Thursday, February 18, 2010

At the last weekend I've gone for my first longer ride with the R6 and slowly start reaching the conclusion that this might be not the ideal form of long distance transportation.

Don't get me wrong it's a lot of fun and I enjoy 2 hour rides, but that's pushing it. After 3 hours I felt miserable, after 4 I just wanted to toss it into a corner. (Happily I did not run into any corners) and after 5 hours I was seriously considering selling it and getting a cruiser like this (2009 V-Star 950, they are really comfortable). Luckily there are none for sale on craigslist right now, except for 650s which are to small for me...

Yes I'm considering selling the bike, since it's more a toy at the current point in time, but it makes no sense with the current visa issue and I really need to stop being so impulsive.

So I started reading up what I can do to make it more comfortable

  • buy another seat - 300$
  • buy a bigger windshield - 80$
  • throttle lock - 100$
out of options. I do have a tire patch kit now...

Translates into one thing for sure, except for getting coffee or short rides ashley is not gonna be on the bike and for sure not comfortable. I might give it a try for a road trip in a couple of months and limiting my self to 200-300 miles a day. Once I figure out how to get corners right. The bike is just so unstable and the advice from a fellow rider is not really helping

if the corner says 20mph go at least 40-50mph otherwise the bike topples over to easily.
I'm not going faster than the recommended speed in such a corner. Sure to take a 50mph corner with 60-70mph is not the big problem. But I'm happy to get around a series of 25-30mph corners.

Otherwise our weekend was great, after me being lost for 3 hours in the mountains and having the battery die on me in on 'Big Hill Road' (yes it was a big hill)...

Well we enjoyed 4 days of reading, relaxing and wood chopping. Oh and don't forget, some tasty tasty cooking. Ashley and I both realized our relationship really evolves around food and traveling.

completely unrelated, I start to consider thinking that the R6 is maybe a bit much and belongs to a race track and not to the street...
Short I try to take the advanced riders course next month, if time and money permits.

Update:

after sleeping a night and reading up this morning on how to take curves and testing it I still love 'jasmine' she just needs to be treated right and a more comfortable seat...