Ocean1
13th August 2007, 03:01
Last week I bought a Buell, an ’06 XB12R.
This after weeks bickering with what passes for my resident internal Voice of Reason. “It’s too small for you, too uncomfortable, twitchy, far too much like some prop for a Thunderbirds movie. You’ll kill yourself dead…” Until finally I called it names, “old coward” worked, and reason is banished to the back benches. For now.
The brother (ZZR1200) came to help me unload if from the van, “Fark, it’s tiny. Cute though. You wana go for a ride this weekend?” I mumbled something about chores, domestic felicity etc. “And the weather’s supposed to be shit…” So, Saturday, rain, chores, wind, brief hoon on the new toy to see a mate. Sunday morning, more chores, sun… SUN? Called the brother. “Coffee in Martinborough, says he, see you at my place midday.”
Now he of the ZZR has a few miles under his belt, worth listening too. “It’s wetish”, says he. Me: “So I should take it easy with these semi-slicks huh? (just to show I’m not a complete idiot). “Moss, says he. “Out in the back blocks, stay the fuck off the green shit, even when you can't see it.” Right, so, off up through Upper Hutt, trying to figure what gear best suits the oversized Briggs & Stratton as it burbles, bitches and grumbles at 50k, (none, it’s just naturally philosophically adverse to 50k). Te Marua, (dry I see), the V twin starts to sound and feel like it’s supposed to. Into the first of those big sweeping curves, down to 3rd, there’s the apex, turn it in… here, not fast understand, but brisk, enough to see what that “something weird” I’d previously noticed going on up front was. It’s almost like at a certain point the bike seems to notice that you’ve decided to change direction, begrudgingly obliges and the front wheel steps out a couple of inches to sorta brace itself. Scary. Still, it soon becomes obvious it’s not a prelude to anything nasty, just unsettling at first.
Up that last long straight before The Hill and past the only other traffic in sight… and the type of road I hoped was the reason I’d bought the bike is here, now. The Brother’s away, “sweet line mate” I think, and again. Half way up and I start to relax as it becomes apparent the machine isn’t going to spit me off unless I do something stupid… or maybe get very unlucky. It occurs to me about here that the Buell’s engine makes this bloody easy. The power’s not the homogenous stream of a 4, it comes in big congealed lumps. But perhaps because you can feel it, (yes and hear it) it’s perfectly predictable. Also, there’s very little surge as it comes onto the cam, it just keeps building, coming on with the revs. How does it handle? Wrong person to ask, I’ve got too little to compare it to. I can tell you I like the way it behaves at anything more than first gear. The steering geometry and short wheelbase means it does need a bit of pressure on the bars to keep it turning in, but the flip side is that is you can make quite serious line adjustments quite quickly. The important thing is that it seems to be predictable, and that means I can learn what makes it work. Further up now and there’s a bus, and here’s the last passing lane before the top.. oops, and there’s the rev limiter. “So what did we think of that then? I ask myself, and laugh. I think it’s going to be a good day.
A nod to the half a dozen standing around their bikes at the top, and down the other side. Traffic now, which is OK because I’m trying to stay out of a constant stream of diesel, and the rain starts again. Be easy to lose it here, between the diesel and the shiny wet lines, but that big inside-out front brake is very good, very reassuring. One of Reason’s arguments involved the riding position, and half way down I am starting to feel an old niggle in my right wrist. Luckily I can’t feel it too much, I forgot to put the liner back into my jacket and in the shade of the hill I’m bloody cold. And my legs feel fine, not too scrunched up (yet anyway). The sun comes out again as we leave Featherston, and the weight comes off my wrists at the recommended retail speed up the main drag. Out east of Geraldton a bit and we stop for a break.
Instructions about where we’re going, what to watch for, (Yes I know, you told me about the godam moss), and away around a 60k loop ending in the promised coffee in Martinborough. Managed to navigate the dreaded moss, numerous deposits of horse/cow/sheep/duck shit, great drifts of leaves, storm-broken branches and even a whole tree across the road. Successfully failed to hit a couple of stray lambs, a few cyclist and a fucking great bull on the run from what I can imagine was a life fraught with strife with his 137 heifers. There was one slight blemish, on a right hander, about 70k. In one of those long 5 minutes that you later realise was in fact 0.37 seconds the front went awol. In the time it took me to think “Fuck, I’ve got a flat” and twitch the bars a smidgeon away from the turn it was over, the front had slid an inch, recovered, slid another inch etc. etc. and within about a metre was back on the job, all sweet. The fact that it then felt fine (so not a flat at all) didn’t stop me running as wide as possible (not very) and feeling seriously miffed about the whole episode. I did go back to look but while there may have been a few semi-rotten leaves involved and the Pirelli Super Corsa’s are well into their “replace now” indicator bits it was hard to fully explain the sudden wee excursion. Brief chat with self: “You / the bike managed it OK, either get over it or push the fuckin’ bike home.”
So what did we learn today? Well, Reason’s usually right, and I often regret not listening. But not this time, I love this bike, sure it’s different but I don’t really know any better. I have ridden a few recently, in an attempt to figure out what I wanted, and on that simple basis and with a first decent ride behind me I’d chose the same one again. This bike’s tight, I like the way it’s been set up, maybe both ends could do with a hint less compression damping but I’ll wait until another ride or two before I start playing. It rolls into turns accurately once you learn to be firm with it, and that wonderful big under-square double thumper pulls it out of the turns beautifully at anything above 2000 rpm.
The coffee in Martinborough is pretty good, I’ll be back. Yeah, I think this is the bike I’d hoped it was. It’s fun. More importantly it’s also fun at sensible (even legal) velocities. Except in town, it don’t do town well, we should get on fine.
