Don’t get me wrong, I love my Z900. It is absolutely perfect for me
and does everything I want it to and far more than I am capable of
doing. I bought it new and in the two and a bit years I have owned it
I have done some 13,000 miles on it so I have absolutely hammered the
value but to me that is okay because I can’t see myself selling it
anytime soon and I always come back from a ride with an enormous
smile on my face so it is totally worth it.
So why then, I hear
you ask, did I buy an MV! Well, basically I fell in love with it.
I was looking at the used bikes on eBay, as one regularly does, and I saw the MV advertised locally so I thought I’d pop along and have a little look, as you do. Now, basically in our house it works that I do the cooking and the other half does the car/bike maintenance, fair deal. Having been around cars and bikes a long time, I have picked up a few things over the years but I would not be able to look at or listen to the tone of the engine and know if anything was wrong as the other half can.
At this point the
other half did not know I was intending to get another bike, so I
mosied along by myself to have a look at this bike and I was telling
myself to act like I knew what I was looking at and to play it cool.
That started to go
downhill as soon as I saw it. It is just beautiful to look at and
even now every time I look at it, I am sure I see something that I
hadn’t noticed before. So there I am having a look around and I
crouch down and have a look at the forks keeping up the pretence and
then I asked the chap if he could start it up for me.
That was it, my plan
went completely to pot. I could feel the smile on my face and I
literally couldn’t stop smiling. I agreed a price with the chap and
he very kindly said he would deliver it for me on his way home one
night in the week as he was going to put a new battery on it and the
fork seals were booked in to be done the following day, which I did know about prior to looking at the bike :-) :-) :-)
I went home and said
to the other half that he needed to make room in the garage because
there was another bike coming in the week!
Well fifty thousand
questions ensued so I had to think quick and this is how I sold the
idea to the other half (so don’t let on it’s all made up nonsense
just because I fancied a second bike and I basically just fell in
love with it and really, really wanted it!) So I said to the other
half that as a way of keeping the mileage down on the Z and to try
and keep hold of some of the value(!), I thought it would be great
idea if I had a second bike and then I could just use the Z for touring
and wet weather. He was starting to buy it …..
I was also asked
about what condition the forks were in, the brakes, the this, the
that and I basically just shrugged and said it was just beautiful and
sounded awesome and that was the basis on which I bought it. Uh oh ….
I could see my plan going downhill quick!
I had my fingers
crossed that when it arrived the other half would love it too and it
would be mechanically okay.
So the bike arrived
and for the next few days it peed down with rain so the first chance I
got, I took it for a ride. It was very different to ride from my Z. I
liked it, absolutely loved the sound but
just liked it, it was okay. When you ride
the Z you just get on it and ride it, it is very easy to ride and
does everything you ask it too. The MV you really had to work at it
and you knew you were riding it, if that makes sense.
It’s like the ‘65
Mustang I used to have, it used to be my daily drive (until I got
into bikes) you’d get in, and to start it you’d have to pull out the choke (not
too much but just enough) then you’d turn the key and let it churn
over for a couple of churns and then you press the throttle (not too
much but just enough) and if you’d got that absolutely right it
would start. If you didn’t, that it was it, it wouldn’t start no
matter what you did with it. It would conk out half way across a
roundabout or on the outside lane of the bypass for no apparent
reason and you would just have to wait until it was ready to start
again. But I absolutely loved it and it was huge fun to drive.
To me, the MV reminded me of my Mustang, it likes things to be done
in a certain way. There is a specific way to start it, it doesn’t
have a fuel gauge so I have to reset the trip every time I fill up
which is again a huge faff of a thing to do because you have to hold
this button down, press that, do this and sing a Bob Dylan song (just
kidding on the last part, although I do love a bit of Bob) and hope
you’ve got the sequence right otherwise you’ve buggered it all up
and lights start flashing! It doesn’t particularly like going round
corners (nor do I but that’s another blog) On one ride we were on,
it was a damp day and I kept losing the back end. I was beginning to
lose some of my love for this bike.
The other half took
the MV out and he was like me, yes it was a good bike but it was not
right. The bike had to go in for an MOT so I had a couple new tyres
put on at the same time as the ones on there were five (front) and
six (rear) years old and had, in the other half’s opinion, gone
hard as it hadn't been used for a few years and were also quite worn.
We have Michelin Pilots on our bikes and I personally, am really
happy with these tyres and I know tyre choice is very personal and
when you find a type you like, you tend to stick with it.
The other half also
fiddled (that’s the official layman’s term you understand) with
the suspension, lowered the pegs and had done something with the fly
screen. I don’t like to ask too many questions as I then have to
endure a detailed explanation of what/how went on and to be perfectly
honest, as long as the bike starts when I put my key in the ignition and turn it,
I really don’t need to know the how’s and why’s of how it got
to that point.
After the said
fiddling, I took the MV out for a ride. Well, not only do I like it
but I now absolutely love the MV. Changing the tyres and fiddling
about has transformed the bike, it is completely different to ride
from when I first got it and handles really well. It is an absolute
joy to ride and I am getting the hang of resetting the trip and am
beginning to love it’s little quirks.
The only thing now
that needs sorting are the mirrors, they vibrate like crazy and you
cannot see anything when you are going above 50 mph. It was suggested
that I ride below 50 at all times to stop it from happening. I can
tell you that this is not going to happen so I am just going to have to sort the mirrors!
Oh, there is one other small problem although it could turn into a bigger problem, and that is that the other half enjoys riding it so much that I fear I may be losing it to the other side of the garage …….
BK
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