Susan – my partner, and the one who got me riding bikes in the first place – also rides. For those of you who don’t know, she was the one who wanted a Monster first
. Unfortunately she couldn’t afford a reasonable one, but managed to pick up a bargain SV650, which I tried when I was having problems with my previous bike (Triumph T-bird Sport). I liked it, and it was enough to get me on a Monster.
I test rode an M900 (with high level Termi’s), and loved it
. On the strength of that I said yes to an M900ie Dark on special offer, and was pleasantly surprised when I got it to find it was a brand new machine (I’d been expecting a pre-registered bike or the previous year’s model). The ride position was more extreme (bars lower) than I had been expecting, putting me into quite a sporting position. It took a bit of getting used to, but proved to be OK. I got used to it.
A couple of years ago, Susan started having back problems – so much so that she couldn’t ride her SV. After much experimentation with different handlebars – which helped, but only to a certain extent – we decided that Susan needed a new bike. This would need to be a ‘tall’ bike, so that she could ride comfortably with a decent posture – we know all about this as Susan designs ergonomically sound furniture. We also wanted something that wasn’t too heavy, but that would ideally be able to be used as a two up touring bike, thus allowing us to share the riding, and reducing the costs of touring with two bikes (fuel, tolls, ferries, wear and tear, etc).
To do all these things, and be light enough for Susan to handle it produced a very short list… we (both) test rode a Multistrada 1000DS and the ST3. The ST was ‘orrible, and a lot of people say it only comes into it’s own at speeds in excess of 80mph… er hello?
What is the point of that?
Anyway the Multistrada was fab and we both loved it, but we decided that the economics unfortunately did not make sense, and so Susan eventually bought a Yamaha TDM 850. After some grief getting the thing registered in the UK (as it was bought on the Isle of Man) it now has scot-oiler, hard panniers and a luggage rack.
As planned, we’ve recently been to Corsica and back, sharing the riding, and covering 350 miles/day for 4 days. It performed superbly – especially compared with the big BMWs and Pans we kept company with. A 2000 mile round trip with the riding/pillion shared about equally. I was pleasantly impressed with it – although I did miss the Monster’s handling and power/torque delivery when things got ‘technical’.
More importantly was when I got back, and the next day threw a leg over the Monster. “Oh God – I NEED a taller bike!”
