21st Century

Born Again Motorcyclist

I really don't like the term "biker". Somehow it conjures up images of riders who only use their bikes for short journeys in good weather and tear arse around the countryside giving us all a bad name. To me a motorcyclist is someone who uses their bike all year and is not scared to do a 300+ mile round trip in a day trying to improve their skills whilst riding courteously and making progress. I'm still trying to obtain the latter by doing my IAM course. Even if I either don't pass ai have learnt an awful lot and I think my riding has improved

My interest in bike was increasing and eventually I convinced myself that I needed a bike to get into London to my genealogy research. Getting into London was a pain, I had to wait until 9:45 to catch a train that qualifies for Railcard use which meant I got into London at a bout 11am. so half a day was lost.
I then started to think about what bike was good enough as it was just for commuting. a Honda CN250 kept coming to mind after all I didn't want to pay too much anyway after a lot of thought and scouring of papers I found a Suzuki GS500 that fitted the bill. Fast enough to keep up with traffic, economical and light enough to filter and chuck around a bit. It turned out to be a great little bike, it might be what they call old technology but it was better in just about all departments than my old Bonneville and not far off doing all the BMWK75s could do. I started to get out on quite long rides. I remember two runs over one weekend of over 250 each. I ended up joining the Stevenage motorcycle Club and never ever went to London to my genealogy. Another hobby had taken over.

Then I found I was getting swamped by cars on dual carriageways and motorways, the cars being as fast if not faster than the GS and I was getting buffeted around with the wind blast from lorries so I thought about what could be done and bought the headlamp fairing which was amazingly effective adding another 10mph to cruising speeds. Pushing the GS at 90mph for long periods was not really a good for the bike and I started hankering for something that could do the job and still be a lightweight bike. I have always like V twins so settled for a SV650. I chose the "s" for it's higher gearing. I should have gone for the "n" model as it would have been more comfortable and the gearing could quite easily have been changed. The SV is a wonderful bike and can do just about everything but I was starting to suffer on the bike over long distances although strangely the run home from Limoges in France to Welwyn Garden City, about 600 miles went very well and I didn't suffer. Maybe I had two weeks of practice going round France on it.
The picture shows it after it's French journey before washing it.

August 2006 I saw this Bike on the VFR Forums for sale and just had to have a look. My mate Keith has had two VFR's and knows them well. So Keith his nephew Neil and I went to Stanstead to have a look at it. Although it had 67,000 miles on the clock it had loads of practical improvements and it was in immaculate condition and obviously well looked after. Both Keith and Neil said they would have it if I didn't. That was on Monday, Tuesday I bought it and on Wednesday Keith had seen another one in the MCN up near Donnington so we went up and had a look and he bought it. So he has a black 1992 VFR and I have a white 1991 model. Saturday came and I was on my way to Germany to see my new German friend who lives near Cologne. The bike has been marvellous and I just love it. I can understand why they are kept so long.