Honda ST1300 Pan European

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2010-03-21T15:34:00.001+01:00

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December 5 2009

2009-12-06T00:36:00.001+01:00

Other Pan European blog (Portugese)

November 6 2009

2009-11-06T22:19:00.002+01:00

Today I recieved a copy of the movie that has been made of us by the undercover bike cop serveral months ago in Germany. Although it looks like we're riding not that fast, we were still 50kmh too fast ;)

Another movie of 'friend'

September 11 2009, 83,163km

2009-09-11T19:43:00.005+01:00

And that concludes another motorcycling chapter: sold the Pan today for 8,500 euro.
The Pan has been a near perfect touring companion during 50,000km. Only the instability at higher speeds spoiled the fun. Maybe the wedges are a cure?
Now I'm aiming for the new Honda V4 (VFR1200) with automatic gearbox. It seems to me a very high tech and very interesting bike. I hope Honda will introduce it soon.

THE END

August 22 2009, 83,163km

2009-08-22T21:16:00.002+01:00

Great news. It seems the high(er) speed wobble problem of the ST has been resolved by Dutch frame specialist Nico Bakker. He's made some wedges to put under the windscreen in order to place it a bit steeper. In this way more pressure is been put on the front which has a stabilizing effect. Or so it seems. I've read several reports of users who claim that the wobble is gone.
If I would keep the Pan I sure would have given this a try...

August 12 2009, 83,163km

2009-08-12T18:06:00.004+01:00

The Pan got an extended small service job. Or something like that. New front brakepads, all the oils changed and new oil and air filters were placed. The new owner (anybody?) must be very happy with this.

As a loaner I got a Honda CBF600. Nice bike. It's been a while since I've driven an inline four and I must say I like the engine characteristic of a boxer or V4 (and V2, Pim?) better nowadays. I'd to rev the 600 quite high to get some decent performance. The torque of a boxer and V4 is much better.

BTW Found another ST1300 blog. Have a look at it.

August 10 2009, 83,100km

2009-08-10T17:45:00.006+01:00

Put the Pan up for sale... I think it's time for something else. I've had the bike for two and a half year and for over 50,000km now. I'd like to have a more sporty bike again, although I don't know yet which one. The new Honda V4? Who knows...

August 3 2009, 83,077km

2009-08-03T17:00:00.003+01:00

Pan is still asleep, waiting for another trip...

There are plans to built some new Van Veen OCR1000's from spare parts. I find this a very beautiful and interesting bike and would love to have one. But I guess the price won't be much less than 50,000 euro? And there are already a lot of other interested people.

Photo of the Van Veen's supplied by the nice people from Motoren & Toerisme, Belgium. Thanks guys/girls!

July 14, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-14T17:19:00.002+01:00

Removed the battery to keep it charged at home since I don't have electricity in my garage.

July 9, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-09T20:38:00.002+01:00

Saw today the first drawings of the 2010 ST1300 (1200??) on MCN. Looks very promising...

July 3, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-03T18:39:00.001+01:00

Ahem... Silly me... I just discovered the reactions on some of my postings. I always thought I would get an email when someone reacted. But for that to work I had to enter a *valid* email address... Sorry!

July 2, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-02T22:35:00.002+01:00

Pictures of a new Honda V4 appear on the Net. Interesting bike. If it's not too uncomfortable, can carry cases, has enough fuel range, who knows...

June 30, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-01T17:29:00.009+01:00

Today Pim and I returned from a short vacation in the German Black Forest. A short report:

Day 1: Friday June 26, Going to the forest, 749km.
When I wanted to start the Pan this morning it didn't: flat battery after standing still for almost 3 weeks. With the help of my car I finally made it run. With a little delay Pim and I went asap to the Black Forest. First over highways to Karlsruhe, then over nicer roads to our final destination: the Gasthof Salenhof in the South of the Black Forest. From here we'd discover the surroundings.

Day 2: Saturday June 27, Rain, Roads and Cake, 277km.
First real day of the vacation. We rode over great roads partly through pouring rain and fog. Not a nice start, but still it all looked promising. We rode partly over the Schauinsland circuit.
At a stop we had the famous Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte. Pim and I were both a bit disappointed, what was all the fuss about? It didn't taste that special...

Day 3: Sunday June 28, Black Forest at its best and worst, 265km.
The route of today led us over very beautiful and curvy roads. Even Pim as curve-addict had nothing to complain about. At a canyon we switched bikes and I could try Pim's Suzuki TL1000S. The bike felt very small, but wasn't too uncomfortable (for this short ride). I opened the throttle and with a nice rumble the TL speeded forward. At the first corner I tried to brake, but nothing much happened! Eeeeekkk!!! With more force I pulled the brake lever and at last the bike started to slow down. Happily I wasn't in full-attack mode, so I made it through the corner, no thanks to the brakes (what brakes?). Eventually I learned how to ride this bike and had quite some fun on this lightweight sportsbike. After a while Pim and I switched our bikes back and Pim told me how the brakes of the Pan surprised him, but than in a positive way. He almost lost his teeth on the handlebar when braking for the first time.
After a couple of hours we finished the route of this day and decided to do one of the next days as well. On one of the nice roads we approached a wide curve with good tarmac. I went first through it and found at the exit a trail of sand and stones across the road. I immediate put the bike straight, let it cruise over the rubble and after the sand and stuff braked and steered. I looked into my mirrors and expected to see Pim do the same. Alas, it seemed he cornered a bit faster and locked his brakes on the rubble. The bike and Pim went down and ended on the verge of the road. Pim hurt his shoulder and the bike had quite some left side damage. Happily both Pim and the bike were able to ride after this incident. We went back to the hotel and the owner took us to the hospital where they checked Pim's shoulder. It was badly bruised, but there was nothing broken. Back at the hotel after a couple of beers Pim started to feel a little better.

Day 4: Monday June 29, Bad luck continues, 253km.
This day we first went to a Suzuki dealer to have the gearlever fixed since there was a piece broken off what made changing gears a bit difficult. After that we started to follow a new route. We thought. The surroundings and roads looked very familiar and one way or another we were following the same route as the day before. Maybe I'd made an error while preparing the routes? I still don't know. Anyhow, the roads were great and we had a lot of fun. Even Pim with his hurt shoulder. At the end of the day we passed the spot where Pim crashed. The sand and stones were still lying there! This time Pim made it across :)
We visited the Triberg Waterfalls, the highest waterfalls of Germany. When we came back we saw that the Pan had a punctured rear tire. After some phonecalls and time a car of the German autoclub ADAC arrived and we put the Pan on the trailer and brought it to the nearest tire dealer. There I was picked up by the nice owner of our hotel, since Pim has a single seater bike.

