*** Show us your bikes! ***

Picked up a couple of Constands 'Mover' rear paddock stands from Motea in Germany (got stung for import tax though :rolleyes:) to fit my K1300S and my RSV Mille. Absolutely brilliant things, stick the bike up on it, disengage the wheel brakes and you can move it easily around the garage. Handy being able to free up a bit of space and tuck them close up to the garage wall.

constands1.jpg
 
Cleaned up the Akra as it was looking a bit sorry for itself, and fitted a sticker of extremely dubious quality from Ebay..

D7uyUdo.jpg.png
bziywsa.jpg

It immediately decided to start to peel off when I went for a hoon.
I'll be getting a refund for that then.
 
JonRGV250 said:
Finally and at ******* last the dealer had my bike ready to collect today.
They'd fitted a cat and the standard silencer and managed to get it MOT'd, hurrah!
I did ask them to refit the de-cat pipe and the Akra, but no, no they didn't, but they did drop off the bits at my work, and I fitted them in 10 minutes, so all good there.
It still had the rear pegs on and fortunately the previous owner included a ridiculously expensive carbon Akra exhaust hanger and a R&G blanking plate for the other side..

jcNEDEQ.jpg

So after that lot was fitted, I starting stripping the thing down for a look see, and found (what I'd hope I'd find) a Power Commander V :) ..

HTcDamV.jpg

I'll probably play around with a few fueling maps and see what suits, but tbh it feels decent as it is.
And when I say decent, I mean ballistically fast and some, and a bit more for added measure.
The quickshifter is just perfect and the bike makes the most demonic gutteral noises on upshift, which is nice.

I had a quick hoon after work..

w5zWjNN.jpg

but will need to scrub in the new tyres over the weekend, which won't be a chore at all :D
In my excitement I completely forgot about the launch control, so I'll dig out my helmetcam and have a play with it for @Minibiker
Click to expand...
I do like a nice Ninja, very pretty ;)
 
Took the old girl out for a long overdue run today around the East Neuk of Fife. Compared to my K1300S this auld thing feels rather agricultural but my goodness, does she still pull like a train. Had the front wheel airborne a good number of times during the route, just off the throttle in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gears.........childish but lots of fun!!!! :D

IMG-1954.jpg


IMG-1955.jpg
 
I owned this bike for 4 weeks in april-may last year, yes I bought a bike instead of hiring one in Vietnam (my mate bought one as well), a 120cc Espero DeTech (A Honda Win clone from China), which broke down inevitably at least 10 times each :D, I even towed his on mountain roads as his clutch blew up. Did 1500 ish miles on it before we sold em again, and yeah we painted them.
Biggest bucket of bolts I owned, downright dangerous, the steering had huge play and schuddered under front braking, terrible handling because of the weight on the back, my baggage rack broke off 3 times, but it was a good memory :D.



























Thumbs because of photo spam, click for bigger :).
If it wasn't so expensive I'd ship it back to Europe for the fond memories :). We bought is for €250 each and had to sell in a hurry so just got 70 back, but still good deal!
 
Last edited:
Aye, stunning country:




























































Would highly recommend it (Provided you're comfortable with the lack of rules/chaos in traffic (in the cities) and can handle a bike OK (outside of cities)). Most roads are good, some are very poor and dangerous, we've had days where we did hours on unpaved roads and you were lucky to do 20 mph on avg. One mistake and you'd tumble down a mountain. Very steep inclines/declines and narrow corners! Expect multiple punctures aswell (I had a brown pants moment @ 50 mph on the motorway with a flat tyre, could barely hold the bike, and because it was 36 degrees C I wasn't wearing protective clothing and just shorts at that moment).

Though loads of backpackers did it on a semi-auto or fully auto scooter, it is dangerous quite often.

These are just a minor selection, have thousands of pictures, stunning country with awesome friendly people. More so than Thailand (not that they're unfriendly in Thailand, just more used to tourists, scams(/tourist inflation) were much less common in VN, differed so much per area, countryside everyone was honest and friendly really, Hanoi was quite nice, Hue was terrible with the 'motorbike mafia', Da Nang was very nice and relaxed again (felt like Miami though!), and Hoi An had a lot of tourist scams, basically all the non touristy places were very relaxed, only in Hue I felt uncomfortable with the ammount of harassment, though they did bugger off if you got mad. We went 2 weeks after the country opened after COVID, there were almost no tourists or westerners the first 2-3 weeks. In the Hue and Da Nang area the less legal substances were actually quite common among the locals and they would invite you to parttake!
I'm tempted to write mini blog/review of it if people are interested?

Motorbike is absolutely the best way to explore the country! Many did de Ha Giang Loop or the pass between Da Nang and Hue, and took buses/planes/trains/vans in between, but so many stunning spots in between which you miss unless you go off the beaten track...
 
Last edited:
Yesterday's trip home had an element of stress about it, it was a lot of dual carriageway and much of the journey I was learning how to ride the bike and trying to navigate home.

Today, I went out for about an hour and had an absolute blast. My only regret is not doing this when I was younger.
 
ScarySquirrel said:
Yesterday's trip home had an element of stress about it, it was a lot of dual carriageway and much of the journey I was learning how to ride the bike and trying to navigate home.

Today, I went out for about an hour and had an absolute blast. My only regret is not doing this when I was younger.
Click to expand...
Doing it when you are older is a lot better :)
Much safer, with a lot of added road sense and healthy dose of fear that the young you may not have had :D
 
Well, it's been 6 months since I got the ZX10R, so time for a change :D
If i'm brutally honest, the 10R is just too much for the public roads, and there's not a cats in hells chance of using it's full potential.
I went out on Monday for a couple of hours on some perfect riding roads close to where I live and as usual my self restraint went straight out of the window and I ended up going fast enough for a couple of years ban or worse i'd be watching my back in the showers when picking up the soap.
So, the idea is get something smaller engine wise so I can wring the power out of it without just pinning the throttle back and doing over a 100 in first gear.
The above is me trying to justify to myself that i'm doing the right thing :(

Anyhoo, I went to look a couple this afternoon after doing a fair bit of reading up on them..

9JyPQSP.jpg
xHJ4Z7g.jpg

I'm going to test ride the RS660 on Saturday and see how I get on with the power (or lack of), the R7 I probably won't ride as it didn't feel great just sitting on it for a few minutes.
Styling wise, I prefer the RS, but the livery on the R7 brings back so many memories of previous Yams.
My head says the R7, my heart the RS
Decisions, decisions
 
RS all day long, the R7 wouldn't even get a look in.

I am a massive Aprilia fanboi though so take what I say with a pinch of salt :p
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom