Motorcycles 1994 to 2006
Nov 10th, 2007 by Tim Skipper
The Triumph Trident 900 was traded in for a Ducati 750SS. This was an altogether different beast! Less powerful, but considerably lighter, the Duke was a real b-road scratcher. You could fling it on its ear and using the torque of the V-twin engine fairly stomp out of corners. I managed to wear away a bit of the lower fairing on the road on this bike, such was it’s appetite for crazy lean angles.
As you can see, I changed my bikes quite often. This wasn’t because I didn’t like the bikes I had, more that I just wanted to sample a wide range of machinery. So after 20,000 miles on the Ducati 750SS I swapped it for the first real SuperBike I owned, a Suzuki RF900.
The RF900 was a missile, no two ways about it. I don’t think I often used all the revs, as it would be doing silly speeds in no time at all. As a long distance tourer it acquitted itself very well on several trips away, two-up with a load of luggage. It was a big fairly heavy bike, and after a while I started hankering after something lighter and more flickable.
Enter, stage right, the venerable Honda CBR600F. If ever there was a bike you know will be good without having to ride it, it’s the CBR600. Indeed, I wandered into the showroom (Lings of Watton again I think), and left again with a new bike without even starting one up.
This bike was the cause of several sets of knee-sliders wearing out the road surface between Dereham and Watton (one of my favourite roads at the time). OK it’s not big and not clever, but my word it’s fun! I also had a really enjoyable trip into Europe on it with the friends at Norfolk Advanced Motorcyclists.
I can’t actually remember why I decided to part with the CBR600F, but I replaced it with Honda’s big v-twin, the VTR1000 Firestorm. The VTR was an interesting bike, but it was a little agricultural for my tastes. It was certainly quick, but not the best handling bike I’d own and I never got on with the gearbox. I didn’t keep it long.
What can you say about the Yamaha R1? Not much in polite company! You don’t so much accelerate up the road on this bike, more, the world accelerates around you. It was the most stupidly fast mind bending experience I’ve ever had. Front tyres lasted ages – it was never on the road! That’s all very well, but really, you can’t actually use performance like that unless you have a death wish and/or a recyclable driving licence
You could (and I did far too often), with absolutely no effort at all, exit a 30 mph limit in 2nd gear, apply a modicum of throttle and pick up the front wheel - putting it down again 100 mph further along the dial.
I can’t believe I actually rode this bike to Scotland, around the entire East coast and then back down through the Highlands. In 48 hours. This was on one of Norfolk Advanced Motorcyclists bi-annual charity rides, I think this time we were visiting Little Chefs. I was motorbike shaped for a week afterwards.
The R1 was about as pillion unfriendly as bikes go, so that coupled with the fact that I prefer to work a bike rather than have it work me, I chopped it for a much more sedate, but utterly brilliant Honda VFR800.
The VFR800 took me to France and on many pleasurable rides with Norfolk Advanced Motorcyclists. You won’t be getting your knee down on a VFR800, but you will have a superb ride with enough go to make it fun.
Sadly pressure of running my own business meant I was riding the bike less and less, and I ended up selling the VFR800 to my Dad in 1992, and hanging up my leathers for 6 whole years!
It’s October 2006 and I’ve spent the last 6 years doing daft things in silly cars (see the rest of this web site for proof of that!). However the urge to return to biking has been getting stronger. This, coupled with the recent sale of my Caterham and then my beloved BMW E30 M3, has lead to the inevitable…
You see I justify this slightly spontaneous decision to ring up P&H Motorcycles in Crawley and order a brand new Honda CBR600F – without even riding one – by way of temporary insanity. No, wait, it’s because I’m about to move to Diss, and that’s 25 miles from Norwich where I mostly work, and think of all the fuel I’ll save on an economical bike (I’m ignoring here the fact I drive a diesel VW Golf GTi that does 55 to the gallon). Right? Right?
No, nobody else believed that either. Whatever, it arrived Monday 16th October 2006.
1994-2000
Ducati 750SS
Suzuki RF900
Honda CBR600F
Honda VTR1000 Firestorm
Yamaha R1
Honda VFR800
2006 onwards
Honda CBR600F