THE BEST AND WORST – 2012

Okay, here we go again with my summary of “the best and worst”; the bikes that impressed me most and least during this past year. Of course when I make these picks they’re based on bikes I’ve ridden during that year, not on what is generally available in the market-place. So it’s a very narrow selection criteria. And this time it has been more narrow than usual, because 2012 was a somewhat lean year for test-rides. It was a busy year for me, personally, with some family illnesses etc that resulted in some time and attention being given to those issues rather than to getting out and riding test-bikes. So I didn’t do as many rides as I usually do; which means there weren’t a lot to choose from to award a “Most Impressive” and “Least Impressive”. However I have looked back over those I did ride and have made appropriate comments below. If you want to know what the “contenders” were, just go to the list on the “Bikes” page and check the ones I rode during the past year.

As usual, I’ve added a couple of other sections. The “Thumbs Up” and “Thumbs Down” are comments on what has impressed me and not impressed me in the world of motorcycling over the past year. Then I’ve included a more personal item on what my “Most Memorable Ride” was during the year.

THE MOST IMPRESSIVE BIKE

Looking back over the bikes I rode, there are two that stand out; the BMW R1200GS and the Kawasaki Ninja 1000. Two very different bikes in what they are and what their intended purpose is, but both very impressive.

In my “Snapshot” summary of the Ninja 1000 I said that, “It has power and performance to spare, and is superbly tractable. It’s smooth and easy to ride, with a riding-position that suits its purpose perfectly. It handles well, and is totally stable. Everything works as it should do.”

The only thing I didn’t like was the way it looks. All that bulging black bodywork, and the stupid looking exhaust. But still, you don’t see that from the cockpit while you’re out enjoying all it has to offer.

And what it has to offer is a modern motorcycle that is an excellent sports-tourer. Kawasaki did good on this one!

The big all-roads Beemer isn’t exactly a work of beauty either, but it too was very impressive, living up to its reputation as a great bike for every day and all day riding.

In my “Snapshot” on this one I said that the bike is, “A great bike, it really is!” I said these big Beemers are, “Easy to ride and work very well, in everything from suburban commuting to high speed cruising.”

As I said, it’s no sports-bike, but there’s enough performance there to clear the traffic and have fun with. What really impressed me was the fabulous rear suspension.

In the driveway it felt overly soft and bouncy; out on the road it felt superb, delivering a quality of ride that had bumps disappearing into its wonderful compliance. But at the same time, it held the bike firmly on line in corners and didn’t wallow around (not at the speeds I was riding at anyway), and seemed to deliver that almost impossible to achieve mix of good handling and superbly comfortable ride. True, I had some slight criticism of the seat, the shape more than anything else, but that only became apparent when I was travelling very slow or was stopped.

Picking a “Most Impressive” out of these two is difficult, but I’ve come down in favour of the one I’d buy if both were put in front of me, money was no object, and I had to chose. And the one I’d pick would be the BMW. But I reckon I could happily live with the Kwaka too.

THE LEAST IMPRESSIVE BIKE

I think I’ll pass on this. No award given this year. There actually aren’t very many to chose from anyway.

The Kawasaki W800 was one that didn’t live up to expectations. I’d read good reports about it, but for me, there were disappointments. I summed it up by saying that I thought it went a bit too far down the retro path. I reckoned that, “As a modern-day bike, it’s nostalgia first and everything else second.” To be more precise, “It’s not particularly quick, the suspension soon shows its deficiencies, and the brakes feel a bit weak.”

But I suppose that’s not really what it’s about. It’s all about nostalgia, and as I wrote in the test, “In that sense, it triumphs. Actually, I reckon it’s more Triumph than Triumph!”

The seat is retro-comfy and the fittings and fixtures are high-class. I couldn’t live with one of these though, because of the lack of modernity in the way it goes, stops and rides. But, as I also said at the time, “If you just want to ride along, feeling laid-back and looking cool, then this bike will do the job better than most.” So it was still an impressive bike; you’ve just got to meet it where it’s at.

So what do I pick as “Least Impressive”? Well, none; because none that I rode deserve to be saddled with that! 

THUMBS UP

Honda gets a big Thumbs Up for continuing their support of The Snowy Ride. Any motorcycle manufacturer that pumps tens of thousands of dollars into a charity to fight cancer in children has got to be praised! Well done Mr. H!

Honda gets a Thumbs Up for its new NC700 too. Getting a decent sized Honda road-bike – a genuine one, made in Japan – on the road for under $10,000 is pretty much a new thing for the renowned manufacturer of quality motorcycles. Yes, I know it is a variation on a scooter, which you might expect to get for around $10,000 even from Honda, but I still say this is good to see from Honda!

