2007 February blog

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Rain again today, so I have a perfect opportunity to test out the new kit Suomy has sent me. After my awful 16 hour ride in shit weather a couple of weeks ago I decided that I shall fight fog and mist on visors with all means. So I have now received two Suomy rain racing visors, one Suomy Rain mask and a new Vandal 155 lid. I will mount the rain visor on my Spec 1R and huff and puff like a dog to test the anti fog capabilities. More about this later. TS

Spent the morning working in the office. Planning my Italy trip and added the Benelli Tre-K 1130 Amazonas to my riding plan. The weather outside just got better and better so I decided to head out for a ride in the Peak district. Rode through Macclesfield, Whaley Bridge, Buxton, Goyt Valley, Cat & Fiddle, Macclesfield, Over Alderley and back to Manchester. Did some onboard filming etc on the way onboard the Rocket III. It was a great day to be out albeit still a bit cold in the height. So I stopped at the Cat & Fiddle pub and had a hot chocolate before returning down the Cat & Fiddle road. TS

Hello faithful readers of the blog and welcome back to my world! It has come to my attention that some of you can't view the YouTube videos due to limited bandwidth where you are. So a little update on events. I am absolutely digging the "new" Rocket III with open pipes. At the same time as the Rocket III is comfortable to sit on, to ride and to cruise it handles like something much smaller. You can really have some fun with the Rocket III! In just over a month I have to return the Rocket III to Triumph. It will be a sad day indeed! First I will swap the Tribal for a Classic though. When done with the Rocket III I will head over to Bologna for my next longtermer, a Ducati 1098 S. I will ride it back to the UK, but only after visiting the Alpinestars factory, Bimota factory, Benelli factory, Terra Modena and the new Misano Adriatico. This is in April and that is also when Moto Guzzi are launching the new 940 Custom. So if the timing is right I might bring that back at the same time. But before all that I am heading to Florida for the Daytona Bike Week with Harley-Davidson. I will cover events, ride the all new Harley-Davidson XL1200N Nightster and Buell SuperTT and hopefully some specials. Tomorrow my intention is to ride down to Flitwick motorcycles in Bedfordshire to have a look at what is going on with the Triumph Urban sports day and look at the CR&S VUN that will be shown for the first time to the UK public. See you around. TS

I'll let the video do the talking today...

The beast has now been tuned... I had an awesome ride back... New kit arrived today... More about Daytona Bike week... coming.

Been riding the 2007 Honda CB600F Hornet the whole day. Foggy and rain around lunchtime, but luckily it cleared by the afternoon. Bike good, chassis very good, engine good but still an in-line four, very good brakes and handles like a dream. Spoke to Mr Iizuka, the manager for the Hornet project about the bike. Watched a fellow journalist slide on his arse to save this little dog no bigger than a rat. Spent the whole day with the UK group and most of the afternoon doing wheelies and wheelies... The Portuguese crowd grew bigger and bigger. In the UK someone would have called the Police, but not in Portugal. Everyone cheered in stead. They just love motorcycles and that's why we were there too. TS

Quick version first. Arrived London Stansted at 5:40 in the morning with hypothermia 5 minutes late for check in. Booked new flight from Gatwick, left bike at Stansted and went on the bus to Gatwick. Flew to Faro in Portugal for the 07 Honda CB600F Hornet world launch. More later...

