Shadowfax-ST Blog

VFR-Ride Report submitted to ST-Owners.com (Extracted from my write up at ST-Owners.com: http://www.st-owners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80761 .) I spent a day with Apple (the VFR1200F named after the Global company of the same name for its having all the technological gloss with limitations you're likely to choose to live with) while Shadowfax was in the Stealers for a 16,000-mile service. The following is the guts and garters account of the day written purely from the perspective of an ST1300 rider so comparison is the rule of the day in addition to recounting the experience. This isn’t a measure of what’s best – even for me – but more of what the new VFR1200F is about in a language ST owners will likely relate to. Caveat my being a bit of a novice with only just 23-months real riding experience under my belt. Executive Summary This is a sports bike; not the replacement for the ST. Its riding position and behaviour are acceptable – in fact, fabulous and exciting - but against th...

Breathless! While Shadowfax was in for a service I took on the loan of a brand new VFR1200F. I had expected to have had the Deauville; insisting on having something with heated grips because it was in the low zone in the mornings. “It’s got heated grips….?” The mechanic said wryly. I took the thing for a short and slow spin around the car park and felt uncomfortable with the forward lean sitting position and high tank. I wasn’t confident this was going to be a great day. How far from the truth could I have been. Here’s the ride report written for ST-Owners.com at http://www.st-owners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80761 . Looking back on it, it was a very exciting day out :) Here’s the story (extract from the forum linked to above).

Head Trauma The LHS winder for the screen is jammed. I’ve had the screen at a medium-high stetting for the cold and rain but this really gives some buffeting in some conditions – especially at speed on the M-ways. It was so bad on the way to Stoke I had to stop and hand-force the screen all the way down for some relief. It needs either another overhaul (gave it a good oiling when symptoms first appeared) or replacement, which is just so expensive. Even a knackered one from a ‘brakers seems to command an inflated £100+ tag. Daft greedy b’stards. Anyway – the jobs waiting for a quieter moment. Too much going on to rip the plastics off Shadowfax just now. We both have a job to do.

BT021 Issues This has been in the DRAFT mailbox for some time; sent from my mobile while whiling away hours doing something else other than riding late 2009. It seems a worthy whine. Of course, at the time I had no idea they would let me down as dramatically as they eventually did! I think this would have been around October 2009. >>>>>>>> Bridgestone BT021R; I ‘m not living well with it. It‘s been the subject of a number of threads on the ST-Owners forums and I‘ve added my penny ‘s worth to a range of critcisms concerning it ‘s wear longevity and most interestingly to me, the squirrelly handling. Crossing the bridge over the old Meon Valley Railway just North of Wickham has it‘s appeal as well as perils. With the Michelin Road Pilot 2s I‘ve enjoyed a ‘planted‘ ride through the left to right complex over it‘s inclined apex. Even the Bridgestone Batlax BT020s gave little to complain about at all but sensible speeds. On both rear tyre sets the complex...

Nice one we've done some ice this year, Shadowfax and I. Last year there was only 2-weeks of winter, which I covered using Ka's Freelander - an AWESOME snow eater, if ever there was. This year I missed 4-days to the most depressing trains a 3 to 'working from home'. We caught an 80mph, 200m frozen snow patch A33 dual carriageway; a completely impassable frozen over country road East of Wickham on diversion off the A32 directed by a Rozzer young enough to ask what sort of bike the Sinclair zx80 was; a frantic 300m tip-toe ski in Reading where salt is against it's principles; a forcast dry day's 0.5cm snowfall settled across all carriageways Droxford to Spanish Green; a frozen splash at the water access Southern approach to Droxford; a mud spill entry to Alton unseen at night; a mud spill north of Alto on a ben ( still there); a mud splat from a lorry run aground at West Meon; and a way ward rear end one morning on sheet ice here to work. Now THIS has been winter...

Adventurer A long anticipated ride out. The weather is not as forgiving as I had hoped but easily ridable - with caution in the shadows. We rode to Cornwall, stopped over the night a rode back via an ST owners West Bay meet. That was the plan as although cold it looked sunny and dry - mostly. The journey was made difficult by racing the Sun while suffering sub-zero temperatures, a dodgy route plan that took me over the frozen wastelands north of Honnington over snow-iced country roads most quads might fear to ride, and a Police-inspired diversion that put 10,000 motorists into conflict on un-gritted roads and nearly dismounted me on a frozen bridge where 5mph was just not slow enough. I was elated to make Cornwall, and although not travelling too deeply into it it made a personal milestone for me as so much of it remains unexplored by me. I stopped to take a photo - despite resisting earlier due to the temperatures - and felt a tremendous sense of adventure and achievement given the we...

STOC Stats According to STOC, I achieved the 54th highest mileage of its World members over 2009 and highest mileage of UK members (12,000-odd strong). 22,385 miles (and that's with 3-months not commuting at all and a week off because of the weather). It's an odd sort of statistic - one impossible without the Online community of today; certainly a strange feeling. What of other riders not registered? How representative are these statistics? Am I REALLY so insane for commuting the miles, hours, and days that I did instead of spending the same time with my family? I don't need to answer that, do I?