by Suff » 17 Apr 2016, 23:27
I'm just back, I left home at 04:30 to get the 06:40 bus to Birmingham from Edinburgh, Which arrived 15 minutes early at 14:10. I then walked to Birmingham New Street and got the train to Coleshill Parkway. When I arrived I attempted to get a Taxi to the bike shop at Jack O Watton Industrial estate.
No taxi's, no busses. Oh well on foot it is then with my rucksack full of bike stuff.
25 minutes later arrive with 30 minutes before the shop shuts.
The salesman was busy so I went to bike world just over the way and bought yet another crash helmet.... At twice the price..
Came back and waited a while then, finally, we did the paperwork. Next snag, all my UK address cards have expired and I don't have the replacements yet and I can't tax online with a British card with a foreign statement address. Decided to do it tomorrow.
I also bought some gloves whilst I was buying the helmet as I only had my spare Swedish winter leather gloves with me. The rest are in my other bike.
So I set off. I couldn't get a sign to the normal M6 north, only the M6 toll which is a pain in the proverbial on a bike, so I decided on the M1/A1 route. The A1 is not so bad on a bike.
I had to fill with fuel just before the M1 and then headed off. By Leeds I was shaking with the cold. I doubled my gloves and reorganised my 3 jackets. But the damage was done, I was too cold for the clothes to help. By Newcastle I stopped at the services and had a 45 minute break, food, and changed my jeans for my tracksuit bottoms I'd brought, more comfortable and warmer. I was warm then and with the double gloves, my headover I found in my jacket pocket and the trackies, plus the heated grips, I remained warm for the rest of the journey.
The A1 was closed at Newcastle and the diversion was a nightmare for a car. I just passed all the queues and got out of there.
I had to fill up with fuel again at Alnwick, 43mpg, not super but then again I was going pretty fast.
I then headed on up the road. Riding a large bike is great. The A1 is a nightmare of a 2 way road up there, unless you have a supercar it's really hard to overtake. On a large bike it's simple. Open the throttle and pass.
The bike performed flawlessly. It is incredibly stable, very comfortable even on a long run and very smooth. For a bike of that size it is remarkably nimble. There was quite a gale going on over the East coast which was throwing the cars, vans and trucks around, the bike was no problem at all. Corners? No problem, again, very stable. I came off the M9 onto the Forth Bridge access road and cruised round it at 45-50mph even in the gale that was blowing. No problem just lean it a bit more.
If I was looking for insane performance I would be disappointed. But I was not, it is to be a commuter bike which has no issue with longer runs. So it's really quite perfect. Riding my Kawasaki, by contrast, is like riding a large block of solid concrete. Albeit an incredibly fast block of solid concrete.
Nice bits are the ABS and the traction control on the bike. Should come in handy when I'm doing daft things like riding it in the Snow which I always do as my bikes are for commuting not showing off on Sunny Sundays...
I now need to get into work tomorrow then do the shuffle to get the car back off the street at the Gyle Centre and the bike back to the apartment too. It's about a 15 minute walk to the main road to get a bus. I'll have to check the times.
It's been a very long day and I only had 1 hours sleep before I left for the bus as I was out at my BIL's on Saturday night. Just as well I had a 7h:40 bus ride to get some sleep in.
There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand Binary and those who do not.