Hi all, cheers from Quebec, Canada

Hi all, thanks for running and contributing to this awesome forum. I'm Quebec, Canada. Early fall of this year I acquired a 2003 VFR800 ABS with ~11 000 km (~7000 miles) on the clock. I hadn't understood the motor at first while test riding the bike, as recently I had had experience only with off-road thumpers and inline 4s, but a bit later it grew on me a lot and now I just love riding it. Also, I find the stock suspension is decent bordering on good . Initially I wanted to buy an ST1300, but now I definitely prefer the VFR as a long distance universal tourer, and a fun machine in general.

The bike was in a pretty good condition in general thanks to low mileage, but of course I wanted to make it good all around. I replaced a partially rodent damaged air filter, changed oil (which still looked ok when drained) to Rotella T6 15W40 with a new filter, cleaned some blocked breather tubes, changed coolant with Honda antifreeze (old coolant looked like the same Honda stuff and was clean, but I did it just in case, and also cleaned the inside of the expansion tank from sediment). Cleaned the chain from some kind of whitish chain lube with kerosene and switched to gear oil, which in my experience is the way to go with motorbike chains. Sprockets look new . Also cleaned the calipers and installed new EBC pads, installed a couple of missing nuts and clips. Lastly got rid of the bar risers and beefed up the charging part of the wiring and cleaned and greased all electrical connectors I could reach. I'm planning to build an active RR myself and replace the OEM one. I've tested all major electrical components and for now all is good. A lot of things to do are still on the table, which can be good if you look at it at a certain angle, but the bike is a good runner already and I enjoy riding it in plentiful local twisties a lot.