So after basically giving up on biking somewhere during 2012, I have been longingly reading ride reports and keeping a keen eye on the for-sale section
After changing jobs, my commuting changed from a 35 minute 3 kilometre walk to a tedious 22km sometimes two hour car bore fest – one way.
I have always dreamt of getting a bike again one day and this dream accelerated big time with the commuting schlep.
With a limited budget, I started looking around again.
For some background, my bike ownership included:
2007 Bajaj Adventurer 180 – cheap and slow. My first bike
2009 Kawasaki 900 Vulcan – low and loud. Beautiful relaxed bike.
2010 Suzuki VStrom 650 – the one I miss the most. Did everything well, except sand…and mud.
2012 Honda XRL650L – big mistake. Seat too high and knocked my confidence bigtime. Beautiful off-road though. Hell, I could even get both wheels of the ground at one stage.
I gawked quite a few bikes and had to keep my dreams realistic. I like something special and I started looking at the Crosby 400 Scramblers. Nice classic look and some pretentions of gravel capability. I couldn’t find any examples around Cape Town to look at. The Crosby is actually a rebranded Chinese Shineray and is badge engineered as various brands in Britain and Europe where they were getting good reviews.
I noticed the guys at Bike Bros had the Crosby 400TT and I thought, what the heck, let’s go check it out. Popped passed there one day after work and had an excellent chat with Stephen and Wayne. While I was chatting to them, Missus Vulcan spotted the NC750X DCT one the floor. Being quite observant, she tunes me: “Waar is die clutch en gears?”. So Stephen explained the whole DCT concept and how perfectly it is suited to commuting. “Dis mos perfek” she tuned.
So, enters the NC750X DCT. A 2015 model with just over 9000 km on the clock. 12000km service already done at agents.
I have since covered about 2000km with it during the last two months doing mostly commuting and the odd weekend run. It had a nice trip to Struisbaai and back as well.
I would like to call it a cross between all the bikes I have owned so far as it has a bit of an identity crisis – a kind of mongrel. It wants to be part sports bike, part adventure bike, part cruiser (thanks to the beautiful Two Brothers Racing Exhaust I bought from Omninorm) and part car (nice torquey low revving motor). As a commuter, it probably does not have parallels. It gets away from traffic quick enough and I have seen 170km/h on the clock.
I have not done any heavy gravel on it yet as I want to fit proper tyres and some protection first.
I have not had a pillion on as well yet as I am still building confidence.
Pro’s:
What I love about this bike it how easy it is to use. It is light on juice, has enough power for now and comfort is decent. Nice luggage space in tank cubby. It is extremely light on juice and easy to maintain. It looks good (I thought my VStrom looked good so…)
The DCT. So easy. I don’t understand why other manufacturers have not caught on. Especially the American market. The biggest percentage of their cars are auto, why not the bikes. Imagine a big fat lumpy Harley with an auto box?
The sound with a nice pipe fitted. It sounds almost big v-twin when revved, thumper when idling and cruiser when blipping the throttle. Mongrel.
Cons:
The lack of a clutch was a bit nerve wracking at first. Pulling away on tight 90 degree intersections was difficult to modulate at first. The power is on or off. Too much juice and it goes wide, closing the throttle cause the nose to dip. I have adjusted the throttle cable free play and adjusted my riding style a bit and this seems to have cured the problem.
Cross winds. I don’t know if I have become a softy in the last 5 years but I cannot remember being affected by cross winds as much on any other bike. With the wind pushing from the sides I really have to fight the bike.
The DCT. Three modes – D(Drive), S (Sport) and manual. Drive gets you into top gear asap. Sports hangs a bit longer. Manual, except it isn’t properly. You can hit the limiter in manual going up, but sometimes it will down change when you don’t want it to. In some turns this can be disconcerting. It is also clunky in partial throttle.
I can’t wait to upgrade to the Africa Twin. Until then the Mongrel will do.
:ricky:
After changing jobs, my commuting changed from a 35 minute 3 kilometre walk to a tedious 22km sometimes two hour car bore fest – one way.
I have always dreamt of getting a bike again one day and this dream accelerated big time with the commuting schlep.
With a limited budget, I started looking around again.
For some background, my bike ownership included:
2007 Bajaj Adventurer 180 – cheap and slow. My first bike
2009 Kawasaki 900 Vulcan – low and loud. Beautiful relaxed bike.
2010 Suzuki VStrom 650 – the one I miss the most. Did everything well, except sand…and mud.
2012 Honda XRL650L – big mistake. Seat too high and knocked my confidence bigtime. Beautiful off-road though. Hell, I could even get both wheels of the ground at one stage.
I gawked quite a few bikes and had to keep my dreams realistic. I like something special and I started looking at the Crosby 400 Scramblers. Nice classic look and some pretentions of gravel capability. I couldn’t find any examples around Cape Town to look at. The Crosby is actually a rebranded Chinese Shineray and is badge engineered as various brands in Britain and Europe where they were getting good reviews.
I noticed the guys at Bike Bros had the Crosby 400TT and I thought, what the heck, let’s go check it out. Popped passed there one day after work and had an excellent chat with Stephen and Wayne. While I was chatting to them, Missus Vulcan spotted the NC750X DCT one the floor. Being quite observant, she tunes me: “Waar is die clutch en gears?”. So Stephen explained the whole DCT concept and how perfectly it is suited to commuting. “Dis mos perfek” she tuned.
So, enters the NC750X DCT. A 2015 model with just over 9000 km on the clock. 12000km service already done at agents.
I have since covered about 2000km with it during the last two months doing mostly commuting and the odd weekend run. It had a nice trip to Struisbaai and back as well.
I would like to call it a cross between all the bikes I have owned so far as it has a bit of an identity crisis – a kind of mongrel. It wants to be part sports bike, part adventure bike, part cruiser (thanks to the beautiful Two Brothers Racing Exhaust I bought from Omninorm) and part car (nice torquey low revving motor). As a commuter, it probably does not have parallels. It gets away from traffic quick enough and I have seen 170km/h on the clock.
I have not done any heavy gravel on it yet as I want to fit proper tyres and some protection first.
I have not had a pillion on as well yet as I am still building confidence.
Pro’s:
What I love about this bike it how easy it is to use. It is light on juice, has enough power for now and comfort is decent. Nice luggage space in tank cubby. It is extremely light on juice and easy to maintain. It looks good (I thought my VStrom looked good so…)
The DCT. So easy. I don’t understand why other manufacturers have not caught on. Especially the American market. The biggest percentage of their cars are auto, why not the bikes. Imagine a big fat lumpy Harley with an auto box?
The sound with a nice pipe fitted. It sounds almost big v-twin when revved, thumper when idling and cruiser when blipping the throttle. Mongrel.
Cons:
The lack of a clutch was a bit nerve wracking at first. Pulling away on tight 90 degree intersections was difficult to modulate at first. The power is on or off. Too much juice and it goes wide, closing the throttle cause the nose to dip. I have adjusted the throttle cable free play and adjusted my riding style a bit and this seems to have cured the problem.
Cross winds. I don’t know if I have become a softy in the last 5 years but I cannot remember being affected by cross winds as much on any other bike. With the wind pushing from the sides I really have to fight the bike.
The DCT. Three modes – D(Drive), S (Sport) and manual. Drive gets you into top gear asap. Sports hangs a bit longer. Manual, except it isn’t properly. You can hit the limiter in manual going up, but sometimes it will down change when you don’t want it to. In some turns this can be disconcerting. It is also clunky in partial throttle.
I can’t wait to upgrade to the Africa Twin. Until then the Mongrel will do.
:ricky:
