An American abroad…
When his mate flew over from the United States, Bertie knew how to big up the bromance: go on a bike ride together. But how would the Yank take to old Blighty’s blighted highways?
It’s fair to say that in recent years my riding has been a solo activity – and I guess in some ways this has shown in my current pace on Britain’s roads. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve gotten slower as the years go by. I’d like to think ‘safer’, too, but I’m not the arrogant sort, so I know that ‘but for the grace of (insert chosen deity here)’ we all make mistakes and we can all be victims of bad luck.
But, what I do believe in is that riding with friends can be the best fun you can have on two wheels and – comparing and contrasting riding styles – then talking about it afterwards can have a positive effect on improving your own riding. Therefore, I was keen to see what my good friend John Fishman was going to think of my riding, and me of his, when he flew in from Huntsville, Alabama.
John is an experienced rider with 22 years under his belt (somewhat less than me, but then he did ride bikes in some dodgy fashion before passing his test, including a mate’s KH400 Kwak triple). On passing his test he bought a 1977 BMW R100 S which he describes as: “…basically in primer and a piece of s***…”
He’s also a seasoned track-dayer on his 2009 Superstock-spec Fireblade. Now, track-days are something I used to do on a track-spec Kawasaki ZX-7R, but no longer bother with. John and I have some well-meaning banter about this. I say that at 61 years of age, he’s too old to do it. Thankfully, John has a sense of humour; I even spent the whole time adopting a daft American accent, saying ‘Hey man’ whenever he opened his mouth to make a point. Let’s just say he gives as good as he gets and we are both ‘equal opportunity piss-takers…’ Just as a good biking friendship should be…
The ride would simply be a day in the saddle, on two sports-tourers
– Yamaha’s Tracer 9 GT and Honda’s NT1100 – and we do 80 miles before a nice lunch stop. Then come home the pretty way… All told it’s around 250 miles and a day in the saddle that gives us plenty of bonding time. Or so we hoped…
With some lovely roads between my home base where John is staying to the MSL offices – as well as some naff ones – we can check out each other’s riding styles and give the bikes a bit of a comparison at the same time. Thankfully, the British weather is hot and clear and we’re ready for the off.
I lead the way on the Yamaha because I’ve got the sat-nav and know the way off by heart anyways. John, of course, had to follow me and, like a cautious mother hen, I’d constantly be scanning my mirrors to see if he was still there. I had no doubts about his skill, speed or experience, but he’s riding in a foreign land for the first time, so I’m going to be protective.
John says: “To be fair, it’s ‘old hat’ driving in the UK, but I will admit a wee bit of trepidation about riding a bike on the ‘wrong’ side of the road for the first time. However, either from prior car experience, riding behind Bertie, or the fact that a bike takes up less space, it was never an issue from the off. Oddly, it's always an issue coming back to the US; as I tend to try to get in on the wrong side of the car for a few days and get confused on which side of the road I'm supposed to be on when setting off!”
Even in the mirrors John seems confident; the only things were him leaving the indicators on after turning (can be dangerous, car drivers take it as read which direction you’re intending to go in) and he would (on the NT) hit the high-beam and leave it on… The first 20 or so miles are a mix of fast B-roads between villages and then 30-40 limits. East Northants into Lincolnshire can be beautiful and I want John to see some of the sights… and then we hit the A1.
The A1 can be a ball-ache at the best of times, but it’s a must to see how both bikes compare. Sadly, a few miles in, hazard lights ahead came on and my balls began to seriously ache! John: “This ‘traffic jam’ as we call them looked seriously epic and led to a delay of around an hour-and-a-half. It wouldn’t have been so excruciating in the US. When we diverted in frustration on to the B6403, I could see the road unfolding in its curves, tempting us, for several miles in front, but again we had to be careful.
It was disheartening, even with the ability to filter – which is a big, licence-threatening offense where I live! I suppose filtering saved us no more than 5-10 minutes. At one point when we were at a stop, I asked
Bertie: ‘Is it always like this?’ He assured me it wasn’t, but it was a shame that this happened on ‘our’ day riding together.”
