Much as I love the Kawasaki and being back on two wheels in general there was that box that remained unticked. The Superbike. When once asked did I really need all the performance that one would deliver my answer was “No, but what’s that got to do with it”. I’d considered all the 1000cc options including the obvious choice having aligned my preferences with Kawasaki however I wasn’t expecting things to happen the way they did.
My regular rides out to Wales and the BMW owning riders I rode out with meant that visiting Motorrad in Chester was a regular occurrence. It was on one such visit that out of the blue I got presented with the opportunity to buy an ex-demo S1000RR with all the extras on it and 1000 miles on the clock. In a whirlwind of activity one minute I was an owner of a supersport bike and the next I was the owner of one of the most desirable super bikes on the market.
The bike was like night and day compared to the previous machine. It had enough power to pull your arms out at the sockets but it was also very agile and an absolute precision tool. I spent two great years with it and spent as much time looking at it as I did riding it.
The highlights of my time with it had to be a day with the Californian Superbike School at Silverstone on an extremely wet day and a tour of Scotland. The latter was the beginning of the end for the super bike as it turned out, and sports bikes in general. As I began to cover longer distances it became clear that I would have to get something that was less harsh on the joints.
