Normally with these “I bought a bike” posts, I check in after the first 1,000 miles. But I’ve been traveling more than usual and the first 1,000 miles with my Tesi were just boring commuting – so here’s a 3k mile check-in instead!
Did you miss Part 2? You can check it out here.
My first 1,000 miles were rung in unceremoniously – though I guess I actually hit 1,600 because I had kept the dash in metric at the time.
It took me about six weeks to cover the first 1,000 miles, and the timing coincided with an event from my buddy Jose Gallina – he was putting on an event called Italians Do Them Better for “a day of Italian machines, good food, music and good vibes!” You can check out the link above for some of my highlights, but I was honored that Jose asked if I would ride the Tesi 3D out to be one of the display bikes:
On the weekends, I got a few good Angeles Crest Highway (ACH) runs with the Tesi – one Sunday I was joined by Nathan May and I asked if he’d shoot a specific photo of me. Over at Iconic Motorbikes, I was doing some research for a Honda CBR600F3 we were selling and I stumbled upon a Sport Rider article calling the F2/F3 a “Great Sportbike of the Past.” There was one photo of a tester on a F2 on a track that I thought was super cool – the rider has his knee down and it was shot from the front and an angle where the bike was basically straight up with respect to the framing of the photographer.
Photo from Cycle World/Sport Rider
I thought it’d be interesting to recreate that shot, though it was going to be a few months until I’d be able to get to a track. So we figured we’d try it on ACH and I’d take it a little easy seeing as I was on the street. It’s not the most profound photo but it was a great excuse to get out for a ride with Nathan, and I liked the end result:
Here’s a little sound check as I go through one of the tunnels on ACH:
Fast forward a few months…and I got to take the Tesi out on the track! Not just any track, mind you: it was Laguna Seca. The last couple of years, Iconic has hosted a 2-day track event at Laguna – normally I head up in a truck or a van to carry bikes or gear, but we now have enough staff where all the transportation was covered so I had the pleasure of riding the Tesi 3D from LA to Monterey, enjoying some of my favorite roads in the process. I stopped in Santa Paula for the statue honoring Thornton Edwards and Stanley Baker when the saved hundreds of lives by racing ahead of a flood caused when the St. Francis Dam burst in 1928:
It was my first time taking the Tesi over 100 miles away from home, and it was spectacular thanks to corners like this on Route 58:
I also had to make my usual stop behind the Bixby Canyon Bridge.
Thanks to the upright bars, the Tesi is surprisingly comfortable from an ergonomic standpoint. The seat could use more padding on trips like this, but the biggest issue is actually the fuel range – the reserve light typically comes on as the trip meter is approaching 100 miles. That meant I was stopping more than I would have liked to, but that meant I got plenty of chances to hop off the bike and relax for a bit. My wonderful day of twisties ended at a large home that we booked through AirBnB for our clients to enjoy, and I got to park the bike right at the front door.
Most of my track sessions were spent on my Ninja 400, but I ended up doing at least 30 laps of Laguna on the Tesi 3D while Nathan was taking photos at different corners:
Entering the Corkscrew…
…and exiting the Corkscrew.
As long as I own this bike, it will be wearing Pirelli Diablo Supercorsas.
My plan was to ride the Tesi home, but my business partner (who had driven a truck/trailer up) unfortunately had a nasty highside during the track which required him going to the hospital. So we loaded the Tesi up in the Iconic van, and then I drove this giant truck/trailer combo back to the hangar in Santa Monica.
Once I was settled back at home, I had to take care of a little post-track-day maintenance. Conveniently, Daniel (one of our shop managers) had a Vyrus 985 up on one of his lifts for a local client, so we put the Tesi 3D next to it and I did a little stationary comparison video of the two:
I’ve truly been enjoying the Tesi 3D so far, though it hasn’t been perfect. I’ll cover some of the foibles in the next part…
On to Part 4!