VFR 800 V.Tec50
So here we are once again, October 2008 and it's all change on the bike front once more! It gets like a game of chess around here sometimes. Having planned a long tour of Europe for 2009, I looked at the V.Max and thought, "There's no way I'm dragging that around Europe" Great bike but not for touring - to heavy and a very limited tank range. The VFR750 at 12 years old is getting a bit long in the tooth for a long two-up bike tour, so a new bike was needed that would be more capable of doing such a trip. Several bikes were looked at including the FJR1300, nice bike but only having short legs I found the foot pegs in a terrible place when holding the bike up. Factor in a full load of luggage and Wee Jim on the pillion and it would have been a recipe for disaster. Then I considered a Triumph ST955i (rather than the later 1050 - Wee Jim would never get on on the back of one of those, the seats just too high) again a nice bike but not without it's problems plus it's starting to look a bit dated now. All that brought us back full circle to a VFR - I love my Viffers but not really a lover of the V.Tec truth to be told but it ticked more boxes than the other bikes.
First impressions on riding it the 15 miles home - not as bad at low speed riding as a lot of people would have you believe, a bit of clutch control sorts out the slightly jerky throttle response during town riding. The brakes on this one are terrible so I've no idea what it goes like performance wise. I've put the poor brakes down to one of two things, either the discs & pads have glazed over or the calipers have seized up due to lack of use (the guy I bought it off never used it) or it has had new pads fitted at the last service and they've not bedded in yet. It's going for a long run as soon as the rain stops and we'll be able to tell more after that...........anyway here's some photos of the wee beasty............they're in chronological order BTW, newest at the top - older ones falling off the bottom
Re-covered seat complete with gel
pads done by Andy Fowler in Leeds - great job he's done too
At the Ribblehead Viaduct
The 750FV & 800 V.Tec
together
One of the attractions of this particular bike was it came with full gen Honda
luggage. Don't know if they still look that posh
after being hauled around a few tours and chucked around hotel rooms
though
A Little Update
Well, after a few weeks with the V.Tec I can report that it is a fantastic bike to own and ride. I honestly cannot understand why the "bike press" give it such a hard time, sure it has a slightly jerky throttle response at low speed in low gears, but shift up a gear and everything smoothes out nicely. It's certainly no worse than any other fuel injected bike I've ridden and as for the alledged surge problem - I've yet to find it, if you want surge probs try a BMW!
The V.Tec "kick"? Load of bollox! It gives a rather pleasant mild shove towards the horizon at 6k rpm. To hear some people describe it, the bike turns into some kind of uncontrollable beast of thing!........Obviously written by wimpy journos who've never experienced the pleasure of the V.Max's V.Boost!! Christ, that would upset them.
OGB
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