Okay, you can be cynical and say it’s just going after sales in a price-bracket it traditionally hasn’t been too active in. You could also say that Suzuki has been producing these good-value motorcycles for decades now, so Honda are just playing a very belated catch-up. All true, but I’ll still give ‘em the ol’ Thumbs Up for doing it anyway.

To be honest, I think there’s been a bit of an over-reaction to the moves for high-visibility clothing etc. Yes, I know, I’d be the one saying, “They’ll never get that in!” as the legislation is passed and the pollies are handing out the flouro vests. So I’ve signed the petitions. And I reckon Damien Codognotto, from the Independent Riders' Group, deserves a Thumbs Up for the work that he has been tirelessly doing to try to maintain some riders’ rights. He has been fighting the bureaucracy, as well as naive people like me who think it’ll never happen. (Well, I’m not entirely naive; as I said, I have signed the petitions etc). Damien Codognotto goes back a long way with his protest movements, and many of his protests were successful. He is trying his best to mobilise us motorcyclists to stand up for our rights as individual road users; and he is standing up to the governments who want to legislate our chosen recreation / interest / mode of transport into a sad manifestation of Nanny-state mentality. So, good on ya!

A Thumbs Up to the motorcycle industry in general, for keeping the market varied and diverse. Have you thought about this? Take a look at cars; one of the reasons I am less enthusiastic about cars today than in years gone by is that there is a certain blandness and sameness about them. Very little – in terms of cars we can afford to buy – has individuality and character; everything looks very similar. Not so with bikes! There is a huge diversity in style and types of bikes. Long may it be so!

Okay, to balance what I’ve written below I’ll give a Thumb Up to the traffic authority in NSW (see first item below) for phasing out rego labels. With the technology police have these days they really aren’t necessary. And they have always been a bit of a hassle. I wonder how many people remember the old days when you had to soak the label in water to separate it from the backing and then stick them onto the windscreen of your car, or label holder on the bike. Then when it came time to renew it, the old one needed a paint-scraper or razor, and usually a few bandaids for bloodied fingers, to remove. That got better with the peel-and-stick types of recent years, but there was still a hassle in changing them. And if you were colour-conscious, then there were years when the colour certainly didn’t match the bike. With bikes there was always a problem of where to put them. Most places where you could mount them they looked a bit daggy. Some people bought those little roll things that went under the number-plate. They are at least neat, while arguments on their legality continued. (From what I understand their legality is still questionable, but what part of the label you have showing is an important factor). Anyway, from 1st January we won’t need them when we renew our rego. And that deserves a Thumbs Up. 

THUMBS DOWN

The NSW traffic authority gets a Thumbs Down; not for any particular reason, I reckon they just deserve it! They used to be the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), but now call themselves Roads and Maritime Services. I guess that means they were doing so well ripping-off motorists that they thought they’d turn their attention on the boating community as well. Oh, look, I know that’s not fair, and I know I was banging on about this last year, but they got me off-side when they started playing policeman. They have set up and funded police-operated “blitzes” for years, and that’s okay; but when they started playing police themselves, by setting up their own speed-traps, I objected. With a bank on board, it was obvious they were just out to make money. Even the police didn’t like what they were doing! They set up private people (not police) in Ford Territorys with speed cameras. At first there weren’t any warning signs, but the police said that was wrong, they had to put signs up. So they did, but so close behind the camera-vehicle that by the time you saw the sign it was too late anyway. The police said no, putting them behind the back bumper wasn’t good enough, they had to put them a reasonable distance (I think 100m, maybe more) down the road.

Now let me assure you that I haven’t been booked by one of these cameras; so that’s not the reason I am against them. There a couple of reasons why I don’t like them. The first is that, as I’ve said, they are obviously just a revenue-raising exercise and they aren’t at all serious about improving road safety. The second is that they operate on speed alone. If police catch you going over the speed-limit they’ll chase you and pull you over. Then what happens will, in most cases, depend on how much you were over, the way you were riding / driving, and your attitude when they talk to you about your misdemeanor. If you weren’t intentionally breaking the limit by a long way, and apologise nicely, you might get let off. The police use their discretion a bit, that’s the point. The Ford Territory people don’t; they just take the photo and send you the fine. You could be driving some clapped-out rust-heap with bald tyres but as long as you were under the limit you’d be okay. But if your vehicle was in top condition, and you were driving / riding totally safely, but just drift a few kph over, then Flash, you’d be done!

In Victoria they continue to enforce a ridiculous 3kph tolerance. The width of the speedo needle. Stupid! Thumbs Down to them again too.

Victorian authorities get a Thumbs Down for their push to make motorcyclists wear fancy flouro vests. (Like I had to when I test-rode the BMW K1300!).