Finally getting on some open road, I’m realising why I loved the Tracer 9 GT so much during my time with it. For me it has an almost unrivalled blend of sports appeal and distance ability. That motor really rewards you when you’re in a ‘go-for-it’ kinda mood and is very flexible, giving you 117bhp but in a way that puts a smile on your face. You can explore the various electronics if you want – and I did a bit during my tenure with the bike – but I felt it best to simply put it into your favourite mode, leave it there and enjoy that wonderful mournful howl from that CP3 890cc motor. And that quick-shifter for up and down shifts is a joy to help keep the bike on the boil. Allied to very reassuring handling, you’re on to a winner.
We’re off the main road and enjoying the ride now, but John has something to say: “Before the ride I’d been driving around the southern part of England and I have to say there seems to be road works everywhere! So, we divert from the
A1 and am enjoying our ride. I clocked a sign which said: ROAD CLOSED, 3 MILES. I assumed that Mr Simmonds knew of this as he didn't roll off or seem to take notice, and he also didn’t when another sign said the same, but one mile ahead. Suddenly – the road is blocked! It seems a roundabout on the B6403 as it joins the A52 needed repair! He pulled up at the barricade, shoulders moving as if he was laughing.
We’ve got no intercoms, so he checks out his phone, then the sat-nav and, in a flash, we return the way we came for a mile before heading down a rough-and-ready farm track that I’ve had little experience riding on before. For bike comparison’s sake, I did this track on both bikes (there and back again) and the suspension on both made it a ‘doddle’ as you Brits would say.”
I plonked John on the Honda on purpose, as it’s essentially a ‘rev and go’ so he can concentrate on the roads a little more, but what were his first impressions? He says: “The NT is a nice place to be. It's a typically Honda, ‘one-size-fits-all, feel-likeyou-are-in-charge’ riding position. Everything is right at hand/where I'd want it to be. I thought I'd not like the DCT but you just have to get on with it and, frankly, the semi-auto buttons on the left-hand bar seemed to be just a drain on attention so I mostly left it in full auto and trusted it so I wasn't distracted riding on the left on unfamiliar roads. For this first experience riding a bike in England it was a near-perfect tool. I gelled with the NT very quickly. Though the
DCT definitely curtails one's sense of involvement, the trade-off is that it lets you concentrate on the road and ride perhaps that little bit more. As well as eliminating leg, foot or left-hand issues from the equation, so it's a no-brainer. Performance-wise, I doubt there's much in it compared to the non-DCT NT1100, especially if you have the DCT in ‘Sport’ mode, which we always did. With regard to performance, the Africa Twin motor is a peach. It's very smooth, pulls from low down and has a lusty exhaust note to boot, from that huge silencer.”
Finally we arrive in Horncastle – somewhat late to meet Gary, our photographer – which meant I could genuinely swerve shouting for lunch! “Gary was a real gent about the wait,” says John. “But Bertie claimed that ‘the window’ for the promised pub lunch had disappeared. What I will say is that English petrol station sandwiches are vastly superior to the morbidly unhealthy, uber-processed food available in their US equivalents – I quite enjoyed that sandwich in the car park! It almost made up for a nice sit-down pub lunch!”
Easily pleased, is this American.
So, time for some bend-swinging in front of the camera. Being a track-dayer, you could see John attacking the corners where Gary sat taking snaps with some gusto: more than I was. I prefer to have a much bigger safety margin. John: “I am sure Bertie has done it hundreds, if not thousands of times, but it was a real highlight of the trip to me. I am a dry weather only advanced track-day rider so I am still a sportbike rider at heart with two licence suspensions,
due to speed infractions in 10 years. I am not a brain-out hooligan. I rode well within my comfort zone in the shots and was certainly way below the limit. However, I was apparently a bit more aggressive looking than Bertie was used to. It's just my thing to move my fat body around on whatever bike I am on. I assure you, Mr Simmonds, I was well within the margins of safety.”
