It has been a
long winding road to the acquisition of my present bike. Of course, it helps
to have a very understanding wife. Hint: Get her involved in motobiking and
she would understand the need to buy the dream bike. Since the introduction
of the current GS in mid-2004 and reworked in 2008. The general consensus of
the GS is "The motorcycle is almost without limits—part standard, part
sport-tourer, part backroad bomber, part dual-purpose bike—at home anywhere
from the Interstate to the Outback, ready for anything." Plus, it was the
main star in the popular "Long Way Down" adventure .. it had everyone ogle
and dream about having one parked at home. And the introduction of ultra low
seat for short-arse people like me, everyone, well almost everyone, can ride
one now. Then again, the inflation has eaten into the bike's entry ticket
price making it very pricey to take one home.
I admit, it has been almost 3 agonising months of waiting for the bike to arrive. Thank goodness that the Somali pirates decided to give the cargo ship carrying my bike a miss when it passed through the Gulf of Aden. So far, my 1st couple of days rides been limited to urban roads to the shops fixing up some accessories It has been a lot of jittery and cold sweats when starting off on an unfamiliar machine, given my limited motobiking experience on larger bikes. Surprisingly, the handling has been light and nimble though I yet to get used to the tall riding position. With the tallness of the GS, I find myself positioned higher compared to my old Z750S. It was like riding in a SUV and looking down at most of the cars on the road. One thing for sure, I yet to adjust to the paralever/telelever's characteristic .. it simply soaked up road bumps with ease without upsetting the bike's chassis. The 1st easy ride was to Port Dickson accompanied by Phang, Sam and Tan who is a new comer to our lil group. Given I could only ride at maximum 4K rpm which translated to about 110km/h, I was practically riding alone. Sam was riding the nuts of his FJR1300 which he would be selling soon to trade-up for GS Adventure. Phang accompanied me for a few kms before he decided to join Sam and Tan for some serious riding
The solo ride to Batu Pahat over the weekend through some old trunk roads revealed the bike's ability to bull-dozed through those poor b-roads in triple digits with confidence. I am already getting the hang of riding the bike and as such, I am slowly learning to enjoy riding it instead of riding with cold sweats and jitters.
This weekend would be a short two-up riding before the full weekend blast to Gua Musang-Cameron.
