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Performance Bikes...What's The Blooming Point.

Blog Date - 24 July 2012

Yamaha Fazer FZS 600, the Mark One Fazer.  95bhp and an alleged top speed of 140mph.  Average speed on a Saturday afternoon ride out from Bolton to Buxton?  I doubt I'd achieve 25mph average, if that.  Sat in traffic on the A6 through Stockport.  Stuck behind shoppers and tourists into Macclesfield.  50mph average speed cameras on the Cat and Fiddle pass.  More traffic in Buxton.  Roadworks along the A6.  And so on and so on and so on.

I really should not go to the far North of Scotland.  Where the roads are fast, almost empty and stunningly impressive.  Why not?  Because when I get back home and have to return to riding in the populous area of the North West I hate it.  I can do 300 mile days in the Highlands and not see a single traffic light.  I can barely ride 1 mile back home without traffic lights, roundabouts, pedestrian crossings, multi-lane junctions and bewilderingly busy shopping centres.  

I hear people tell me that traffic does not affect bikes, we just filter through.  Yes, but we can't filter at 30mph in the towns or at 70mph on the motorways, well, you can but you won't last long at all.  Traffic might not stop us dead like a car, but it certainly slows us down a great deal.  On the A6 in Stockport this weekend I was stopped dead, the road was too busy and too tight to filter.  And while bikers pick their way through tiny gaps and get bashed by unaware drivers, car drivers sit in air conditioned comfort listening to the radio and burn fuel wastefully.  ARGH!

If you are lucky enough to find an open stretch of road complete with twisties you can't "give it large" anyhow.  There's sure to be a nice policeman with a radar somewhere, an unpredictable obstacle in your path, a caravan, roadworks and a Nissan doing 25mph.  If the stars align correctly, everything is good, the road clear and the sun shines that wonderful moment will be over in a flash as you arrive in the next town a couple of miles later.  There's no space here, or the spaces are very small.  

So, what is the point of having a performance motorcycle of any kind?  You can travel to where the roads are less busy and maybe snatch a few moments of hedonistic riding.  You can sit at your local biker haunt and tell tales of blasting past cars and getting your knee down.  You can give it large and just pay the fines and take the points.  You can do all these things but after 22 years of riding it all seems somewhat fruitless to me.  

Why do I keep the Fazer?  2 up riding and touring.  I have a 125 that's a delight to use but it can't take myself, the gf and the camping gear.  That still does not justify the Fazer as opposed to a less powerful but just as load-up-able bike, for example a Deauville or a GS500.  That is quite quite true, and it is something I am seriously looking at right now.  I purchased the Fazer as it was a good bike at the right price at the right time.  It's the most powerful bike I've owned and I've learnt a few things about speed whilst I've had it.  And there's another reason not to replace it with a less powerful machine.

The Fazer returns, with gentle riding, about 60mpg.  So would a Deauville or a GS 500 or any other similar kind of machine.  My old SLR 650 would manage 55mpg, the NTV 600 about the same.  So the Fazer offers acceptable economy with, on the rare moments I can use it, performance.  It is a very good bike.  But if someone brought out a suitable motorcycle that could tour and carry a load AND did not drink petrol at the expense of performance, I'd be keen.

OH!  They have!  The new Honda NC700.  Same power output as the SLR 650, 40bhp or thereabouts.  Large enough to carry two and luggage.  More torque than a train.  And most of all, 80mpg.  Shame there's no second hand ones yet...
 

Reader's Comments

John Almond said :-
http://www.visordown.com/road-tests-first-rides/first-ride-honda-nc700x-review/19622.html

interesting reading in the above web page.


01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Hi John

Yes I am very very seriously looking at the NC700S. My problem? I really do not like to spend money, it's the Yorkshire man in me.
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC

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