Road Test: Peak Practice

For it is then that a game of 'traditional' football is played. Two teams of 'Uppards' and 'Downards' kick, grab and run with a leather ball stuffed full of sawdust. The only rule is that the ball has to be grounded at either of the two goals, which are 3 miles apart along the valley where Ashbourne lies. Play starts at 2pm and continues until 10pm unless a goal is scored after 5pm. Hundreds take part and to describe it as rough would be an understatement - it is a moving brawl which continues through the roads of the town, across fields and even along the bed of the local stream. The violence of this game is countered by some of the most beautiful scenery in Great Britain.

It's here that we're heading to, to start our test and this promises to be just as tough as kicking the shit out of a bag of sawdust for three miles, as we aim to test the cream of motorcycling twins - BMW's R1100S, Honda's VTR1000F FireStorm and the Aprilia SL1000 Falco.

Alex reckons the Peak's roads will offer a stern testing ground for these machines, as well as offering us some nice pubs and 'co-incidentally' we're just half an hour away from Frog's loved-one, who he will be staying with for the duration of the test, while me and Gus slum it in a local B&B.

To stay my anger at this blatant misuse of power, I nabbed the keys to the VTR on my way north from the TWO orifice.

The Honda VTR has been around for a while now - since early 1997 to be exact. At launch, many found it to be a good, worthy bike, a soft Honda take on the twin theme. Having had one for a year myself, I agree. It's a Honda so you get an excellent behaving motorcycle, the worst it will do is splutter and cough a bit when cold, but that's it. It's a Honda twin, so Honda engineers wanted temperament over temperamental. It's hardly changed over the intervening years, save for a slightly bigger fuel tank (up three litres from the original 16) and a new dash. As I head towards our meeting point at Ashbourne, at the south of the Peak District, It's all becoming familiar. It's a comfy bike, the VTR. It's sort of a different view on the VFR theme, but with two cylinders and a dash of practicality taken away. That means it's nice and narrow - like a vee-twin should be - and with plenty of low down poke. In fact, it seems that low to medium poke is what this bike is about, as you don't get that big chunky top end pulling power on motorways that you get with a big-bore inline four, or even perhaps the Falco (more of which later) Instead there's an initial rush of torque from as low as 3,000 revs that seems to slow up as you hit 7,500 revs. What you do appreciate is the way the power is delivered, it comes at you in a perfect 45 degree line... no lumps, bumps or gristle - guaranteed.

One thing that is different over the old VTR I had is the dash. The old one had the normal speedo, tacho, trip meter and fuel light, but it seems Honda has gone some way to making the bike a little more practical with the inclusion of an LCD dash which gives you engine temperature, two trips, a clock and (at long last) an LCD bar type fuel gauge. Fuel was the original bugbear for the circa 1997-2000 VTR owner. Ride it hard and those big 48mm Mikuni carbs were drinking more than a Glaswegian half-hour before chucking out time. You could get as little as 70 miles showing on the trip before the reserve light came on and even then you'd get a best of around 17 miles 'til it was empty. For this year, along with the new clocks, you get an extra three litres of space for the old fossil fuel, but, even with the extra tankage, by the time I'd trundled into Ashbourne I was registering just 88.4 miles on the trip and that final LCD bar was hovering un-nervingly in the red reserve zone. Over the next few days the best I could get 'til reserve was about 100 miles - which simply isn't good enough. Checking your speed is a little difficult, too. The speedo is laid out at an angle, so that at 60-70mph the needle is pointing straight down, and if you're looking at the road ahead, it only skirts into your peripheral vision when the needle starts to point to 12 o'clock, which is an indicated 170mph! It's a minor annoyance, although with a little more time perhaps you could get used to it. One excellent feature is the mirrors, which show plenty of the road behind, even with my flabby elbows covered in a bulky jacket. They even vibrate less than those on my FireBlade, which is a bit strange as this is what should be a 'vibey' vee-twin.

Scooting around some picturesque Peak scenery was a joy on the VTR, until you hit some big bumps. You can feel every one of those precious yen that the Japs didn't spend on the suspension as the forks hit the stops as you try and negotiate a small pothole in the road. Brakes ain't the best, either... they look similar to the excellent Nissins found on the FireBlade, but don't feel as good, they're okay, but not brilliant. I know I'm having a little moan now, but I was still loving the VTR. Despite the soft suspension and weaker brakes, as long as you keep your eye open for cow shit, potholes and damp patches, you could ride that lovely low-down torque curve and make those dry stone walls evaporate into a grey blur in your mirrors. You could argue that the VTR is the less involving ride here. You get off it and find it hard to conjure up an impression of the bike. Only when you really think about it do you come up with the simple fact that it's so damn easy to ride.

