Honda ST1300 Pan European

This blog has moved

2010-03-21T15:34:00.001+01:00

This blog is now located at http://st1300pan.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://st1300pan.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

December 5 2009

2009-12-06T00:36:00.001+01:00

Other Pan European blog (Portugese)

November 6 2009

2009-11-06T22:19:00.001+01:00

Today I recieved a copy of the movie that has been made of us by the undercover bike cop serveral months ago in Germany. Although it looks like we're riding not that fast, we were still 50kmh too fast ;)

September 11 2009, 83,163km

2009-09-11T19:43:00.005+01:00

And that concludes another motorcycling chapter: sold the Pan today for 8,500 euro.
The Pan has been a near perfect touring companion during 50,000km. Only the instability at higher speeds spoiled the fun. Maybe the wedges are a cure?
Now I'm aiming for the new Honda V4 (VFR1200) with automatic gearbox. It seems to me a very high tech and very interesting bike. I hope Honda will introduce it soon.

THE END

August 22 2009, 83,163km

2009-08-22T21:16:00.002+01:00

Great news. It seems the high(er) speed wobble problem of the ST has been resolved by Dutch frame specialist Nico Bakker. He's made some wedges to put under the windscreen in order to place it a bit steeper. In this way more pressure is been put on the front which has a stabilizing effect. Or so it seems. I've read several reports of users who claim that the wobble is gone.
If I would keep the Pan I sure would have given this a try...

August 12 2009, 83,163km

2009-08-12T18:06:00.004+01:00

The Pan got an extended small service job. Or something like that. New front brakepads, all the oils changed and new oil and air filters were placed. The new owner (anybody?) must be very happy with this.

As a loaner I got a Honda CBF600. Nice bike. It's been a while since I've driven an inline four and I must say I like the engine characteristic of a boxer or V4 (and V2, Pim?) better nowadays. I'd to rev the 600 quite high to get some decent performance. The torque of a boxer and V4 is much better.

BTW Found another ST1300 blog. Have a look at it.

August 10 2009, 83,100km

2009-08-10T17:45:00.006+01:00

Put the Pan up for sale... I think it's time for something else. I've had the bike for two and a half year and for over 50,000km now. I'd like to have a more sporty bike again, although I don't know yet which one. The new Honda V4? Who knows...

August 3 2009, 83,077km

2009-08-03T17:00:00.003+01:00

Pan is still asleep, waiting for another trip...

There are plans to built some new Van Veen OCR1000's from spare parts. I find this a very beautiful and interesting bike and would love to have one. But I guess the price won't be much less than 50,000 euro? And there are already a lot of other interested people.

Photo of the Van Veen's supplied by the nice people from Motoren & Toerisme, Belgium. Thanks guys/girls!

July 14, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-14T17:19:00.002+01:00

Removed the battery to keep it charged at home since I don't have electricity in my garage.

July 9, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-09T20:38:00.002+01:00

Saw today the first drawings of the 2010 ST1300 (1200??) on MCN. Looks very promising...

July 3, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-03T18:39:00.001+01:00

Ahem... Silly me... I just discovered the reactions on some of my postings. I always thought I would get an email when someone reacted. But for that to work I had to enter a *valid* email address... Sorry!

July 2, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-02T22:35:00.002+01:00

Pictures of a new Honda V4 appear on the Net. Interesting bike. If it's not too uncomfortable, can carry cases, has enough fuel range, who knows...

June 30, 2009, 83,077km

2009-07-01T17:29:00.009+01:00

Today Pim and I returned from a short vacation in the German Black Forest. A short report:

Day 1: Friday June 26, Going to the forest, 749km.
When I wanted to start the Pan this morning it didn't: flat battery after standing still for almost 3 weeks. With the help of my car I finally made it run. With a little delay Pim and I went asap to the Black Forest. First over highways to Karlsruhe, then over nicer roads to our final destination: the Gasthof Salenhof in the South of the Black Forest. From here we'd discover the surroundings.

Day 2: Saturday June 27, Rain, Roads and Cake, 277km.
First real day of the vacation. We rode over great roads partly through pouring rain and fog. Not a nice start, but still it all looked promising. We rode partly over the Schauinsland circuit.
At a stop we had the famous Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte. Pim and I were both a bit disappointed, what was all the fuss about? It didn't taste that special...

