The verdict....awesome. Auburn shows up at work day's end, only instead of heading north to check out the 2007 1000R with 1500 miles and a slight dimple on the tank from a garage tip over, we head west to check out the 2008 312R with 3700 miles and no such issues, but a tad more expensive. Achiu and I had scoped it out the night before, and after seeing one without any issues, it was hard to consider a blemished one. This is after all a bike that will likely be ogled more than ridden, so yeah...looks are important.
The 312R is a slightly modified 1000R, one hundred fifty of which found their way to the USA to help MV qualify for AMA requirements. It has 9 extra HP, titanium valves, a slipper clutch, and some cooling improvements. Plus, it hit 312kmph at Bonneville, hence the name.
The seller has quite the collection of older Ducatis, plus a few modern bikes. But the star of his show is a mint 2002 Senna edition MV Agusta issued in 300 copies. It is spectacular. It's also parked in his living room, drained of fluids and sitting where you might place a nice sculpture or credenza. Work of A-R-T, bro-hams.
We admire the bikes, then get down to business. I tell you, it is great to have mates like Achiu and Auburn, there to push you towards the right direction when one side of your brain would say "not really practical", but the left side says "gimme gimme".
And that's how this wound up in my garage tonight:
I'll be totally honest with you guys. The 30 mile ride home, a portion in rush hour traffic, the rest on rural twisty backroads, was the most visceral, aural, exhilerating and
terrifying motorcycle experience I've ever had since I first swiped the keys to my roomate's GPZ1100 some twenty five plus years ago and taught myself to ride.
I came not even close to pushing the MV to its potential, never kissing the 13kRPM limit or unleashing a quarter of the 183 horses. Exactly ten minutes into the ride home, still in urban Seattle and with the heat rising off the bike*, I wondered immediately if I had just made a big mistake. The ergos of the bike were all wrong, my legs and knees and wrists felt contorted as if I was in some kind of medieval rack where they place people who haven't paid taxes to the crown.
It wasn't until I hit the freeway and had a chance to crack her open just a bit, enough to hear those four Arrow trumpets wail like an F1 Ferrari, that I started to smile.
Hitting the rural twisties, it felt incredibly odd and unfamiliar to me, same way I felt when Auburn had me try to follow him up a muddy clay rutted hill after I brought the Husky out to play in the dirt for the first time. I've been riding the big flat wide handlebarred KTM too long, and pushing the MV around with my body felt foreign. I probably looked like a total squid (only a well-ATGATT'ed one) taking corners at ridiculously slow speeds. The Husky took me a while to get familiar and comfortable and so will the MV. A few track classes will probably be in order (on their rented bikes of course).
Hitting the last miles to my house, I chanced to pass a few cars and cracked open the throttle cautiously, then a bit more (still nowhere near this beast's limits). I SCREAMED past a line of cars, that crazy wail filling up my ear canals and its shriek bouncing off the cars, causing the drivers to wonder where in the hell a Ferrari had suddenly appeared out of thin air.
Holy freaking shit. This bike is twelve kinds of wicked.
By the time I got home, I had become one with the pain in my lower back and wrist, but twisting that throttle past 5k rpm was like pushing a morphine button after surgery...the pain just seemed to fade away.
Gonna have to go stare at her a while tonight just sitting in the garage.
A long sigh...what the hell did Hudson just get himself into?**
*If I ever hear you whine again about the heat coming off the seat of your FJR, I'll slap you. Nothing roasts the chestnuts like the MV in rush hour stop and go traffic, not even the KTM 1190R which is notoriously hot. So shut yer pie hole.
**I've sorta lost count how many times I've uttered that phrase following new: jobs, larger purchases, relationships, news of pending fatherhood, group rides where I volunteered to lead...
