If I thought I will live on a feast of R1’s and Fireblades everyday, I was severely mistaken. Tests for these are few and far between. Our staple diet consists of incognito, midsize commuters and dual-purpose bikes. Maybe that tells us something. As much as R1’s grab the headlines, the bread-and-butter for any manufacturer is actually the cheaper bikes that gets updates only once and a while, but sells solidly year after year. For some reason south Africans think you have to have a superbike if you want to have a bike at all (even if you need to do shopping with it everyday), while a bandit 600 is actually what you really need. The UK is the only other market that is as superbike crazy as us, but most other big markets go for dual-purpose and commuters.
Secondly, whatever it is I though I knew about bikes is under revision. Reading a about a bike and how it fits into the market place is just not the same as actually experiencing it. And I have at least one other guy going through the same experience. Like the more dual-purpose bikes I ride the lower down the ranks the BMW F650 falls! Its really a piece of shit now! I rode the Suzuki DR650 that was last updated in 1996 for a week, and I even prefer that to the F650!
Had a supermoto the weekend as well (Suzuki DR-Z400SM - an offroad bike with road suspension, brakes and tyres), and it was a helluva lot of non-sensical fun. If bikes had anything to do with sense, we wouldn’t be riding them at all, and with no other bike is that as apt as a supermoto. It thought it was gonna be a piece of irrelevant shit; based on what I picked up in other magazines.
It similar with a lot of bikes I rode so far; I had certain informed (from reading) assumptions about them, and very rarely were they turn out to be accurate.
My moto now is; don’t say anything about a bike until you ride it. Don’t take what you read in a magazine as definitive; not because they talk shit in the magazine, simply because your experience might be different to what the journalist experienced, bearing in mind different tastes and skill levels.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
More on the FZR
It was a nightmare; frankly. Just another dodgy purchase. Thought I could use a light, powerful to knee-scraper to take onto the track. It had an overheating and flooding problem, chowed plugs by the week.
The test-ride around the block was impressive, but the more time I spent riding it, it seemed to miss something; that X-factor. Maybe that is why it is not as highly rated as the VFR and CBRs, for instance.
It also confirmed my suspicion that a ride around the block is not enough to get an accurate impression of the bike. I eventually swopped it for a Honda CD200.
When it ran, it was nice. This is somewhere in the boland.
Then I took it on a gravel road up paarl mountain. What was I thinking!
Everything shook loose, and it started to leak coolant. It had to be
taken back to town on the back of a trailer.
Met up with this nice FZ400 somewhere in the boland
The test-ride around the block was impressive, but the more time I spent riding it, it seemed to miss something; that X-factor. Maybe that is why it is not as highly rated as the VFR and CBRs, for instance.
It also confirmed my suspicion that a ride around the block is not enough to get an accurate impression of the bike. I eventually swopped it for a Honda CD200.
When it ran, it was nice. This is somewhere in the boland.
Then I took it on a gravel road up paarl mountain. What was I thinking!
Everything shook loose, and it started to leak coolant. It had to be
taken back to town on the back of a trailer.
Met up with this nice FZ400 somewhere in the boland
Babes! Babes!
Stumbled upon these on my PC. Took them about a year ago, when I had a yellow FZR400. Hannellie and Mumtaz vannie Paarl.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Its getting really real
Ok, it’s been three weeks in my dream job. And what an experience!
For our first test I bumped into the very same Transalp I had for two weeks in Cape Town (I remembered the numberplate), and tested it along with the F650GS (again!), but this time in Dakar spec, and the Suzuki V-Strom and Kawasaki Versys. We rode for two days around the foot of the Drakensburg mountains, based at Mount-ex-sources.
I have an inherent discomfort with trailies and dual-purpose bikes, because they are so tall and bulky. I live in perpetual fear of dropping them.
So I was quite apprehensive when for the second test, we were getting even bigger ones; this time the 1200GS BMW, Triumph 1050 Tiger, Ducati Multistrada 1000s, and Beull Ulyses (the tallest of the bunch). They all are fantastic bikes, and very unique. I can’t wait for my longterm bike which will be a Multistrada 1100s.
It is a great relief not to have dropped any of these tall, heavy bikes. But by the end of the week I was quite comfortable, especially with the Buell. However, I remain cautious.
Next week I get a Suzuki DR650 for a week. So my reluctant relationship with trailies continues. I am going to do an off-road riding course sometime, and that will probably the single biggest factor in me finally getting my peace with these bikes. After all, as a journo, I will spent a lot of time with them in future.