Evidence to this fact came from Frog: "I've forgotten how easy these things are to ride." See?

Evidence for me came in the form of a left hander we were using for pictures. Jason - as usual - was up to his nuts in cowshit half a mile away with a huge lens, as we barrelled into the corner. With excellent visibility ahead I could cross on to the other side of the road and lean the FireStorm over just enough to get my knee down. I thought that wasn't bad going for November, although I don't think I could have done it on any of the others, such is the 'ease of use' of the big VTR.

I haven't got time to dwell on the VTR, as we're swopping bikes and heading off and out of the Ashbourne area. The town itself offers easy access into the southern Peaks. We're skirting Thorpe village and Thorpe Cloud, a peak which offers a classic view of the lower section of the beautiful Dovedale.

I'm on the Beemer now and we're heading north. We were looking at trying these machines out on the famous Cat and Fiddle run - the A537 between Buxton and Macclesfield, but Alex stays in this area regularly, and he reckons there are a few grey tarmac gems to be had a little farther south, where the cops don't pry and the farmers don't spread so much cow muck all over the road.

Compared to the other machines on test, the R1100S isn't a narrow bike. Firstly you have those big horizontally opposed cylinders which jut out, then you also have a fairly big and bulky top fairing. Those cylinders make you feel as though trickling through traffic isn't as easy as on the other two bikes, whereas the bulky fairing actually helps. You've got much better wind protection than on the other two machines which are that much narrower. Inside the fairing you've got the normal Beemer clocks and idiot lights, all fairly uninspiring. You've also got those godawful indicators, which we've all mentioned so many times that it's just getting boring. Press the left for left, right for right and up with your right thumb to cancel...zzzz..... Whatever... you can forgive almost all ergonomic hell for that magic button on your right clip on... it's the three setting heated grips. Off, warm and toasty... magic.

Handling wise you think the bulkier BM would be a bit of a lardball, but nowt could be further from the truth. Once you get your head into the BMW, you could really hustle it through the bends, as demonstrated by Alex on his ride home. On his way to his lady's abode in Stoke he was chased by a local rider on an old D-reg Yamaha FZR1000. The bloke was brave on the straights, overhauling the Frogster, but when the pair of them descended on a couple of bends that we'd been shooting pictures on, along the B5053, old greenback fair slid past at a goodly rate of knots. That's the trick with the R1100S - you mock it if you dare. If it's a pipe and slippers bike, then the pipe is a hookah hooked up to some really funky shit and the slippers have the Nike swoosh on them...

Gus who's raced one and will do a full season of Boxer Cup action next year loves this bike.

"It just makes a really friendly noise," said the Gusbuster. "And that prepares you for the ride. The way the power comes in is so soft and smooth, you can really crack the throttle open and the thing will just grip and go. And if it slides, then it does it really progressively."

Another of the excellent features of the BMW was the relationship between the front suspension and the brakes. The Paralever front end is simply fantastic. Hard braking through those chunky discs never unsettles the bike. As the front tyre is biting into the tarmac, you get no dive whatsoever. It's a little strange at first, but when you get used to it, you find that you can hustle through switchbacks in an unflustered stylee, not worrying about the suspension tying itself in knots as it could do on the VTR.

Some people have criticised the Beemer's front end for an almost vague quality. Some have said that no dive means no feel for the front and the first time you realise you're at the limit the front has tucked under and you're heading for a fall. None of us had that problem, it all worked perfectly, in fact it simply added to our confidence and complimented that labrador-friendly power delivery, meaning that the BM was battling in the ease-of-use stakes with the Honda.

"I liked the front end," babbled Gus, as we sat down for a well-earned beer in our hotel in Stoke-on-Trent that night. "That Teletubbies thing makes you really feel what the front end and that tyre is doing, not the opposite. When I softened the knob off to setting five it was right about perfect for me."

And that's another thing. Want to change suspension settings? Easy, mate... just twist the knurled knob which sits on the top yoke... and go! It's the same story at the rear with a similarly chunky knob.

