Friends reunited
Abig thanks to the Bike team for the terrific article on your first post-lockdown group ride to the coast ( Bike, September). In particular to Ben Lindley for the on-board photo on page 44 which I stared at for a long time while trying to remember what it felt like to ride a dry twisty road with mates. I’m not ashamed to admit I got a bit moist around the eyes.
Pulling myself together I decided to use my furloughed downtime wisely and I reached out to my old biking mates in three locations in England to visit on a reunion tour. They all responded instantly and positively and a ‘square’ route was planned. Over four days I rode my 2016 T120 from my home in Brighton to the North Norfolk coast, then west to Cheshire, south to Somerset and finally east to get back home, mostly on two-lane A and B-roads with my mates riding with me for part of each leg. 800 miles in total and it was wonderful. And all because of a single photograph in Bike. Colin Winslett, email
PS: Regarding the COVID-19 risk please note that, being in our 60s, my friends have houses big enough to provide me with my own bedroom and bathroom during overnight stays, and the weather was conducive to dining alfresco in their gardens. The biggest downside was having to avoid hugging my oldest and closest friends.
Is this the 1970s?
It was mid-summer and I’d picked a fine time to suffer from a mild dose of flu. As I lay immersed in the lazy, hazy light delirium that accompanies the condition my nearest and dearest pressed the September issue of Bike magazine into my hands. Tearing it open I read of a Triumph triple with an oil leak, a Ducati V-twin with a recurrent electrical problem, and a Kawasaki H2 with an engine too powerful for its chassis. What was this, the 1970s? Apparently, yes, because turn the page and Mike Nicks is wobbling up from Exeter to Peterborough on a BMW R100/7 with a crunchy gearbox.
Panic stricken, I switched on the radio to hear the news. Among the usual negative tales of economic carnage and international pillage was the welcome news that speed limits through motorway roadworks were to be raised to 60mph.
I flicked the radio dial to 319 metres, Radio Caroline, to be greeted by a burst of static. Then, thankfully, I remembered that the Caroline ship, called Mi Amigo, had sunk back in 1980. It wasn’t the 1970s after all. It just seemed like it.
Richard Simpson, email
Hideous
Am I the only one who doesn’t get supernakeds? Having just read your Summer Special supernaked test ( Bike, September), I was confronted by four terminally ugly bikes which appear to have no real-world point whatsoever. I’ve never been a fan of the looks of KTMS, but for Ducati to turn the V4 into something so hideously unattractive is inexcusable. Gareth Temple, email
The cult of the topbox
I converted to top boxes about ten years ago. So useful, but often ugly. I’ve always liked the chunky aluminium ones, but until this year didn’t have a bike that suited them. Now I have a lovely Moto Guzzi V85TT.
Then Westlake has to go and spoil it in the September issue by showing off his achingly cool Shad topbox. Damn you Westlake, I want one. Paul Weatherly, email
Ride like a twat
I distinctly remember the Brain Out issue where you road tested the Laverda Montjuic. It was many years after that before I got to ride a Montjuic and it was what I can only describe as visceral – a vibrating, noisy, raucous, ride like a twat bike, with no pretence to civility. Yes things have moved on, bigger thrills are available, and it may now seem a bit tame, but not many bikes offer the Full Monty experience.
Andy Carrott, email
Go italy
I was pleased to see you suggest riding in Sardinia ( Bike, September). It does look like a great fly/ride destination, but can I suggest an alternative way of getting there? That famously superb N260 across the Spanish Pyrenees ends above Barcelona, from where a ferry to Sardinia departs for an overnight sailing. It can get you, your passenger and your bike to Porte Torres for not much more than a Barcelona hotel room. Of course, on your own bike there’s nothing then to stop you taking the cheap ferry to Corsica too, and that’s a whole new world of pleasure. Graham Maddison, email
Time for leadership
Regards your recent problem with a 22 year old Honda and its blowing exhaust ( Bike, September).
Firstly, I’d like your assurance the exhaust on your Honda VFR was a legal aftermarket exhaust. But more importantly do you accept that motorcycle noise caused by owners fitting aftermarket exhausts, or tampering with the silencers, is causing misery and anger to residents? Where I live a Yamaha MT-07 with an illegal exhaust thunders down a 30mph road where women, children and elderly people frequently cross. The exhaust has been tampered with because it’s so violently loud it crackles with explosive sounds. Do you not think it’s time to give clear leadership about this to all your readers? I ride a Yamaha FZS 1000 Fazer EXUP.
Matthew Colthup, email
Windowshopping
Having recently sold my Street Twin (lovely bike but not being used and not really my sort of thing) I find myself with funds and this leads to endless hours of distraction on Autotrader.
I’m still getting my riding thrills from an ageing VFR and so am in no rush to buy, but how much fun it is window shopping. In the process I notice that low mileage, hi-spec K1300SS, despite being five to six years old, still command £10-11k – how’s that for depreciation?
Brian Waters, email
Problem diagnosed
Just read your article about on board diagnostics( Bike, Sept) and thought I’d share my experience. I had a CEL warning on my Street Triple and got the dealer to have a look (£20). One lambda sensor later (£100) and a further trip to cancel the light (£20) seems a bit of a rip off.
Fast forward to a (wet) trip to Ireland and another CEL warning. A bit of digging around online revealed a mobile app called TuneECU. All you have to do is buy the correct plug and cable for your bike (£25 to £30), plug into your phone and you have a diagnostic/mapping program.
John Cunningham, email