First Day on the Bike

Well - The 15 months of 260 cc restriction has finally passed! The day after the restriction finished, I rode to Southbank Motorcycles and traded the Honda on a new BMW R1200CI (Style: Cruiser. Model: Independant.)

My first impression as I turned into City Road was "Wow - I'm in 3rd gear and I'm already over the speed limit!" The torque was amazing and was the one of the two things I had to watch. The other was the placement of the gear change lever. It's just too low and I don't see how I'm going to get it any higher. To change up gears I have to angle my foot down to get under the lever. Maybe I can adjust the height a little, but, there really isn't a lot of room under the cylinder head.

The ride home was very pleasant. Those damn hills and wind that used to give me a hard time don't any more. And the heated hand grips, well, no complaints in that department.

I guess the three things that make this bike such a pleasure to ride are the torque, the stability and the view from the rear view mirrors. I don't have to lift up my arms or swivel to see out of the mirrors anymore. Wonderful!

The bike uses PULP, so that's been my focus now. Not every petrol station sells it, so I'm doing the rounds working out where I can buy it. The salesman at Southbank Motorcycles said it's no big deal if you can't get PULP, ULP won't hurt the bike! That's good to know.

I've done the first service already and I'm up to 1,600 km.

I sure the next thing I need is a Ventura rack to replace the one I had on the Honda. There really is very little space to tie anything to. Before I go on on an overnight trip I'll certainly have to have the rack in place by then.