WTB: CBR/ZX6R or similar

While I'd hate to interrupt you in your fingers in the ears "I can't
hear you mode"..

It's not about the looks, which have not even been mentioned, it's about
performance.

A current 600 supersports is amazingly different to a decade old 600 SS
let alone a 20 year sports tourer. If you haven't ridden one of these
through a windy road Clem, you really need to give it a go. You'll be
gobsmacked. You're quick enough that you'll notice the difference in
performance, let alone how bloody light the thing is.

Bullshit Clem, you forget I followed you for a strop through the Hinze
Dam roads, you're as big a hoon as the next bloke, and if you can't have
fun chucking a superlight bike through the twisties then you've changed
a lot in the last couple of years. Remember the RD250's and etc ? Think
about riding one of them but with triple the HP, significantly less
peakiness to the delivery, less frame flex and better brakes.

Do you have different sorts of fun riding a little stroker to a big UJM
to a chooky on steroids like the GS ?

Self selecting sample - there's a certain demographic who go to rally's
- and they tend to ride certain types of bikes (particularly a BMW
rally). Yes there were shit loads of sports bikes at the Old Road Cafe
that weekend, and most of them seem to be going for a fun ride through
some windy roads - what's wrong with that?
...snip... answer the question mate, if you've not ridden one....

Now that's not true and you know it.

I own a 2stroke 250 which is far less practical and less able to be
ridden distance than a modern 600, am I a fashion victim for owning the
KR1 ? Or is it because it has something about it different to the other
bikes I own and have owned ?

JL

 

Oh dear, we're diametrically opposed then Clem. If I get a cruiser (and
I'm tempted to get one for a two up bike), it'll most probably be either
a VN1600 or V-Rod (I wanted a Yam Warrior but they made the seat & frame
rails 4 foot wide). It'd be nice not to be associated with the Harley
Hells accountant middle aged wannabes, and I'd be very happy to have a
modern engine design if I did have a Harley

JL

 

Well it wouldn't be a Harley special then, would it ? It'd be a ducati
engine in a harley frame (and that'd be a really dumb way to build a
cruiser).

FWIW, I did a lot of reasearch and design work on an idea for a custom
cruiser frame with a blown Daytona triple engine, spent a while chatting
to Pisshead's mates who do frames, online with chassis designers
(including the infamous tony foale), even found out someone who'd built
a blown trumpy 955.

Money, time and the intention of leaving the country next year kybered
it, but I still want to build it.

JL

 

The "pinnacle of my slide" ??!!?? Gravity must be interesting on your
planet.

JL
(I think you mean the nadir of your slide)

 

When will you two realise that the development of sportsbikes in the last
fifteen years coincides with the burgeoning of the Ulysses Club?

Lots of old farts on the roads means more cutting-edge sportsbikes - ipso
facto!

 

That's ok

 

Yeah we need quicker, better handling bikes so we can dodge the mobile
chicanes on their Goldwings and BMWs !!

JL

 

Red? Oh, dear...

Depending on how you slice it, you could argue that they've never been
top of the tree. There's always been something out there which either
handled better, or made more power... but since cluing onto that would
require doing more than lampooning people who buy them as misguided
marionettes to marketing...

Oddly enough, no.

Once again, no.

I could expand on that, but since you're just going to dismiss it, why
bother?

Oh, but it does. You're facing me down with the bravado of the
blissfully ignorant. Not having ridden and being innately biased against
any of the bikes I'm supposed to be defending, you don't have the
background information with which to asses whatever answer I throw back
at you, and you can just dismiss it out of hand.

....and roll out every derogatory, erroneous stereotype about sportsbikes
under the Sun to rationalise it.

Leave it at "I like Harleys, Triumphs and Ducatis", and we don't have a
problem.

Append that with something to the effect of, "...'cause the Japs
couldn't build an interesting bike if you dangled a nuclear weapon over
their heads, and you gotta laugh at these fools who buy what they do
come up with", and you're being a poster-boy for ignorance.

But you're perfectly prepared to batter me over the head with how
deluded I am to think that all the new tech that's been incorporated
into bikes since the time you lost interest might make any difference at
all to how a bike works and feels.

You're mouhting off on a topic I know a thing or two about. When I pull
you up and tell you that you're using the wrong scapegoat to lift up
your side of the argument, I'd expect you to be balanced enough in your
outlook to entertain the idea that I might just know what I'm talking
about... you know, the same way I keep trying to give you the credit to
be able to join a couple of conceptual dots together even though I just
keep getting threadworn derision in return.

You've got more brain than that.

 

"GB play's his 'Ace...."

 

I don't doubt it (or you) John; but I'd be even happier on a bike with some
of that stuff AND an interesting visceral engine.
Something to boom back at me through the rock cuttings or roar behind me
when I twist the throttle.
I reckon just about anything vaguely sporty I could buy these days would
have enough chassis and braking performance to gobsmack me so I may as well
get one with an interesting engne too.
(And besides; everything feels good ridden fast. I like bikes that aren't
boring when ridden slow too.)
~

Yeaah; but imagine if it was a two-stroke V8 instead of a
been-there-done-that refined-white-sugar-bland UJ 4?
~

Sadly I don't fit on a little stroker anymore (unless you're talking about
Postman Pat).
The types of bikes I enjoy don't really change much in a decade so I'm
curious about how a bike that was razor-sharp 10 years ago (and is still
waay sharper than anything I ride) is so old-hat now.
~

