Riders Ex-race bike for sale again

[Compo]

What are the downsides in daily use, as a general runabout and for touring? Short range I suppose?

Are you referring to a stock bike or the race bike? They are very different to ride, you could tour on a stock bike no trouble.

[Nick H.]

The race bike, but with road legal silencers.

[Compo]

The race bike, but with road legal silencers.

Ok I have road legal baffles in mine and its very quiet, probably too quiet for most people but I like it that way. Its still a heavy bike at 235kg but much lighter than standard which helps it turn stop and accelerate better. It feels well sorted whatever the road and speed and the suspension works very well. It will easily do 50mpg if ridden with restraint so 120 miles per tank is achievable.

I use mine for knocking about locally and a few rides further afield but never been away touring on it, I have other bikes for that. I can confirm it copes well with motorways where its smooth and effortless so its more a case of the bike can do it if you want it to.

All the wiring loom and plugs are there if you want to fit lights, obviously switches would also be needed so no reason why you couldn't use it for longer jaunts.

As only 25 of these things were allegedly built you would be in a fairly exclusive club, around 15 that I know of still exist and of those 9 are road registered, of course there could be others out there not accounted for but I know for certain a few were written off and/or broken for spares.

[Nick H.]

What's it like for mad courier filtering in London? Terrible steering lock? Too wide?

[Compo]

No use whatsoever, its very narrow but has the worst steering lock of any bike I've ever known!

[Nick H.]

Oh dear, that could make it a non-starter! Could it be remedied by removing the lock stops?

[Nick H.]

Apart from fitting lighter parts, what else was done to lighten the race bikes? I've read that people who convert a Sportster into a cafe racer sometimes shed a huge amount of weight with an angle grinder.

[Nick H.]

Another question: the Riders bike's done 3500 miles, presumably all of it extreme thrashing. What effects would that have? A shorter engine life, leaks, major repairs in the future...???

[Compo]

Steering lock could be improved, I looked at doing it myself, the limiting factor is the stroke of the steering damper

Lots of lighter parts are used and some parts removed altogether, the hefty rear subframe removed (unbolted) and substituted with Harris alloy seat frame. It could still be regarded as heavy but substantially less than stock, mine weighs 235kg wet ready to go

That particular Riders bike had only done around 1k miles when it was pensioned off and road registered, the remaining mileage should have been done at a much gentler pace, they are very strong motors.

[Nick H.]

Maybe the steering damper wouldn't be needed if you didn't have wide bars?