OK so I got a little used to the bike by riding it back from Nantwich to South West Wales but today it was time ot give it a proper test Jason, Richard and myself met at my place at about 09:30 ready to leave by 10am Jason on his XT660R, Richard on his XR650 and me on my Peg Over the mountain to the Neath Valley First stop was the "two fat ladies" burger van of course, where Jason pigged out whilst we starved and made do with coffee (ok so we didn't actually want anything to eat) Then it was time to get down and dirty so we headed for some local trails, I was very (VERY) nervous at riding this lard ass thing off road so I was being a little over cautious, as time went on I started to get used to it and picked up the pace a little, first challenging section was a series of rutted bogs Richard of course was flying through everything on his XR where we were making use of torque and traction and just ensuring enough momentum to keep going and get through, JAson went ahead of me as he knew the best route through I tried to change rutts like I would have on my Gasser, but my bike fitted with TKC80's, weighing around 190kg loaded and on wet Welsh bog had other ideas, before I knew it I was cross rutted and spat off Crap, jumped up, picked her up and carried on, followed Jason through the nastiest looking bit, he made it but half way through my engine died, POOP !, now I'm in a deep rutt and no engine at all, after close inspection it turned out that Aprilia in their infinite wisdom had placed teh sidestand cut-off switch lead very precariously and it had gotten ripped out Fortunately they also had the wisdom to incorporate in the computer menu a means of disabling all safety devices (well actually that was Yamaha), so got it sorted and rode out By this time I was sweating buckets, couldn't beleive it was such hard work, this thing really drains you when fotting it or having to pick it up, plus I haven't done any proper off-road for quite a while, so we had a little rest at the end of the bogs Then it was on to some loose, rocky terrain Oooh this feels realy different, riding very nervously but trying not to ride so slow that I'm risking ditching it (keeping some momentum going), front end tends to get deflected very easily and feels very vague, though hit something square on and it just soaks it up like it isn't there, rear end will loft itself over even minor bumps, but I'm getting used to it (slowly) Had a couple more silly sideways off, one of which was where Richard had left us behind and Jason was shadowing me (probably peeing himself laughing), went round a left hand bend and right in front of me was a huge puddle and to the right was was the trail, poop, I'm in the wrong rutt again, rolled off the throttle a bit too sharp and got spat off again Picked myself and the bike up and said stuff it I'm going through the puddle, been through far worse and don't know why everyone had been avoiding it Very short video: http://www.riderz.co.uk/pics/pegaso_first_ride/web/MOV00012.mov More rocks later and a really good save, I was trying to get up to speed but that front end being deflacted was hair raising forcing me into emergency manouvres more than once. After a few more miles we were back onto tarmac and from there headed off towards Brecon where we had more coffee and hotdogs (minted lamb :) ) We then headed home soutyh by going north first ?, took in some familiar tight twisties back and arrived home at a nice early 3pm So not a long day out but to be honest I was dripping with sweat and when we got onto teh road I was fekin' freezing cos of it Was a great day as usual and thanks to Richard and Jason we all got home in teh end Bike is now gleaming and oiled ready for our next (longer) adventure I'll do a seperate review of the bike on another thread
Thanks peeps and hi Landrover It's going to take some getting used to the new bike as the handling is very very different from other DS bikes I've had but I'll persist as it really is such a good bike on the road, feels like it's on rails, needs no steering input at all which is what I find weird as all the other bikes I've needed to be countersteered or even muscled into bends, all this requires is to look at the bend and your subconcious body movement turns the bike, I'm still trying to break the habit of giving input to the bars so I'm often over steering at the moment (you know, nearly got the pegs down at 5mph and pooping meself LOL) I think this may also translate to scary handling on loose rocky stuff as the front gets defelected very easily, but that could be fron suspension set-up so I'll ride it some more on different terrains to get a better idea before I consider altering anything
I love reading ride reports about the first ride on a new bike. That's one mighty nice looking bike, even covered in mud it's a nice looking bike
Beautiful bike have fun<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
