BIKE OF THE MONTH MAY 2011 – katanarama’s RF900RV
Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 12:05 pm
Back in late 1995 my mate said to me that a change was going to happen to the motorcycle test that would make it harder to pass. Being a bit stupid I thought I’d better do it now in case I ever wanted to have a bike and was too stupid to pass the new test.
So off we plod to learn how to ride a bike at the local rider learning centre in the days before direct access.
Now, as I stood and looked at the H100 before me I can’t say I was over come with a sense of awe especially as I thought the H stood for hair dryer.
Any how, I passed my test first time on a cold wet windy day in early January 1996, probably because the examiner felt sorry for me, and I thought that was that.
The same mate then said “I suppose we better by bikes” and not being able to think for myself I agreed. My mate went for a 1975 Kwaker Z1000 and I found my first bike, a 1984 GSX750se Katana Hence the name), down in Yeovil in Somerset.
That’s when the bug hit me!
I kept the Katana for 6 years and loved it although I couldn’t go anywhere without people stopping me and asking about it. I once had a traffic cop follow me for miles home just to look at it, which is ok after the initial thought of why is he following me?
One day the same fore mentioned mate bought a bike from Abingdon and needed me to trailer it back for him. We turned up at the showroom and there was this Maroon and black RF900RV, I said “ooh, that’s nice” and he said “Yeah, I just bought it”.
He only kept it just over 18months and asked if I wanted to buy it for £3k, at the time it was exactly 5 yrs old to the day with 5800 miles on the clock and of course I’d already made my mind up.
The Bike is pretty standard apart from a K&N dyno kit and air filter, a Micron end can and a carbon fibre rear hugger (none of which I did!). I had it tuned just after I got it and it produced 123bhp at the wheel but it’s probably gone off the boil a bit since then.
The rest is history and I have owned the RF for the last 9 years and still love it although I don’t get out much on it anymore.
I did have a Gixer 1100L for a while at the same time but that had to go when we moved 5 years ago to a house with a smaller garage and couldn’t accommodate two bikes with all my tools and rubbish so one had to go, a painful decision but the RF won hands down. Here’s to another 9 years!
)
) and had a block under the side stand so I could easily clean both sides (as I always do). Whilst cleaning the pipes she fell over on me, luckily I was in the way and no harm done but my neighbour who was yapping at me at the time sh@t himself!
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.