It was a No!!

Helen took the K1300s out yesterday in the awful rain to see how she would fair on some tight hairpin corners. She had a good hours ride on urban 30mph roads to simulate the slow going that we doing passing through French villages at 50kph. She then had a blast over the moors to test the weather and wind protection. Unfortunately although she thought the lean to the bars wasn’t that much she ended up noticing that it was effecting her T5 joint in her back. Then later on yesterday evening she noticed her hands started to go numb and she also got pins and needles. This was the same feeling that she used to get on the BMW F800ST, which for the last 3 days of one of our tours made her unable to feel the controls of the bike, which was not good at all.

So today I rode the bike back to Bowker Motorrad in the poring rain and she followed behind in the car. Kirk said if you wanted to get some bar risers they would fit them and let her test the bike again. But I suggested that she maybe try the R1200RS again but for a much longer time than she got from Williams BMW. After a brief chat we headed back home with Helen on her bike and me in the car and typically it had stopped raining by then. Although the rain has confirmed that I need a new helmet as the visibility was very poor after it started to mist up slightly on the way there.

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K1300s First Service

Well after having to cancel the service last October when my back went and then the chronic weather we have had since. I have finally been able to take my bike over to Bowker Motorrad in Preston to have the 600 mile service done and a centre stand fitted. Although after the snow on Friday morning that plan looked like it might get scuppered again. Anyway although damp when we left for Preston on Saturday morning the conditions throughout the day were mainly dry and the majority of roads dry as well. We arrived at Bowker Motorrad on time and handed the keys over to the service department. We then hit a problem as we had reserved two bikes to take out on a test ride to kill time, but had forgotten our licences. Fortunately we managed to get our licence numbers and national insurance numbers so they could do the licence check and let us out.

We took out the same K1300s Motorpsort bike as mine and the S1000R. Initially I rode the K1300s and Helen went on the S1000R. We managed to get out of Preston but it took ages even with all the filtering and headed on the A59 towards Clitheroe. We then took our usual route to Settle via Sawley and Wigglesworth. We then joined the B6479 and headed for Ribblehead Viaduct but stopped on the far side of Horton in Ribblesdale at our usual tea room for a late lunch.

After lunch we swapped bikes and then headed back to Bowker Motorrad via pretty much the same route except we used the M65 to get into Preston on the south side instead of trying to get across from the A59 junction on the M6. The S1000R is a real hoon bike, so easy to ride and with bags of power and insanely powerful brakes. It also turns on a dime, but for me it was too easy to ride and could be very dangerous to an inexperienced rider. The seat was too hard for me and crippled my buttocks and the zero wind protection would make long rides tiring. All in all a great bike for just hooning around on, but for anything else a pretty pointless bike. On the way back Helen was keeping up with me very well, which could only mine one thing see was really enjoying the bike. When we arrived back at the dealers she announced that she loved the bike and was going to get a price to swap. To cut a long story short Bowker Motorrad have given her the keys to the bike and said bring it back by 3:30pm on Monday. So over the next to days she is going to test it a bit more and then decide whether she wants to swap. The only downside is that we will have identical bikes, which is a little sad but hey ho.

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