As the Munich firm moves towards the biking mainstream with models like this, all three of us agreed that if BMW makes more machines like the R1100S (and watch this space for an updated R1150S...) we'd all be content to ride only Beemers, should a freak series of explosions around the world destroy the other European and Japanese motorcycle factories. Hell, it even looks nice, with it's Germanic friendly Fokker swoops and curves and almost monocled headlights, it's a shame it's all marred by that bloody ridiculous 'Crash test dummy' paint scheme.

By the end of the first evening we've enjoyed some breathtaking scenery and awesome roads. Just to counterpoint that a little, we head to the delights of Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent for a night out.

None of us drink too much, but we're still a little wooly headed the following morning as we head back into the southern Peaks for some more photos. Our heads begin to clear as we again witness the kind of panoramic scenery only the Peaks can offer - and also some quaint names. Where else could you travel through Alsop en le Dale, Fenny Bentley and Back o' th' Brook?

I'm now on the Aprilia and I'm desperate to find some good things to write about it after some of the moans the other two were making about it.

The Aprilia Falco has been around since 1999. To build a Falco you simply take the excellent 60-degree vee-twin from the Mille race-replica, de-tune it to around 115 claimed bhp, stick it in a half-trellis half-beam frame and then give it that half-faired utilitarian look...

Falcos I've ridden before have been excellent, even up against competition of this calibre. But our test bike, which had 5,000 miles on it, seemed to suffer.

Both Alex the Frog and Gus complained that the bike's suspension felt a bit naff. The Sachs' suspended Falco felt to them like it was sitting low at the back and high at the front, resulting in a chopper-style vagueness and slow steering. Breaking out the tools to fiddle with the suspension improved matters, as pretty soon Alex was scything through corners with a deal more confidence than he had on the previous day.

"At first I wasn't impressed with the suspension or the handling of the Falco, but after we'd done the best we could by altering the suspension to try and raise the rear-end a little, it seemed a lot more sure-footed. In fact, after taking the VTR and the Falco through the same bends time after time for pictures, I reckon I had a deal more confidence in the Falco's suspension over the over-soft VTR."

So, an improvement, but the Falco still lacked the plush ride of the Beemer and a squint at the tyres showed that even when set up to our liking, the bike was still working the rubber a little hard.

Comfort is a confusing word on the Falco. You've got a wide pair of clip ons, which hold a heavy clutch. The seating position itself seems identical to the Mille, which is a race-replica, not what you expect on something marketed as a more useful machine, but if you're after a sportier take on this twin theme, then perhaps the Falco has it.

The engine is also a different kettle of fish to the other two machines. Rather than the linear rising VTR curve or the friendly softly-softly BM, you have a raucous snarling wildcat of an engine..., sure not as snarling as the original Mille, but in this company, the other two bikes feel friendly while the Mille feels a bit naughty. It's the way the power comes in, nothing like the other two, much more peaky.

Gus got it bang on: "It's dead switchy is this, like. It probably makes more power than the others but it's dead lurchy, not smooth at all. Very different to the others."

In the cockpit you have the Aprilia Mille dash layout. You need a degree in rocket science, or at least the manual to make this thing work properly. We had neither. You have five buttons, A, B, C, D and in the middle R. By pressing all of these in a random order I managed to get the flashy shift-light to come on at 10,000rpm and not 6,000 which had been annoying us all day. But then, soon as you switched the ignition off, you had to re-set the shift light all over again. Add to this the fact that the things refused to switch into mph mode from km/hr mode and we were all a little frustrated. These clocks looked so funky and useful when they first came out on the Mille in '99, but now they're just too bloody clever for their own goo. On all the Milles and Falcos I've ridden I've had trouble with them in some way or another. A dodgy shift light here, or engine management light on there... and as for the complexity... well, look at an R1, Blade or Trumpet's digital clocks and you have fewer buttons and thus have fewer combinations to go through to find out how the buggers work...

Overall the Falco is a good bike. Good engine, fair handling, nice looking (if you like that kind of thing) and good brakes. It's just that in this company it suffers on the comfort, quality, reliability and ease-of-use front.

The crunch decision time of any test is when we have to split up and go home. This is because we normally have to do plenty of miles, usually at night or late evening and probably through the rain. It's even more of an important decision on a Friday evening, as this was, because that means the bike you take away with you, you're lumbered with for the whole weekend.

Alex may be nicknamed the Frog, but let me tell you the truth - he's actually much slimier than that. I watched as he plucked the keys to both the VTR and the BMW from their respective ignition barrels as Jason took the final few static shots of the day, leaving the Falco keys behind. Old greenback was certainly hedging his bets. But this helped me no end, as it pointed to the loser of this test.