Day 5: Tuesday June 30, Going home, not without bad luck, 1,068km.
The very, very nice owner of our hotel brought me with his fast Audi A6 station to the tire dealer to pick up my already fixed bike. As a Michael Schumacher wannabe he raced over the Black Forest roads and in no time we were at the dealer. Me pale and sweating after this torment, he jolly as ever. The Pan had a brand new Michelin Pilot Road 2 which cost me only 141 euro. I think we pay in The Netherlands almost 100 euro more!
At 11.00 hour we finally could start our trip home. After a couple of uneventful hours we approached Cologne. At some road works Pim and I got separated. I slowly rode on, expecting Pim to blast by me any moment. Which he didn't. I stopped at a gasstation and tried to phone Pim. What didn't succeed. After a while I went on, still expecting to see Pim soon. At a parkingplace I finally got hold of Pim and he told me that a fuse was blown and he was trying to fix it. At that time Pim and I were already seperated by 100km. I rode back to him what cost me an hour. When I arrived he'd already fixed the bike and we made another attempt to get home. This time I wouldn't let Pim out of my sights.
At a straight stretch of road we tried the topspeed of our bikes. With 220kmh the Pan was faster than the TL1000S. But at that speed the Pan started to weave terribly again. With great difficulty I could stabilize it again at 160kmh. Not something to be repeated...
After I'd brought Pim and his stuff home I was home myself at 22.00 hour, after more than 1,000km. Which concluded yet another fine vacation.

Go here for the pics

Little movie, showing the surroundings:

June 22, 2009, 80,468km

2009-06-22T18:59:00.003+01:00

Saw a bike like my first one for sale on the Internet: the Kawasaki 750 H2 (Mach IV). The current bid is 11,000 euro. I sold mine many years ago for less than 600 euro...

June 7, 2009, 80,468km

2009-06-07T11:38:00.002+01:00

Managed to replace the light bulbs. The trick was to depress the ends of the connector on the back of the bulb and than pull it. On the first pic you see left the stock bulb and right the Philips XP Moto, on the second pic both bulbs have been replaced. Seems I now have to change the city lights as well to make them a bit brighter too.

Added some oil to the Pan as well today.

June 6, 2009, 80,468km

2009-06-06T12:24:00.003+01:00

Tried to install the Philips XP Moto headlights I've bought recently. But I was unable to remove the old ones. Gonna do some research on how to do this without breaking the stuff...

May 24 2009, 80,456km

2009-05-24T20:03:00.002+01:00

On this sunny day I drove a tour organised by the Suzuki SV Contact Club. Pim is member and asked me and a couple of others to come along. The ride was quite nice and I could try the new windscreen. I find the new screen just as good as stock. Which is good enough for me, because I mainly bought it for the color.

May 23 2009, 80,111km

2009-05-23T19:06:00.002+01:00

Added two more farkles to the Pan. First two new rear light bulbs: high power leds in stead of the stock bulbs. The first pic above is one of the led lights, on the second pic you see left the led and right the stock bulb. Only drawback is that the leds don't illuminate the licenseplate. I don't care, but the cops might.

Second farkle is another screen. It's one from Clearview. It's a little bit lower and wider than stock (see third pic). Main reason for me to buy it was the fact that it is tinted. It has a flip up design too, so windflow might be better. I haven't tried it yet.

May 17 2009, 80,111km

2009-05-17T18:27:00.003+01:00

Above you see the actual route we've driven. It's almost like planned, we've only skipped part of Portugal.
See here for the trip report!

Here for the pics

May 16 2009, 80,111km

2009-05-16T09:03:00.002+01:00

Home again! After almost 9,000km. Expect a trip report soon. BTW that Google Maps thingy didn't quite work: it's hard to find a decent internet connection in Spain. At least, in the places we have been...

April 25, 2009, 71,177km

2009-04-25T16:43:00.002+01:00

All systems go! All's ready for the big trip tomorrow. Seems like we're gonna have some rain along the way but we'll survive ;)

Here's the planned trip. Looks a bit ambitious but we can always adjust on the spot since we haven't made reservations or whatever.

April 24, 2009, 71,177km

2009-04-24T19:58:00.002+01:00

Got new rubbers front and rear (Michelin Pilot Road 2: 417 euro). Although the old ones were good for at least several thousands of kms more I wanted fresh rubber because of the mega trip ahead. I kept the old front tire because it must still be good for another 5,500km, so I can use it later. I guesstemate that the old rear was good for another 3,000km. I found that not worth the trouble of keeping it.

April 22, 2009, 70,686km

2009-04-22T18:35:00.002+01:00

Next Sunday Erwin and I will leave for yet another big trip. This time Spain and Portugal will be our destination. Plan is to stay away for three weeks :)

With Google Maps I'll try to keep track of our location.

April 18, 2009, 70,686km

2009-04-18T15:58:00.003+01:00

Finally got around to stick the Bike-Quip frame protectors, I almost had a year lying around, on the bike. It was very easy to do and doesn't look too bad.

April 13, 2009, 70,326km

2009-04-13T19:08:00.004+01:00

This second Easter day started foggy and chilly, but still I went for another trip to the German Eifel. I loaded this route into my Zumo and followed it almost completely. At some points the road was blocked because of road maintenance and I found that my old gps, the Streetpilot 2610, did a better job at getting you back on track again. Well, actually it didn't do much: it just kept the nearest part of the route always in view, thus abling me to ride back to it myself. The Zumo always want to recalculate the route, or you can decide to not do this, but in this latter case the Zumo will not show the correct route by itself. Of course you can zoom out and have the route in view, but with the 2610 this happened automatically.

On the whole the route was very nice and I saw only one German speedtrap. The route passed the radiotelescope of Effelsberg and of course I had to eat curry sausage with french fries and mayonaise at the imbiss there :)

This trip was about 750km in length which took me almost 10 hours.

April 5 2009, 69,463km

2009-04-06T18:56:00.004+01:00

A member of the Kawasaki 1400GTR Forum (with me as webmaster) organised a tour today through the Belgian Ardennes and the German Eifel. The weather was chilly, but the roads were very nice, especially in Germany. There were 24 bikes of which 14 were GTR's. Pim with 2 collegues and Ton and son joined me.

The Zumo GPS and Camos headset worked very good. I've found a trick to prevent the headset to go into powersave mode: I've made an mp3 with no sound and let this continuously play by the Zumo. I was afraid this would drain the battery of the Camos, but I could use it the whole day.

I led a small group on one of the nice roads in Germany. I expected speedtraps ahead, so I slowed down on the straights and went a bit quicker in the corners ;). What I didn't expect was an undercover policebike coming from behind, so I let this faster BMW pass without thinking twice. When he lit a sign stating 'Stop' - 'Polizei' I knew enough... Three of us were caught on camera doing 100kmh were only 50kmh was allowed. Of course as front-runner I was one of them. We had to pay 145 euro each and could ride further. Now a lot slower.

