Its coming up to six weeks of Triumph Sprint experience. This bike is such a pleasure to ride. I don’t remember feeling exactly the same about riding a Bandit. This evening, for example, I had an excuse to ride out of Cambridge for a few miles, with some windy A roads and a short blast on a dual carriageway. The weather wasn’t fantastic but a pleasant summer evening – rather overcast in fact – but I remember feeling that I didn’t want the ride to ever stop. Slowly I am gaining confidence in handling a motorbike and enjoying preparing for corners (though one or two arrived quickly and turned out to be very sharp) finding a line, crouching down, trying to keep up speed. Even driving along at 45 behind traffic is enjoyable. Last weekend I took it up to the North Norfolk coast up the often-impossible-to-pass-on A10.

The bike is very happy to go along slowly but demonstrated that once I’ve decided there is ample safety to overtake, it rockets past anything and can keep going at 80 or 85 very nicely. The Bandit was always revving too quickly and I was forever searching for another gear. I’ve done just over 400 miles in 5 1/2 weeks. I had the Bandit 8 months and only managed 500 miles on it. The next challenge is to book my ferry ticket to Hook of Holland – and get some more luggage for it.