Two weeks ago I was in Spain on my Summer holidays and while I was there, I rented a Tracer for three days from MotoMercardo
http://www.rentabike.org/ in Marbella. This is my trip report.
First impressions; a very good looking bike with a high quality finish. The bike had 19,000 kms on it and unless you got right up close to it, it still looked like new. Coming from my increasingly tatty 60,000+ mile Fazer gen1 it was a treat. Riding solo from the shop back to our villa was a giggle. The bike was light and flickable with a great engine that begged to be spanked and I was soon grinning like a good thing. Gear changes were sharp, throttle was crisp and the brakes had great feel with one finger usually enough (reminding me that I needed to service my own brakes). The suspension was very pliant and soaked up bumps, ramps and sleeping policemen like they weren't there. The riding position was much more upright then the Fazer with wider bars and I felt very much in control. The mirrors were excellent and very well positioned though I noticed the left mirror needed adjusting more and more often as the holiday went on, as if it was losening?
Back at the villa, I decided to try the lower seat position. The back seat comes off easily and there is a 'hidden' catch that releases the front seat. That was when I noticed that the plastics were showing damage. There is a piece of plastic that the seat sits on which appears to have two positions but I couldn't get it into the other one, so I couldn't lower the seat. Perhaps if I had RTFM more carefully but it wasn't obvious standing there. Attempts by previous users to adjust the seat had resulted in cracks and breaks in the carbon look side panels but they were not obvious with the seat on unless you knew what to look for. There was no storage space worth speaking of under the seats, you could fit an enhanced toolkit but not waterproofs or a lock. Not a problem or a criticism, just an observation.
The bike was fitted with a good sized topbox (SHAD - never heard of them before) that looked neat and worked well and could take two lids. We put a very full backpack in it and headed off on our trip.
Day one was from San Pedro to Granada. A-7 to Velez-Malaga and then fun stuff through Alhama. That was the plan and with hindsight, not a very good one. The motorway grind to Velez-Malaga on the A-7 avoiding tolls was a chore of dodging traffic, finding signposts, being in the wrong lane etc. and we quickly found out that the seats were just not comfortable. Why didn't I go via Ronda? Because I was saving that for the return journey. Adding to the misery was the sound. This might sound daft, but at times, I could swear that the engine or the running gear or something was whinging. Certainly not a pleasant sound, though I was less aware of it as the holiday went on. What made it bearable was the engine response was instant and exact, the brakes were perfect, the mirrors were spot on and the handling was instinctive.
From Valez-Malaga we headed inland to Ventas de Zafarraya on roads that got better as they got higher. I quickly forgot about my arse as we started negotiating the hair pins and switch backs while trying to catch glimpses of the stunning scenery. Taking your eyes off those roads was brave. I found I was having to work much harder then I expected to get the bike to take the lines I wanted and was continually running wide on exits which you do not really want to do on a road this blind and twisty when carrying a passenger not really fond of heights. It was only after we went through the pass at Ventas and got onto the straight (but not very smooth) roads through the market gardens to Alhama that I worked out what was happening. Two up, we totally swamped the suspension. Going into corners on the brakes was pitching the bike forward and when driving out of them, the back end was diving so much that my steering was all over the place. I blame the long travel and never actually bottoming or topping out, along with all the distractions of the roads and scenery for being so slow on the uptake and though I did find out how to ride around it, I didn't master it until the third day and it still was not ideal. Normally when cornering, I brake in, cruise through the apex and drive out. What I had to do was brake before, stabalise, and apply steady power from the turn in all the way through the corner and out again so that the bike didn't change pitch. Fortunatly the Spanish are really, really good at building roads and I didn't have a single corner that tightened up on me or pot hole to be avoided mid corner.
From Alhama, we were on the A338 almost all the way to Granada. More stunning scenery and truly great roads but ridden very smoothly and quite slowly and even so, our arses were hurting a lot by the time we got there. One issue was that IMHO the footpegs are just a bit too far back so you end up just catching your heels on them like a bar stool. This makes it very difficult to spread your weight on your feet and even taking your weight to reposition your arse becomes a challenge after a while.
After a fabulous night in Granada, and a guided tour of the Alhambra in the morning, we set off in the afternoon of day two to El Chorro via Antequera. To be honest, I was a bit nervous after the previous days handling and the extra tension did nothing to improve my comfort. One new lesson learnt on the hour or so of motorway driving was that the sweat spot for comfort is between 100 and 110km/h. The bike will happily do 130+ all day, but the rider will not be so happy nor the pillion. Perhaps adjusting the screen would have helped, but like the seat, it was not obvious how to do that without a manual in hand. We got to Antequera about 5 in the afternoon, and unlike here, that is the hottest part of the day, so we limited our stop to a soft drink as it was just to hot to explore the place in bike gear. Another lesson worth thinking about when planning my next trip.
From Antequera we come off the motorway onto the A384 and A357 and the roads just got better and better. Finally, the bike was in its real comfort zone, cruising comfortably on quality sweeping A roads. I didn't have much to overtake but when I did the Tracer made very light work of it. That engine really is a peach. Our hotel was located where the three lakes meet and is the entry way to the Caminito del Rey, which was the purpose of our trip. The final roads we took are on some maps but not others and meandered through soft, rolling country side that was really beautiful and not at all what I expected in Spain.
After a day spent there (a place we will go back to as we only scratched the surface of what it has to offer) it was time to head home again and return the bike. A ridiculously twisty road brought us down the side of the lake to Ardales where we got petrol. I don't know how much I started with but I put in less then 30 litres for a 550km round trip and it was well over half full when I returned it. Then up to the A367 to Ronda. I had heard a rumour that there might be some Vultures visible in the valley and we were treated to a huge flock, with birds from tree top level to so high they were just dots in the sky.
The road from Ronda back down to San Pedro is justifiably famous and now I had worked out how to deal with the (lack of) suspension, it was an absolute joy. The one issue with this road is that you usually get stuck behind someone which destroys your rhythm, but for perhaps the first time, I had a clear road from shortly after starting downhill until three or four miles from the end. Heaven!
What I didn't like: The seats. The suspension. The Sound.
What I did like: The engine. The handling. The looks.
Would I but one? I will have to think about that.
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