Bugger!

Colin Linz · Post by **Colin Linz** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:55 pm

A friend of mine, and his mate came up to visit me for a couple of days. They had come from Sydney using all the great Bike roads on the way up to Brisbane. We went for a ride yesterday, it was a great day. For anyone that knows the area, we went across Mt Mee, into the outskirts of Brisbane, up Mt Nebo, across and down Mt Glorious, out around Somerset Dam to Kilcoy, back towards Caboolture, turning of to once again go up Mt Mee, then back down a little back road, back home to Caboolture. All up it was about 350 kilometres.

The other two were ridding VFR800’s, and I was pleasantly surprised by my old Ducati’s ability in corners, even the tight stuff. The only time the other bikes were better was in the fast straight sections, where we were sitting on about 150 kph for long periods of time. The VFR800’s do this easily, where as the old Ducati, while not flat out, was certainly doing it harder than the VFR’s.

The only bad part was when I turned off Mt Mee to come home down this little back road. I though I was on the right road, it looked like the right road; however I knew it was the wrong road when it suddenly ended with a little washed out narrow dirt track. The road looked like it went left downhill, but when I started to turn in I realised it just stopped with an old gate across it. I wasn’t going very fast, but with the confusion I didn’t notice the amount of black gravel across the road. As soon as I touched the front brake the wheel tucked under, and down I went. I went rolling off into the bush, and the bike slid down the road for a little bit. It wasn’t too badly damaged, but I had to ride back down the mountain to home, about 20 or 30 kilometres with no left foot peg or gear shift lever and the left clip on turned around towards the tank. Oh well, I have been thinking of changing the colour scheme, I guess I have an excuse now.

Vince · Post by **Vince** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:23 am

Tough luck mate,its nice the way older bike handle a fall,I was coping some crap on another site when I said that low speed low sides that result
in the stearing head being ripped off on moden stuff is not exceptable.

Colin Linz · Post by **Colin Linz** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:27 am

Yes, they are a lot tougher. I guess that’s the price you pay for a 165kg 1000cc 4 cylinder sports bike. I was surprised at the relative lack of real damage. I just lost the left hand mirror, front blinker, gear lever, and foot peg. The rest was just surface damage of the exhaust, left engine side cover, fairing, and tank. If it was a modern sports bike it would have cost me thousands of dollars in repairs.

Vince · Post by **Vince** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:48 am

Thats the point I was trying to make,a mate had a lowside on a GTS just after fitting a new set of Contis,one bent 90 degrees but the frame remanded intact,the exhaust was expensive,at least thse bike was fixable,
and without specialist help.Good excuse for a tidy up,the top ride you just had will motivate you after your resent wet spell.