After a long drama to get the registration papers sorted out she's finally been taken on a decent breakfast run.
Sunday saw myself and a number of other souls heading out towards Simonstown for a nice breakfast. We departed from Caltex at the Waterfront just after nine, and it was great getting back into the group riding dynamics after being off a bike for so long.
The initial ride saw us struggling through town traffic, which is never much joy during the festive season. Over De Waal Drive towards Bishop's Court and then up to Kirstenbosch heading towards Hout Bay, then taking a sharp left going down towards Constantia.
I was following a lady on a Honda RVF400 to whom this stretch of road is like her backyard, and even with a pillion (yes on a Buell) although maybe not riding as extreme as the RVF I was keeping up pretty nicely without much effort at all. She really is an easy bike to ride, and corner entry speeds often catch you off guard purely because you think you are going much slower.
The moment we turned off towards Constantia I no longer knew the road and toned it down quite a bit. Of course my bike had just over 700km on the morning so she was still being run in. Surprisingly after some initial teething troubles the bike is great with a passenger. The effects of the pillion are much more noticeable than on other bikes, especially with regards to braking as the weight transfer to the front really puts strain on the brakes. Fortunately engine braking is such a pleasure with that barbarian bark from the exhaust that knocking down few gears is never a problem, and always offers a smile.
Somewhere during this part of the ride the leader of our group became a rather relaxed Scotsman on a Kawasaki ZX9. Travelling through town at a relatively sedate pace offered me the opportunity to do lots of roll-ons from low revs. Bearing in mind that she is still being run in, she doesn't fancy pulling from anything below 2500rpm and with a passenger I would generally try and keep her above 3000rpm. That might not sound too friendly for a V-Twin, which is suppose to have so much low down torque, but coming from a Japanese Inline 4 it suits my riding style perfectly.
We headed up and over Ou Kaapse Weg, where the wind immediately became noticeable. The interesting thing about the wind is that it remains completely constant on the Lightning. Fact of the matter is that you will always have wind from the front due to the low screen, and when you make peace with this fact it's really not much of a problem. Lateral winds on the other hand have virtually no impact on your ride however, most likely due to the low centre of gravity. I will more than likely still opt for the Zero Gravity Extended Flyscreen, even if just to test, but I could easily see myself doing long rides comfortably cruising at 150km/h.
Coming down on the other side of Ou Kaapse Weg we realised that we had lost the rest of the group. Turns out someone had gotten lost and the rest were waiting for them to catch up. It gave me a good twenty minutes to reflect on the ride up to that point.
I had been playing around with the suspension quite a bit and in the process managed to induce a headshake at 140km/h. Now I'm no expert in this regard, and I only jump between the different factory settings for weight classes, but it seemed like I had finally sorted it out for riding with my girlfriend at least. At least I thought this at the time, but going home later on I changed my mind again.
Eventually the rest of our group caught up, and it was in fact the Harley Davidson 883 Sportster that held things up. Not because it was slow, but because it deviated from the course. Interesting to note the extreme differences between the Sportster and the XB9 which share so many common parts. Amazing how different applications of components, can have completely different results.
Moving along into Simonstown we found a nice place at the docks to have some breakfast.
The Buell has a spectacular presence, and even amongst these superbikes it hardly holds back in the personality department.
I had my doubts that I might miss my GSX-R600 amongst this company, but I can honestly say that I felt a proud Buell owner throughout the entire morning and did not once wish I was riding one of the other bikes in our group.
And judging by the onlookers that walked past it's most definitely a crowd pleaser.
Breakfast done, the plan was to spend the rest of the day in Scarborough with the owners of the Kawasaki ZX-10 and Honda RVF400.
On the short run over there I realised that the bike has just passed it's running in period and being all warm up the moment had finally come to push her well over the 5000rpm limit that had been imposed on me for the past few weeks.
What a shocker to find that there is something resembling a powerband between 5500 and 7000. I suspected that revving the bike that high would offer nothing more than a smile on my dial, and in fact a loss of power. I was pleasantly surprised to find quite the opposite, and never thought that I would ever bother trying to dodge the rev-limiter on this one.
Every time I get on this bike I find something else that I just love about it, and the few minor distractions to that rule seem to completely disappear in the background. The jump from a high-revving Japanese 600 isn't nearly as difficult as was expected, and it offers much of the same character without all the discomfort.
After spending the day in Scarborough the ride back home was very quick, due to my girlfriend not feeling too well. The bike was perfectly happy travelling most of the way at 150km/h odd, and didn't once complain. I did realise that the suspension still needs some work though, as a number of bumps felt very soft all of a sudden.
After quite a hard ride it was also nice to find that the fuel economy wasn't adversely affected by the nature of the ride, and if anything I should at most lose about 20km on a tank under hard riding conditions.
As every day before this one, I still feel absolutely spectacular about my decision to buy a Buell. I think the only other bike I'll ever buy, will be another Buell.
