns out the reason the VFR750 is a legend of reliability and bulletproof engine over-engineering is the gear driven cams. There is no cam chain to slap, stretch or snap. But cam chains are much cheaper and easier to manufacture. So after a decade or so of utterly redeeming themselves Honda went back to cam chains in 2002. Cue cam chain issues. It’s Honda, so I expect they quickly got it right, but it was the cam chain model that nearly ruined their reputation, and after they stopped the gear driven cams […]

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Bikes.

My biking obsession is driving Wendy to despair. But I’m sure she’s sharing my joy, really. Deep down inside. Well hidden. Behind a smokescreen of rage. Anyway. I got that TL1000S after the Motorcycle News (MCN) review that basically said it will scare the shit out of you and try to throw you into the scenery.  Guess what? It scared the shit out of me and tried to throw me into the scenery. Oddly it’s not as much fun as it sounds. It was just an awesome, full-on, loony machine. There was no ‘potter around’ setting. You were either committed or parked. It still sounds fun. In real life that’s great for dry, straight roads, terrifying in the wet at roundabouts.  It’s probably just me, never having had a race bike before, but it was just too much. Being a V twin 1000cc the power didn’t build with the revs it just kicked you in the arse as soon as you touched the throttle. I couldn’t feed it in. I was in two minds about it. I’ll never own a bike that awesome again, but if it’s that bad in summer, imagine riding it to work through winter? I was on riding on eggshells as it was. The tickover problem decided me. The (£60 p/h!) Suzuki specialist mechanics said it would need an engine strip to find the problem, possibly thousands of pounds. I sold it. I was going to sell my CB750 as well. Put it through the MOT before the insurance runs out on the 21st, and it failed. Of course it did. Back brake disc worn, pads buggered. Also advisory on chain. I remain in a state of flux over bikes, so I pulled the ebay listing, ordered the disc, (already had some pads) and chain and sprocket set and was going to keep it. I’m finishing off fitting it today when the rain stops. Then I came across an MCN review of the Honda VFR750 from the 90’s.  “For many, bike journalists included, the best road bike ever built.” Whoa! MCN don’t mince their words. (My favourite being a review of a supersports bike “Goes like buggery. Just as uncomfortable.”) That is a breathtakingly audacious statement. Apparently Mr Honda had the idea that a V4 engine was the future, rolled out the first generation of bikes, but they were flawed, “chocolate cams”, cams kept buggering up. So it was either scrap the whole V4 concept and accept brand humiliation or redesign it as the most wonderfully over-engineered, bullet-proof, benchmark legend ever to be built. Honda. Obviously they redeemed themselves. MCN: “A Honda PR man once (fairly) famously joked that “I don’t care how much a VFR costs, it’s worth three times as much.” He’s not far wrong.”  “For a Japanese superbike, the VFR is about as good as it gets. Build quality is sublime, reliability… is total. Don’t let high mileages put you off: VFR head over 75,000 with impunity…” So then I *had* to have […]

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