An old love-Daytona 675 back in the garage
Shit the years have ticked away. Back in ancient times, circa 2007 I bought a new Daytona 675. To this day I still consider it was the best chassis-suspension, handling bike I've ridden. I did 67,000km in three years on that beauty and countless trackdays. The Indian Scout is a keeper for sure but there are those sweet corners and urges for pace where I'd think, oh how I would have caned that corner on my ....
Well, I gave in and bought a 2012 Daytona. The joy is it was about the last generation of bikes made before ABS, before traction control, before power modes and bloody safety features here there and every bloody where interfered with our fun. I feel the joy of being 'unplugged' again. Fark I can stoppie again and this time without having to reset anything. Who needs ABS with brake control like this baby has.
Age has taken its' toll though and the head down, bum up position is extreme and leaves me, well a tad sore after 20 minutes! The exhilaration makes up for it luckily.
Best memories returning are; The near perfect handling when on pace through twisties; The weird triple whirling noise; stoppies, wheelies but I am struggling to get back into the swing of how to do them on this bike and at this point they are a tad feeble and more a work in progress. This 675 doesn't seem to have the upper rev range punch I remember to lift the front wheel. Maybe the standard muffler is strangling the HP.
So here's 2007 the way I remember it and 2012 (chilled). Oh yeah the seller gave me a set of new indicators to replace the floppy one on the front right. Sorted.
Happiness is a means of travel, not a destination
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