We take these bikes to stunning locations. I’ve been to parts of the country I have only seen on postcards; the amphitheatre, the Long-tom Pass, the Natal Midlands. It is difficult to miss the scenic Cape Town with so much else to woe me.
And I most definitely don’t miss that wind in Cape Town! But I am now beginning to miss my friends. My cat will be delivered tomorrow, and I can’t wait. I just hope the poor thing does not get a shock and scrambles off into nowhere!
I was wondering where the stress of a job like this would come. Any job has stress; otherwise it would not be a job.
Well, I am glad I asked; it is hectic. Or hazardous is more like it. We work on public roads, so keeping an eye on the traffic is stressful. Doing repeat runs through a particular corner to get the shot the photographer wants is tiring and especially when you so it in a group, 30cm apart from one another. We easily do that from dawn in the morning till dusk.
My approach to writing about bikes is also challenged; I tend to be very arrogant and negative in my reviews. Well, I am part of a bigger whole now, so diplomacy is key; you don’t want to piss of the people that supplies you your bread!
We are selling a dream; and that dream is motorcycling. So I have to cut down on the negative parts of motorcycling and sell the positives more.
I have to change my frame of reference; not everybody has my background where a bike is my only mode of transport, and hence has a particular set of requirements to fulfill. The readers of Topbike are affluent and have a bike for weekend fun. They want to know what to replace it with and where to take it. They have the means to afford the latest big cruiser, trailie, quad or superbike. So the fact that you can’t go shopping with the latest R6 might be a problem for me, but not my readers.
And difficult as it is to imagine, there are actually people who like, want, and buy the Honda Transalp. So I have to put myself in their shoes, and paint the bike in a way that makes it appealing to them.
Tough job!
In the end, it is a learning experience, and I enjoy it!
For our first test I bumped into the very same Transalp I had for two weeks in Cape Town (I remembered the numberplate), and tested it along with the F650GS (again!), but this time in Dakar spec, and the Suzuki V-Strom and Kawasaki Versys. We rode for two days around the foot of the Drakensburg mountains, based at Mount-ex-sources.
I have an inherent discomfort with trailies and dual-purpose bikes, because they are so tall and bulky. I live in perpetual fear of dropping them.
So I was quite apprehensive when for the second test, we were getting even bigger ones; this time the 1200GS BMW, Triumph 1050 Tiger, Ducati Multistrada 1000s, and Beull Ulyses (the tallest of the bunch). They all are fantastic bikes, and very unique. I can’t wait for my longterm bike which will be a Multistrada 1100s.
It is a great relief not to have dropped any of these tall, heavy bikes. But by the end of the week I was quite comfortable, especially with the Buell. However, I remain cautious.
Next week I get a Suzuki DR650 for a week. So my reluctant relationship with trailies continues. I am going to do an off-road riding course sometime, and that will probably the single biggest factor in me finally getting my peace with these bikes. After all, as a journo, I will spent a lot of time with them in future.
We take these bikes to stunning locations. I’ve been to parts of the country I have only seen on postcards; the amphitheatre, the Long-tom Pass, the Natal Midlands. It is difficult to miss the scenic Cape Town with so much else to woe me.
And I most definitely don’t miss that wind in Cape Town! But I am now beginning to miss my friends. My cat will be delivered tomorrow, and I can’t wait. I just hope the poor thing does not get a shock and scrambles off into nowhere!
I was wondering where the stress of a job like this would come. Any job has stress; otherwise it would not be a job.
Well, I am glad I asked; it is hectic. Or hazardous is more like it. We work on public roads, so keeping an eye on the traffic is stressful. Doing repeat runs through a particular corner to get the shot the photographer wants is tiring and especially when you so it in a group, 30cm apart from one another. We easily do that from dawn in the morning till dusk.
My approach to writing about bikes is also challenged; I tend to be very arrogant and negative in my reviews. Well, I am part of a bigger whole now, so diplomacy is key; you don’t want to piss of the people that supplies you your bread!
We are selling a dream; and that dream is motorcycling. So I have to cut down on the negative parts of motorcycling and sell the positives more.
I have to change my frame of reference; not everybody has my background where a bike is my only mode of transport, and hence has a particular set of requirements to fulfill. The readers of Topbike are affluent and have a bike for weekend fun. They want to know what to replace it with and where to take it. They have the means to afford the latest big cruiser, trailie, quad or superbike. So the fact that you can’t go shopping with the latest R6 might be a problem for me, but not my readers.
And difficult as it is to imagine, there are actually people who like, want, and buy the Honda Transalp. So I have to put myself in their shoes, and paint the bike in a way that makes it appealing to them.
Tough job!
In the end, it is a learning experience, and I enjoy it!
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