Yeah, yeah… One part of the process that John felt a little more worried about was the ‘turning round’ at a safe place for the camera, to do another pass. It’s what we have to do for pictures and is often the time bikes are dropped – not when leant over in a corner. Often, we have to tippy-toe around in a lay-by, or entry to a farmer’s field: not the safest surface to U-turn on! John: “I will admit to being a bit scared doing turnarounds for multiple passes on rough, muddy, gravelly, farm entrances – especially on the top-heavy NT1100. Every time I did the turnaround in one of those places I got more and more stressed, so I was glad when it ended.”
It’s about time I swung a leg over the Honda. Now, if there was a bike I was looking to riding most this past year, it’s been Honda’s NT1100. It marries another of my favourite motors (the parallel twin from the Honda Africa Twin) but with the overall look of a bike more suited to road touring than heading off the beaten track…
My year with the Africa Twin was fantastic. It’s a bike with real character and soul and when I had the CRF1100L I wallowed in that character – but never took the bike any further than on the odd stretch of gravel – so would the NT be the better bike for me? On first impressions: yes. In graphite black the NT is an attractive, if understated machine – especially when parked next to the angular and somewhat futuristic/ minimalist Tracer. But, look closely and you feel a tad let down… The panniers and top-box, for example
(33 litres left, 32 right, 50-litre top-box) are very, ‘plasticky’. Okay, so are the Tracer’s (plastic) and both of those hold just 30 litres. We only had the top-boxes on for our trip, but as I’ve called it out before, you really need the top-box on the Yam to go anywhere more than a stop-over – I had the 39-litre one.
All of which means I recall wistfully the quality-looking metal luggage on the Africa Twin…
(42-litre top-box, 33 left and 32 right panniers plus a 4.5-litre tank bag…)
You’d think that the extra 17 horses and that charismatic triple would give the edge to the Yam when it comes to powerplants, but I loved this
eight-valve parallel twin in the Twinkie and I still love it in the NT, too… for my money, it makes the whole NT plot feel like a Deauville with a turbo on it. Now, don’t suck your teeth and cringe: the Deauville (especially in later NTV700 guise) was a worthy machine and great mile-muncher. The NT11 takes that whole, practical plot to the next level and beyond and 100bhp is plenty enough. The real battle is between what you really want: do you go the quick-shifter route, or do you decide to fall in love with the Honda’s Dual Clutch Transmission?
For me, the quick-shifter wins every time… it’s only let me down a couple of times on the Tracer in our year together. I do understand why people (often with historic injuries) love DCT and I enjoy it, but I’m not quite ‘there’ yet for wanting an automatic bike. Sorry Honda…
Continuing the comparison brings me to some of the bug-bears I’ve always had with the Yamaha. The cockpit on the Tracer has always been way too busy and fiddly – those two screens where you can move some info on to the right and then you highlight it with that thumbwheel which is impossible/hard to work when on the move: too small, too fiddly. The Honda’s is just like the Africa Twin’s (no surprise there) so the bad points here are too many buttons and the cruise control feels like it’s on the wrong side (right rather than left) handlebar. Despite this, the screen is big and crystal clear and offers Apple connectivity. Not that I ever used it…
Bizarrely for me, I expected to really fall for either the Honda or the Yamaha on the day, but – instead – I grew to appreciate both for their different approaches to what we wanted from them. The Honda just seems to be an easier-going proposition to the idea of a good day’s ride – some would say it’s less involving than the Yam, but I think that misses the point. Then (when in a ‘go-for-it’ mood), you can’t not enjoy the Yamaha’s alluring mix of motor and handling.
Riding around in the UK on two wheels (hell, even four) means you have to be wary of road surfaces, so I was interested to see what John thought of this. He says: “You Brits are always complaining about your roads. They are much more fun and curvier than your average US road – and are not in any worse shape than ours. Your A and B roads are broadly similar in condition to our equivalents – that is to say not terrible but clearly under-maintained and underfunded! I did enjoy the natural ‘layout’ of the roads, and the subtleties of going faster on them may take longer than on the roads near to where I live (which take longer to get to, by the way!).”
