Hello From Perth, Western Australia!

Hello From Perth, Western Australia! Now with Pictures!

Hello everybody!

Greetings and salutations from Perth, West Australia!

Right, a bit about myself.

Real name: Paul
I'm 49.9 years of age. Believe it or not, the VFR 800 will be my 50th birthday present from my lovely wife of 18 years. can't get a better endorsement/permission to ride motorbikes than that from the missus! One of the reasons I chose the VFR is because of the comfy pillion seat.
No kids and we live in a two storey town house about 9 miles (14 kms) from the Perth CBD.

I work for a welding supplier doing the books and repairs of welders. Formerly I used to fix TV's & video's and then Alarm systems with Chubb.

Hobbies include Photography, I own a Canon 7D DSLR and 3 lens so expect some piccies of my new ride very soon.
Im also into Home threatre and computer gaming both Xbox and PC.

My history of Riding is fairly long going back to 1995. Having a medical condition where I have weak feet/lower legs, I broke two bones in my left foot and couldn't drive my manual transmission car. (we sit on the right side of the car down here). A friend suggested that I buy a 50cc scooter to get to/from work while my foot recovered so I opted for a Honda dio 50cc scooter, something I can legally ride on a car license here.
I planned to get rid of the little scooter once my foot healed, but it never happened. Instead I rode it into the ground and in 2008, I went for my little motorcycle license and bought a Honda CBF 250.
2010 I got my big motorcycle license and upgraded to my current Kawasaki ER-6n.

Well that is until today when I walked into a Honda dealership and signed up for a brand new VFR 800 in Pearl white. ETA delivery is the 16th of November 2016.

So expect much lurking and noob questions from this newbie to the Honda VFR 800!

 

Welcome aboard, Paul!! Congrats and happy birthday!

Post up some photos of your baby when you get it!

 

I want a CBR250RR!

 

Nice. and nice of the wife too.. good to see you, when you get some, post up some photos. from way over there to us here, welcome to the crazy world of VFR ownership.

 

Welcome Paul and many happy returns,

and congrats on the new bike. I like the Pearl White, they only had the black and red when I bought mine and I got a deal on the black one as it was old stock. I like the white a lot though, they look fantastic and very visible on the road.

You may find that the bike idles a little high when you get it, that's normal, they set the revs a little high out of the factory and it should get adjusted back at the first service. I would suggest that you do keep the revs a little higher than you would on the ER6N on take off at first though particularly while the engine is new and a little stiff. I took off to turn right at an intersection on the second morning I had my new bike, coming from a 500cc parallel twin, and managed to stall it leaning into the turn, luckily there was more pain to my ego than my paint.

They are a beautiful bike and I'm sure you and you're particularly wonderful wife are going to have many happy miles on the road. You may want to seek out a good suspension tuner to help you get the suspension right for pillion riding and you may find the stock suspension and settings a little harsh. Part of that seems to be due to the OEM Dunlop tyres which are otherwise pretty good IMHO, but the suspension does ease up a fair bit over the first 10,000 kms or so. You may not notice it so much over there in the West as you actually have roads rather than the third world goat tracks that our tax dollars pay for here in NSW.

 

Welcome, Paul. I'm 53 years old, and bought my 07 VFR last April. As far as I'm concerned it's a perfect balance between performance, comfort, and style. I haven't ridden an 8th gen like yours, but I sat on one at the dealership and I'm sure you'll find it to be everything you expect from a modern sporting bike.
BTW, I got to visit Perth way back in my Navy days. Pulled into Freemantle on the USS Carl Vinson back in 83 and spent the better part of a week exploring the local area. Met some great people that I still talk to over the webs to this day. Great place!

 

Thanks for the welcome everybody!

Yeah, I wish I could take some pics of my new bike but atm, it's at the service department going thru pre delivery.
Dealer said that I could take delivery earlier, but time restraints there, I'd rather pick it up bright and early on my day off, so I'll have the entire day to sort out the wonky front wheel that all new bikes have - They seem to want to go around every corner you comes to, takes hours to get home!

 

Well I just picked my now brand new VFR 800F!

Absolutely terrible weather today. 36c on Monday, 33c on Tuesday and raining cats & dogs on Wednesday. The rain just started hammering down as I chucked a leg over.
The roads where awash with all sorts of nasties, looked like somebody had spilt the washing detergent on the road there was so much effluent everywhere. I got soaked thru as I travelled light to pick the bike up, but I didn't care one bit. I was riding my new bike!







I got home and had to hose the bike down and dry, then waited for a dry spot in the weather, quickly rolled the bike out into the driveway for a quick pic.
The third pic includes my old bike.

The bike is plated "2/2016". I got home for lunch and decided to play with my new bike instead of riding it again in this crap weather, so I dropped the seat to the lowest setting, put on the Motopumps 0.95 handle bar risers, R & G boot guards and the AVDB Moto levers.

 

White for the win, good choice there mate

 

Gday Paul happy birthday, what a fantastic gift! Welcome to the world of VFR.

 

Welcome - you have excellent taste! When you say it's plated 2/2016, do you mean that's the date of manufacture stamped on the VIN plate on left side of frame? Does it actually say it's a "2016" model? Reason I ask is here in the USA we never got a 2016 model, just the '14 and '15.

[video=youtube;mQ_k_VG6Syc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ_k_VG6Syc[/video]

 

Here in Australia, the VIN plate is attached to the right hand side of the upper chassis rail as in when sitting on the bike, same side as the throttle.

The date on this plate is "2/16". I Googled decoding the VIN number, the 10th digit which is the model year in the VIN/Chassis number is an "E" on this bike which is 2014 and was made at the Kumamoto plant in Japan.

I do know that the dealer that I bought it from had only just received the bike into stock, about 3-4 weeks before I signed up for it. They would have received it from Honda Australia which AFAIK is on the east coast of Australia which would have received the direct shipment from the manufacturer.

Good to see we have similar taste's in Motorcycles GatorGreg!