Day 3: Sunday June 28, Black Forest at its best and worst, 265km.
The route of today led us over very beautiful and curvy roads. Even Pim as curve-addict had nothing to complain about. At a canyon we switched bikes and I could try Pim's Suzuki TL1000S. The bike felt very small, but wasn't too uncomfortable (for this short ride). I opened the throttle and with a nice rumble the TL speeded forward. At the first corner I tried to brake, but nothing much happened! Eeeeekkk!!! With more force I pulled the brake lever and at last the bike started to slow down. Happily I wasn't in full-attack mode, so I made it through the corner, no thanks to the brakes (what brakes?). Eventually I learned how to ride this bike and had quite some fun on this lightweight sportsbike. After a while Pim and I switched our bikes back and Pim told me how the brakes of the Pan surprised him, but than in a positive way. He almost lost his teeth on the handlebar when braking for the first time.
After a couple of hours we finished the route of this day and decided to do one of the next days as well. On one of the nice roads we approached a wide curve with good tarmac. I went first through it and found at the exit a trail of sand and stones across the road. I immediate put the bike straight, let it cruise over the rubble and after the sand and stuff braked and steered. I looked into my mirrors and expected to see Pim do the same. Alas, it seemed he cornered a bit faster and locked his brakes on the rubble. The bike and Pim went down and ended on the verge of the road. Pim hurt his shoulder and the bike had quite some left side damage. Happily both Pim and the bike were able to ride after this incident. We went back to the hotel and the owner took us to the hospital where they checked Pim's shoulder. It was badly bruised, but there was nothing broken. Back at the hotel after a couple of beers Pim started to feel a little better.

Day 4: Monday June 29, Bad luck continues, 253km.
This day we first went to a Suzuki dealer to have the gearlever fixed since there was a piece broken off what made changing gears a bit difficult. After that we started to follow a new route. We thought. The surroundings and roads looked very familiar and one way or another we were following the same route as the day before. Maybe I'd made an error while preparing the routes? I still don't know. Anyhow, the roads were great and we had a lot of fun. Even Pim with his hurt shoulder. At the end of the day we passed the spot where Pim crashed. The sand and stones were still lying there! This time Pim made it across :)
We visited the Triberg Waterfalls, the highest waterfalls of Germany. When we came back we saw that the Pan had a punctured rear tire. After some phonecalls and time a car of the German autoclub ADAC arrived and we put the Pan on the trailer and brought it to the nearest tire dealer. There I was picked up by the nice owner of our hotel, since Pim has a single seater bike.

Day 5: Tuesday June 30, Going home, not without bad luck, 1,068km.
The very, very nice owner of our hotel brought me with his fast Audi A6 station to the tire dealer to pick up my already fixed bike. As a Michael Schumacher wannabe he raced over the Black Forest roads and in no time we were at the dealer. Me pale and sweating after this torment, he jolly as ever. The Pan had a brand new Michelin Pilot Road 2 which cost me only 141 euro. I think we pay in The Netherlands almost 100 euro more!
At 11.00 hour we finally could start our trip home. After a couple of uneventful hours we approached Cologne. At some road works Pim and I got separated. I slowly rode on, expecting Pim to blast by me any moment. Which he didn't. I stopped at a gasstation and tried to phone Pim. What didn't succeed. After a while I went on, still expecting to see Pim soon. At a parkingplace I finally got hold of Pim and he told me that a fuse was blown and he was trying to fix it. At that time Pim and I were already seperated by 100km. I rode back to him what cost me an hour. When I arrived he'd already fixed the bike and we made another attempt to get home. This time I wouldn't let Pim out of my sights.
At a straight stretch of road we tried the topspeed of our bikes. With 220kmh the Pan was faster than the TL1000S. But at that speed the Pan started to weave terribly again. With great difficulty I could stabilize it again at 160kmh. Not something to be repeated...
After I'd brought Pim and his stuff home I was home myself at 22.00 hour, after more than 1,000km. Which concluded yet another fine vacation.

Go here for the pics

Little movie, showing the surroundings:

June 22, 2009, 80,468km

2009-06-22T18:59:00.003+01:00

Saw a bike like my first one for sale on the Internet: the Kawasaki 750 H2 (Mach IV). The current bid is 11,000 euro. I sold mine many years ago for less than 600 euro...