John’s feeling on both bikes, after we swopped, was an interesting comparison to mine. He says: “I guess both are broadly similar sports tourers with similar riding positions. I must admit that the Yamaha was only ‘nice’ at first. I’d heard it was a hooligan motor when pushed, but it was smooth and a little lacking in character for me, and I’ve owned four Triumph triples. The quick-shifter worked flawlessly – and I could see an athletic bike in there, but just couldn’t find it.” Maybe he would, given time…
He was – meanwhile – getting to love the DCT on the Honda. “The NT was actually fun with the DCT doing all the shifting to give it a lot of throttle and let it run,” he says. “It is also uber-stable but not slow to turn at speed and all-day comfy as well as plenty of fun in the twisties and handy on the big A-roads. You’ve got very wide, straight-ish bars. They provide all the leverage you'll ever need. Actually, it was surprisingly sporty handling and quite fun – though I suppose, if really pressing on its weight (especially with the
DCT version) and top-heaviness might damp down the fun at the limit, as it does at slow speed on rough surfaces. It’s actually quite a tall bike to mount, also, and I’ve got a 31-inch inside leg. Oh, and the high screen setting is best for me. I think for commuting, some fun blasts and the occasional trip, the NT would suit me and many people perfectly.” John also reckoned the bike was handsome enough (in black) but not quite ‘beautiful’. Well, I say ‘handsome is, as handsome does!’, I like it.
I really wanted John to get a second shot on the Tracer, to see if it could
win him over, like it had me. He says: “Riding the bike a bit harder and it endeared itself to me much more and would be something I'd even consider buying. Having been on the NT most of the day it was nice to control the gears again and a quick-shifter is always welcome. Riding that little bit harder let the Yam's ‘hooligan-with-tall-screen-and-bags’ nature come through. I decided this was a great all-rounder for the kind of riding I do. Comfy and stable when steady, but let the revs run coming out of bends or just that bit harder and leaned over in a curve and it feels much happier and alive. Just a shame the screen in either position is such a buffet-fest! An aftermarket option is needed.”
We’re deep in the Lincolnshire Wolds now and I’m mindful of the fact that I welched on lunch with the boys… I wonder if a cold drink/coffee and some cake would do the job? We pull into the car park of the Three Horse Shoes in Goulceby and I’m in the chair for whatever the boys want. Time to chat… What’s John’s take on British riders/drivers?
“I’d say they are vastly more skilled than their US counterparts,” admits John, before biting into some lemon drizzle cake. “We did see two people on an S1000R and the rider was a bit of a knob while filtering without care.
I think British riders and drivers have more situational awareness, basic courtesy, skill, and the bell curve is shifted to more brisk driving/riding than in the US. Turn signals are optional in the USA! US riders are too slow, or too fast, or both, and often struggle with anything looking like a bend, and most wear (or don't wear) gear that always puts me in mind of being a skin/organ donor waiting to happen. And 31 of the States don't require a lid – and most don't wear them anyways.”
I’ve not ridden in the US for many years, but I have to say John’s words are a bit of a reminder of times when I have. But how have I fared? John says: “In all my years of riding, I’ve only ridden twice with more than one other rider and their lack of basic skills scared me into almost always being a solo rider. My ride out with Bertie was my first ride with another person in 11 years! Even in just a day’s ride together, I can see Bertie is a very safe rider and very conscientious about me running behind him, I could see him keeping an eye on me, checking his mirrors. I’m more aggressive than him: maybe going faster… but there were only a few points where I would have ripped it up. I was very impressed with Bertie’s riding from a safety standpoint. He’s clearly a very experienced and professional rider: it’s just that his directions or knowledge of the road-works ahead sucked!”
Like John, I’ve not ridden with anyone for a little while (not 11 years, perhaps two) and some of the reasons why I’ve gone solo have been the same: it’s a matter of trust, isn’t it? But today has been a joy. Sure, I’ve cringed sometimes (zooming up the inside of people on the A1 is a sure-fire way of winding people up, John) but I’ve seen how confident John is on two wheels, enjoyed his company, loved the camaraderie and shared some good times with him – I can definitely learn from him, and maybe he can learn from me. Isn’t that what it’s all about?