The tour ended in The Netherlands and after diner we went home again. For me this trip was 665km long.

March 25 2009, 68,798km

2009-03-25T20:53:00.001+01:00

Finally sold the stock rear shock of the Pan I still had lying around.

March 17 2009, 68,798km

2009-03-17T17:35:00.004+01:00

Tried the Zumo and bluetooth headset again, now with the warnsignal 'on'. And that didn't help either. I still miss the first part of the instructions. What a crap. How can they make/sell such useless stuff? And why did I buy it? ;)

Halfway I hardwired the Zumo with my Etymotics earphones and used this instead of the Camos. This worked perfectly. The quality of the music was very nice and I didn't miss part of the instructions. Drawbacks are the wire that dangles in front of me and the Etymotics earphones are not as comfortable as my normal earplugs. I don't know if I can wear them all day.

March 8 2009, 68,649km

2009-03-08T22:27:00.002+01:00

I beleive I've got the fix for the late reaction of the headset. The Zumo has a setting called 'warnsignal'. When 'on' you first hear a signal before the directions instruction. Mine was off, I think that when I put it to 'on' the headset will have the time to get out of powersave mode and be ready to receive the instructions. Gotta try this asap.

March 7 2009, 68,649km

2009-03-07T16:07:00.002+01:00

Today I made a testdrive with the Zumo 550 and Camos BTS-230 bluetooth headset. Even with my earplugs in I could hear the instructions quite well thanks to the good screen of the Pan. Negative point is that the headset reacts too late to the spoken instructions. Each time I missed the beginning and this is rather important since the instructions start with the distance to the next junction. I could solve this by playing mp3's through the Zumo, but firstly I'm afraid it will drain the battery of the headset too fast. Secondly I don't want to listen to music all of the time. Thirdly the quality of the music is quite bad (dunno if the Zumo is to blame, bluetooth or the speakers). And fourthly the music is mono. You hear only one channel of the stereo.
So I've got to do some research to find a fix.
All in all navigating was much more easy with spoken instructions than without. It takes away most of the uncertainties when you've got to rely solely on the screen.

March 1 2009, 68,527km

2009-03-01T14:39:00.001+01:00

Attached the Zumo wiring to the battery. The Pan is now ready to do some serious touring :)

February 14 2009, 68,527km

2009-02-14T09:57:00.006+01:00

Got the Pan back from the dealer. They've done a 12,000km service job:

Parts	Number	Total Euro
Forte 1 Motor Power	1	11.44
Brake pads rear	1	41.64
Brake pads front	1	41.64
Spark plugs Denso U24FER-9	4	39.04
Oil filter	1	12.51
Air filter	1	36.54
Fork oil seals	1	14.04
Clip panel	1	2.41
Washer	1	0.55
Castrol RS oil	1	52.26
Grease etc	1	3.40
Cooling liquid	1	6.39
Brake/clutch oil	1	6.39
Labour	5	337.50
Grand Total:		607.08

It's odd they had to replace the front brake pads again, since it's only 6,000km since the last change. But maybe riding in mountains wears them out extra fast.

Received a new batch of Howard Leight Max earplugs. The last one of 200x2 pieces lasted three years.

February 7 2009, 68,368km

2009-02-07T18:44:00.000+01:00

The dealer picked up the bike today to give it a big service job.

February 3 2009, 68,368km

2009-02-03T22:21:00.002+01:00

Used the Pan to go to work. It has been more than 3 months since I rode a bike to work. I must confess, I didn't like it a bit. It was dark, cold, wet, crowded with cars. I'd rather sit in my heated car with some music and follow relaxt the car in front of me. But since there's no parking space at my work, and I wasn't allowed to use the parking lot anymore because my little finger has healed, I had to take the bike.
Today I bought another commuter bike (see R850R blog) so I can spare the Pan in the future.

January 31 2009, 68,290km

2009-01-31T20:29:00.004+01:00

Wanted to start the Pan for the first time this year. With a little aid from my car it finally did. To lock the seating back in place I had to use the key, so I had to turn off the engine. When the seat was fitted I wanted to start the Pan again, but it didn't want to. So I removed the battery to charge it back home (don't have electricity in my garage).

I'm afraid I have to use the Pan to go to work the next couple of days, since my designated commuter bike, the XJ900F, kicked the bucket.

January 1 2009, 68,290km

2009-01-01T10:54:00.000+01:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

December 12 2008, 68,290km

2008-12-12T19:13:00.002+01:00

Due to a hurt little finger I won't be riding the Pan anymore this year. That means I've done about 22,000km on the bike in 2008. Thanks to 3 rather big trips abroad the kilometer count went up pretty quick. It has been a great riding year, let's hope the next one will be as good or even better.

October 26 2008, 68,290km

2008-10-26T15:49:00.003+01:00

Pim claimed the picture of his (our...) latest speeding offence. You see it above. It's strange they didn't photographed me, but I don't mind ;).

October 19 2008, 68,290km

2008-10-20T18:16:00.004+01:00

Maybe the last decent trip of this year? Today I went -again- to the Moselle river in Germany. Did that already a couple of times, but it's still an enjoyable trip. First I went asap to Koblenz where the Moselle starts. At 11:00, after a 3 hours drive, I stood on the shores of the river. Well, first I stood on the shores of the Rhine river that flows through Koblenz as well ;). After I found the right river I followed the shores to Trier. The river itself goes on much further, but I had to return home again. The autumn colors (main reason for this trip) were beautiful. At 20:00 I was home again. Today I drove 945km, almost enough to qualify as a 1K-trip :).

During this trip I couldn't use my satnav, since I've sold it. So I had to rely on maps again. Which went rather well. When using a map you're more flexible in which direction to take (don't have to stick to the programmed route) and you got a more global view of the surroundings: nice roads, villages, etc. you might miss when using the satnav. A downside is that you've got to stop more often to choose the right direction, you don't have a compass and you don't have a 'show me the fastest way home'-button. Maybe next time I'll use both: the satnav for the general direction and the map for the details...

October 11 2008, 67,355km

2008-10-12T08:38:00.003+01:00

Today Pim, a collegue of his and I went ot the German bike show Intermot to see the latest models. Not by bike this time, but by car (did you know an old Volvo S40 is still able to do 210kmh on the German Autobahn? :) ).
For me the show had not much interesting news. There were no new touring models (except for the ugly -but technically perfect- BMW K1300GT). The other guys liked the new sportsbikes like GSXR1000 and RSV4.
I visited the stand of heated clothing manufacturer Gerbing to have a look at the heated jacket. Maybe I'm gonna buy that one of these days since winter is approaching...

