The job finished, so I packed the Tiger and left Antwerp happy, ready for the next little adventure. It didn't take long to ride down into France and get the Eurotunnel train back to England; had a slight mis-hap when the battery went dead just as I was getting on the train. I pushed it on and had a little look around the bike during the journey, ah, I'd connected the sat-nav directly to the battery, must have left it on with the engine turned off and run down the battery. Doh! Luckily, the train guard had radioded ahead and a breakdown truck was waiting when we pulled in to Folkestone; a quick jump start and we were off! Home in no time.
The next day I took the Tiger to the Triumph dealer for a check-over, that Belgian pave had shaken the hell out of it, they found some loose bolts plus changed the brake fluid for me. While I was waiting the salesman let me go out for a ride on the Explorer, thats the 1200-engined one, like mine but bigger (and heavier). I rode the top of the range model with full electronics. To be honest, it was as I'd expected, just like mine but faster in a straight line but more ponderous round the twisties. Got back to the dealer, asked how much - £16k you must be joking!!
While I was out and about, I thought I'd run down to the Kawasaki dealer and check out that lovely Z900RS. Well, the salesman let me take one out for a ride (it was a nasty-looking matt green colour). Oh man that made a lovely noise! I rode around in 2nd & 3rd just to hear the noise, loved it! And in the right colour, it looked beautiful. I was sorely tempted, but at £10k and only £3900 trade-in on the Tiger it was not to be (well not yet anyway ;)
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| Demo bike |
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| Add caption |
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| Green cafe racer version looks nice |
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| The best colour! |
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| Lovely rear end! |