This after weeks bickering with what passes for my resident internal Voice of Reason. “It’s too small for you, too uncomfortable, twitchy, far too much like some prop for a Thunderbirds movie. You’ll kill yourself dead…” Until finally I called it names, “old coward” worked, and reason is banished to the back benches. For now.
The brother (ZZR1200) came to help me unload if from the van, “Fark, it’s tiny. Cute though. You wana go for a ride this weekend?” I mumbled something about chores, domestic felicity etc. “And the weather’s supposed to be shit…” So, Saturday, rain, chores, wind, brief hoon on the new toy to see a mate. Sunday morning, more chores, sun… SUN? Called the brother. “Coffee in Martinborough, says he, see you at my place midday.”
Now he of the ZZR has a few miles under his belt, worth listening too. “It’s wetish”, says he. Me: “So I should take it easy with these semi-slicks huh? (just to show I’m not a complete idiot). “Moss, says he. “Out in the back blocks, stay the fuck off the green shit, even when you can't see it.” Right, so, off up through Upper Hutt, trying to figure what gear best suits the oversized Briggs & Stratton as it burbles, bitches and grumbles at 50k, (none, it’s just naturally philosophically adverse to 50k). Te Marua, (dry I see), the V twin starts to sound and feel like it’s supposed to. Into the first of those big sweeping curves, down to 3rd, there’s the apex, turn it in… here, not fast understand, but brisk, enough to see what that “something weird” I’d previously noticed going on up front was. It’s almost like at a certain point the bike seems to notice that you’ve decided to change direction, begrudgingly obliges and the front wheel steps out a couple of inches to sorta brace itself. Scary. Still, it soon becomes obvious it’s not a prelude to anything nasty, just unsettling at first.
Up that last long straight before The Hill and past the only other traffic in sight… and the type of road I hoped was the reason I’d bought the bike is here, now. The Brother’s away, “sweet line mate” I think, and again. Half way up and I start to relax as it becomes apparent the machine isn’t going to spit me off unless I do something stupid… or maybe get very unlucky. It occurs to me about here that the Buell’s engine makes this bloody easy. The power’s not the homogenous stream of a 4, it comes in big congealed lumps. But perhaps because you can feel it, (yes and hear it) it’s perfectly predictable. Also, there’s very little surge as it comes onto the cam, it just keeps building, coming on with the revs. How does it handle? Wrong person to ask, I’ve got too little to compare it to. I can tell you I like the way it behaves at anything more than first gear. The steering geometry and short wheelbase means it does need a bit of pressure on the bars to keep it turning in, but the flip side is that is you can make quite serious line adjustments quite quickly. The important thing is that it seems to be predictable, and that means I can learn what makes it work. Further up now and there’s a bus, and here’s the last passing lane before the top.. oops, and there’s the rev limiter. “So what did we think of that then? I ask myself, and laugh. I think it’s going to be a good day.
A nod to the half a dozen standing around their bikes at the top, and down the other side. Traffic now, which is OK because I’m trying to stay out of a constant stream of diesel, and the rain starts again. Be easy to lose it here, between the diesel and the shiny wet lines, but that big inside-out front brake is very good, very reassuring. One of Reason’s arguments involved the riding position, and half way down I am starting to feel an old niggle in my right wrist. Luckily I can’t feel it too much, I forgot to put the liner back into my jacket and in the shade of the hill I’m bloody cold. And my legs feel fine, not too scrunched up (yet anyway). The sun comes out again as we leave Featherston, and the weight comes off my wrists at the recommended retail speed up the main drag. Out east of Geraldton a bit and we stop for a break.
Instructions about where we’re going, what to watch for, (Yes I know, you told me about the godam moss), and away around a 60k loop ending in the promised coffee in Martinborough. Managed to navigate the dreaded moss, numerous deposits of horse/cow/sheep/duck shit, great drifts of leaves, storm-broken branches and even a whole tree across the road. Successfully failed to hit a couple of stray lambs, a few cyclist and a fucking great bull on the run from what I can imagine was a life fraught with strife with his 137 heifers. There was one slight blemish, on a right hander, about 70k. In one of those long 5 minutes that you later realise was in fact 0.37 seconds the front went awol. In the time it took me to think “Fuck, I’ve got a flat” and twitch the bars a smidgeon away from the turn it was over, the front had slid an inch, recovered, slid another inch etc. etc. and within about a metre was back on the job, all sweet. The fact that it then felt fine (so not a flat at all) didn’t stop me running as wide as possible (not very) and feeling seriously miffed about the whole episode. I did go back to look but while there may have been a few semi-rotten leaves involved and the Pirelli Super Corsa’s are well into their “replace now” indicator bits it was hard to fully explain the sudden wee excursion. Brief chat with self: “You / the bike managed it OK, either get over it or push the fuckin’ bike home.”
So what did we learn today? Well, Reason’s usually right, and I often regret not listening. But not this time, I love this bike, sure it’s different but I don’t really know any better. I have ridden a few recently, in an attempt to figure out what I wanted, and on that simple basis and with a first decent ride behind me I’d chose the same one again. This bike’s tight, I like the way it’s been set up, maybe both ends could do with a hint less compression damping but I’ll wait until another ride or two before I start playing. It rolls into turns accurately once you learn to be firm with it, and that wonderful big under-square double thumper pulls it out of the turns beautifully at anything above 2000 rpm.
The coffee in Martinborough is pretty good, I’ll be back. Yeah, I think this is the bike I’d hoped it was. It’s fun. More importantly it’s also fun at sensible (even legal) velocities. Except in town, it don’t do town well, we should get on fine.