The longest day... 16 hours in the saddle in snow and rain... On R1's and Rockets! This is how my day started. Started to work at 9 O'clock on some news stories. Shite weather outside, ice cold wind with reports of expected snow. The R1 has to go back today and I have to be at Stansted airport at no later than 05:30 in the morning on Saturday. I knew this was going to be a rubbish week with the weather ruining it all! It's alright with some cold and wet weather if you don't have to go far. But Manchester-London is 200miles and I have to come back to get packed for the Honda Hornet launch and then head out again, to London... So that's 600 miles in snow, rain and cold then in less than 24 hours. So I set off on the R1 dressed in Alpinestars leathers with thick woollen socks, warm long johns, woollen sweater, Gore Tex winter gloves (and a spare pair for the return journey) and a Gore Tex Dainese jacket. Under my helmet I used a balaclava. I hate using it, but today I really needed too. Plugged in my earphones to my MP3 playing mobile phone loaded with 2GB's of music for speeding. On the M6 it started getting colder and colder the further South I went and by Birmingham rain had turned into snow. Brilliant, thank God I've got music and only 300 more miles to go... I had to stop on the first services on the M40, not because I was desperate for fuel, but because I was already seriously chilled and my visor kept misting up and snow had to be wiped off the outside of my visor continuously. Reminded me of Norway, but I usually dressed like the bloody Michelin man and could do more miles before getting chilled like this. So a long coffee brake only after spending 30 minutes by the blow driers in the loo. Visor thoroughly cleaned and dried. Set off again. On one of the hills after Oxford I noticed that when overtaking cars in sixth gear the rear tyre span up! Sixth gear! That should tell you how the conditions were... Stopped snowing by the time I reached the M25. Something else stopped too. I could only hear this Matrix ish sound on my headphones and then my MP3 player died. 200 fucking miles and now you stop playing I thought! I have later buried my mobile phone and resurrected an old one whilst waiting for a new one. This would give me more bad luck by the way on my way to Portugal... During my journey down I found it necessary to keep speeds above 70mph to allow enough wind to keep most of the misting at bay, but with the awful weather car traffic kept fucking me up and delaying me, keeping me in the lorry spray (thanks) and generally in the shit. And the car drivers were sitting inside their heated cars (a bloody waste of fuel innit?) with window wipers and still could not pay enough attention to the traffic to get their arses out of the way. I am afraid this is just the usual story. When I am out in shit weather I ride as fast as I can to get home as quick as I can. I know how my bikes handle in shit weather and it's usually very impressive. Modern tyres, brakes and handling still allows me to ride as usual even when it snows, because I know how to. Both the R1 and Rocket III are brilliant bikes in shite weather, believe me I know now. So, arrived at Yamaha UK. Demanded coffee and the Qatar launch next time and headed back the same way that I came but now on the Rocket. How comfy was that! The Rocket III lifted my spirits, but only until I got seriously cold again and the snow returned. Now it was dark too. Rode like a wild animal to beat the worst snow in the Midlands. On the M6 the snow drift settled on the ground and super careful drivers (they should be, because they obviously didn't have a clue about what the white stuff was) forced me to use the fast lane where there was more snow several times. The Rocket worked like a snow plough and splashed slush almost all the way to the moon. Reached the Toll where I had to stop and pay. Noticed how cold I was once again and decided to stop at the first services. But you wouldn't believe it, it was late Friday night by this time and queues. So had to filter the big beautiful Rocket beast with snow and slush in between the cars. It's alright, the Rocket handled this probably better than the R1 due to more weight and a heavier footprint on the tarmac. So finally arrived at the services half insane from cold and a flu on its way. Met another mad biker at the services. He was on his way from London to North Wales for a rally on his Ninja ZX9R. TBC

What a day! Snow here and there and still very cold! But got a couple of action shots done of the R1 today. To enable that I had to keep the bike one more day. Weather was not nearly as nice today as yesterday unfortunately. Martin Leyfield did today's photography and he rode pillion on the R1. He hates it! I can appreciate that as the R1 is hardly the choice if carrying a pillion a lot. There's slimy salt and grit on the roads so no fun with the R1 today really. Stansted airport has been closed due to heavy snowfall lately, hopefully it's milder by Saturday... TS

Video log today!

Was stopped for speeding on the R1 today and checked out the 07 Alpinestars spring collection in Birmingham. They claimed that I did an average of  98mph on the M6 Toll road of all places. Almost on the same place as I ran out of fuel yesterday. I am wondering whether the R1 is bad luck for me... So no wheelies today then. After a delay, it was nice and warm in the police car though, I arrived at the Novotel hotel in Birmingham to look at Alpinestars new spring collection slightly later than planned because of this. In general I don't like to talk about any product that I have not used or tried myself, but I will talk about the event and hence mention what was new as I will be using some of those items myself this year. It was good to see these people I have been dealing with at Alpinestars for several years now in person. Most of the time it's E-mail or phone. Anyway, Alpinestars brought with them the new Barcelona leather jacket which is a high quality new and cool leather jacket. Its features are basically the same as my Karoo jacket. Something much more technically interesting was the new Falcon jacket. It's a mix between leather and textile where you can remove the one piece leather part to turn it into a vest. In the vest the new Bionic back protector is fitted and the vest can for instance be used to insulate under a ventilated leather suit. One of the big news is that new Bionic back protector. It now adheres to CE level 2 for impact and outperforms the old Tech series by a mile. Both in impact protection, slimmer fit and much lighter weight. This will certainly make my life easier! The 2007 GP Pro gloves have been redesigned with even more protection in more wrist protection in style with the GP Tech glove. For the ladies Alpinestars launched the new Stella Julie 1 piece suit. Pretty cool stuff from Alpinestars and all at the highest quality standards. TS

