The
two-up tune-up ride turned out surprising good. I was not sure how I could
handle the heft and weight the first time but I did well. I did a few trials
and errors tweaks to the suspensions' preload and rebound and I found
the softer settings suited me better. Sure, I was passed by a gang of
Aprilia RS125s .. but we enjoyed the ride through the twisties. However, I
was expecting more torque from the boxer engine to pull the bike through in
higher gears but I was mostly stucked in 2nd and 3rd gears. Anything below
3.5k rpm would make the bike sluggish running through the curves. My old Z
was doing fine at mostly 4th gear over the same road.
Sam took along his wife for the ride too. However, his wife developed bike-sickness, a condition I thought it never existed before. She ended up throwing up three times along the way home. She complained that the road was a little too curvy for comfort. On the return ride, we were held up at the Semenyih Dam apparently due to some filming. Perhaps some 70s era cops show as there were a few actors in classic blue-beige police uniforms. Then I saw one of my favourite car, the old Alfa Romeo Giulia saloon or fondly known as THE 'patrol car.' I remembered I drew lots of sketches of the car in classes instead of paying attention to the teacher.
Anyway, I think I am better prepared now to handle 2-up riding. The mounting and dismounting are still a little tricky.. The coming weeekend ride to Gua Musang-CH should be very fun as the new bike should be able to handle the trunk roads' conditions better than my Z .. as the Z is always a little fussy on road type diet especially with 2-up riding.
My
Offenbach slip-on pipe ordered from the net is due to arrive this Wednesday
barring any hiccups at the customs. Positively reviewed in ADVRIDER, it
should add a little zing to my bike. I always prefer a noisier bike, a habit
cultured from my Virago-biking days. David, local Wunderlich dealer has
failed to sell his over-priced mostly bling-bling accessories and a super
expensive BMW-approved Akroprovic slip-on to me. However, I did add the
useful front mud-guard extender, a rear mud-guard which left me wondered why
BMW did not put one in as a standard design in the first place and a
protective cover for plugs' cables.
See all this weekend ..
