so close

I have recently been in the final info gathering stages of my purchasing process of trading my '06 boulevard cruiser for a vfr and it seems that im now there. I am making the arrangments to have one of the remaining '06 white vfr's with abs brought into my local dealer for me and should have it in the next couple of weeks. Timing sucks as I live in Calgary, Canada and the riding season is just about done. Im used to this though, I picked up my last bike in october '05 and had to wait through the winter only being able to look at it the garage. I will be buying matching hard bags for it, should I go with the factory ones or is there a better choice, as well I am only 5ft "9 and am wondering if some sort of bar riser would be usefull to me, I spent about an hour on an '06 vfr with a honda rep in the spring and felt that I had to much weight on the grips, im guessing this could either be from to much reach or simply because im used to a cruiser. Any info or comment would be great.

 

Yeah, practice riding the VFR for a bit before changing things up. There's differences like you need to sqeeze your knees and keep tension in your lower back so you don't have weight on your wrists.

The factory bags are the best IMO.

I was thinking about buying bar rises and to test the difference I loosened my clip ons and raised them until the hit the fork retaining circlip. Now it's perfect and I got it for free! Many people have done this. Some have even removed the circlip to really top out the adjustment. The part of the clipon that goes around the fork tube has a half inch peice that drops down into the triple clamp so if the clip on's hex bolt comes loose your bars won't slide around. The peice that drops down is about half an inch, so you can raise your bars that much and stiff have that 'safety'. But if you torque down your bolt you shouldn't have to worry... Anyways, that adjustment was perfect for me and I can't imagine my bars being better if they were any higher.

Here's a premature welcome to our world! And trailer your bike south during the winter to get your ride on! Some of us live in Vegas and Southern California. Be jealouse

 

thanks for the info and the "pre mature" welcome I hope thre will still be some good riding weather for me by the time my bike is ready. And yes I am jelouse of your riding season (12 months) after this past august riding in Nevada it would be nice to try those areas in a cooler season. Of course the cooler season for me means SNOW.

 

everybody's always comparing and wondering about other bikes compared to the vfr, i'm looking at picking up a bike in the spring, and i've had 3 honda Vee-four interceptors over the years, and the last bike was a ZX636R. Has anyone driven the superhawk 996, i'd like to know how it compares. Honda.ca website says it's a sport-tourer.

 

I ride my '03 VFR with a '99 Superhawk quite a bit. It has me covered on power, and we're pretty even in the corners. On the road, it's all VFR for comfort and range. He stops every 110 miles for fuel and a stretch.

If you get the Superhawk, drop the coin for D&D exhaust. You'll probably like the bike if you don't want to run lots of miles every day.

I'd say the 996 being a "sport tourer" is a bit optimistic, but a back pack and a bedroll and anything goes when it has to, right?

 

I guess i messed up there, the bike I was reading about is a firestorm, may be the same bike, different year. Sorry bout that, although your opinions sound like all the ones i've recieved on this bike, recently. Poor fuel mileage, not as comfy as the VFR, ahhh but the torque... I sat on an RC51 today, and I lost interest. It feels top heavy and very much bred fot the track. Nope, I don't think i'd get one now..thanks for the feedback reg71, and Hoosier.