Im not a massive fan of Harley having ridden quite a few. I guess they suit American roads and the cruising lifestyle. That particular bike looks like the Queen bitch from Aliens!
Love that the redline on that is only 5.5k! Both my cars are higher.
I’ve ridden a Fat Boy in the states through the Appalachian Mountains but never over here, how are they on our roads?!
Ive not done the ABR festival, but I have attended the Horizons unlimited weekends. The have rides, but not the ability to try different bikes which is a big draw for the ABR show , CCM did do some guided off road on their 450 two years ago. The Horizon team ( Sam Manicom pictured in your link above) put on about 60 odd speakers, who talk on all things from around the world travel , with our without bikes, biker first aid, biker maintenance. Plus nutter who have ridden R1’s ro the South pole or RTW.
I was going to the ABR festival this year but of course , Covid saw to that.
Steve
Last edited by higham5; 2nd December 2020 at 21:22.
FYI Henry Cole Rides a HD Low Rider S in The Motorbike Show Episode 2
https://www.itv.com/hub/the-motorbike-show/1a9745a0038
https://www.itv.com/hub/the-motorbike-show/1a9745a0038
That's funny, I recently said exactly the same to a friend who I was encouraging to watch the Motorcycle Show. I used to absolutely hate him and thought he spoiled the show completely, but after reading his bio.....which is great by the way, you learn a lot about and him and somehow cut him some slack. Even find myself enjoying Junk and Disorderly now too :o)
The thing that narks me off most about Henry Cole is his Olympic standard athletic ability to run very quickly in the opposite direction whenever there is a spanner involved.
I quite enjoy the motorcycle show, but he is an acquired taste. My wife can’t stand him though and leaves the room when I’m watching!
Like Henry's presenting style. Obvious though the chicken I had for lunch last Sunday has more mechanical skills so rather would prefer the bikes to be worked on by Allen and Sam!!
Last edited by kildareman; 4th December 2020 at 13:27.
I quite like his enthusiasm. When he talks about restoring bikes though, he actually does nothing but deliver parts to experts.
Slight change in thread direction....(if you're up for it) ... do you have a favourite motorcylcing book?
*Kindle fired up here...and ready to downoad*
Henry Cole............................
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bikers-Life...ag=googhydr-21
Yeah...Dan Walsh is outragously funny.
Here's a few good reads by Boris Mihailovic, Aussie bike journalist, some really, really good yarns....loads of them drug related...laugh out loud funny, brings back loads of memories......
I’m liking the direction this threads taking. It’s too damn cold to ride far here at the moment so might as well read. This is my copy of Zen, still re-read it every few years!
I started to read it about (I’m going to say thirty but you can probably add another ten) years ago.
I didn’t get very far because it wasn’t really about bikes; perhaps I should try again now that I’m slightly more mature.
I fear it still won't help you with the Bantam.
Field bikes...brilliant.
It was how we all got hooked in those days.
Dad had a mate who sold cars, he took dozens of bikes in p/x.
Nobody wanted them, they were just left in the back of his shed.
Loads of them. Pay a few quid, choose a bike...ride it to destruction...abandon.
Wash, rinse, repeat....brilliant.
Even had an Square 4, heavy bastard thing...ran it dry of oil.
Worth a fortune these days.
I find this quite a relief.
I did the same and have worried since that I am an oddity.
Phew.
I'm wondering now if I could write a book on maintenance of bevel drives on air cooled BMW twins, title it "how to bed that one you like from Girls Aloud" and watch the £££ roll in!
Trying to get motivated to start modifying my XDiavel.
For those interested Ducati have released a few new variants The Dark, a new S and the Black Star. Prices range from £16995 for the dark (my preferred model) up to £21295 for the top of the range Black Star. Power is up from 152 Bhp to 160bhp.
It’s difficult to see how the Black Star can cost over £4K more than the dark as the differences just don’t justify the price hike, but it is what it is.
My bike is a Dec 18 plate and has done 8.5k miles, so my initial thoughts were to get a new bike whilst mine still has a fair value left in it. But I really like my current bike, and as most of you know I can’t help tinkering. So to buy a new bike of this price and then start messing around whilst still under warranty isn’t a good idea (although it hasn’t stopped me in the past).
So instead, I’ve decided to mod my bike to my own tastes and spend the money that it would have cost me to change on bits n bobs.
A Norwegian chap on the Ducati forum is selling his XDiavel, and to do so he’s stripped all his carbon fibre parts off to sell... I’ve bought the lot and it arrived yesterday. He got his parts from FF carbon in Germany. I wanted even more carbon so I’ve ordered the parts he didn’t have from FF so that it all matches. 6 to 12 weeks delivery which is a pain.
I’ve also ordered some nice Roland Sands parts from Ducati Manchester (Black Friday) savings made them a bit of a bargain. And I’ve got other parts from Ducabike and Conquest racing.
I’m going to remove and reinstall my quick shifter, as I think I can do a better job of it than I did the first time and I’ll be stripping the bike right down to fit all the carbon.
Wheels and top and bottom yokes are going to be powder coated satin black.
I’m sure there will be other stuff along the way. But that’s about it for now...
Here’s a few pics of the Dark compared to my Bike.
I had about 2.5 hours on the Thruxton today in stop-start London traffic (Hampstead/Belsize Park/Camden etc) and finally - after some 800 miles on the bike since I bought it - I can finally say that its fitting me like a glove. The clip-ons have taken a fair old while to get used to but I don't think the bend left my elbows once today, and I was as comfortable when I got home as I was when I set off. Even the seat seemed perfect... no aching at all.
It's amazing what a difference being totally relaxed makes. I was never this comfortable on the R9T, even after 18 months.
Seems I spoke too soon about my NAV VI. The third one stared misbehaving this week and the dealer has replaced it again. 4th time lucky?
Honestly, I doubt this one will be any better as the fault must be fairly fundamental. Unless I'm doing something wrong by using it in all weathers and (generally speaking) leaving it attached the bike overnight.