The graphs below show the electronically adjustable bits of the system and the stock settings for each mode and load (for the Preload settings, the higher the number the greater the preload and, for damping, the higher the number the 'lower' the damping effect). Whilst there's a mostly logical progression - increasing rear preload and commensurate increases, particularly to rebound damping as the load rises, there are a few anomalies in various modes that I'm still trying to work out. Also, rear damping is jumped right up in Two-Up+load in Sport mode - a bigger difference between any other mode and we're finding that Touring mode is generally a little undersprung and damped and Sport mode slightly overdamped. I've a feeling that the rear shock might need respringing - I probably weigh a tad more than the target Italian norm...

But, back to our regular programming: I may not have my bike yet, but I have at least managed to download the 200+ page owner's manual from Ducati's web site. That's a good start to the ownership of a machine that rivals a Space Shuttle for control complexity. What's even better is that the PDF of the manual is perfectly formatted for reading on an iPad, which makes life much easier, not to mention cooler. Now I see that Hyundai will be shipping their new Equus saloon (sedan if you're west of Newfoundland) with its manual on an included iPad. Ducati, are you listening here?

Where I now live, things seem to be generally sensible: no fixed cameras, strong enforcement of urban limits and a high days-and-holidays police presence at biker gathering spots like the Green Welly, where they're promoting Bikesafe courses and wandering around mumbling slightly abashed comments like, "Take care out there lads...". Several plain clothes plodmobiles (cars and bikes) tend to be out and about at similar times, but I've seen relatively little bad behaviour or general numptiness by the local Police.

Go for a long ride though and, as you pass from force to force, you'll see a wide variety of approaches: from the engagement-driven attitude of places like Durham and North Yorkshire (both of which have amongst the best safety trends in the country) to the outright hostility and bullying control freak mentality of places like North Wales and Northamptonshire. When I ride into the latter County, with its huge "You ARE Being Watched" signs everywhere, I am seized with a near uncontrollable desire to behave in a manner outrageous, illegal and undignified (not necessarily in that order). On the same ride, I'll then cross into Buckinghamshire and find signs along the nicer roads that tell me what the accident rate for that road is for a given period. Thanks, you've treated me like an adult, given me information and I'll act on it. All is then peace and light.

Still awake? OK, amidst all the machismo posturing, did you spot the bit from two minutes in? The bit where the police motorcyclist splits between the cars he's overtaking and the oncoming cars at 90mph? That's a closing speed of about 150mph with inches to spare on either side whilst running over the white lines and the associated crud. Let's now deconstruct the behaviour in a bit more detail:

• He's put himself completely at the mercy of the reactions of every other driver involved, with no safety space whatsoever for a manoeuvre that in itself is going to cause fear alarm and any consequent reaction in those exposed to it. Basic training 101…
• He's entirely failed to read and plan his ride – after those two oncoming cars the road is clear – had he just used observation and forward planning and rolled off for half a second, he'd have made his overtake cleanly and safely, without shock and awe.
• He's on a plain clothes bike - all the motorists involved would not have known he was Police and would, once they'd recovered from the shock, be thinking, "another dangerous idiot of a motorcyclist – must write to my MP and get them all banned".
• Oh yes, he was dangerous, illegal and bloody stupid.

Had any policeman seen any of the rest of us pulling a stunt like that, do you think that he or she would let us off with a, "My, what a finely judged manoeuvre – I just thought I'd stop you to commend you on your riding"? I think not…

There isn't one law for the police and one for the rest of us: we're all subject to that same law (one of Peel's basic principle of policing being that they are us – citizens in uniform) and we delegate minor exemptions to that for police officers in training or in a genuine pursuit situation. This was neither, but an egregious breach of the contract between citizenry and citizenry-as-police. Which is what the police so often utterly fail to understand – by behaving like this they abrogate any authority they might ever had to set an example to the rest of the world. I'm not setting myself up here as a higher moral authority: at any given time my riding may be somewhere along an axis between the desire for fun, the utility of the journey and the state of my license. What I will always do is my damnedest not to compromise safety. And I certainly won't video myself behaving like an idiot and post it under the guise of a road safety promotion.

So I'm offering £60 to anyone providing definitive proof that that same police Hayabusa has been confiscated and crushed and the rider convicted for this offence.

Now things have changed. A lot. Motorcycles are very different from what they were in the early Noughties, as is my life. They're faster, more sophisticated and more expensive. My life is has probably managed two of those three, but with a complete transplant from the depths of the overcrowded Home Counties to the wilds of a Highland Glen. New life, new places, but still with love and mammals. What hasn't changed is that I still live on some of the finest biking roads on the planet, so the basic need hasn't changed:

I still want a SPORTS tourer. More than ever I need the virtues of comfort, adaptability and a decent tank range – the last of these being utterly essential, given the distances between filling stations hereabouts – Highland Scotland is four times the size of Wales, but with the population of Cardiff. That makes for a lot of empty roads, motorcyclists for the entertainment of…

And heated grips have gone from being a luxury to a necessity.

So, nothing new for years, and I've even been mutterlng darkly about sourcing a newer second-hand ST4s, which of course proves impossible as every other bugger is also hanging on to theirs.

But lo, what's this looming over the horizon? After a year of spy shots of a disguised Something that looks, ah, remarkably like a bike of Multistrada configuration but with a superbike engine, Ducati have now revealed the new Multistrada 1200.

