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As some of you may recall, I had planned a motorbike trip from Townsville to S.E. Queensland back in July. I still haven't gotten around to doing a ride report, too busy transporting all the goods everyone is buying on the internet during this bloody Covid outbreak (I am happy to have a job though!!). This will probably be done in one day at a time but I will try to be prompt with further installments. I am no Wilbur Smith so don't expect too much. My mate Andrew and I were going take a couple of weeks off to ride to the Gold Coast to go riding with my brother-in-law Grant. Unfortu

This is not a boring old twin. The Aprillia has a 270° crank, and sounds and behaves like a V twin, just more compact. Don't underestimate the new generation of twins with the crossplane cranks, they have huge amounts of torque and are just as intoxicating as the V4 was in its day. With the power to weight ratio, latest equipment and all the electronics, they will leave the poor old VFR far behind. But it's not a sports tourer, they are out of fashion I'm afraid, and it doesn't seem like anyone is in a hurry to bring them back. Sad really. I couldn't find a replacement

So in an odd confluence of events, I repurchased my VFR today since it popped up for sale just two months before I move back to San Diego and California highways. I sold it back in 2011 right before I went overseas to Saudi Arabia for a year...not because I wanted to, but because it made more sense to do that then have it sit in a crate somewhere. I'm sure none of you remember me from VFRD 1.0 and my Monterey days but I am itching to get back into the Vifferisti fold 😄 The person I sold it to (not the same person I just picked it up from) apparently left it outside a lot, so th

Back to cosmetics. I received my Sargent saddle in the mail, but everyone kinda knows what that looks like already. The old one was way, way past its service life and the last owner had fixed a couple spots with black duct tape. I haven't received any of my new plastic pieces yet, but I did get several eBay parts. Two pieces of plastic are unavailable anywhere in R157 Italian red, the front fender and upper left "meter cover" which is the plastic piece to the left of the gauge console. I got a couple rear cowlings and one of the left meter covers from eBay...none are as solid a

Nothing like the VFR. Designed as a street friendly sport bike, not a sports-tourer. Might get one though, looks fun.

Hi Phil. You're getting me excited, nice write up and pictures, looking forward to the rest of the trip. You certainly have the nicest bike Cheers.

This is great!

I had good luck restoring the plastics on my ZX7R I redid with smearing everything that was black plastic with vaseline and letting them sit for 3 days and then buffing the parts out. I got that idea from Iconic Motorbikes on their website as a restoration tip. NIck

I agree that it's hard to find a replacement (or alternative) to a V-4 engine. And yes, I agree that a crossplane parallel twin is a bit of a far cry from the V-4 experience. But here's an in-between engine candidate, the Triumph "T-plane" triple. Surprisingly the T-plane triple engine has exactly the same firing order as the VFR engine, just without the 4th cylinder. The T-plane fires like this: 1-0-3-0-0-2-0-0- and it sounds a lot like the VFR's V-4 engine. At the end of this video there's a few seconds of full-throttle T-plane 3 cylinder acceleration to listen to.

No they have been upgraded, same lift more duration.

Been here a lot of years along with 5 or 6 other MC sites. And I still think this is the best MC site on the net.