My Glee handles like..

[Abercol]

Eureka - that's why I have the Vee..so I can save my fat arse from the Gym!!  

The wife is already trying to entice me to take up swimming. Not in a pool full of piranhas yet, but if I keep pissing her off....

[Jacko]

Swimming is something you do to stop yourself from drowning, nothing more. Also I see people running down the street and in the park all the time but nothing seems to be chasing them and they don't appear to be trying to catch a meal... Madness.

[Andy M]

A sports bike

There I was zinging along at my usual pace on a humming 21 HP of East Germanys finest when a couple of zzr1199rrr's pulled of a side road. Now I thought they'd be over the horizon in no time, but what a pair of fat b*******s. Hadn't seen their feet except reflected in pizza huts window for years. I just opened the throttle, tucked my 68 kilo frame into the tank and let 'em try the blue smoke diet.....

         

Andy

[DOG]

It was a post about how well my Glee handles and an amusing experience I had that demonstrates it, I shared, I'm done defending it. I'll keep things to myself in future.

Totally agree with your original post and understand your position. I don't see any need for you to defend yourself, if others can't understand your description of events then that's their loss. Quite liked it actually.

[Ridaz]

I'm fairly new to this motorbike riding lark and am slowly building up my confidence, specifically with cornering so I have discovered that my riding style could be described as a squid (from another post) but I gain more and more confidence with each ride out. With the few bikes I have had, I have never had the confidence in the bike but my Glee is helping a lot now. Coming back from a ride out on Sunday a group of 8 sports bikes soon caught me up but then decided to go past my on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend. As much as I can sit and admire the riding skills of these blokes I guess bravado took over that day as they all seemed to be competing with each other. I feel quite lucky that the blokes I normally ride with are steady away types who sometimes push on a bit but never take silly risks and I am starting to keep up with them more and more which is good.

One thing I am sure of through my little experience is that the bike is far more capable than I ever will be

[Abercol]

I just opened the throttle, tucked my 68 kilo frame into the tank and let 'em try the blue smoke diet.....

I'd have followed you for a bit, the sound and smell of a 2-stroke just evokes so many happy memories inc. having a bit of a race with a Russian general in his massive flagged up black Zil & 2 MZ outriders (their machines were a good bit faster than the local plod's MZ's!) from Balaton to Budapest in 1984 on my Z440!

He wound down the window, smilled & shook my hand & gave me a bottle of vodka at the junction just before his base. My wife's relatives were shocked, he was known as a bit of a bastard to them.

[geekay]

it doesn't handle like a sports bike at all though does it, really...

come on :-)

its softer and bouncy - less precise and less 'planted' feeling (you own a ZX6R too - so I know you know this!)
it has poorer brakes less power and is just generally less suited to being "on it".

but then - we all know this - its not what we buy a wee/vee/glee for though is it.

[greywolf]

The brakes aren't necessarily poorer. They require more force to do the same job as a typical sport bike but are still capable of locking both wheels. I prefer brakes that are not easy to accidentally lock and I like the feel of the Glee brakes. They are practically identical in performance to the EBC HH front brakes I had on my old Wee.

[loggamatt]

I suppose you're right GW, but I would say it takes quite a lot of force on the brake lever to lock the front... I've certainly never felt the ABS pulse on the front and I've been in a fair few emergency braking situations.

One of the biggest differences I noticed after test riding the new BMW GS was the braking... when I got back on my Glee afterwards the lack of force in the front brake actually scared me a bit until I got used to it again. On the BMW with their linked system, I only had to put a little bit of pressure on the lever and the stopping force was unbelievable. Whereas on the Glee I've never been able to get it to stop that quickly, and to get even close I have to really grab the lever hard.

I think with ABS now, there's so little danger of locking a wheel under braking that I'd rather have as much stopping power in the brakes as possible.

[geekay]

Not sure that's a great comparison as I "think" the GS brakes are servo assisted are they not?

Or is that ridiculous? Only reason I think this is a line in "the long way round" (which I'm reading at the moment ) where Ewen states that the brakes don't work with the engine off. But I think he was confusing abs.

[loggamatt]

I'm not sure myself... I think I heard that they got rid of the servo system a while back because people didn't like it, but I'm not actually sure so you could be right.

But I was just trying to illustrate my point really that although I believe GW that it's possible to lock the front with the brakes on the Glee, I've certainly never achieved it but I could imagine doing so easily on the GS if it wasn't for the ABS. So I imagine that high spec sportsbike braking would be similarly powerful, but not having ridden one I'm just guessing.

[Jacko]

it doesn't handle like a sports bike at all though does it, really...

come on :-)

its softer and bouncy - less precise and less 'planted' feeling (you own a ZX6R too - so I know you know this!)
it has poorer brakes less power and is just generally less suited to being "on it".

but then - we all know this - its not what we buy a wee/vee/glee for though is it.

You may well be right, of course. But bare this in mind, I have an updated 650 over yours, with its suspension tweaks etc. AND a much older zx6r than yours, only a year in it but the actual set ups are 5 years apart. So maybe my two are a lot closer together than your two, if you see what I mean. My zx6 is much softer than yours, yours was the first USD forks, low clip-ons full on hooligan 600, mine is now more of a sports tourer in comparison.

But, having said that, you still may be right. On track or fast A roads they're quite a way apart, although put them on the minor A roads and B roads of this country and my two are then much closer together than you'd think, in fact on some really poorly surfaced and degrading roads the Glee would out-handle the zx6, the zx would be bucking and weaving and shaking its head and the Glee would glide through it all. Hard to believe? Maybe, but the case all the same.

[geekay]

true - I've never ridden a glee

and yes, your A1P and my B1H are possibly quite different - so I do see what you mean - but I stil find it hard to believe the glee handles like a sports bike.

I do know what you mean about some roads though - the b1H I took out last saturday (in my back-to-back ride - as referenced in the "clean bikes" thread) I realised was so solid that on bumpy roads it shook me about the place. I live in the sticks so the country roads to get to the good roads are quite hard work on the ZX6 - but no noticable on the wee.

but when the roads are well surfaced - the ZX6 is sublime...  

[Jacko]

We have the best of both worlds. Sometimes I have to remind myself not to take the ability to own and run two bikes for granted.

[geekay]

Indeed. We are fortunate. Although truth be told I can see me selling them both for something else early next year!

[Jacko]

Fear of regret prevents me selling the zx6.

[geekay]

Fear of regret prevents me selling the zx6.

ha ha - know that feeling! - I've had it for 10 years now about that bike!