This was our first Pan Clan meeting, I have only rode in a group once before with the VFR gang and enjoyed the experience. This was also a good chance to get in some more running in miles. Alan the Scottish rep called me in the morning, amazingly we both live in Dalgety Bay. We arrange to meet on the Link road in the bay; I followed Alan all the way to the Dreghorn services. I dropped Eileen off in the car park and she mingled with some of the other Pan Owners and pillions. I nipped next door to get the tank topped up. This was from the dealers fill in which I had covered 98 miles. My fuel consumption and this point was 43mpg.
I went back to the car park and met up with the other Pan Member’s; they were very welcoming and put us both at ease. They explained the Tail End Charlie (TEC) system, which initially seemed daunting but once on the move I began to ease into it.
The first part of our run took us to Lauder, we stopped of at the Lauder Hotel for Tea and scones and a chance to chat with the members. The ride up to that point had been a fine run.
Our next stop was at Scott’s view (Sir Walter Scott) and you can see this from the photographs. Next we set off for Duns to visit the Jim Clark room, unfortunately this was closed until 2PM, it would have meant sitting around for half an hour so we decided to move on for lunch.
The run to Gifford was amazing (B6355), this went through Blackadder and then up through the Whiteadder Reservoir, although a bit windy it was a beautiful scenic route.
After lunch, the confusion began, we were told that the run was over and that we just make our own way back, so we did however later we found out that we should have headed back to Dreghorn, apologies to Alan.
It was a great day out with a great bunch of people and most importantly the bike was faultless.
The run from Dreghorn back to my house was 147 miles, the Fuel consumption was an amazing 47.5 mpg, and this would give me a range of 250 miles to reserve and just over 300 miles per tank, absolutely staggering.
The Bike: You could look at the bike from the showroom prospective and think it is a big bus, like a Goldwing without the bling and like the wing, best suited for the highways of America.
It is nothing of the sort, the best I can describe it is it retains all the agility you would require to make quick process, obviously not in a sub 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds kind of way. But if you journey is going to take in 100 miles upwards, this is a limousine class act of a bike.
I have ridden on the Motorway and on single track B roads and I have not felt at any point restricted by the bike. Tireless perfection oozes out of this well refined and crafted Honda product.
My initial thought is this can easily commute, touring is a given and for those single day rides with or without your pillion, I reckon you could still ride your most loved twisties and not lose much against a sports bike.
Of course this is assuming that you are going to ride briskly but not suicidal. At this point I would imagine the Pan would feel the heat and forgive the pun ‘toss you out the Pan and into the heather’.
But it is not that kind of bike and to be honest how much suicide runs can you really do now without endangering life’s and licenses.
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