Thanks for welcoming me so warmly to this forum.
My bike arrived this morning, and I kind of shuffled around it for a while, hanging back, a bit overwhelmed I think. Forty years since I was on two wheels, a genteel Lambretta was the last time. Now here's this giant gleaming black and chrome machine standing in my garage - is this really mine...?
I live up a quiet lane, ideal for a practice run I thought, just to the end and back to get the feel of it. But I was like a duck to water - off I went into the sunlit day and didn't get back for two hours. Had a bit of lunch and went off again, bowling along the lanes and roads of south Devon like I'd done it all my life. OK a bit sticky on the gear changes, and never quite sure which gear I'm in, and some lumpy braking, and a couple of hairy moments hitting curves a bit quick, but lessons quickly learned.
I love this bike, and I think it loves me. The sound of this machine is sublime. It has amazing torque. Riding this motorbike is pure delight, and has put back something gone missing from this old man. Can't get enough of it, and I'm going out for more right now.
.......are my initial, somewhat emotional, impressions.