First pics of the new bike, in all it’s shining glory. It was really weird to start with, there were a couple of sick moments when I stopped at traffic lights or junctions. Handling is a lot better than it looks, I expected a bit of wallow when cornering but not a bit.

It only took an hour or two to get used to the bike and it is FUN!!!

Once run in it got even better. The bike really handles, so much so that I now have stainless steel plates on the heals of my boots to protect them. Typical right hand corners, were heel, hero blob then exhaust stud and plate. So much for cruising. Plans were made to change the exhaust, first for more clearance, second for a better note.

I decided to wait till the bike was at least a year old before getting the new exhaust, especially when I saw some of the prices for Vance & Hines etc. I’d found out about a guy up by Huntly that made custom stainless exhausts for bikes, so went in past him to see what he could do for me.

We chatted away about styles routing and struck a deal, only problem, he would need the bike while he worked on the exhaust. So Dec 04 with the snowing starting to lie, we stuck the bike on a trailer and took it up to Derek. He reckoned on a couple of weeks to finish the job. Luckily it snowed for most of the time so I didn’t miss too much riding.

Picked the bike up and had a listen to the note, god my neighbours are going to hate me. It’s loud, Dave reckons it’s a bit like a V8 drag car revving up. Since the weather was still pretty shitty, I decided to do the wheels, I’d noticed the lacquer on the front wheel was starting to go although the rear wheel was still good. (Pretty poor finish from Kawa).