From personal experience I firmly believe that every long trip needs preparation, a stitch in time and all that. So I recently headed up to my lovely garage (despite the oppressive August heat) and started to prepare my van for the trip up to meet Brian the Barnes in Bergamo, north Italy. Tyre pressures, oil and water levels all ok, windscreen washer water full and all the rest. Tool kit on board. Then I started her up and drove out of the front doors of my garage so that the van rear axle was as low as possible and I fitted my bike ramp and started up the old VFR1200F (having checked her too for oil, water, tyre pressures and stuff cos Barnes will ride from Bergamo back up to the UK, about 1600 km in two or three days).
I then drove the Honda gently up the ramp into my van using the engine cos she is a VERY large bike, around 260kgs dry. I used my big ramp so that I could walk up alongside her whereas with the little one I have to hold her and jump up into the van, tricky with such a heavy bike. Luckily the height was ok and she went straight in to the Vito so I did not need to remove mirrors or windscreen phew. Lucky, also because the fairing is a one piece construction and SUPER quality, I would hate to try and take her apart…you cannot see any fasteners from the outside.
STOP PRESS: The old van caused me some heartache recently. She stopped several times without motive and I could not work out what was going wrong. Well I think that the problem came from the 2 year forced COVID stop. Since I have started using her again the problem has gone away so my best guess is that the fuel within the injectors/fuel filter etc had “gone off” and hence these problems.
And in she goes, ready to be strapped down tightly for the journey…
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