So after getting back from my vacation (The Netherlands to Sicily) and covering over 3000kms in just over two weeks, I feel as though I know my bike a little better.
We were fully loaded 2-up and the side boxes and top case were full to capacity. It sure was a heavy handful to manage especially when stuck in traffic or filtering between lines of traffic.
We left our house east of Amsterdam and drove to Dusseldorf to get the train (the Autozug). We arrived safely at the station and queued with the other bikers before being given clearance to load the bike onto the train.
We were supposed to go to Verona in Italy but they cancelled our train and so we had to get off at Innsbruck in Austria. We had a long ride to Montepulciano where we had a one night stay in a hotel by the highway. The next day we had another long ride to Naples where we'd booked the Tirrenia Ferry to Palermo. After an overnight crossing where we met some bikers from the Motoclub i Versuviani and had coffee with them the following morning after arriving in Sicily.
Leaving our new friends we rode to Agrigento and had a one night stop over to see the sights (Valley of the Temples). Next stop was Siracusa where we had 3 nights. Next stop was Taormina where we had 3 nights and back to Palermo again for another 3 nights. We got the ferry back to the Italian mainland and rode a long ride up to Siena where we had another 3 nights and finally back to Innsbruck for the train back to Dusseldorf. We arrived back home again all in one piece having seen some immensely interesting architecture, history. Some of the churches were breathtaking inside and we found the people very friendly. The food was superb too.
So how did the bike do.
Well we used some oil. The bike is still new and I've used about half of a litre of oil in the 3000kms we covered. I don't think this is too bad since alot of the way I was travelling at 140- 160kms/hr and as I mentioned the bike was fully loaded.
After negotiating some tricky narrow roads in a couple of the hill towns in Sicily, I smelled what I think was the clutch. I've read about this some where that this can happen. But it never slipped or caused a problem.
Fuel consumption was so-so. Not brilliant but again I was hammering the bike and we were fully loaded. On days where we were pootling around it was more or less normal. (around 300kms before I fill up).
I do have to mention the seat. The passengers portion of the seat is not good for these long journeys. In fact it was so uncomfortable for my passenger that we ended up having to make a padded cushion out of an old bag stuffed with T Shirts. It was the only way to make the journey bearable. The front part of the seat I found to be OK and did it's job reasonably well.
The suspension did it's job very well. I had the comf setting with dual passenger and found that to be good. Some of the roads in Sicily were awful and full of large potholes, but the suspension never bottomed out.
We had one severe shower on the last part of our journey home and our waterproofs we discovered were not waterproof at all. The bike however ran beautifully, and never missed a beat.
The bike started first press of the button every time and my second fuel strip appears to be working fine.
In summary then, I found the bike to be an excellent tourer (rear seat excluded), the engine is so relaxing and torquey and pulled us around Italy without a problem.
My next trip is a solo trip to France in 3 weeks time where a similar distance will be covered, but I feel confident in the bikes capabilities and performance. I do have photos and I'll post some up as soon as I can.
We were fully loaded 2-up and the side boxes and top case were full to capacity. It sure was a heavy handful to manage especially when stuck in traffic or filtering between lines of traffic.
We left our house east of Amsterdam and drove to Dusseldorf to get the train (the Autozug). We arrived safely at the station and queued with the other bikers before being given clearance to load the bike onto the train.
We were supposed to go to Verona in Italy but they cancelled our train and so we had to get off at Innsbruck in Austria. We had a long ride to Montepulciano where we had a one night stay in a hotel by the highway. The next day we had another long ride to Naples where we'd booked the Tirrenia Ferry to Palermo. After an overnight crossing where we met some bikers from the Motoclub i Versuviani and had coffee with them the following morning after arriving in Sicily.
Leaving our new friends we rode to Agrigento and had a one night stop over to see the sights (Valley of the Temples). Next stop was Siracusa where we had 3 nights. Next stop was Taormina where we had 3 nights and back to Palermo again for another 3 nights. We got the ferry back to the Italian mainland and rode a long ride up to Siena where we had another 3 nights and finally back to Innsbruck for the train back to Dusseldorf. We arrived back home again all in one piece having seen some immensely interesting architecture, history. Some of the churches were breathtaking inside and we found the people very friendly. The food was superb too.
So how did the bike do.
Well we used some oil. The bike is still new and I've used about half of a litre of oil in the 3000kms we covered. I don't think this is too bad since alot of the way I was travelling at 140- 160kms/hr and as I mentioned the bike was fully loaded.
After negotiating some tricky narrow roads in a couple of the hill towns in Sicily, I smelled what I think was the clutch. I've read about this some where that this can happen. But it never slipped or caused a problem.
Fuel consumption was so-so. Not brilliant but again I was hammering the bike and we were fully loaded. On days where we were pootling around it was more or less normal. (around 300kms before I fill up).
I do have to mention the seat. The passengers portion of the seat is not good for these long journeys. In fact it was so uncomfortable for my passenger that we ended up having to make a padded cushion out of an old bag stuffed with T Shirts. It was the only way to make the journey bearable. The front part of the seat I found to be OK and did it's job reasonably well.
The suspension did it's job very well. I had the comf setting with dual passenger and found that to be good. Some of the roads in Sicily were awful and full of large potholes, but the suspension never bottomed out.
We had one severe shower on the last part of our journey home and our waterproofs we discovered were not waterproof at all. The bike however ran beautifully, and never missed a beat.
The bike started first press of the button every time and my second fuel strip appears to be working fine.
In summary then, I found the bike to be an excellent tourer (rear seat excluded), the engine is so relaxing and torquey and pulled us around Italy without a problem.
My next trip is a solo trip to France in 3 weeks time where a similar distance will be covered, but I feel confident in the bikes capabilities and performance. I do have photos and I'll post some up as soon as I can.
