Gee TR.

I’ve just been to California to ride Kawasaki’s new – and I do mean new – 1400GTR. You’ll read about the bike in detail in ARR, but I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say that it’s a very impressive machine. In recent years Kawasaki has very rarely put a foot wrong with new or updated models, and the GTR is no exception.

Promoted as a ‘transcontinental supersports tourer’ the bike really is the closest thing I’ve ridden to a sports bike with panniers. And it even has shaft drive, although it’s hard to tell because t here is no shaft effect that I could pick. During one of the photo sessions we nearly all got arrested by a very angry (and armed) female park ranger for trespassing. Smokey the Bear has never looked more attractive… Fortunately Kawasaki’s American PR chief Jan Plessner is a smooth talker!

The flights were good, especially since Kawasaki had sprung for Business Class seats (a necessity for me these days). United Airlines is getting a bit long in the tooth, though – planes, cabin crew and service...America as always was terrific. If you’re considering a motorcycling holiday you could do considerably worse than seeing a bit of the States. We’ll have another story on that subject soon, too, with detailed advice. Dirty doingsBack here, we (well, I) managed to pick one of the nastiest and coldest weeks to run our big mid-sized dual purpose bike comparo. We set out to compare eight machines (one of which was the Yamaha XT660X, which was more of a camera bike than a genuine contender) with the usual crew including Defence Minister Brendan Nelson.

Although we originally intended to camp I took pity on the shivering crew in sub-zero temperatures and we stayed at the Globe Hotel in Rylstone, NSW, a pleasant experience for all. I recommend the steaks. So how do you think the bikes did – they were the Aprilia Pegaso Trail, BMW F650 Dakar, Honda Transalp, Kawasaki KLR650, KTM 640 Adventure, Triumph Scrambler and Suzuki DL650 V-Strom. And always remember…Motorcycles can’t stand up on their own. They’re two tyred….....