S
saikee
Guest
Just say bye to fellow Blackbird riders.
After 8 years of owning P reg Blackbird covering 45,000 miles I finally agreed to trade it in for a new Yamaha FJR 1300.
Nothing against the Bird but the age has caught up with the wife and me. She started to refuse to go on the pallion as it is no longer comfotable for her. After 8 years of frantic speeds and mad accelerations I could do with a slowing down as I use the Bird mainly for commuting now.
Had the Bird to Europe twice. The bike was good enough to do 650 miles a day and then 8 Swiss mountain passes in another day. My main mishap was having parked the Blackbird on a side stand on a steep gradient, came out the bike, while watching the stunning scenery of the St Bernard pass (Switzerland to Italy) and then noticed something was rolling downhill! Had a clean driving license for 30 years until the Blackbird gave me 6 points in the first three years.
Rear tyre lasts 7000 miles and the front twice as long. The brake pads were changed roughly the same frequency as the front tyres.
Only two components broke down in the 8 years ownership. The first one went was the voltage regulator/rectifier two years ago. Took me 3 batteries to find out the cause. The last one was boiled like a ballon by the unregulated high voltage knocking out the bulbs as well. The second one was the snapped bolt for the cam chain tension last year. The engine was giving out noises as though it is about to die but was still drivable with no obvious loss of power. Both items cost less than ?100 to fix. Other than these two items the Blackbird has been trouble free.
Due to work commitments to go overseas regularly and so I have not been active in the forum but I have enjoyed the reading all the bits and pieces of the Blackbird here.
Happy motoring to all.
After 8 years of owning P reg Blackbird covering 45,000 miles I finally agreed to trade it in for a new Yamaha FJR 1300.
Nothing against the Bird but the age has caught up with the wife and me. She started to refuse to go on the pallion as it is no longer comfotable for her. After 8 years of frantic speeds and mad accelerations I could do with a slowing down as I use the Bird mainly for commuting now.
Had the Bird to Europe twice. The bike was good enough to do 650 miles a day and then 8 Swiss mountain passes in another day. My main mishap was having parked the Blackbird on a side stand on a steep gradient, came out the bike, while watching the stunning scenery of the St Bernard pass (Switzerland to Italy) and then noticed something was rolling downhill! Had a clean driving license for 30 years until the Blackbird gave me 6 points in the first three years.
Rear tyre lasts 7000 miles and the front twice as long. The brake pads were changed roughly the same frequency as the front tyres.
Only two components broke down in the 8 years ownership. The first one went was the voltage regulator/rectifier two years ago. Took me 3 batteries to find out the cause. The last one was boiled like a ballon by the unregulated high voltage knocking out the bulbs as well. The second one was the snapped bolt for the cam chain tension last year. The engine was giving out noises as though it is about to die but was still drivable with no obvious loss of power. Both items cost less than ?100 to fix. Other than these two items the Blackbird has been trouble free.
Due to work commitments to go overseas regularly and so I have not been active in the forum but I have enjoyed the reading all the bits and pieces of the Blackbird here.
Happy motoring to all.