Thursday, December 23, 2004

Cruising on the Blackbird and Warrior news

Today I had the privilege of being asked to take a young lady who turned 21 yesterday on a long bike ride. It was actually planned about a month ago by her scheming mother!
She and her husband are bikers from way back, but currently their largest machine is a 400cc scooter. Check out the photos from our last ride together.
Sam is also a bike rider currently on a small scooter but has just acquired her full size bike license and looking to purchase her first big bike.
So I was off at 6:45 am to pick up Sam. After bringing her back to our place to kit her in a better jacket, gloves and helmet we headed for the hills.

The day was perfect for riding; slightly overcast and warm. We headed through the back of caboolture (Moorina, and Caboolture River Road to Woodford, then took the Kilcoy Beerwah highway up toward Peachester. Virtually no traffic and long straights and gently curving bends saw some fantastic speeds (Sam's fastest ever she said later). Hitting the turn off toward Maleny we were into switch backs and steep hill climbs. The new tyres performed flawlessly and I felt extremely comfortable sling my ass off the saddle to drop into each corner. Sam was a great pillion sitting back and grabbing the rack so as not to be in my way. She had a great view from the secarpment as we climbed up and up. The 4 cylinders screamed up to 10,000 revs and gurgled back to 7000 as we flicked in and out of hairpins and sweeping curves, hardly touching the brakes as the engine braking and the steepness of the hill was enough to set most corners up.

Reaching Maleny we fueled up and then headed to Montville. This time we were on the other side of the escarpment looking out over the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. A leisurely coffee (breakfast) was followed by Sam doing some shopping as I took care of some business via phone.

Leaving Montville we headed down to Nambour relishing the tight switchbacks and steep descent. We then cruised gently back to the highway where we joined a double stream of traffic. The bike was effortless and nimble as we negotiated the traffic in record time. Most vehicles saw us briefly as we flicked past them. Some never saw us at all!

Today I made an offer on a brand new bike.
Have yet to firm up the deal but if it goes ahead I will be trading the CBR1100XX for a Limited Edition Yamaha Warrior. 1670 ccs of Performance Cruiser!
Check this write up out.
It seems the Harley V-Rod looks better and drags faster, but is outperformed in comfort, road handling and performance everywhere else by the warrior.


Posted by: Jethro | 12:59 PM |