The big question is whether the 2007 Yamaha R1 power wheelies in third or not. But of course sir, it might even do that in fourth. That'll be tomorrows question. It's been a long day in the saddle. Cold, but with enough adrenaline generated from using all available revs on both the Triumph Rocket III and the Yamaha R1. No fuel economy today and I suffered from it! I ran out of fuel on the motorway again. This time on the M6 Toll road on my way back from London after picking up the R1. Good thing it wasn't the Rocket really as I would have struggled to push the Rocket as far as I did with the R1. So already now I can tell you exactly how many miles you can do on the motorway on the reserve with the R1. That's an exclusive me thinks! The magic figure is 30. I can't believe I had the stomach to go for that far on the reserve, but my optimism and good faith in fuel consumption made me believe it could do the last 5 miles to the garage. But it didn't. Luckily for me I was able to push the R1 off the toll road and to the toll booth on the exit to the A5. I thought I should have a look for a petrol station nearby before calling recovery for something as stupid as this. I hadn't gone far before one of the guys at the M6 Toll office whistled me back. They'd seen me on the camera and was about to report an abandoned vehicle. God forbid and luckily I heard him. Went back to the bike and the guys told me they'd help. Phew and I even got some emergency fuel from them to take me to the next services. Thanks to Mick and the guys at the M6 Toll booth for showing mercy! The Police arrived to check on me as well, but a simple running out of fuel doesn't make you a criminal yet thankfully. I was still charged the £2.50 to pass, but this time I paid gladly! Thanks! I think I pushed the limits on the Rocket III today too. It also started showing the fuel light after 100 miles and it was only less than 1 litre left when I finally reached the services in Surrey off the M25. I have done this bit of motorway so many times and I already know how few garages there are on the last 30-40 miles into London and on the stretch of M42 to the first services on the M6 north of Birmingham. We are talking 30-40 miles on both these stretches with no motorway services at all. I still almost managed to run out of fuel with both bikes each way. So the Rocket III won the fuel reach at least. And they were both accelerated and abused to the fullest! The Rocket is all about massive pull and torque whilst the R1 is all about top end power. The 07 R1 still pulls impressively in sixth gear and it is plenty enough on tap for convincing overtaking manoeuvres, but it's still not quite the same as the Rocket. But there's no power wheelying in third on the Triumph. To be fair, the R1 is tiny and lightweight with obscene amounts of power. Riding the R1 without the steering damper like I rode today would have been suicide. With all that power and excellent grip from the Pirelli rear tyre the front end becomes so light so quickly and so often even in gears higher than third... Better watch what you're doing with that high tech fly-by-wire throttle son... TS Another embarrassing video blog here

Did a few action shots of the Rocket III today. There will be loads more and we didn't have enough time to head into the Peaks today unfortunately. The Peaks is a much more beautiful backdrop than the fields around Wilmslow where we headed today. I placed the new camera in the hands of Carlos after a crash course and we will be able to do amazing stuff with it on our favourite locations in the UK and abroad. The Triumph Rocket III is very addictive and I cherish every second that I'm on it. With fairly regular intervals I hit a false second gear unfortunately. Particularly when racing between the traffic lights. Rocket III is really comfortable even when doing some distance on it. I try to avoid using an open faced helmet though as the bike hits the ton so quickly on the motorway. It's a beautiful bike for cruising, but that power and torque corrupts me every time I'm out! I am a bit disappointed that the fuel lamp usually starts bothering me after 100miles. But I guess it's not bad for a 2.300cc engine. After all, what are we supposed to compare it to? That's correct, nothing! Forget about the Kawasaki VN2000, Honda VTX, Harley NightRod Special, Victory Hammer S or Suzuki M109R (Intruder). They are all squids compared to the big Triumph's power, torque and engineering. The new Yamaha Vmax might just be the only thing out there that can compete, when it arrives... TS

Video blog today.

I love the Rocket III! It handles really well despite its big proportions and I have even developed a healthy Rocket III filtering method. It's basically necessary to filter through traffic a bit differently with the big Triumph as the handlebars are so wide and you wouldn't want to hit a mirror particularly on the right hand side as the front brake lever is sticking out there. I have been out shooting this afternoon with the new camera. It never arrived by the way, I had to go to the local Manchester camera dealers and buy it the old fashioned way. So someone has nicked the parcel from Amazon twice basically in just one week. I am getting my refund, Amazon have effectively sold two camera kits to Parcel force and I am in business! The poor supervisor at Parcel force have finally got his act together to make a serious investigation and sending me 20 quid as compensation for all my phone calls during the last week. I wonder if they manage to get that cheque safely over... Wherever I make a stop on the orange Tribal Rocket someone is admiring it. When doing the shoots in Manchester city centre today people were on me like flies with compliments etc. So much so that I got impatient really quick. I have had too many experiences with arsy security people so I just want to finish each public shoot as quickly as possible. I had a phone conference with Yamaha this morning regarding my motorcycle stunt in Lillehammer. I will explain more about this tomorrow, but for now I can say that Yamaha are in and BMW are out. There's no messing about, I am actually doing this. I'll dedicate Friday's blog entry to this. I am also trying to organise something out of the ordinary with Kawasaki for their official launch of the 800CC MotoGP bike later this month in Jerez. It's a bit back and forth regarding what can be done and as soon as I mention something in this blog some other freelance journalist or magazine that is not on my distribution list will follow my lead. Either that or bitch and moan about it. I work for exclusives more than ever these days and I guarantee you that I will get more. I will not only get more exclusives, I have exclusives just awaiting to be announced. And what's up with the news? Well I have several leads that I am working on. One is an update about the 08 Hayabusa... Bob Tor