A Professional Point Of View

Last week I had an interesting conversation with a local riding instructor;

I was drawn to his ST1300 as it wasn't wearing it's panniers, it looked really skinny. After introducing myself, we started discussing the merits of the 1300 over the 1100. He'd had four 1100's and this was his first 1300.

He didn't like the colour (blue) because it never looked the same, the other colours were worse apparently. He didn't like the dash as it was difficult to see in bright (Spanish) sunshine. The indicator repeaters are invisible. He'd got overheated by the poor ventilation, pre-modification. His friend had cracked the sump on his bike while they were on holiday. This was fixed with Araldite to get the bike home. And finally, the bike looked odd without the panniers (the 1100 had some kind of flap which apparently made it look better).

He did like the extra power. He said that it cornered better.

Perhaps familiarity breeds contempt, when you ride or drive something day-in day-out I suppose the niggles seem worse.

Me, I'm lucky, I ride for fun!