October 1 2008, 67,255km

2008-10-01T11:15:00.002+01:00

Sold the StreetPilot 2610. I liked it very much, but I know now the latest models (Zumo, Rider 2) are better. In France I noticed that Erwin with his TomTom never hesitated when deciding which road to take, while the instructions of the StreetPilot were sometimes dubious. The 2610 uses 2D navigation, while the TomTom and Zumo have both 2D and 3D. It seems the 3D works better. Besides that the 2610 now and then looses the GPS signal, while nowadays the navigation systems are more sensitive to these signals. So I wanna buy a newer model. I'm considering the TomTom Rider 2 and the Garmin Zumo. One way or another I prefer the latter. One of the reasons is the route-creating software Garmin has, and TomTom hasn't (is dependent of others).

September 28 2008, 67,255km

2008-09-29T09:26:00.005+01:00

Vacation Pyrenees 9/19 - 9/28

Next trip of Erwin and me, this time to the French Pyrenees.

Friday 19, 1115km
First we drove as fast as possible to France. Here we went to Alise-Sainte-Reine (Alesia) to view the Vercingetorix monument and remnants of the Gallic/Roman city. Then we went to Clermont-Ferrand and had a look at the Puy-de-Dome. A little south of Clermont we found a nice place to sleep.

Saturday 20, 650km
After a visit of another Vercingetorix monument near the village of Gergovie we went to Millau to see the famous viaduct. After passing the nice city of Albi we reached our final destination Barbet near Lombez. Here we would stay for the rest of the week.

Sunday 21, 165km
A rest day. Visit of Toulouse, an amphitheater and a Celtic exposition.

Monday 22, 390km
Trip into the Pyrenees. On our way to the Pyrenees we had a look at the ancient cathedral of St. Bertrand de Comminges. The Pyrenees are very beautiful. You do have to take care while riding there, because often cattle are walking freely and leaving their droppings on the roads.

Tuesday 23, 480km
Trip to Andorra. The road to this tiny country is very beautiful. The pass to it is quite high and was rather chilly at the moment. Taxes are very low there and Erwin and I took the opportunity to buy a cheap Tomtom Rider 2. To find back home that it was an older version we'd rather not have. So now we're trying to sell it again.

Wednesday 24, 435km
A day I've been looking forward to: visit of Carcassonne. First we drove over beautiful roads to Minerve. Yet another very beautiful and interesting village. Then we went to Carcassonne, the place with the medieval fortified city. Very impressive.

Thursday 25, 350km
Another trip into the Pyrenees and visit of Lourdes. Lourdes is a place of pilgrimage and it is remarkable how moneymaking and devotion go hand in hand overthere.

Friday 26, 240km
For this day we had nothing planned on beforehand. I made a route on my Streetpilot, which I'd never done before without the routeplanning software on my pc, but which went rather easy. This trip lead us to the not yet visited NorthWest of our residence. Again very beautiful surroundings, it seems you just can't go wrong in the Midi-Pyrenees. Along the way the Streetpilot steered us in a direction I thought couldn't be right. I took a right turn to leave the main road and have a closer look at the route. I stopped soon after the turn, thereby totally surprising Erwin who couldn't avoid me completely and ran into my left case with his right case. His case came loose and mine had some scratches. It seemed his was seriously damaged, but was still useable.

Saturday 27, 725km
Time to head home again. The route North took us through the beautiful Dordogne and ended up at an hotel in the center of Orleans.

Sunday 28, 680km
Last stretch home. I lead the way. At Paris I somehow lost Erwin. Afterwards it seemed he found I was driving too fast for the situation (police presence and speedtraps) and let me go. My route led via Lille, Erwin's via Brussels. He was half an hour earlier at home, mainly because I took a detour to avoid the obligatory traffic jam in The Netherlands.

So, after a trip of 10 days and 5,220km we were home again. We'd seen a lot of beautiful and interesting stuff. The bikes were great again. I still like the ST, although irritatingly instable at the highway, it's perfect inland with it's good handling, brakes, comfort and range.

You'll find the pics here

September 17 2008, 62,035km

2008-09-17T22:16:00.002+01:00

Next Friday Erwin and I will leave for a vacation of a week in the Pyrenees.
We want to see more of the surroundings this time and don't ride as much as we did in May. Let's see if we can restrain ourselves.

September 12 2008, 62,035km

2008-09-12T19:35:00.003+01:00

Seems I got lucky this time, still no ticket from the cops...
Had the front tire replaced today because of the trip Erwin and I are going to make next week. The previous one held for about 14,000km. The new one is again a Michelin Pilot Road 2.
The brake pads of the front right brake were replaced too, because they were unevenly worn.

September 4 2008, 61,705km

2008-09-04T19:59:00.003+01:00

Ohoh, Pim has recieved a speeding ticket for driving 20kmh to fast on the last stretch of our previous trip. I hope they missed me this time...

August 25 2008, 61,705km

2008-08-26T18:06:00.005+01:00

The 24th and 25th Pim and I went to Belgium, Luxembourgh and Germany to do some speed-touring, meaning we didn't went for the scenery :)

First we drove asap to Beaumont in Belgium to start my South of Belgium route which ended in Diekirch, Luxembourg. The route was nice, but better suited for ZX12R's, Busa's and the likes, seen the wide curves: made for highspeed cornering. In Luxembourg we followed another route that we've found on the net. Very nice. A certain piece was so great Pim had to ride it several times.

At the end of the day we rode to the start of a route that would lead us through curves in the German Eifel. We found a nice hotel near the river Mosel: Hotel "Brauneberger Hof": not expensive, good food and wine.

The next day started with a bit of rain. The route was mostly very nice, except for the part that lead us to the Nurburgring, that part was very boring. The Ring was occupied, so we couldn't make a run on the circuit. After the Ring we went to the starting point of another Eifel-route we found on the net. Along the way we passed an impressive radiotelescope: the one at Effelsberg.

When we'd finished our "currywurst mit pommes und mayo" we went further and drove along yet another curvy route.

At the end of afternoon we decided to call it a day and head home. After a while on the boring highway we were fed up with it and made a detour over some Dutch dikes. After this Pim was more or less broken on his sportsbike, me on the comfortable Pan was much less tired.
After about 1500km in 2 days we were home again.

Here you'll find the GPS tracklog in Google Earth format

August 30 2008, 60,250km

2008-08-20T22:24:00.002+01:00

While climbing the Col de Galibier on my Route Des Grandes Alpes tour I got photographed by a, I thought, professional photographer. On the top of the Galibier you could get the address of the photo shop and back home I ordered the pics that had been taken. The preview on their site (www.griffephotos.com) looked good. When I got the pics I was very disappointed, they were crap. See above.

I mailed them stating that I expected more of them for the 10 euro per pic. They still have to respond to my emails. I guess thats another 40 bucks waisted.

August 15 2008, 60,250km

2008-08-15T20:19:00.002+01:00

Had a small service job done (oil and -filter). Had the rear tire replaced too by a brandnew Michelin Pilot Road 2. The previous one held for about 13,000km.

