Category: motorcycle

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Two Wheel Upgrade

After the last couple of rides with the Fat Bastards Tourers, it was obvious that if I wanted to ride with them more regularly I needed to upgrade my transport to something more than 250cc.  My Honda Forza scooter has been the picture or reliability and practicality, taking me to and from work every day no matter what the weather.  Over it’s 36,000 odd Km’s I have had only one part failure and that was the Stator in the charging circuit.

Over the last month or so I have been looking for a tourer or sport tourer motorcycle without and insanely large motor, something under 1000cc.  So I tried the Honda DeVille, and found the ergonomics all wrong and I had sore wrists even after 30mins.  The Suzuki VStrom was just a little tall but otherwise good.  The Suzuki Bandit (1250cc) was a great bike ergonomically, however that motor was just WAY TOO much for me, also the luggage options were just to optional looking.

So after riding a 2nd hand Triumph Sprint ST 955i with 40,000km on the clock, I loved the ergonomics and that motor!  The 995i has more than enough power and torque (88 kw and 100Nm) but it is really manageable, the power comes on steady and strong very predictable and controllable.  So I spent some time looking for a good 2nd hand one with the hard luggage option.  After looking around I found a good one about 300km away, a low k (6,400) 2004 model with the soft luggage at a price I couldn’t pass up.  I am aware I will have to sort out the luggage as the soft panniers are not quite shaped right for my trip to work but with the money I have saved I can sort it out when I sell the scooter.

I picked up the Triumph yesterday and rode it home.  For the hour and a half I was riding down the range in the rain and fog… wonderful introduction to the bike.  The rest of the trip was fine, however the road was wet and the police were out in force on the long weekend.  The bike is home now and needs a bath.

Triumph Sprint ST 955i

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Front Plates

Road authorities in Australia are contemplating the introduction of front number plates on motorcycles and scooters.   They estimate the cost to introduce will be approx $70.6 million over 10 years, $10 million of that in an Education campaign.

Ok so what is the pressing reason for front number plates?  Why do we need to align ourselves with India and Singapore (the only other two nations in the world that enforce this)?

Well apparently to save lives.   The logic goes that if motorcyclists thought they were more likely to be caught for speeding due the the fact front facing speed cameras could “catch” them, they would then slow down and less would die.  Based on figures in Queensland where 17,000 Vehicles in one year could not be fined due to inadequate or lacking number plates.  Out of that number only 2,553 were motorcycles, that’s right approx  15%.  So it seems this would not be a large impact on the riding community, considering that the majority of these would be repeat offenders, the same people going to same route to and from work every day.  It could be as few as 10 people caught everyday.  (I don’t think it is only ten guys but it just shows how low the figures are.)

Many accident studies around the world have shown that it is not excessive speed itself that causes the majority of motorcycle accidents but poor road conditions.  1 in 5 single vehicle motorcycle accidents are due to things like potholes, loose gravel and oil spills are the responsible cause of motorcycle accidents, and roadside objects that cause most deaths.   87% of all motocycle accidents occur on Urban roads and 61% involve another vehicle.  61% of the time the other vehicle is to blame for the accident.

Based on the figures above I would prefer the $70 millions dollars to be spent on bad road conditions and driver education.  That would save more lives and target the problem areas.

Information in this post was from TwoWheels magazine and the Motorcycle Council of NSW