The Falco is a good machine, but it's beaten by the other two on this test for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's too similar to the excellent RSV Mille. While this may not seem like a problem, it actually is. The VTR, for example, is a soft, friendly V-twin that is a world away from it's fire-breathing track cousin the VTR1000 SP-2, while so much of the same stuff is used from the Mille on the Falco and the Mille's just as practical, making us on the test wonder why anyone would plump for this bike over the Mille, unless you really can't afford the extra cash. The seating position is virtually the same, the clocks are the same, even the peaky power delivery is similar, despite losing a claimed 13bhp on the racier machine. For this sort of machine in this class, Aprilia could lose a further 15bhp, soften the power delivery, change those awful clocks, make the bike more comfortable and still ultimately make this a much better bike.

And so it comes down to a winner, I guess. Personally, I would choose the VTR as it's a handsome machine. It also has a softly, softly catchee monkey approach, which offends no-one although (perhaps) excites far fewer, but it also has a usability and sheen that only a Honda could have. It does have some drawbacks, those big carbs are still way too thirsty for ultimate practicality as this bike still needs another two or three litres tankage, but, even hamstrung by a 100 mile tank range and other little annoying things like the hard to read clocks, the user-friendlyness illustrated by my knee down in November antics, meant that's the one I would just plump for over the R1100S, but boy was it close for me.

However, on the very subject of an ultimate winner, I was outvoted two to one by Gus and Alex. Both wanted to vote for the Beemer as the best twin on test. Here is a bike with a nice soft power delivery, with practicality, good tank range, quirky, but nice enough looks and a kind of wolf in sheep's clothing ability that kept rev heads like Gus and Alex happy, while cosseting the mid to late 30s side of their nature with those wonderful BMW heated grips.

Gus put it best: "It's the kindest bike here for handling, power, comfort and excitement." Spot on, Buster...

And that's why Alex - amphibian slimester that he is - took the Beemer for his own, even though he had less miles to travel than me and Gus.
And that's why - to my eternal shame - I pulled rank on the Gusbuster and handed him the keys to the Falco, while I made the most of the dying sunlight and doubled back towards the B5053 in search of some more left handers on my custard coloured VTR.

SPECS - HONDA

TYPE - SUPERSPORTS

PRODUCTION DATE - 2002

PRICE NEW - £7449

ENGINE CAPACITY - 996cc

POWER - 105bhp@8,250rpm

TORQUE - 74ft.lbs@7000rpm

WEIGHT - 192kg

SEAT HEIGHT - 810mm

FUEL CAPACITY - N/A

TOP SPEED - 150mph

0-60 - n/a

TANK RANGE - 100miles

SPECS - BMW

TYPE - SPORTS

PRODUCTION DATE - 2002

PRICE NEW - £7595

ENGINE CAPACITY - 1085cc

POWER - 92bhp@7,500rpm

TORQUE - 71.6 ft.lb@5750rpm

WEIGHT - 229kg

SEAT HEIGHT - 800mm

FUEL CAPACITY - N/A

TOP SPEED - 138mph

0-60 - n/a

TANK RANGE - 150miles

SPECS - BMW


TYPE - SPORTS

PRODUCTION DATE - 2002

PRICE NEW - £7895

ENGINE CAPACITY - 998cc

POWER - 107bhp@9250rpm

TORQUE - 69ft.lbs@8000rpm

WEIGHT - 190kg

SEAT HEIGHT - 815mm

FUEL CAPACITY - N/A

TOP SPEED - 153mph

0-60 - n/a

TANK RANGE - 135miles

For it is then that a game of 'traditional' football is played. Two teams of 'Uppards' and 'Downards' kick, grab and run with a leather ball stuffed full of sawdust. The only rule is that the ball has to be grounded at either of the two goals, which are 3 miles apart along the valley where Ashbourne lies. Play starts at 2pm and continues until 10pm unless a goal is scored after 5pm. Hundreds take part and to describe it as rough would be an understatement - it is a moving brawl which continues through the roads of the town, across fields and even along the bed of the local stream. The violence of this game is countered by some of the most beautiful scenery in Great Britain.

It's here that we're heading to, to start our test and this promises to be just as tough as kicking the shit out of a bag of sawdust for three miles, as we aim to test the cream of motorcycling twins - BMW's R1100S, Honda's VTR1000F FireStorm and the Aprilia SL1000 Falco.

