Well, thanks to more liberal attitude of Polish government to biking, at the age of 14 I got my first bike. It was a Polish make 50cc 'Romet' and it gave me an enormous sense of freedom even though the petrol was rationed and you could not get far. I was hooked on biking early! The joy only lasted for a year before I have moved to UK, then, only managed to ride some scooter from time to time. But, after making excuses and coming up with million reasons why not to get a bike I decided that was it! Went out did a direct course and set my sights on a sports bike. There were two point on the 'look-out' list 1) the most powerful bike that I can pick off the floor after dropping it and 2) it had to be a sports bike. 

Being a lanky chap it had to be at most 600cc, but that seem to be enough to get a nice bike. The choice was: Honda CBR 600, Suzuki GSX R600 or Yamaha R6. The Honda being 20kg heavier and the least powerful of the three was quickly worked out of the equation leaving the GSX R600 and the R6. Things were not looking good for the R6 being 800 quid more than the R600. So the head said get the Suzuki but the heart wanted Yamaha! Likely the insurance worked out cheaper for the R6, thus, the head run out of reasons not to get the R6. In case you wondering why I did not test ride them, well not being experience rider would not make any difference anyway. 

Obviously went for the blue even though everyone in the shop said that there too common . After 3 weeks waiting went to collect it, got on it and thought to my self it can't be much different to the CB 500 I did my test on . oh yeah, as if. Got out of the shop taking it easy making sure that no one can see me before I go faster than 15 mph. Gave it a little throttle, and OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE was the first thing that came to my mind. Well, I have done 1500+ miles on it now and slowly building up the confidence, mainly thanks to David's 'baptism of fire' type of Sunday rides where I try (without much hope) to keep up with him on his R1 while he shows me how to grind the foot pegs. 

So far no regrets, it has tremendous acceleration, oodles of grip, very stable even at 161 mph (it would not go faster at this stage), stopping power that drags my eye balls out of their sockets, it revs to 16,000 rpm and it sound brilliant! It is not tremendously torque so, overwhelming the back tire is not too much of a problem (except in first). And yes, I did manage to pick it up once I have dropped it pushing it out of garage (ooops). 

In comparison to other bikes, well, the only other sports bike I have tried is the R1 and I must say I preferred the R6. The R1 was much heavier, larger and it did not feel like you could chuck it about as easily. It also made me very conscious of the power, I suppose it's a personal preference at the end of the day. 

The only downside is that the bloody bugs keep making the bike look grime all the time. Can't have everything I suppose .