Well, It's been quite a week, the murky waters of the credit crunch have lapped at my own shore, rendering yours truly a victim of the bottom line.

My time as Channel Manager at UKBike has ended, it's been a great learning experience, a pretty good company to work for, great for riding bikes and made me a few more good friends, as well as remembering about all that office politics stuff again, presumptuous and naive I suppose to have assumed that it would have changed after such a hiatus in similar occupations.

Any way the bike....

The Harley XR has been returned and finally with a bit more time on my hands the ZX9-R will be polished to within an inch of its life, the mighty Zed Thou will be treated to a long awaited birthday, (poor thing hasn't run for two years, last time I looked at it, there was a disused nut store in the well by the starter motor beneath the carbs).

The last year has been kind to me in many ways with reference to riding bikes, not may people get to ride a 1098R, Fatboy, ZX-10R, ZZR1400, ZX6R, Z1000, CBR1000, Buell Lightning and that fabulouus black Nastilini the Morini 1200 Corsaro Veloce in the course of a year.

I managed to drop the last one, the XR1200 on the penultimate day before return.
They are not the most svelte of motorcycles, though this was a proper Harley sportsbike, the like of which has never beenn since that filthy porker the VR100O, in fact it was deemed such an important bike as to be specifically launched in Europe.

Its 90hp (still not as much as a Buell) which begs the question, why? Especially as Buell is a wholly owned subsidiary of H-D. It doesn't feel as balanced as the Buell, and other than its pseudo XR750 flattracker values is not much different to the rest of the range.

For sure its got twin front discs, a higher ground clearance, UD forks and sportier rubbered wider wheels but the back end is 70's design style at its worst, I feel sure more could have been done with this, the side panels are black and look cheap.

On the open road it's great to bomb about on, but I could not give this bike a Sporty tag, knowing what else is out there in Bike world, at low speed it's jerky, when it rained, my gloves fouled the mirrors and the front end did not feel that positive, at one point it felt like I had a puncture, maybe thats the nature of the suspension at low speed as it isn't adjustable in any way, it's not too bad at higher speeds.

Anyway, lacky feely brakes, gravel road lost foot purchase resulted in a tumble at about 7mph or something equally as rediculous.

The damage was a scuffed muffler a mere 480 odd quid (someones having a laugh) the exhaust lower heat shield about 35 quid, and minimal grazing of front brake M Cyl, mirror, indicator lens and the rear brake lever and possibly slightly untoward handlebars if they wanted to get picky, all in all about £700 quid.

I wanted to like it, it looks great in the press launch pics, it is a serious departure for Harley, so fair play to them on that score, but the ground clearance is still poor, the hero blobs were scuffed which was not a result of my cack handed low speed riding style.

Marks out of ten --4, its not an authentic copy, however modernised, of the XR750 it hasn't got enough grunt and it's not very refined, if it's a sporting Harley you want, then it's got to be a Buell I reckon.