~
Nothing: the point I was refuting (and which I seem to have deleted myself)
was that "....double-cradle steel tube frames and breathless-up-top engines
..." are unridable or undesirable (and are something that we have or should
progress from).
My demographic seem very happy with them.
~

I've ridden 16 valve, liquid-cooled, 4cyl engined bikes. I've ridden
beam-framed sports bikes.
Sure I haven't ever put the two together but my opinion is that they won't
form some magical combination that makes me wanna' own one.
Shit; I've never even felt any desire to even sit on one (except for Jules'
Triumph).
~

~
I bet you can tell Nike's from Adidas, McDonalds from Hungry Jacks, Toyotas
from Mazdas and Coke from Pepsi too John.
~

Not sure I understand the question but back 10-15 years ago when you could
hardly walk without tripping over RGV250s I never had any desire to ride
one of them either.
Clem

 

Naah; If I wanted a cruiser with whiz-bang engine I'd get a Jap bike (or a
Rocket 3!!)
Clem
(and if I wanted a Harley-esqe air-cooled cruiser I'd buy a Guzzi!!)

 

The point I was failing to make is that if people wanted whiz-bang 120hp
cruisers they'd be building 120hp-engined cruisers (seeing as cruisers seem
to be made to be customized and the engines seem plenty-available).
The fact that I've never seen one was supposed to reinforce my "there's no
market" assertation.
~

Now THAT I'd like a ride on!
Clem

 

Enlighten us, O Master!

Of course you are: you'd be forgetting the CX650!

-----sharks

 

You'd never get away with an apostrophe like that at a BMW rally!

-----sharks

 

John Littler wrote:

John, you only ride the KR1 because I won't buy it from you.....

regards,
CrazyCam

 

I'd be assuming that if I hadn't ridden the bikes in question. I have.

There's the yobbo bike salesman again. Once more for the cheap seats...
you alter the performance of a bike, you alter the feel, too. Not just
on the limit. The whole way through.

Twiddle a bike's suspension settings and you change the way it takes a
right turn from a standstill at an intersection as well as the way it
takes a 4th gear, 180kph sweeper.

Fit a pipe, and you don't just add a nail-shaving of power at peak revs,
but you smooth the response off a closed throttle. That's an extremely
perceptible improvement.

It's the same when factories implement arcane changes from one model
update to the other.

Argue that the only time you can be aware of the changes is when really
pushing it, and you might as well be saying that you're too thick to
notice the differences, but too much of a legend in your own kitchen to
be seen to admit it.

Having once been the slowest person at trackdays myself, I can offer the
following insight... the guy who'd lap me in a single B-group session
wasn't to be seen brandishing the keys to the homestead at his new sheep
station in the pits come end of session.

What does someone prove by being faster than someone else; that he
really is a better rider, that he's just more willing to take risks or
that he's too pigshit-stupid to realise there's risk involved to begin with?

Rubbish. I used to turn 2:10's around Eastern Creek on both my heavy,
old 1997 ZX-9R and the 2000 R1 which succeded it. I was, as I am now,
simply too cautious and mindful what a crash would cost to ride even
close to all-out (truth be told, I'd keep only marginally less in
reserve at trackdays than I would on the road).

Following your logic above, since they were both being asked to turn in
identical laptimes, the feel of the 245kg ZX9 with the 1440mm wheelbase
would've been indiscernible from that of the 200kg R1 with the 1395mm
wheelbase.

How plausible does that sound?

So everyone who buys a Harley really wishes they were a head-cracking
bikie nobody dares **** with?

Derogatory stereotyping's fun, innit?

 

Knobdoodle wrote:

Oh, dear. Can I have one of them V8 smokers, please?

regards,
CrazyCam (who has wondered what being divorced is like)

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 19 Feb 2005 14:41:36 +1000

Don't have a bolt either.

Someone give Mr Doodle an anatomy lesson, and someone else give Gnat a
blood test...


Zebee

 

Show you how interesting I find them eh?
Curosity though: what WAS top-of-the-tree when the R1 came out?
~

And if I don't know then YOU'RE NOT GONNA BE THE ONE TO TELL ME!!
~

Of course that would be true if I said they were "bad" (but I'm waay too
ignorant on the subject to ever say that).
Of course I only said they were dull and boring and, seeing as your counter
seems to be "but they've got so much technology and refinement", there's
not much there to change my opinio on is there?
~

Tee hee; you DO remember that this all started because I said I liked the
SV650 don't you?
~

Except that you can't seem to tell me what that difference is (and I've
given up reading any road-tests and admitted that I don't have the skills
to discern it for myself)
Do I just have to have faith?
~

~
Wow; that was very complimentary thank you.
I don't think it's gonna' help fill the blanks in "Clem should think 4cyl
UJMs are exciting because..." though.

As I see it it's because they've got
a) unbelievably-fantastic handling.... but I don't mind having a thrash on
a flexi floater and it tends to keep the speeds down...
b) UF brakes. ... but I've been quite satisfied with all brakes for the
last 20 years (except single-disk setups) and I think the wow stuff will
probably cost a lot more for pads.
c) UF acceleration. This is probably good for wheelstanding (but that
costs me too much money) but I don't have any other use for it.
d) Unbelievably smooth and responsive engine. That could probably
entertain me for a half-hour or so. (Unless the plod stopped me first).

See; I don't say (or even think) that they're bad. There's just nothing
there that applies to me.
Clem

 

They do...they have S&S engines with no H-D bits