July 31 2008, 59680km

2008-07-31T14:24:00.008+01:00

Route des Grandes Alpes

Yet another trip, this time to France to do the Route des Grandes Alpes.

Day 1: Sunday July 27, 1.037km
I left at 6AM to be asap in France. At 3PM I was already at Grenoble, the meant finish of that day. Because it was still early I decided to head on and start the route I'd planned for a Monday. After some nice riding in the French countryside I thought it would be better to find a gasstation. Well, that's no easy task at a Sunday evening in the middle of nowhere. There were gasstations, but they were unmanned and accepted only cards I didn't have. Luckily with the aid of a friendly French motard I could fill up the Pan. After this adventure I called it a day and headed to Gap to find an hotel. At 8PM I ended up in an Ibis hotel I cannot recommend price/quality wise.

Day 2: Monday July 28, 420km
For this day I'd made a route with MapSource from Garmin. It should lead me over nice curvy roads and end in Menton, the starting point of the Route des Grandes Alpes.
By coincidence it lead me through the Gorges du Verdon, I'd seen a few years ago. If I'd know this I would have planned the route differently, because the Gorges are gorgeous, but once is enough. Soon after the Gorges I drove over the D955, leading through Montferrat. This is a great road for doing some fast cornering over perfect tarmac! If you're ever in the neighbourhood, make sure you don't miss it.
The further I got South, the hotter it got. With temps of around 33 degrees Celcius I was a bit overdressed. The local bikers seemed to cope better with this heat in t-shirts and shorts.
At around 7PM I stopped in Menton, a nice place at the Mediterranean Sea near the Italian border.

Day 3: Tuesday July 29, 480km
At last, the start of the Route. I think I can let the pics speak for themselves (see link below). It was great! Highlights were the Col du Galibier and the Col de l'Iseran.
Somewhere along the way I passed R1 Sjaak who was doing the Route too, only from North to South. Here's a video of R1 Sjaak and friend doing the Iseran the same day I did:

R1Sjaak & MC King down Col de L'iseran from Marc King on Vimeo.

After almost 500km of curvy roads going up and down I had it for the day and stopped in Val d'Iser where I stayed in the hotel Les Sorbiers. This hotel I can recommend for tired bikers.

Day 4: Wednesday July 30, 1,215km
Yesterday I'd done the biggest part of the Route and for today only 250km were left. These km's were great too and at around 1PM the fun ended in Thonon les Bains at the Lake Geneva.
Now what? Plan another route through the Black Forest or Vosges? Nah, been there, seen that already this year. Head home? That's almost 1,000km. Hmm, it's do-able. Ok, fast forward home. At 12PM I was home again after a very boring highway trip only interrupted by a car crash on the German Autobahn A3 near Koblenz. Weather conditions were quite bad at that moment and cars were still racing with speeds above 150kmh. I wondered what I was doing wrong with my 120kmh max, or were there supermans at the steering wheels? Well, I wasn't doing anything wrong and there are no supermans in this world, seen this crash. After an hour the rubble was cleared and people were racing me by with even higher speeds to make up for the lost time. Some will never learn...

This was yet another fine trip of about 3,150km. The Pan was perfect again on mountain roads and at the highway (still not 100% stable though...). The Michelin Pilot Road 2's worked very well in dry and wet conditions. Gonna have them next time too.

Click here for all the pics

Click here for a Google kmz file with the route and small pics

July 22 2008, 56,265km

2008-07-22T18:06:00.005+01:00

Intention was to go to France next Sunday and ride there the Route des Grandes Alpes. But it seems half Europe will be going South this weekend, so I think I'll go on Monday. To be continued...

I've bought some frame protectors from Bike-Quip and recieved them today. Will stick them on the Pan asap.

July 17 2008, 56,265km

2008-07-17T17:36:00.002+01:00

Added one liter of cooling liquid.

July 5 2008, 55,870km

2008-07-05T15:02:00.002+01:00

Had to add quite some oil because the level was below half. I guess a hot Croatia and speeding up and down mountains in the Dolomites caused this higher than average oil consumption?

June 1 2008, 55,500km

2008-06-01T15:28:00.001+01:00

Made a report of the Europe trip Erwin and I made. You'll find it here. Hope you like it.

May 24 2008, 55,238km

2008-05-25T15:19:00.005+01:00

Pim and I made today yet another trip to the Belgian Ardennes. It was a nice and quite long one: 816km for me, for Pim a bit longer.
During this trip I could try some gadgets. First I could try the music stuff I got in order to kill some time during those boring highway rides. It worked like a charm. I really didn't really care how long we had to spend on the highway: the Pan was comfortable and with the music time passed quickly.
Next I tried a new gadget: a GPS Trip Recorder. Turn it on when you leave and afterwards you can exactly see where you've been, how fast you have been riding (oops) and at what altitudes you've been. With the included software you can geotag the pictures you've made along the way and view it all in e.g. Google Earth. Here's the Google kmz file of this trip (zoom in on Maastricht to see the track).

May 17 2008, 54,334km

2008-05-18T19:54:00.002+01:00

Finally recieved the Garmin dvd with updated charts. After almost 2 months! Those guys must be living in the stone age, logistically speaking. And then they wonder why people are using hacked maps? Or go to the competition who can deliver updates within days...

May 16 2008, 54,334km

2008-05-17T22:22:00.002+01:00

We're back from a great (the best so far) trip. Soon the complete story...
For now, here you'll find some pics.

May 2 2008, 48,652km

2008-05-02T17:33:00.003+01:00

Vacation! Next Sunday Erwin (FJR1300) and I will embark on a journey into the unknown. Well, we're planning to have a 2 week trip to Croatia, passing Alps and Dolomites. Should be big fun :)
Keep watching this space for the latest news.

May 1 2008, 48,582km

2008-05-01T13:00:00.002+01:00

The iPod and stuff work great on the Pan! Sound is very clear and the remote works like a charm. It's very odd to have music while driving. Just as if you're disconnected from the rest of the world. Kinda like riding a cage. But for long highway stretches it'll be perfect. The Etymotics work very fine as earplugs when the music is off.
The camera mount on the other hand isn't a big success. Due to vibrations at higher revs the image very soon gets blurry. I've got to think of something else for this farkle.

April 30 2008, 48,532km

2008-04-30T13:58:00.004+01:00

I found the prefect spot for the remote: on the left handlebar. See pic above.

At the same time I fitted a camera mount. Maybe I'm going to make some in-flight flicks during my next vacation.

April 29 2008, 48,532km

2008-04-29T18:11:00.001+01:00

Recieved a remote for the iPod Touch (Scosche IPNRFC). It looks and works great. Now I've got to find a way to attach it to the Pan...

