| In
mid June three particularly short ladies gathered
togethered outside the doors of CMC, Chesterfield,
all with one goal in mind: to get their hands on some
delicious motorbikes which might allow them to touch
their toes down to the ground and dispell those slow
speed manoevring worries.
The girls
were:
Leila Williams from Hastings, 5ft 0", rides an
R6, races an R6 in Feisty Racing
Sarah Quin from London, rides a ZXR400, races a ZXR400
in Feisty Racing
Sharon Waites from West Midlands, rides a Zephyr 550
The lowered
bikes were:
Suzuki SV650 (carbed model 99-02)
Yamaha FZ6
Yamaha R6
I (Susie) was there too having organised
and coordinated it all. After introducing the girls
to the bikes, CMC Director Mark Feltham, MCN reporter
Phil West and MCN photographer David Corfield, each
girl was asked their initial opinion after sitting
astride the bike.
Sharon and Sarah's first impressions |
Leila tries to use the sidestand on the
Yahama FZ6 |
We then went for a pleasant jaunt
through some nice twisties to Chatsworth House to
show the bikes through their paces. A security exercise
was happening there so we ended up moving to a sloped
gravelled car park near by - just about the worst
possible place you could take a bunch of short bikers
on machines they're new to! The girls coped admirably,
though they certainly wouldn't have chosen to stop
there - such is the restriction of the vertically
challenged.
Feisty frolics in a spare
moment - how many legs in this picture?
The girls swapped bikes after and
a further countryside bimble later (where we managed
to lose one girl for 15 minutes!) we returned to CMC
for final thoughts and summaries.
All in all the lowered R6 was a very
poular choice with the girls, the with SV650 also
being a favourite. All girls were very happy handling
the bikes at slow speed as well as at pace and all
were very pleased that a lowering kit could make that
much difference to their bike choice. The FZ6 was
not as popular as it felt comparatively high and it
was very hard to get the sidestand down.
The full feature
is in MCN, page 32 - "Low Rider!" on 22nd
June 2005.
Discuss
this on the Bikegirl Forum
|
