Arclite
Spectre600, I'm with you as far as the irresponsible nature of gunning it down in the straights. I did that on my friends bike; he was cool with it. Both of my steeds (an 01 SV650 w/01 R1 forks, and an 06 Husqvarna SMR450) are geared towards the twisties, and have nothing to do with top end speed. Anyone can go fast in a straight line...and we have all done it at one time or another....
It seems nowadays evryone buys a sportbike to fly down the highway as fast as they can... *Anyone* can hold the throttle open. Frankly, pure speed gets boring. Ontop of that, is really dangerous. Highways are no place to go for insane triple digit speeds (ok, maybe in the desert.. where you can see a car coming from 5 miles away).
I rode with a group (once) that would just go nuts on the straights. Then they would haul on the brakes and tiptoe through the next turn.. I dont feel any need to go that fast down the straights, but I love ripping through the next corner. Well, you can imagine how frustrating it is to see them blast off down evry straigh piece of pavement, then pile up behind them as they duckwalked through the next corner... That just takes *all* the fun out of it.
Leaning deep into a corner and cracking the throttle open is one of the most deeply satisfying experiences motorcycling has to offer. Its something that had me going on 500 mile rides into the mountains evry nice weekend I could.
There is a thrill to going fast, but (for me, at least) that thrill wears off. I think some people just buy a faster bike once they get complacent with the accelleration they get from thier current steed. And you end up with some jackass trying to go 170 mph on a ZX-10R on a metropolitan highway when he barely knows how to turn.
A bit of advice to anyone that craves this sort of speed.. go to an empty parking lot, and practice stopping as hard as you can. If you can find an empty desolate road, practice stopping from high speeds. Youll see that stopping from 80..100..120 mph takes ALOT of room. And you will be more cautious about how fast you go, and where.
Its as easy to go fast in real life on a motorcycle, as it is in TT.. Just hold the throttle open. Slowing down and turning are a different story.
Nice pics btw, ive never ridden a husky, but the SV is a freaking hoot through the twisties. Fast as you ever need it to be too. I dont think ive even heard of R1 fork on an SV, must be a beast! Id like to hear how you did that, im always interested in stuff like that (im a machinist), shoot me a PM if you have a minute.