Heretic

I had a Rivale once for the weekend, parts of it I loved and parts of it I disliked. I wrote about it here: https://gliddofglood.typepad.com/th...800-review-flattery-will-get-you-nowhere.html
I have to admit that if I couldn't have an F3 800, then I didn't much want that superb screaming motor in anything else. I don't really need a mental naked. Otherwise, I'd have just got an F3.

As for the garden, kind of you to ask. It is now looking pretty cool, but it hasn't been easy. My 4 year-old quince tree snapped in a ludicrous freezing north wind, just when it was looking beautiful in full blossom:



That made me quite unhappy. So a few days later, I bought a new one. I just couldn't stand the garden with a quince tree-shaped hole:



There has been a lot of work going on in different places. This morning the veggie garden looks like this - it is stuffed with plants - can't get anything else in:

 

Picked up the Donald Trumpet today and had a heap of fun riding it back home in a very roundabout fashion (not that I went roundabout surfing, you understand) taking in twisty roads in the Jura through fir forests and Alpine meadows (not that they were really Alpine as I wasn't in the Alps, but Jura meadows?? You get the idea).

The bike is a hoot, and will be a bigger hoot when I've finished running it in. I was warned off Moto GP-style braking shenanigans by the dealer and told to not exceed 3000 rpm for 50 miles. That gives you a range of about 1000 rpm to ride it in - not ideal in the twisties - and gives you a top speed of about 55 mph. That's probably the most legal I have ever ridden anything. Fortunately, I knocked off the 50 miles this afternoon and am now up to a more manageable 4000 rpm until I've done 250 miles, when I get to a dizzying 5000 rpm until the 500 miles come up. It red-lines at 7000. So I spent a lot of the afternoon in 6th, whereas I think I barely used 6th when I was test-riding the demonstrator (maybe on the motorway).

My test ride impressions are confirmed. Brilliant handling - you can chuck it into corners with abandon and it's very flickable but stable. The rear tyre may be small, but it's obviously enough for the 100 bhp. There is traction control and ABS if you find out that it isn't. Brakes are excellent - good enough for anything you are going to require on the road and it's not as if I'm going to be taking it around Donnington.

Very flexible motor with all the grunt you'd expect from a twin-cylinder 1200. The exhaust note is really well done. It's not as muted as some Euro 4 engines. It makes a very characteristic classic British twin sound and it pops nicely on the overrun. On the other hand, it won't prompt my neighbours to post dog turds through my letterbox, so it's a very good compromise. I think my days of loud carbon pipes are well and truly over. I am now just too considerate of all the people who don't like them. And I don't want another fine.

The electronic gadgetry seems quite easy to understand. No scrolling through a million menus, although there is plenty of info, should you require it, hidden in those classic clocks. Quite neat stuff like how many more miles you've got before you run out of petrol, a couple of trips, that kind of thing. The mirrors are superb. They don't vibrate, you can see what is behind you without doing the chicken dance and they look cool as they are not mounted on hideous afterthought stalks but on the bar ends.

The riding position is very natural with nicely rear-set pegs. You are leaning forward a bit, which is how I like it, but we aren't talking acebars or clipons. That is sort of the point. It means that you can admire the scenery or put up with the drudgery of slow-moving traffic and 30 limits. I don't think, though, that I am going to have any difficulties "making progress" should I decide to do so when I have a few more revs at my disposal. So what you have got, essentially, really is a thing that looks as if it came out of the factory in 1970, but which has all mod-cons, and the latest in chassis, tyres, motor, electronics and handling. Even the suspension is good, even if you can't adjust it. Put it this way, if I could adjust it, I wouldn't as it seems just fine the way it is.

So pretty much what the doctor ordered and it will be going to the Alps 'ere long and all sorts of other places.

 

I don't mind starting a garden thread. It's got about as much to do with motorcycling and Ducatis as Donald Trump in any case.
I'll see what I can rustle up, but I don't profess to be an authority on gardening. Maybe gardeners can tune in to it to relate their successes, failures and projects.