2006 September blog

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The good things about the new Honda CBF1000 is a silky smooth gearbox and the midrange. You get a great roadbike for your money. CBF1000 is everything I wanted the CBF600 to be. The CBF's are not lightweights, so it does need the extra power for touring with pillion and full luggage. Our Honda CBF1000 has been equipped with both Honda panniers and top box. Very practical and it's a shame about the fuel leak. Now I smell of petrol wherever I go and one of the most fuel economic bikes (should be judging by the Fireblade) is now one of the most expensive (due to the leak). On Sunday I'm heading to California and the 2007 Victory presentations. It should be good after all the stress in Italy.

Talk about the Honda CBF1000 now. I thought it had a very high fuel consumption even to the Fireblade. For a reason as the fuel tank is leaking. So much for Honda reliability. We'll soon find out why.

When my mobile phone alarm clock bursted to life playing Megadeth High Speed Dirt or something at 07:30 in the morning I hadn't had much sleep. I had a look at my leathers that I had hung up to dry on the old Rococo (or Baroque or whatever...) style closet in the four star Hotel des nations in Riccione (very handy for Misano, about 20 Euro for a taxi), to see if they had dried up a bit. Had some breccie and then ordered a taxi for Santamonica Misano. I arrived around 9 O'clock and found the press officer that I had murdered in cold blood in my dreams the night before. Now, I know it is not his fault as he can only do what the owners allow him to, but still he is my focal point. Went on to register and met a French journo that was in the same situation as me. He had rented a car though so had saved himself from the agro I had to put up with. But they say that you haven't travelled until you have used at least four different means of transport to get from a to b. Anyway, we registered and signed the waiver that always says that if you kill yourself the manufacturer is not responsible. Went on to book my first ride for the morning. That should have been 12 O'clock on the 163bhp Tornado 1130 around the circuit. In stead of just hanging around for that many hours we tried to get a ride on the Tre-K's first. But no photographer yet and Benelli let loads of dealers ride the bikes first. That's just wrong as we need as much time as possible on the bikes as soon as possible. Dealers can use their demo bikes to get to know the bikes later. Certain parts of the Benelli organisation seem to think that dealers are more important than the press. But I've got news for you Mr Benelli, it's all linked together. Through the press people get to read about the new bikes, if no one writes about the new bikes, the dealers will not be very busy selling bikes. If the dealers are not selling bikes then Benelli can't manufacture bikes. Very simple. Anyway, it turned out that one of the photographers managed the incredible and got the group of four of us on the Tre-K's before lunch and off we went on the roads around Misano. It was a gorgeous day by the way and finally we could get down to business testing and photographing the bikes. Got that done and headed back to Misano. After another long wait it was time to take the Tornado 1130 out on the track. I loved both the track and the more powerful Tornado 1130. Many loong blackies on the average gripping Dunlop D208RR's and a toe slider sacrificed to the Misano tarmac I went back to the paddock. I did another session on a different coloured Tornado and a session on the TNT Cafe Racer. Little did I know at this point that the photographer didn't get a single shot of any of my three sessions! Bollocks, triple bollocks! The weekend was called "I Love Benelli", just as cheesy as the Rimini resorts. I'll cross out Love and change with hate on the T-shirt me thinks. After a long day literally fighting the whole time to get sufficient time on the bikes I hitched a ride back to the hotel with my new friend from French mag Moto Revue. French rivals Moto-Journal crashed and killed off a perfectly fine Tornado 1130 and by that point there was or had been something wrong with at least half of the press fleet on offer. It was great fun riding Misano, but not so much fun coping with the badly organised event. better luck next year! In the evening we went to Pesaro, Benelli's home town for dinner.

