Five guys all with pass outs for good behaviour and off on our bikes mid June to the south of France via photo shoot at the Millau bridge. Today was a planning day, so we all met chez SjB and then rode out to a Cotswolds pub for grub and the planning session. We've all ridden together before, both on rideouts and on holiday, everyone plays by the rules and applies their experience, and we all get on like a house on fire. The bikes are Honda Hornet 600, Honda Blackbird 1100, Honda SP2, Kawasaki Z7, and Yamaha FZ6.
Today though, we were joined by the next door neighbour of one of our party. He isn't coming to France - perhaps thankfully as it turned out! - but both he and machine stood out from the rest of us, our approach to safety kit, and our machines like chalk and cheese; Beard poking out from silver ROOF open face helmet and fighter pilot style silvered visor, Harley leather jacket and jeans, gloves I believe simply in deference to it being a bit nippy, and over 40 years riding experience behind him, he turned up on a 96 cubic inch (1.5 litre) supercharged Harley Davidson Softail custom!
The roots type blower is mounted vertically to the righthand side of the engine, gear driven from the crank. It's actually a very tidy and professional installation, even down to the paint finish and style of polished parts matching those of the engine. The huge Keihin carb faces forwards where an enormous chrome K&N filter assembly is attached. At idle - potato potato potato much slower than you read these words - the whole thing shakes so much that the filter assembly moves a good inch vertically. With straight through Vance and Hines pipes - I can't call them mufflers - the noise is deafening, the ground really does move, and I'm still describing tickover. I try to be a considerate human being, so goodness knows what the neighbours in my tranquil country village thought, but I'm sure the noise reached Growler so I hope he nodded approval.
For all it's venom, noise, thunder, and living soul though, it's actually a highly inefficient machine. Of course the handling dynamics are poor with the steering rake and weight that it's saddled with, and legs forward with body acting as a sail anything above sixty is very tiring work, but what surprised all of us was how hard that huge motor was having to work for a living. We were in no hurry, but the owner experessed surprise that it wouldn't even live with the two 600s or the 750 (less powerful than the Hornet and FZ6 600s) for acceleration. Contrast this; my rev limiter is at 14000RPM, peak power is at 10,500, and during typical overtakes today I'd be surfing along between 6,000 and 8,500 in a nice lively sweetspot before it all goes banzai. The Harley behind was being ridden flat out using peak power at.... 4800RPM! I'm told by those behind that on one overtake matey clipped the rev limiter at the giddy height of 5500RPM and let an enormous jet of flame out of the twin V&Hs!
Unfortunately though, for all my words telling the owner how impressed (and surprised) I was during a guided tour to find a spotlessly clean, quietly efficient, Harley factory at Capitol Drive, Milwaukee, his machine reinforced the common view of Harley workmanship; knowing our destination, I was leading the group, and at one point noticed only one headlight behind, not five. Sinking feeling. The two of us turned round and headed back towards Stow on the Wold, wondering what we'd find. As it turned out we found four bikes at the roadside, one of which was a broken Harley; the spark plug cap for the rear cylinder had fractured from the vibration. Repair was easy and involved jamming what was left of the boot on to the plug nipple and drawing tight with a cable tie, but it had to be the Harley not one of the Japs that broke, of course! To be fair though, our guest rider had fitted aftermarket plug caps replete with LEDs triggered by the firing pulse, and it was one of these at fault!!
Still a good day out though, and roll on France next month.
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