One for riding, one for dropping
Life’s more interesting when you aren’t worrying about everything, especially damaging your shiny new bike. So don’t…
I’M A SERIAL BUYER. In the last three years I’ve owned a ’99 R1, ’05 R1, L1 GSX-R750 and an ’08 RC8. My two current bikes are a K3 GSX-R600 bought for crashing, and a K6 GSX-R1000 for riding. Compared with some modern sportsbikes, I love the K6’s soft suspension set-up and fit midrange. I bought the 600 with a friend three years ago, for a grand. The listing implied previous attempts to sell the thing had resulted in failure. ‘This is my final price and you take it as is,’ ran the description. ‘No tyre kickers.’ It was obviously in even worse shape than the pictures made out. Perfect, we thought. Somehow the bike had passed its MOT: the aftermarket brake light rattled around inside its housing, the numberplate was held on with wood screws and the front discs were warped to the point where braking felt like a kick drum hammering the headstock at 128bpm. We handed over the cash and rode it from Anglesey back to York. Purchased for crashing on, you say? Yes sir. I decided the main barrier to improving my riding was worry. What happens if I drop my beloved motorcycle? Will it break? Will it lose value? Buy a cheap machine you don’t care about crashing, and your confidence soars. I haven’t actually dropped it yet, other than putting it on its side to make underbelly cleaning easier. £101 crash rails from Polish outfit Forstunt (forstunt.home.pl) will shrug off any hit. They’ll touch down before anything else.