Where to start! Got the last Suzuki stuff out before I had to run to ride down to the Honda Institute just next to Heathrow in London. Just a few minutes after I had left with all the gear that I would need for the Benelli launch in Italy it started to rain. It didn't just rain, it chucked it down! I still had about 110 miles left to ride in leathers and I knew at this point that I would get very, very wet. In the end I got even wetter than very wet. By the time I reached the London Orbital it got torrential, worse than I can ever remember riding in. The puddles on the road were like small lakes. At this point I was just shaking my head laughing like a crazy man. I enjoyed it in a mentally deluded way. I wasn't going slowly either, and I love those Bridgestone BT014's more than ever. The old Raptor 1000 really is allergic to rain, but today it rocked! V-twin power ploughed through the little lakes like a tractor in a field (much faster mind...) with excellent grip. Car drivers would have thought I was on a suicide mission, but what the hell do they know anyway? Reached the Honda Institute with plenty of time (I thought) to pick up the CBF1000 and head up to Stansted airport for my flight to Forli in Italy. My flight was due at 19:00 in the afternoon and by the time I had dried up a bit it was four O'clock. About one and a half hour to do the 55 miles from Heathrow to Stansted should be sufficient. I made my flight, but only barely as the CBF1000 came with a full set of panniers and a top box making filtering a little bit slower. And I had to filter the full bloody 55 miles around the M25 and up the M11. So arrived at Stansted with just 10 minutes left to check in for my flight. Bearing in mind I was here a little over a week ago for another flight and hour long queues through security I didn't think I would stand a chance! But to my surprise the BAA had slacked up the security a bit, no queue for checking in and I was through security after they had swabbed my mobile phone and nicked a lighter I tried to smuggle in! Brilliant! Made it so far. But I was still soaked and every single item of clothing I carried with me was wet. But even worse, the printout of the hotel details was soaked too. Arrived in Italy about 30 minutes late after the plane had to be "kick-started" as the engines could not be started from the cockpit. This again meant that I missed the last free shuttle to the last train to Riccione where my hotel is. I just had to improvise and got the last bus to Bologna train station. I arrived at the train station about half past midnight. Using my Italian, which consists of hand movements, I found a train to Rimini due at one O'clock. Phew, saved I thought. Arrived Rimini after an hour on a sweaty minging train in what looked more suitable to transport cattle in than people. But I was in Rimini. 30 Euros later and a crazy taxi ride I was finally in the hotel with a cold beer in hand. I have to mention at this point that Benelli had not organised any transport whatsoever during the entire stay. And the reception didn't have any info on tomorrows programme whatsoever. Turned in at 3 O'clock dreaming of how many different ways I could strangle the Benelli press officer in the morning.   

Blogtime again, got to do the blog! First of all you'll see that I am in the process of commercialising the site so that it can pay for the cost of running it. The google adds should have been added a long time ago, but I might have been naive and thought that no one ever clicked on the adds. But of course people click on them because they are very useful to some and the marketing is targeted at us, bikers. I am about to add another advertiser to the site that specialises in bike gear. I get loads of E-mails from readers that think they can buy products from the site. I know that most of the gear that I chose to wear for testing gets very high google ranking. So soon you'll be able to shop until you drop from the site. And as with all advertising, I wouldn't do it if it was nothing in it for me, but it's about time to cash in on all the hard work that has been done on this site during the last year! Big events this week are the Suzuki 2007 release, 2007 Triumph bikes and the world launch of the Benelli Tre-K and Tornado 1130 at Misano and surrounding roads in Italy. I'll be flying to Bologna Forli on Friday and make my way from there to the hotel that I assume is not too far away from Misano. I think it's my eight flight to Italy during the last year. I'll probably meet up with Roland Brown (he always attends when there's a small Italian factory launching bikes) even though he's riding on Sunday and I am riding on Saturday. Roland has been in the game longer than most and usually goes to bed after a couple of salad leafs and a drink. He will be worrying about when dinner is a week ahead of a launch, whilst I am busy getting myself banned from the next one. Kev Ash told me that he was banned from Benelli launches after not doing one he was invited to a few years ago. Despite the fact he genuinely couldn't attend it! I'll soon end up on that list too as I have criticised the lack of organisation. I told them that I am a journalist, not a bloody travel agency! Aprilia Tuono Factory will be launched next week. I will not be attending that one, but as soon as we can get one here I will test it. I am due to pick up the Honda CBF1000 this week too. Hopefully on Friday as I'm in London anyway for my flight to Italy. Since I know that MCN is reading my blog I will write something to stir their imaginations again in the next entry. It doesn't take much mind! The week after I write something in the news section or in the blog, MCN's mole has heard the same story.

I have finally had time to go through some of my E-mail from the past days. Finally Benelli have got their act together and sent me an invitation to the world launch of the Tre-K and Tornado 1130 at Misano later this month. That should be fun!

