[ST] Not really a ride report

[Andrew Tait <antait@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey everyone,

I lurched into bed at midnight last night after doing a fair amount of 
STing over the weekend, so thought I'd just pop some of it down in the 
spirit of a ride report.  Most of it was motorway riding, so not much to 
say.  4,700rpm.  85mph.  Blah.

Set off from home at 8:55am to get a new tyre pressure gauge, as my two 
had a discrepancy of 6psi, and I had 350 miles on day 1 to do.  Would 
you risk 35/42 on one gauge and 41/48 on the other???  Nah.  Anyway, the 
Michelin gauge I had filled the tyres with was correct, and I am now the 
proud owner of a digital keyring pressure gauge.  Woohoo!

9:10am leaving the tyre pressure gauge shop.  Hit the highway big time. 
 That marvellous feeling of anticipation when you lift the side stand 
and click it into first gear, knowing there's hundreds of miles before 
you stop.  The sun was out, air temperature was about 12 degrees (55?) 
and I headed south onto the M74.

Firstly, I have NEVER done any distance riding on the Sprint really. 
Even if I've done a couple of hundred miles in a day before, it's had 3 
or 4 breaks, so doing 140 miles in one go in an hour and 55 minutes in 
such complete comfort was amazing.  And that was with my weekend's stuff 
in a rucksack.  It was uneventful, but as the air temperature rose and 
the traffic got heavier, I could feel myself smiling more and more as I 
started to use the engine.  6th gear.  Rolling acceleration, just 
watching the speedo flick from 80 to 100ish then roll back down gently 
as I sliced through the mid morning drivers.

Stopped at Killington Lake service which is one of my fave places in the 
world.  Stayed for an hour, eating overpriced food and drinking 
overpriced coffee, then filling the tank with overpriced petrol.  There 
were about half dozen other bikers around, a ZZR1100 owner catching my 
eye for a quick chat and a wee drool over each other's bikes (ALWAYS 
nice when that happens!)

Then zub.  In with the earplugs.  On with the sunglasses.  Another 130 
miles of the same thing.  Suddenly I've gone from "This bike is amazing" 
to a kind of religious awe.  I've driven for 3 hours and 45 minutes, 
have covered just under 270 miles and have not so much as a twinge of 
pain.  In fact I've found myself laughing out loud inside my helmet at 
the pure joy of just 'doing it'

Quick call on my mobile to my brother, and he's just about to leave the 
house to drive south, so given that I feel awesome I tell him I'll meet 
him and his wife where he's going.  It's adding another 40ish miles to 
my day, but do I care??  Actually this is going to be my first taste of 
GPS navigation too, as I click the wee demon onto the handlebars and 
watch it tell me my position to the nearest 8cm.  South, south, south. 
At some point I realise that the GPS is good but annoying, and I'm 
getting to ignore it and just look at the road signs, as I'm now doing 
some real riding off the motorway, with some lovely sweeping roads, lots 
of Midlands traffic, and now you see why you can only do this journey on 
something like the ST.  None of this 4,000rpm crap now.  Overtaking 2 
lorries and a few cars, I hit the gearchanges at just over 8,500rpm, the 
speedo soaring into the low 3 figures easily, the queue of traffic a 
memory as I rattle the brakes hard into the corners.  Now we're 
motoring, and eating the miles alive.  No cruising.  After the relative 
monotony of the motorway I find myself yelling "OH YES!!!" into the 
helmet as I blast through the countryside.  Hitting the edges of 
Kenilworth I slow down only to be joined by a Speed Triple for a short 
stretch.  Rather nice, weaving around gently at legal speeds with 
another Triumph.  Don't know why that's so reassuring :)

Finally, after letting the GPS get me lost (definitely its fault) I got 
into the town traffic at my destination,.  As I cut my driving teeth all 
those years ago on Glasgow city centre traffic I'm immediately at home, 
sliding between cars, filtering into impossible spaces, basically just 
being a cheeky bastard, and finally flopping the bike into a parking 
space, removing my gear and waiting for the family to walk across and 
meet me.

How good?  I have never, ever done anything quite like that, the variety 
of motorway, country lane and town driving, not to mention the 350+ 
miles covered in basically one journey with two short stops and ended up 
feeling so completely at ease and comfortable.

Nothing much to say about the journey home. The same again, but colder. 
 Heated grips went on at Carlisle (100 miles south of home) and stayed 
on for the rest of the journey.  A little rain in the south, but I 
didn't need the waterproof oversuit on (thankfully) as my speeds stayed 
above 60mph, and I just tucked in behind the fairing.

That bike is just superb.  I did something like 760 miles between 
Saturday and Monday, and could have jumped on it again this morning and 
done the same again.  Just a big "WOW" feeling at the end of it all.

Fun.  Ramble over.

Cheers,

Andrew
_______________________________________________
Triumph Sprint ST/RS mailing list
Send list posts to ST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Change your list options at www.Triumphnet.com