30K today

Whenever my bikes reach a 'milestone' mileage, something untoward always
seems to happen just a few miles short of the magic number.

My Guzzi Quota got shunted just shy of 50K miles, the V11 blew its reg/
rec just shy of 20K miles, and these are just two instances that I can
recall.

 

I had a bar end fall off yesterday - does that count?

 

Correct. The Street Triple has something called character, and a power
delivery that excites. The power and torque curves of the Tiger 800 are
virtually flat lines, there's nothing exciting about them whatsoever.

It's a damn shame because I really wanted to like the bike and it was
top of my list as a replacement for the Versys in a year or so.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

I wouldn't rule it out if you're up for a bit of tweaking. The 885 was
the same, but remove the blanking cap from the blocked off side of the
airbox & rejet it & you get a totally different beast. Similarly a can
& re-map makes a big difference to the 955. I'm sure the secret of
waking up the 800 will be discovered within the next year.

 

Not even close!

 

Maybe well accepted by those that can consistently ride fast and/or
who are competent back lane scratchers.

For those of us that aren't ex racers or riding gods, the Blackbird is
more than exciting enough

Paul.

 

Just the can and a K&N (without the remap) make a huge difference.

So does no screen, but that's not particularly pretty

Paul.

 

ZZR1100 was made from 1990 - 2000 (or so)
CBR1100 was made from 1997 - 2007

which suggests that, at most, it "consistently out sold it" for a very
small part of either bike's production run.

The only sales figures I've found so far are for 2001 ...

701cc plus.
1. Honda CBR900RR-Y 2376.
2.Yamaha YZF-R1 2164.
3. Suzuki GSX-R1000 K1 1638.
4. Honda VFR800F 1552.
5. Honda CBR1100XX 1330.

 

I didn't take issue with the assertion that it was dull - about the
only time I remember it being exciting was while it was bouncing down
the A13.

Though, the run from Bordeaux to Tours was "interesting" enough - but
that was because the A10 was empy.

 

People who think they aren't exciting aren't twisting the throttle
enough. My 97 with carbs was scary. I remember doing 265km/h and it
still had loads left. The dotted white line because a single blurred
line.

Fraser

 

It's all relative. Doing 165mph may not be dull, but how it gets there
certainly can be compared to other bikes, as can how fast it /feels/
like you're going when you do get there.

Consider an old 250cc piston port 2-stroke versus a modern 500
4-stroke. They might both do 0-60 in 4 seconds, but the 4-stroke will
take the same time to do each 10mph increase, whereas the 2-stroke will
take 3 seconds to get to 20mph then do 20-60 in 1 second[1]. It's
pretty obvious which would feel the most exciting.

The old Saab 900 Turbo was the same. The 0-60 time was nothing special,
because the first few seconds were lost waiting for the turbo to spool
up. But the 40-60 time would trounce pretty much anything else on the
roads. Which made them much more exciting to drive than bigger engined
non-turbo cars with the same power.

[1] Random figures to make the point.

 

I can find it exciting going much more slowly than 165 mph even up a
straight, if it's steep and narrow enough with not much braking area at
the end of it. Context innit?


--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Aprilia Shiver Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Quite.

We all know Champ's riding experiences are far in excess of what most
of us have achieved, or will ever achieve, but simply saying that
165mph on a motorbike *isn't* fast is bit silly, really.

 

Oh, in that case, GFY.

 

It's fast when you have kangaroos bouncing all over shop.

Fraser

 

Fast in a straight line is where the Blackbird is most exciting. But
they are shit around corners. A CBR250RR might be fast in corners but
shit in a straight line. It's all relative.

Fraser

 

I bought one of them from a mate, who'd had his fun with it - and had
done something silly with the wastegate. Anyway, it wasn't the power
it made, it was the way it made it. Watching the little boost gauge
creep up, then ... wham! Could easily catch out the unwary gassing it
off the apex, particularly in the damp or cold, with shagged front
tyres.

That was the car I learned left-foot braking to its full potential in:
keep the throttle open, brake around the roundabout, then let the brake
off and the thing would howl up the road. Great sleeper car, nobody
expected a sedate saloon to do what it did.

 

Have you checked under your desk?

 

I had the old frisson yesterday, coming back from Motting the Bandit.
Nice warm lunchtime, dry B road and let it have some. Ooh, bumps.
Ooh, faceful of clocks. Ooh, bloody hell, bollards in the middle of
the bloody road.

Had to go round and do it again.

 

Great sleeper car in every sense. Double bed sized sleeping area with
the back seats down, parcel shelf in just the right place to stick your
morning cuppa on (in the saloon version at least), & the ignition being
between the seats meant you could switch the central heating on without
getting out of bed if it got a bit chilly.

I want another one now damnit.