Bad hangover again, as a matter of fact very similar, or slightly better than the one I had after the BMW biker party in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in July. I could not move an inch until 09 O'clock and luckily breakfast lasted until 10. It took me about two hours to get some scrambled egg digested. My flight was for once later in the afternoon, so plenty of time to get my head back to digesting what to write about the bikes and the Bill Davidson interview. It was a privilege by the way to ride, eat and party with Bill so thanks to Thomas and David for inviting me. I still had my Easyjet return flight from Ljubljana in Slovenia so I was transported there in a taxi on some great alpine roads where we had been on the bikes the day before. Today I was ok in the back of a car though and when back in London another 120 miles lies ahead on my bike. It is almost painful to write this, but I'll give it a go anyway. Arrived at Ljubljana airport in Slovenia and check in was just as painless as I remembered it to be before all this terror scare monger started. I felt relieved and I even found a place in the terminal that allowed me to add some black tar to my lungs! All good and I could relax until my flight was due back to London. When the Easyjet plane hadn't even landed when we were supposed to board I started to understand that my good friends at the BAA causes problems as far away as on a tiny airport in Slovenia. Because of the security the plane was delayed of course and again I was stuck in a queue to board the delayed aircraft. So got on, slept and woke up when landing at Stansted, already 20-30 minutes late. When finally parked up outside the terminal buildings the pilot had a message that said that the BAA computer systems had crashed and the ground crew had about 20 other aircraft to take care of before us manually. Great stuff I thought, but the agro made it difficult to get back to sleep. Eventually they found a ladder that allowed us to exit the plane. I hate Stansted airport! So then the usual mile-long passport control. Computer systems was still down and that involved the luggage. So no one knew where to look for their luggage. I had to check everywhere until I eventually found my backpack. I rode home and once again I was not where I was supposed to be until after midnight. Thanks again BAA and easy Easyjet! Hope my next flight is on Business class as they do treat you differently!

After breakfast, where I said hello to only one old launch friend amongst 10 journalists (mainly due to the fact many journalists at this launch specialises on Harley and only ride Harley-Davidson), Harley-Davidson held their press conference. Nothing new as I have been through the press kits a few times already by now. The rideout involved the two new big twins: Fat Boy and Softail Custom as well as the Night Rod Special, VRSAW V-rod and the new XL1200R Sportster. All with the pleasure of Bill Davidson's company. The ride started in rain in Austria. As soon as we had passed the Slovenian border the weather got better and turned into a sunny and warm day. So we stopped in the Slovenian alps for interview and photo sessions with Bill. I had still not ridden the new TC96 so I started the day on the new Fat Boy. I then swapped for the Softail Custom, Night Rod Special, V-rod and XL1200R along the route. I have not got as many action shots as I would have wanted. The photographers and a few of the other journos were very relaxed. Some only needed pictures of the one bike, but still kept riding past the photographers. Most enjoyable for me was the time we got with Bill Davidson himself. He is head of the Harley design department and I had a million questions to ask. And I got plenty of opportunity as Bill enjoyed the rideout just as much as we did. If not more as he is  not getting the opportunity to ride tight hairpin alpine roads that much back in the states. So he was available to us the whole day and evening at the race tent in the Harley village at Faaker See. During dinner Bill signed at least three helmets and various t-shirts. Bill also autographed my launch gift thingy and I will give that away to one lucky reader when time comes. After the ride through the border areas of Austria, Italy and Slovenia I headed straight out to the biker party in Faaker See. I ended the day on the Night Rod Special and even got some motorway miles on it which was good so that I could really open up that throttle. Then started the party... Live music, plenty of beer and naked ladies... I love Austria. TS