April 25 2008, 48,532km

2008-04-27T09:06:00.004+01:00

Today Pim (TL1000S), Ton (FJR1300) and son, and I made a longish trip of about 810km to and through the German Eifel. Besides some bumpy stretches the roads were great and curvy. The Pan was great: pretty flickable, very good brakes, very stable. The new Michelin tires behaved very good. My motorbuddies had a hell of a time keeping up with me :)

I used my leather pants for the first time today and they did what I hoped and expected they would do: save my but for getting sore after a while. I could ride the Pan all day without much problems in the bottom department.

BTW Notice the pic with the with the arch bridge above. Seems familiar? That's correct: I've been there almost exactly 10 years ago with my ZZR1100. See the 1100 blog :)

April 20 2008, 47,635km

2008-04-20T18:42:00.002+01:00

At last some nice weather in the weekend. Today Ton and I made a little trip through the East of our country, the 'Achterhoek'. The Pan wasn't too stable on the highway, but inland everything was fine. The Streetpilot with its new memorycard worked fine too, so I guess the hardware is ready for the big trip.

April 15 2008, 47,300km

2008-04-15T18:15:00.004+01:00

Got the Pan back from a (the...) service job. For a bit more than 1,000 euro (gulp) they did a lot of work: new tires (Michelin Pilot Road 2), brake pads, spark plugs, oil, filters, wheel bearings of one of the wheels, tire valves. The engine valves were adjusted as well.

The bike should be ready now for the big trip in a couple of weeks. More about that later :)

On the pics above you see one of the new tire valves and the damage done by the road salt last month.

April 13 2008, 47,250km

2008-04-13T17:42:00.002+01:00

Got an iPod Touch I could use on the Pan, but now I can nowhere find an RF remote control for it. If you know of any, please let met know!

April 8 2008, 46,700km

2008-04-08T16:07:00.002+01:00

Recieved the pics of my speeding offence today. I'm afraid I can't deny that it was me ;)

On the last pic you can see how well the reflecting stickers work. :)

March 26 2008, 46,800km

2008-04-03T18:03:00.002+01:00

Got a speeding ticket today. Seems I passed a speedtrap a bit too fast on February 28 in Amsterdam: 8kmh above max allowed speed = 30 Euro.
I'm gonna ask for the photo of the 'offence', just for the fun of it ;)

March 26 2008, 46,800km

2008-03-26T19:10:00.002+01:00

Because my XJ had a flat I had to take the Pan to work. And right at this moment they've scattered a lot of salt on the roads. So I had to hose the bike down this evening. Still glad I have the luxury of a second bike :)

March 22 2008, 46,650km

2008-03-22T13:44:00.002+01:00

Today I tried to update my Garmin City Navigator maps through their website. Why does it have to be so hard to get some updated maps? They want to know registrationnumbers, serialnumbers, coupon codes and God knows what more. Then they mention nowhere during the update process what the costs are. So I think that within 4-6 weeks (why such a ridiculous long time?) I will recieve a dvd and then have to go through some other ordeal to have it unlocked. And I guess at that point I've got to pay? And how much will that be?? I don't find it strange people are looking for easier alternatives (usenet anyone?)...

March 21 2008, 46,650km

2008-03-21T14:04:00.003+01:00

Recieved the Etymotic ER6i earphones I want to use with an mp3-player on the Pan. They sound very good and sound isolation seems good too (I still have got to test them on the bike). I can put them easily inside my ears, but removing them is a bit of a hassle. I'm afraid that with cold fingers I won't be able to get them out of my ears. The wires to the earpieces seems flimsy too, but may be sturdy enough.
Yesterday Spring started, but I think someone forgot to tell Mother Nature. We had quite some (wet) snow today.

March 1 2008, 46,650km

2008-03-01T22:38:00.003+01:00

Today I recieved the TrickAudio TA-100 earphones I wanted to try. Well, they were kinda disappointing. Sound quality is not good enough for music, I guess just voice will do fine. Noise blocking was less than hoped for and the build quality looks a bit flimsy. I'm not going to use these plugs, that's for sure.
The stitching of the heel of my left Dainese Mig-Touring boot has gone loose, so I went to have it repaired. Because the boot had to be send to Italy this could take a few weeks. I can't do that long without boots, so I bought a new pair of the same boots, because, besides this one off(?) problem, these boots are pretty much perfect for me: comfortable and 100% waterproof.
While I was at it I bought a Dainese Firefly leather pants as well. My experience is that you can stay much longer in the saddle with leather trousers.
Oh, and I recieved the Shoei Multitec helmet as well I ordered a while ago. That about completes my new gear of this new season. Let the touring begin! :)

February 24 2008, 46,450km

2008-02-24T15:35:00.003+01:00

Put the stickers on the bike. Above you see a pic made without and one made with flash. I guess the stuff is working.

February 15 2008, 46,450km

2008-02-15T20:51:00.001+01:00

Recieved the decals today. I'm gonna stick them on the Pan as soon as the outside temp goes up a bit. Two degrees Celsius ain't much fun.

February 10 2008, 46,450km

2008-02-10T15:55:00.001+01:00

Made the first trip of 2008 with the Pan. The weather was perfect and hence a lot of people were on the road, making my trip a bit boring. Still it was nice to use the Pan again.

February 9 2008, 46,350km

2008-02-09T15:30:00.000+01:00

Fitted the battery in the Pan again because I want to take a ride tomorrow since we're having an early spring (could be over in a couple of days though). When I tried to start the bike it just didn't. Startermotor revved nicely, so the battery was ok. After a (long) while and adding a bit of throttle the bike started at last. Never had this with a Kawasaki...

February 8 2008, 46,350km

2008-02-08T18:36:00.000+01:00

After doing a lot of research I think I know now how to get some music on the Pan. I first thought about a radio and speakers, but they fell off as being too much hassle, and I hardly ever listen to the radio because I don't like talking dj's and commercials.
Since I wanted to listen only to music an mp3 player should suffice. If you say mp3 player you say of course 'iPod', so now I'm looking for an iPod Mini of Nano. Great benefit of an iPod is the large amount of accessories. And amongst them are some nifty wireless remote controls I can use on the bike. Next is getting the music to my ears. Speakers crossed my mind with an amplifier, but again, too much hassle. Now I'm looking for in-ear earphones with good external noise isolation so they can act as earplugs as well. There are a lot of those around and choosing the right ones isn't easy. Reviews are very personal and I think I just have to hope for the best. At the moment I'm thinking about buying the TrickAudio ones, because of their claimed good noise isolation and relative low price. Problem with these ones is that I can find nowhere a review about e.g. the sound quality.

February 4 2008, 46,350km

2008-02-04T20:01:00.000+01:00

Still waiting till winter is over. In the meantime I ordered some Black Scotchlite decals. It can't hurt to be noticed in spring ;) .

January 1 2008, 46,350km

2008-01-01T14:48:00.000+01:00

Happy New Year!!

