I couldn’t resist it – I’ve taken the day off to try out this bike….
On my first day of owning this bike I put my continent-crunching world-beating GSA through its paces – Destination Tescos in Ely. No problems getting out of cambridge. The border formalities were easy. Once on the A14 going west I felt a few drops of rain on my visor. Its well known that one shower on the A14 and the road will be impassable until next Spring. Luckily the rains held off. Some of the tarmac was ‘ever so slightly rough’ but the suspension coped really well. By lunchtime I arrived in Ely, a strange and wild place where banditry and corruption are well-known. Keeping a low profile I parked up the bike in Tesco and went inside to see if there was any food and drink available. With lots of gesticulations and shouting I made myself understood by the workers in Costa Coffee next to the pharmacy and cutomer toilets. On my return into Cambridge I was stopped at a chekpoint where I failed some of the questions on the IQ test. But with a bribe I was allowed in.
On the road I noticed some strange things: other bike riders don’t seem to return my nods any more. Instead I get greetings from the drivers of the following classes of vehicles: agricultural machinery, those big mowers that cut grass verges by the road; also scarecrows in the fields near Cottenham.
So day 1 was good – apart from struggling to get this machine into neutral once its warm. The riding position is good and the windscreen is great – I can ride with visor up now. I don’t know about its acceleration so no overtaking at the moment. It doesn’t feel as nippy as my previous bikes but presumably the power is there doing something.
Most of this post is also copied to the UKGSer website.