I have the daunting task now of explaining everything that has happened since the last blog entry. there's Honda going berserk over the peak view you got of the 2007 CBR600RR. I will soon add the whole release and loads more pictures of the new RR anyway and more about Honda later. I rode my bike from Birmingham to London Stansted and parked up at the motorcycle parking just next to the terminal. I had a flight to Ljubljana in Slovenia to catch for the Harley-Davidson launch at the European bike week in southern Austria. It's only one and a half hours drive from Ljubljana to the hotel we were staying in in Austria. Very handy. I had plenty of time before my Easyjet flight was scheduled, but the queues through BAA security was about 1 hour long so went straight to start queuing. You're still not allowed to bring any liquids onboard the planes from London. So I sacrificed deodorant, perfume, toothpaste and hair gel to avoid checking in. I checked in online the night before and already had a print out of the boarding pas. All good and all I carried as hand luggage was my backpack and helmet. After queuing for a bloody hour I reached security and was told I had to see if my backpack fitted in the stupidly strict 35x something. With a bit of a squeeze it would fit, but the brainwashed BAA bully told me I had to check it in and I was not allowed to bring it onboard as hand luggage. At this point boarding had started and when I arrived at the check in desk they said I had now missed my flight. Bloody BAA! So got on the phone to Harley to find alternatives to the Ljubljana flight. After checking all options from Stansted which included flights to Venice i Italy or Salzburg in the North of Austria only Salzburg was left as an option. That is about three hours drive away from the hotel (Ferienhotel Worthersee). So Salzburg it was on a Ryan air flight. Usually Ryan air is very cheap, but since i bought the ticket on the day I had to fork out £175 for the one way ticket. This whole change of plans due to the terror-scare had delayed me around 5 hours already + the 2 hour longer transport in Austria. Still the BAA managed to delay me and everyone else on the flight to Salzburg too! Even shoes has to go through the x-ray machine. Not only that, but as far as I could see every other passenger had all their hand luggage checked twice! My mobile phone and bike alarm key fob made sure they checked my jacket. Which took another 30 minutes. By the time I reached the gate for my second flight it was already 20 minutes after scheduled boarding. Still 16 passengers had not made it that far so we had to wait another 30 minutes in the plain before we could finally take off. If you ask me the terrorists have won their war against the civilian people in the west by now. I am not sure which one I hate the most now, Al Qaeda or the BAA. Send them all to Cuba! When I finally arrived Salzburg airport (home town of Mozart by the way) a little old lady waited for me to take me south in her taxi. She couldn't speak a word of English so I struggled to understand what she was on about for about two hours before I finally fell asleep.  Just after midnight I arrived at the hotel and after a quick snack I was sound asleep. Harley-Davidson press conference and test rides tomorrow. Beats dealing with airport security by a mile! TS

Have added a few more dates in my calendar lately. The cold seized Aprilia RS125 is first up here in the UK, but already on Thursday I am heading to Austria for a Harley-Davidson party and rideout with Bill Davidson. I am also working on a couple of stories about interesting people involving bikes and porn (controversial and something for the men's magazines no doubt). Also investigating claims from a few readers about failed R6 fly-by-wire throttles. I still need more feedback from you R6 owners out there or there will be no story. This month I will also test Honda CBF1000. If Buell UK can get their arses into gear I'll soon have that elusive Ulysses that can't be tested or compared to any other bike on the market. More on this later. You wont believe it is true, and I was shocked myself too. I am expecting the first official 2007 pictures from Honda this week. Can't wait for that! TS

Returned the Varadero to Hunts in Manchester the other day and picked up my Raptor 1000. Sometimes I have had a problem with the fuelling on the Raptor. Basically fuel starvation due to corrosion in the fuel pump. So when I returned to Sutton I decided on a little maintenance operation. It's actually easier to get to the fuel pump to inspect than changing a battery due to the compactness of the chassis and V-90 engine. I was almost shocked to see how contaminated the fuel that was left in the tank was with corrosion from parts in the fuel pump (see pictures). It's all in the front part and apparently it's the design of the Acerbis fuel tank rather than the Suzuki fuel pump that causes problems. Anyway, I knew this was the problem as it has happened before so I drained out the rest of the fuel and got the inside cleaned as best as I could before refitting the pump and filling up with clean fuel. Topped up the coolant as well whilst at it. It started and went as it should, but I am sure the problem will return sometime this winter and I guess a proper renovation will be needed. Flights have been booked for Austria and US, Palm Springs for the Harley and Victory gigs I will be doing within a month. Now only flights to Paris (Suzuki 2007) and Cologne (Intermot) has to be sorted and since I have to cover those myself it takes longer... I have also opened an account at Myspace.com for networking and to chat to people on a more personal level. Visit the site and become my friend! The other day I received a press CD from Kawasaki again. I thought it would be something exciting such as the 07 ZX-6R or something. But no, it was a few pictures of a stripped Versys 650 and more info that was pretty useless. At least Kawasaki could have given some technical specs at this point, but only more emphasis on a low to midrange torque ability that already has been reported. Anyway, I am one step ahead with insider info anyway and soon I will publish some of that. TS