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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. Unfortunately Andrew was only able to get 1 week off so a shorter trip with just Andrew (Suzuki V Strom 650) and I was planned. However a few days before our departure Grant, who has had the same 1979 Bonneville Special since he bought it new in 1979, turned up on my doorstep. He had decided to ride to Townsville and join us. Much to our surprise he had bought a new bike (his first in 40 years) although it was no surprise that it was another Triumph, a 2013 Triumph America. He still has the 79 Special of course. Day 1. Sunday morning we left Townsville heading for Malanda on the Atherton Tablelands a distance of 342km, a pleasant Sunday ride. First stop was Cardwell for a coffee. The route we took turned off the Bruce highway at Silkwood, where the road winds its way through cane fields and farming country through Paronella Park at Mena Creek and South Johnstone and joins up with the Palmerston Highway. The road is a little narrow but much more interesting than going on the Bruce Highway to Innisfail and then up the Palmerston. The Palmerston Highway is a very pleasant ride with mainly long flowing corners. We had a quick photo stop at Crawfords Lookout. Home for the next few nights. A great place to stay if you tour the tablelands is the Malanda Falls Caravan Park. Small room with a double or two single beds. No air conditioning, but it is normally a few degrees cooler than down on the coast. Small bar heater for winter. Toilet and shower block located just to the right. Very friendly owners. $50 a night. Malanda Falls, located about 200 mt from the cabins. Good swimming hole in summer. Had a quick trip up and down The Gillies straight away, what a great motorcycling road, a little busy on a Sunday afternoon, though it doesn't look it in this photo. Had dinner at the Malanda Hotel, great meals, very friendly. Had a few quiet drinks at the cabins to finish day 1. More to follow.

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, it's why I bought a 1050 Sprint.

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 the plastic has a lot of fading in it and there are cosmetic things to fix. But mechanicallly...all of my mods are still there and it feels like yesterday: - WP 3-way shock with reservoir - Race Tech gold compression and rebound valves - HyperPro progressive fork springs - All Balls roller head bearing Definitely needs some new fork oil after 10 years or so but all in all, it felt really good to this suspension snob! Not sure if I will stick with riding ten years later but I'm going to enjoy it for a bit, and will be asking some questions for sourcing plastic, etc. One right away from the ride home...the brake pedal actuates the brake light, but not the brake lever. I recall there's some kind of common fix for a switch in there? Also...giant ugly scratch across the tachometer. Can I take apart the gauge cluster to just fix that? So long as I "can" I probably will...

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 as the pieces I have (lots of light scratching) so I am using them as test pieces for now. Good news is Color Rite R157 seems like a pretty good match for *new* 2002 VFR parts. All of mine are faded to some degree, and I do not see red particularly well in all lighting conditions (very slight color deficiency) but it seems close. This piece has not been wet sanded yet so don't look at the orange peel and whatnot, but at 12 hours after clear coat the color seems good next to my tank (least faded part on the bike, and thing I want to replace the least) and one of the two eBay rear cowls that at least doesn't look too faded: Next to one of the eBay rear cowlings: Next to my bike...apologize for no sunlight I know that's the real test, but I did use my phone camera flash: So I have limits with red color vision as I said, red is also typically difficult for camera sensors, and I haven't surfaced...but it seems like a good fit. It's also pretty obvious the Color Rite color base will stick to the sanded red paint, but not any bare plastic spots. You can see the gouges in this eBay part and how the red didn't even pool there enough to cover it. Of the two rear cowlings I have, I tried the touch-up method as I can usually pull this off with auto paint. But the VFR paint is just waaaay too thin so there was no real way to blend in hand painted and clear coated repairs in an un-obvious way. I knew it was a long shot but wanted to see if I could get away with not respraying.

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. You'll be surprised how much it sounds like a VFR V-4 engine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Woh023WrZlQ

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.