23-05-13, 09:44 AM
It's been on my 'to-do-by-30' list for a while. At 27 last year I decided I couldn't wait until 30 and did my CBT a week before getting married. A week after getting back from honeymoon I got my first bike, a Lexmoto 125 - yes, cheap Chinese rubbish I hear you all sigh, but it taught me to ride in all weather. I got fed up of pushing hard to do 45 and decided it was time to move up in the biking world. Started lessons mid-March and passed early this month, before buying a Fazer and selling my 4 wheels (a big step for me, I've had 4 wheels my entire life).
What do I love about it? I can't say the 'ride outs' because I never rode out (just commuted) on 125 (although I plan to change that now). I could probably say a lot of it comes down to the acceleration more than the top end speed. But what put the icing on the cake for me yesterday was this:
I left work early, so decided to go for a ride out, and ended up at the wifes workplace. We left together, and I thought this is a good opportunity to see what a bike makes to her commute. We left at 16:40 on the bikes clock, and straight away I was 400 yards further up the road because I could filter past everything. There was a couple of times I couldn't filter as there was no gap, so had to sit patiently, but most traffic was met with me jumping straight to the front.
Also being able to accelerate, overtake, slot back on on 60 roads is a dream, and allows you to make so much more progress.
So we left at 16:40, I got home at 17:14 (34 minutes), and had the bike tucked up, all my gear off and put away, dog walked, and tea in the oven by 17:24, and she got home for 17:35. So on her 55 minute commute, I took 21 minutes off it (nearly halved it). It was my first time filtering in anger on the bike too, so I could no doubt do better. I wasn't going hard, I was caught in 60 traffic a lot of the time, always do 30 in a 30, 40 in a 40 etc etc, and I managed to nearly half the commute.
That and the fact I got home with a massive cheesy grin is what does it for me I think
What do I love about it? I can't say the 'ride outs' because I never rode out (just commuted) on 125 (although I plan to change that now). I could probably say a lot of it comes down to the acceleration more than the top end speed. But what put the icing on the cake for me yesterday was this:
I left work early, so decided to go for a ride out, and ended up at the wifes workplace. We left together, and I thought this is a good opportunity to see what a bike makes to her commute. We left at 16:40 on the bikes clock, and straight away I was 400 yards further up the road because I could filter past everything. There was a couple of times I couldn't filter as there was no gap, so had to sit patiently, but most traffic was met with me jumping straight to the front.
Also being able to accelerate, overtake, slot back on on 60 roads is a dream, and allows you to make so much more progress.
So we left at 16:40, I got home at 17:14 (34 minutes), and had the bike tucked up, all my gear off and put away, dog walked, and tea in the oven by 17:24, and she got home for 17:35. So on her 55 minute commute, I took 21 minutes off it (nearly halved it). It was my first time filtering in anger on the bike too, so I could no doubt do better. I wasn't going hard, I was caught in 60 traffic a lot of the time, always do 30 in a 30, 40 in a 40 etc etc, and I managed to nearly half the commute.
That and the fact I got home with a massive cheesy grin is what does it for me I think