Alex reckons the Peak's roads will offer a stern testing ground for these machines, as well as offering us some nice pubs and 'co-incidentally' we're just half an hour away from Frog's loved-one, who he will be staying with for the duration of the test, while me and Gus slum it in a local B&B.

To stay my anger at this blatant misuse of power, I nabbed the keys to the VTR on my way north from the TWO orifice.

The Honda VTR has been around for a while now - since early 1997 to be exact. At launch, many found it to be a good, worthy bike, a soft Honda take on the twin theme. Having had one for a year myself, I agree. It's a Honda so you get an excellent behaving motorcycle, the worst it will do is splutter and cough a bit when cold, but that's it. It's a Honda twin, so Honda engineers wanted temperament over temperamental. It's hardly changed over the intervening years, save for a slightly bigger fuel tank (up three litres from the original 16) and a new dash. As I head towards our meeting point at Ashbourne, at the south of the Peak District, It's all becoming familiar.

It's a comfy bike, the VTR. It's sort of a different view on the VFR theme, but with two cylinders and a dash of practicality taken away. That means it's nice and narrow - like a vee-twin should be - and with plenty of low down poke. In fact, it seems that low to medium poke is what this bike is about, as you don't get that big chunky top end pulling power on motorways that you get with a big-bore inline four, or even perhaps the Falco (more of which later) Instead there's an initial rush of torque from as low as 3,000 revs that seems to slow up as you hit 7,500 revs. What you do appreciate is the way the power is delivered, it comes at you in a perfect 45 degree line... no lumps, bumps or gristle - guaranteed.

One thing that is different over the old VTR I had is the dash. The old one had the normal speedo, tacho, trip meter and fuel light, but it seems Honda has gone some way to making the bike a little more practical with the inclusion of an LCD dash which gives you engine temperature, two trips, a clock and (at long last) an LCD bar type fuel gauge. Fuel was the original bugbear for the circa 1997-2000 VTR owner. Ride it hard and those big 48mm Mikuni carbs were drinking more than a Glaswegian half-hour before chucking out time. You could get as little as 70 miles showing on the trip before the reserve light came on and even then you'd get a best of around 17 miles 'til it was empty. For this year, along with the new clocks, you get an extra three litres of space for the old fossil fuel, but, even with the extra tankage, by the time I'd trundled into Ashbourne I was registering just 88.4 miles on the trip and that final LCD bar was hovering un-nervingly in the red reserve zone.

Over the next few days the best I could get 'til reserve was about 100 miles - which simply isn't good enough. Checking your speed is a little difficult, too. The speedo is laid out at an angle, so that at 60-70mph the needle is pointing straight down, and if you're looking at the road ahead, it only skirts into your peripheral vision when the needle starts to point to 12 o'clock, which is an indicated 170mph! It's a minor annoyance, although with a little more time perhaps you could get used to it. One excellent feature is the mirrors, which show plenty of the road behind, even with my flabby elbows covered in a bulky jacket. They even vibrate less than those on my FireBlade, which is a bit strange as this is what should be a 'vibey' vee-twin.

Scooting around some picturesque Peak scenery was a joy on the VTR, until you hit some big bumps. You can feel every one of those precious yen that the Japs didn't spend on the suspension as the forks hit the stops as you try and negotiate a small pothole in the road. Brakes ain't the best, either... they look similar to the excellent Nissins found on the FireBlade, but don't feel as good, they're okay, but not brilliant. I know I'm having a little moan now, but I was still loving the VTR. Despite the soft suspension and weaker brakes, as long as you keep your eye open for cow shit, potholes and damp patches, you could ride that lovely low-down torque curve and make those dry stone walls evaporate into a grey blur in your mirrors. You could argue that the VTR is the less involving ride here. You get off it and find it hard to conjure up an impression of the bike. Only when you really think about it do you come up with the simple fact that it's so damn easy to ride.

Evidence to this fact came from Frog: "I've forgotten how easy these things are to ride." See?

Evidence for me came in the form of a left hander we were using for pictures. Jason - as usual - was up to his nuts in cowshit half a mile away with a huge lens, as we barrelled into the corner. With excellent visibility ahead I could cross on to the other side of the road and lean the FireStorm over just enough to get my knee down. I thought that wasn't bad going for November, although I don't think I could have done it on any of the others, such is the 'ease of use' of the big VTR.