Well, no, that wasn’t exactly what they said, they said “high-visibility clothing.” As I indicated above, I personally think there was a bit of an over-reaction to this. I don’t think the intention was to have us all riding around in flouro vests with a flag on the back like the postie bikes. But if your chosen colour for your clothing is black, then under the proposals you would be buying all new gear! In bright yellow, or shining purple perhaps! It was all rather silly, and the latest news is that the pollies (or whoever they were) that reviewed this thought it was silly too.

They’ve come up with a list of recommendations that leave out all this silly stuff, and include some positive recommendations as well. That should probably get a Thumbs Up, actually! Now the fight is on to make sure these recommendations get accepted by the Victorian parliament.

Back to NSW again (although this probably applies in other states too), and a big Thumbs Down to the people (local councils, and our Roads and Maritime friends again) who are responsible for building and maintaining our roads. Yes, I was going on about this last year too. (If you don’t remember seeing it, click the link at the bottom of this and go back and take a look at someone’s brilliant effort of spreading gravel all over the road right on a T-intersection with a major highway!). All too often the repair jobs they carry out aren’t much better than the original problem. A pot-hole becomes a lump of  misshapen tar.

Here’s an example not far from where I live. This is a section of road that is an approach to a bridge over a highway. The problem is, when the road was built they made the approach ramp out of coal-wash or slag from the local steel-works.

Over the years it compressed, leaving the bitumen surface hanging over empty spaces underneath. A few years ago they drilled holes in the road and filled in the empty spaces under it by pumping concrete into them. But the road continues to break up as the material underneath it compacts. Thus you get cracks and an uneven surface, and holes like the one you see here. Look at the hole and notice how it is at an angle to the direction of travel (compare it to the lane-line at the top of the photo). Now imagine getting your front wheel caught in that. Dangerous!

Finally, a Thumbs Down to all the idiots out there. Cars and bikes! Around Christmas there were several serious accidents across our nation that were caused by idiots. Some people doing stupid things, some people going way too fast. It’s bad enough if you tangle with one of these idiots in a car, but if you are on a bike, well the consequences are usually pretty bad! Despite what I wrote above, crashes are seldom the fault of the road or even the vehicle. My wife and I were watching an episode of “Serious Crash Unit” recently and my wife commented, “It’s almost always the driver at fault, not the vehicle or the environment.” Yes, it is. That might be stating the obvious, but if we could get some of these idiots off the road it would be a lot safer for you and me out there!

You could probably make a list very quickly – dozy car drivers who change lanes or pull out in front of you without looking, impatient idiots who tail-gate you sitting right on your back wheel, and so on. And it’s bikes as well! In particular, riders who treat the road as a race-track. Yes, I’m against speed-cameras, and I could go on for hours about how our speed-limits are too low, and how authorities think the answer to the road-toll is to lower speed-limits, but there is the other extreme, where boy-racers are just a crash waiting to happen. Recently a mate was riding with his granddaughter as pillion up a favourite mountain pass. The road is narrow and winding; a good biker’s road, but you’ve got to be sensible, people have been killed riding there. Suddenly a guy came up behind him on a sports-bike and flew past – across double lines – missing the end of his handlebar by less than 30cm. If boy-racer had mis-judged it and clipped the end of the bar, well, as I said above, the consequences of getting tangled up with one of these idiots when you’re on a bike is usually pretty bad. In the past couple of days, on the same road, I’ve seen examples of similar boy-racers that make you worry.  

MOST MEMORABLE RIDE

Perhaps the most memorable ride I went on this year was one of the shortest – just a few kilometres. Our visit to a dementia care facility, which I described on my Blog page on July 21. This was memorable because it was certainly something different; and the people there enjoyed seeing the bikes, with some recalling their early years with bikes or people who rode them.

That ride inspired another visit to a different nursing home, which I described on December 1.

That one was good too, and the residents got more involved, having their photos taken sitting on one of the bikes (a Spyder), and the police bike there etc.

I organised the one in July, but I don’t take all the credit for it. I would never have thought of putting on a bike display at a nursing home. But I was inspired to do this when I read an item in the local paper about a volunteer there who rode his bike into the complex one day and found that it attracted a lot of interest. So I thought that if they were interested in one bike, they might be interested in a few. So from that one bike ridden by the volunteer to his work, two visits have ensued, each providing a welcome interest and diversion for the residents there. The pity of it was that the volunteer who inspired all this wasn’t able to join us on either of the rides.

I think it’s great to do a bit of good in the community if we can, and this was an example of that. They were both very good days!

Well, that’s it for another year. I’m looking forward to 2013 with hopes that it will be a better year personally (we had a few health dramas in our family, as I mentioned, including the death of my father-in-law who was not just my wife’s dad, but also a good friend), and hopes that I’ll be able to get out and do a bit more riding of test-bikes. As well as enjoy my own personal riding too, of course.

Click here to read my choices and comments for 2011.

Click here to go to the front page. Click your BACK button to return to the previous page.