V.Far V-Four: 1000 miles on the Honda VFR1200F

The plan is brilliant in its simplicity. Fuel up the VFR and ride it, somewhere, anywhere. Repeating as necessary until the above question answers itself. How hard can it be? My journey begins on the driveway of one of my childhood idols. In an ideal world Mark Forsyth’s first eyewitness account of my riding should have happened last year, I would have been on the back wheel of a B-King and he would have been kerbside, nodding his head giving me a cheery wave as I sailed past, he’d have been impressed and no messin’.

Instead he gets to see me after a 154-day lay-off from riding, on a fully fuelled 285kg super tourer in three inches of snow, sliding gracelessly and squeaking like a girl toward him. Picture an un-oiled Tin Man entering Dancing On Ice riding the Cowardly Lion after a night on the piss. It’s far from pretty but luckily enough this ain’t no beauty contest, otherwise me and the fugly VFR might as well call it quits before we’ve even got know each other. I plan to head south from Stamford to Cornwall, 815mm beneath me millions of pounds and thousands of hours worth of hard work perambulates effortlessly.

As easy as the bike is to ride I’m struggling to cope with the monstrous acceleration, it feels like a rocketship. I prise my peepers away from the road and note that I’m doing 43mph in fourth, too nervous to even laugh at myself I realise this is what Ricky Bobby felt like when he made his comeback in Talladega Nights, only with snow. Forty miles later things start to feel more like they used to. First thing I pick up with the VFR is the riding position. It’s at odds with itself, my top half is relaxed and roomy but my feet are too close to my knees. It’s not uncomfortable, far from it, it just feels different to what I expected. I decide I like it.

Part DN-01 Part Edsel Pacer

The big question mark hanging over the VFR is the lack of touring tank range so (thankfully) I intend to spend the first tank squirting every single drop of juice like it’s my last in an effort to set an economy benchmark. Think short-shifting, miniscule throttle movements and all the boring stuff. Looking at the tank (plastic by the way, unlucky tankbag fiends) you’d think it’d take 20-litres easy, rather than a piddly 18. Even so, I set my sights on doing at least 160 miles before we stop for more. It takes 58 miles for the first of the digital fuel bars to ebb, the remainder spreading themselves equally over the next hundred miles before I bottle it and roll into some services on the M4. There’s a couple of litres left so 160 wouldn’t be a problem if you were happy to put up with the flashing reserve warning for the last twenty odd miles.

By now the snow has stopped, the sun is out and inside I’m flying high, I light a smoke and digest the aesthetics. I think Honda should be applauded for delivering something so identifiable with the concept bike (hubless rear wheel and plastic tyres aside of course). I get the impression that different sections of the bike seem to have been designed by different people though, there is no real flow to the design. The headlight is part DN-01 part Edsel Pacer, neither of which are pretty.

I love the details though, little VFR logos here and there compliment the mile deep paint job to give an overall impression of a very high quality product. The switchgear is way too similar to the old BMW set-up for it to be just a coincidence. The horn on the left and the hazard switch on the right look just like Bee Emms old style indicator switches. Are Honda trying to tempt new customers by making them feel at home? Of course they are and all credit to them, though I do end up despising the indicator switch by the end of my ride. It’s too low on the bars and too bulky.