June 7, 2009, 80,468km

2009-06-07T11:38:00.002+01:00

Managed to replace the light bulbs. The trick was to depress the ends of the connector on the back of the bulb and than pull it. On the first pic you see left the stock bulb and right the Philips XP Moto, on the second pic both bulbs have been replaced. Seems I now have to change the city lights as well to make them a bit brighter too.

Added some oil to the Pan as well today.

June 6, 2009, 80,468km

2009-06-06T12:24:00.003+01:00

Tried to install the Philips XP Moto headlights I've bought recently. But I was unable to remove the old ones. Gonna do some research on how to do this without breaking the stuff...

May 24 2009, 80,456km

2009-05-24T20:03:00.002+01:00

On this sunny day I drove a tour organised by the Suzuki SV Contact Club. Pim is member and asked me and a couple of others to come along. The ride was quite nice and I could try the new windscreen. I find the new screen just as good as stock. Which is good enough for me, because I mainly bought it for the color.

May 23 2009, 80,111km

2009-05-23T19:06:00.002+01:00

Added two more farkles to the Pan. First two new rear light bulbs: high power leds in stead of the stock bulbs. The first pic above is one of the led lights, on the second pic you see left the led and right the stock bulb. Only drawback is that the leds don't illuminate the licenseplate. I don't care, but the cops might.

Second farkle is another screen. It's one from Clearview. It's a little bit lower and wider than stock (see third pic). Main reason for me to buy it was the fact that it is tinted. It has a flip up design too, so windflow might be better. I haven't tried it yet.

May 17 2009, 80,111km

2009-05-17T18:27:00.003+01:00

Above you see the actual route we've driven. It's almost like planned, we've only skipped part of Portugal.
See here for the trip report!

Here for the pics

May 16 2009, 80,111km

2009-05-16T09:03:00.002+01:00

Home again! After almost 9,000km. Expect a trip report soon. BTW that Google Maps thingy didn't quite work: it's hard to find a decent internet connection in Spain. At least, in the places we have been...

April 25, 2009, 71,177km

2009-04-25T16:43:00.002+01:00

All systems go! All's ready for the big trip tomorrow. Seems like we're gonna have some rain along the way but we'll survive ;)

Here's the planned trip. Looks a bit ambitious but we can always adjust on the spot since we haven't made reservations or whatever.

April 24, 2009, 71,177km

2009-04-24T19:58:00.002+01:00

Got new rubbers front and rear (Michelin Pilot Road 2: 417 euro). Although the old ones were good for at least several thousands of kms more I wanted fresh rubber because of the mega trip ahead. I kept the old front tire because it must still be good for another 5,500km, so I can use it later. I guesstemate that the old rear was good for another 3,000km. I found that not worth the trouble of keeping it.

April 22, 2009, 70,686km

2009-04-22T18:35:00.002+01:00

Next Sunday Erwin and I will leave for yet another big trip. This time Spain and Portugal will be our destination. Plan is to stay away for three weeks :)

With Google Maps I'll try to keep track of our location.

April 18, 2009, 70,686km

2009-04-18T15:58:00.003+01:00

Finally got around to stick the Bike-Quip frame protectors, I almost had a year lying around, on the bike. It was very easy to do and doesn't look too bad.

April 13, 2009, 70,326km

2009-04-13T19:08:00.004+01:00

This second Easter day started foggy and chilly, but still I went for another trip to the German Eifel. I loaded this route into my Zumo and followed it almost completely. At some points the road was blocked because of road maintenance and I found that my old gps, the Streetpilot 2610, did a better job at getting you back on track again. Well, actually it didn't do much: it just kept the nearest part of the route always in view, thus abling me to ride back to it myself. The Zumo always want to recalculate the route, or you can decide to not do this, but in this latter case the Zumo will not show the correct route by itself. Of course you can zoom out and have the route in view, but with the 2610 this happened automatically.

On the whole the route was very nice and I saw only one German speedtrap. The route passed the radiotelescope of Effelsberg and of course I had to eat curry sausage with french fries and mayonaise at the imbiss there :)

This trip was about 750km in length which took me almost 10 hours.