Today I removed the battery to charge it. It wasn't as difficult as on the ZX-12R to remove it, but still I've had bikes were removal was much easier...

December 31 2007, 46,350km

2007-12-31T18:34:00.000+01:00

On this last day of the year I wanted to take the Pan to work. Regretfully after standing still for over 4 weeks the damn thing wouldn't start. So I had to take the reliable XJ again.

November 24 2007, 46,350km

2007-11-24T16:18:00.001+01:00

Made another testrun with the fork brace. This time the sporty way over some of my favorite dyke roads. Handling was very good and the Pan was very stable. I guess the Pan is now as good as it can be. Let's hope autumn and winter are over soon.

November 11 2007, 46,250km

2007-11-11T18:22:00.000+01:00

Installed the fork brace and Throttlemeister. I should have done the brace much sooner, it makes a big differrence. At last the Pan feels stable and not restless anymore like before. The Throttlemeister works fine too. Two succesfull farkles.
What's next? I'm thinking about some music on the Pan. Like an mp3 player with remote control and connected to two speakers. Any ideas anyone?

November 10 2007, 46,000km

2007-11-10T16:04:00.000+01:00

Farkles time again. A few days ago I ordered a fork brace and the Throttlemeister from MotorcycleLarry in the USA. Today I already recieved the stuff and it even went unnoticed passed customs so I didn't have to pay import taxes or vat. Thanks to the cheap dollar (compared to the Euro) prices were very decent.
I think I'm going to screw the stuff on the Pan tomorrow.

October 28 2007, 46,000km

2007-10-28T18:08:00.000+01:00

Together with some guys from the Dutch Pan Forum I ordered a new fuel pressure regulator from Turbo City. Especially the smoothening of the on/off throttle response sounded good to me. At the home of one of the guys 4 Pans were treated, together with mine.

When riding home I could indeed notice that the on/off throttle response was a lot less harsh, much smoother, just as promised. Dunno yet about the other improvements, but for me this farkle is already well worth the money.

October 2 2007, 45,700km

2007-10-12T17:14:00.000+01:00

ABS saved the day! I was following a bunch of cars and didn't pay attention. I was just looking around. When I looked in front of me again the last car stood still in order to take a left turn. I hit the front brake hard and just could make it. Thanks to the ABS I didn't loose control and I could brake as hard as physically possible. If I wouldn't have ABS today I either would have ran into the car, or would have locked the front brake and would have hit the tarmac hard.
Thank you Honda :)

October 7 2007, 45,623km

2007-10-08T10:16:00.000+01:00

The morning of this Sunday started cold and foggy. Typical for an autumn. They'd promised us sun and warm weather so Erwin (FJR1300) and I went nevertheless for a ride. I wanted to show Erwin the great roads in the South of Belgium and North of France I've discovered a few weeks ago. A pity my other motorbuddies Ton an Pim were unable to join us.

First we rode to Beaumont to start the fun part of the ride. Halfway to Beaumont we refuelled in Waterloo where I showed Erwin the 'Butte de Lion', a monument Pim, Ton and I visited last year.

From Beaumont (Belgium) we went East over curvy roads with mostly good surfaces. After La Rochelle (France) we followed the beautiful roads D1 and D31, great stuff for bikers. Twisting and turning we entered Luxembourg to continue twisting and turning in the direction of Esch-sur-Sure. Dizzy we refueled at Diekirch and headed home again. To end up in a traffic jam in The Netherlands. Home again after 14 hours and 806km...

Have a look at the map of this trip.

September 16 2007, 44,413km

2007-09-17T20:30:00.000+01:00

On a chilly morning at 7.30 AM, with temps of not much more than 10 Celcius, I took off to the Belgium-French border. I wanted to ride the whole stretch of the Belgium Southern border. Why? Because it was there? A border is always interesting because of clashing cultures and stuff. The first part of the trip more or less proved me wrong. Not that interesting, or it must have been Ieper (Ypres), a city well known for its WW1 past. Around Ieper you find lots of war cemeteries. For the rest the Western part of the Belgium-French border has a lot of builtup areas and hence not very fun to ride through on a motorcycle.

Halfway things started to improve. Warning signs specially made to caution motorcyclists indicated that the roads were more interesting for bikers. And they were. Lots of fine curves and good roadsurface. After some time I ended up in the very nice city of Bouillon and decided to head home.

Almost 14 hours and more than 1,000km after the start I was home again. Broken, but with a big grin on my face. This has been one of the better trips.

August 31 2007, 43,275km

2007-09-02T19:20:00.000+01:00

I made this map to see how far I can get within one day on a bike. The first circle is to about 600km from my home and this distance can be easily covered in one day. When necessary you can even return home the same day. From my home you can get almost to Poland and Austria. The second circle is about as far you can get in one day without falling from your bike due to fatigue. It leads to the South of France (did that on my ZX-12R), Czech Republic, Italy, etc. Although I doubt it will be possible to go that far in one day to the East because the roads are supposetly not that great overthere.

Now, lets see, where do I want to go today? :)

August 31 2007, 43,275km

2007-08-31T18:10:00.000+01:00

Had to refuel today. With this fuel load I did 425km and had to add 24 liters. This means that the Pan used 1:17.7 liters and that it could have done 88km more which would have brought me 513km far. Very nice.
BTW fuel price was 1.485 Euro per liter today. I believe we have to pay about the most for our fuel :(

August 25 2007, 43,100km

2007-08-26T10:13:00.000+01:00

A week ago I recieved the SonyEricsson K810i phone. Today I could compare pictures made by it to those of my venerable Canon Ixus V2, because Ton and I were going for yet another trip, and I planned to make lots of pictures.
This time we went to Verdun, France and, while we're at it, to Bastogne, Belgium. Hayabusaman Pim couldn't join us because he unfortunately crashed his bike a little while ago. He's fine, his bike not so.

After a ride of about 3,5 hours (passing the citadel of Montmedy) we were in Verdun and went to see the Douaumont ossuary, a quite impressive monument. Afterwards we went to Bastogne to see the Battle of the Bulge memorial at Mardasson. A memorial well worth a visit too. After that we went home again, ending yet another fine trip.

And what about the pictures? Although the pics made by the SonyEricsson are quite nice, I like the colors of the Canon better. And under dark circumstances the Canon performs (a little) better. So I can't toss the Canon yet and will be using the SonyEricsson as back-up camera or in the event I've forgotten the Canon.

August 14 2007, 42,100km

2007-08-14T14:42:00.000+01:00

Because they predicted lousy weather for the next few days I decided to make a small trip today. This time it led to the South-West of the country, the province Zeeland to be exact. Another province I haven't visited much, and again it was well worth the trip.

