Motorcycle and Scooter appreciation

Crikey they're absolutely lovely!

I had a nice bike-weekend this weekend past and did Triumph factory tour on Sunday and NEC on Monday.

Triumph factory tour was good though I actually found the free museum bit at the start to be the most enjoyable part of it. Interesting to see where it all happens though and the amount of effort they put into their crankshaft line in particular is very impressive.
I was surprised to learn that Triumph build no bikes for stock, a bike only starts production when they have an order and deposit for it so any dealer stock has been chosen by the dealer specifically. They also build to order in a single production line so there's no order to what the next bike off the line will be at any time. I thought that was quite surprising!

NEC was bike overload. Too much stuff to remember even but highlights were as follows:

Norton - Easily my highlight of the show, the V4CR is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen though at £42,000 it would want to be. About as comfortable as a scaffold plank too. The Commando 961 LE Transatlantic was absolutely stunning too, a bargain at £19,000.

Krazy Horse Kustoms - Some super cool custom bikes with wild paint, probably not everyone's cup of tea but I liked them a lot. There was a particular Zero Engineering build with absolutely mesmerising paint.

BMW - R1300GS was deeply underwhelming but I rather liked the R18 Classic in real life, what a size though. I also thought the R1250R was quite charming and understated.

Ducati - I still really want a Desert X and the want has increased since having a proper look over them. Panigale V4S Race Spec was c.£50,000 of delight to behold!

Yamaha - R1M was the aforementioned Panigale for the buyer with better taste and really very lovely. Ténéré World Rally floated my boat a lot and then there was the XSR900GP which looks even better in real life and has some really lovely "period" features like the fairing and screen fasteners. Incredibly cool!

Kramer - KTM engined trackday bikes. So pretty. Look like an absolute blast to ride. Need to figure out if they could conceivably be road registered as a "KTM Duke 690" :)

Those were the real stand outs for me, there were lots of other great things like the Zero concept bike and the ZX10R with the retro livery too. Also some really cool classic and rare bits around like the bonkers Hesketh Vampire. Would recommend popping in for a few hours if anyone is nearby and has the time to kill!