August 11 2007, 41,700km

2007-08-12T08:54:00.000+01:00

Today Ton (+ son), Erik (K100RS) and I went to visit the Bikers Days at the circuit of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. There they were racing with bikes from our childhood: Honda CB900's, Kawasaki Z1000's, Ducati's, BMW's, two stroke Yamaha's, etc. It was great to see how their owners keep those bikes in perfect condition and are racing them.

After a couple of hours we'd seen enough and went for a short trip through the Ardennes, after which we went home again.

August 5 2007, 41,200km

2007-08-05T19:09:00.001+01:00

On this hot and sunny Sunday with temperatures of over 30 degrees Celcius, Ton, his son Kevin as passenger, Pim and I went for a ride to Friesland, one of our northern provinces. I haven't been often to Friesland, but today I noticed again that it's a great place to ride a motorcycle. Roads aren't as busy as in other parts of The Netherlands and you seldom see speed bumps. In the afternoon Ton and Kevin left us and Pim and I went to see the Waddenzee. After that we more of less had it in the heat and we went home again.

August 4 2007, 40,504km

2007-08-04T14:25:00.000+01:00

Today I could finally try the Kawasaki 1400GTR myself. I must confess that I like the GTR better than the Pan. You loose some comfort (screen), but you gain power and handling. The GTR I tried wasn't broken in yet, it had only done about 400km, and this could be the reason for the (small) negative points I found: brakes lack a bite, engine's running hot, fuel consumption quite high (1 liter on every 13km). Power below 5,000rpm wasn't much either, but after that the GTR takes off. I think the GTR is a very good mix of sports and touring bike. The accent is on touring, just the way I like it. Now where's that piggy bank... :)

July 22 2007, 40,404km

2007-07-22T19:08:00.000+01:00

Today Pim and I followed the 1001 corners route in the east of The Netherlands. It was a very nice route with good roads en not too many speedbumps. Despite the weather forecasts that predicted a lot of rain Pim and I still went and we saw very little rain.

July 19, 39,754km

2007-07-19T16:55:00.000+01:00

The June 22nd part of this blog got published today in the 2-weekly motor magazine Motor Magazine. Each month they publish a piece of a motorblog and this month it was my turn. As a thank you I will recieve a SonyEricsson K810i Cyber-shot phone. With this phone you can make good photo's and upload them immediate to a blog. I will try this as soon as I've recieved the phone.

July 8, 39,754km

2007-07-08T20:07:00.000+01:00

This weekend my nephew Thijs and I went with the Pan to Germany to do some sightseeing. On Saturday we first went asap to the Eifel. There we followed a route I'd uploaded to the Garmin. It led us over very beautiful roads. After being almost 12 hours en route we more or less had it. I started to make (small) mistakes while riding and Thijs felt his butt more and more. So we stopped at the first hotel we met and stayed the night.

On Sunday we followed the river Mosel a while and planned to return to The Netherlands via the Belgium Ardennes. But the Saturday had taken its tole from Thijs, he hadn't really recovered from the strains and was pretty uncomfortable at the passenger seat. So we decided to head home asap. We used the Autobahn and at cruising speeds of around 160kmh we left Germany soon behind us and after more than 1,000km in two days we were home again: red light runner, speedbumps, speedtraps, yep it's good to be back home.

Again the Pan proofed to be an almost perfect travelling companion. Stability at low and high speeds was (as Honda would put it) enough. The fuel range was more than enough. Engine vibration not much, although on day 2 the engine vibrated at a frequency that made my hands go numb. After a stop it went a lot better. Even with passenger and luggage it was quite easy to navigate the bike through hairpins and other curves. The new Hyperpro suspension does its job under these difficult circumstances very well. I'm glad I've replaced the stock springs.

June 29, 2007, 38,683km

2007-06-29T21:39:00.000+01:00

Had the front and rear tire (Bridgestone BT020F), battery and front left bulb replaced for 522 euro. Again a lot of money. I hope the Pan is easy on tires?

June 22, 2007, 38,584km

2007-06-24T15:26:00.000+01:00

Last Thursday evening Pim, Peter (VFR800) and I drove to Heerlen in the South of The Netherlands to stay the night and to start early for the Rubberbutt Run 2007 organised by the Dutch Aprilia Riders Association. Before I went I wanted to synchronise my clock since it was still off after the battery died on me on the last trip. During the synchronisation the dash went suddenly dark: the battery was drained again. With the aid of my car I started the bike and left the clock alone.
Friday morning at 6.30 AM the three of us left to ride a tour of 750km. It was possible to do 500 and 1,000km too, but we thought 750 was long enough. The trip lead through the Ardennes and we crossed several times the borders of Germany, Belgium and Luxembourgh. The roads were great: lots of curves and nice surroundings. In the afternoon after we'd done about 450km the weather turned sour and we got a lot of rain. Reason for us to call it a day and to return to Heerlen. After a short stop we went home again. I'd done about 825km on that day.
Somewhere along the way the left front bulb broke. I've heard it's quite a pain to replace a bulb of a 1300. I'm gonna have a try this week...

June 12, 2007, 37,858km

2007-06-12T17:32:00.000+01:00

Well I'll be d*mned. Those #$*^%*#$!! coppers. I got a ticket for ignoring a red light last wednesday. That cop obviously was not happy with me ignoring him and decided to make me bleed for it: 130 euro down the drain for absolutely nothing. Bastids!!

June 6, 2007, 37,585km

2007-06-06T22:36:00.000+01:00

This evening Pim and I went for a short ride. Along the way the traffic was stopped by some coppers because of a bicycle race that had to pass. After 15 minutes we could pursue our way. But I couldn't start the Pan anymore. The battery must have been drained because I'd stopped the bike with the kill-switch to be able to start it quickly again without having to use the key. With the aid of a bystander I push-started the bike again and wanted to ride away. To my surprise the coppers again halted the traffic, probably because some more bicyclists were approaching. Because I had enough of it I opened the throttle and left some surprised coppers behind.
The new suspension is working very good. Handling and stability have improved a lot.

May 30, 2007, 37,000km

2007-05-30T15:21:00.000+01:00

At last got the new Hyperpro suspension: front springs and rear shock. It's a difference like between day and night. Unbelievable how bad the suspension was and how good it now is. The Pan handles better, is more comfortable and is more stable. Well, for almost 1,000 euro it should be. I think it's well worth the money: now the bike is exactly the way I like it. Although a few more horses wouldn't hurt ;).

To kill some time until the Pan was ready again I got an Honda CBF600 as a loaner. It struck me again how much fun a light bike can be.

When I went to pick up the Pan again at Hyperpro I met R1 Sjaak along the way. You know: the guy that went around the world on a Yamaha R1. By coincidence he went to Hyperpro too, it seems Hyperpro is one of his sponsors. Overthere we shook hands. He's a real hero for me. Doing stuff I can only dream about.

At home I picked up the bags that fit in the cases of the Pan. Very handy I think. Got them from these guys: Bike Parts & Things.