But it doesn't end there – like the proverbial bus, after nothing new for years, two new sports tourers have come along at once, the other of course being the much-hyped Honda VFR1200. Apart from sharing capacity and technology overload with the Duke, the Honda couldn't be much different whilst still claiming Sports Tourer credentials and possessing two wheels. Whatever you think of the looks (I rather like them and will accede that both bikes induce a touch of the Marmite syndrome), a closer examination of the Honda suggests that Honda have missed the ballpark altogether with this one: They call it a Sports Tourer, yet it weighs a claimed 267kg wet, well into that lardarse class; They emphasise the touring credentials, yet give it a ludicrous 18 litre tank which, given the traditional dipsomania of Honda Vs, probably means no more than 140 miles full-to-fumes, which means looking for a gas station from about 100 miles onwards. What sort of self-deceiving idiocy prompted them to do that? And, if any further proof were needed that bad marketeers and accountants and not engineers and riders are now in charge at Honda, just look at the clumsy teaser marketing campaign for the bike, that started a year ago and built such huge expectations that reality, whatever its nature, was going to disappoint, even if it hadn't been so comprehensively out-teched by the Ducati. And if you need any reminder of the seismic shift in the bike market that now has the European makers as the clear all-round technology leaders, this is it.

And whatever possessed Honda to fit bog-standard ABS to this machine – their technology flagship – and ignore one of their real technological masterpieces – the sublime system from the current Fireblade? Honda do at least plan to release a DSG auto-box version sometime next year, which will of course add weight and potentially remove another element of rider satisfaction and skill from the riding equation. Now that might sound odd from someone who's just been enthusing about traction control and ABS, and I do feel somewhat uneasy about their impact on rider sensibility, but at least they only come in at the extremes, whereas a missing clutch is missing all the time.

Time now for a little disclosure: This may so far have sounded like a vague attempt at a balanced thought piece on the merits of these very different motorcycles. I hope so – despite my long Ducati allegiance, I've always loved Honda V4s (current VFR800 excepted) and it wouldn't have taken much to have me looking that way. The VFR1200 though is a huge disappointment and, with that pathetic tank range, actually unusable for its intended role: I suspect that the loud whirring you'll hear as a VFR1200 goes past won't be the exhaust, but the sound of old Soichiro – Honda-san – spinning in his grave.

So, M Domenicali, I've kept my promise – I'm now looking forward to you keeping yours: delivery of a black Multistrada 1200S, with all the trimmings, as soon as you like…

Now it's a question of when: the plan (for want of a better word) is to pick the bike up from Snell's then ride it home to the Highlands via some of the favourite motorcycling roads and places in the UK – Helmsley, Buxton, Hawes, up through the borders thence onwards to Loch Lomond, the A82/84, then home, taking pics and blogging along the way (I helped invent the technology so may as well use it!). If timings work out, I may even be able to cross paths with John Montgomery, he of the first UK customer order and the source of the Milan show photos in this article.

The consequences of this aren't just limited to the motorcyclist and his or her (almost always 'his') family and friends but affect the local community: firstly, this is the only road South from here (without a 50-mile detour), so when it's closed for most of a day it has a real local impact. Secondly, and mostly importantly, people here are genuinely upset about the sheer bloody waste of life that's going – I haven't spoken to a single person who's anti-motorcycling in any way, but to many who are affected by the knowledge that another life has been needlessly lost on our doorstep and who genuinely feel the sense of lost humanity. While writing this blog entry, I've been approached by several friends and neighbours, each asking me if there's anything at all I can do to raise awareness of the specific risks of this road. So here it is.

It's not speed per se that kills, but speed in inappropriate times and places (of which there are many on the A84) and differentials in vehicle speed, which tend to be very high hereabouts. The recipe is a combination of the generally poor standard of driving with erratic, slow-moving tourist traffic, local chav yoof running on testosterone and single-figure IQs, equally brain-dead reps (watch out especially for Vectras), holidaying rental car drivers ('07 registered Fiestas and Espaces are the worst offenders here, according to the local police), psychotic white van drivers and the big stuff – coaches and trucks who have no wish to slow down for anything and which are actually too big to fit entirely within their own side of the road in the tighter stuff. The result is a lethal cocktail of road and traffic conditions, a single sip of which can be fatal to the unwary or actively participating motorcyclist.

So the A84 has a track record of both collisions between bikes and other vehicles and bike accidents that are entirely unassisted by other road users. In the first scenario either the other vehicle is the prime cause or they are merely minding their own business and suddenly find themselves in what is all too often a head-on collision with a misplaced motorcycle.

The prime cause version can only be dealt with by increased awareness by motorcyclists and a healthy dose of assumptive paranoia about what may be around the next bend – in effect, you need to give yourself more time to react, by planning further ahead where there is a visible ahead to plan for and by travelling just a tad slower on the many blind sections of road or by taking just a little longer to assess the potential behaviour of the vehicle you're about to overtake.

The "misplaced bike" scenario itself breaks two ways: bikes who aren't paying enough attention to the anticipation of hazards whilst technically on their part of the road and those who've failed to react in time to the sudden changes in the nature of the road and who end up departing at a tangent into another vehicle or the scenery. Both of which are decidedly hard and lumpy.

The first of those has played itself out more than once on this section of road in a particularly grisly form: decapitation. Too high a corner entry speed on right-handers, with a poor entry line, means a high lean angle where the rider's helmet is on or actually over the centreline of the road. When that's on a blind right-hander where a vehicle of any size is coming the other way, the result is as inevitable and instantaneous as it is terminal.

The second – the tangential departure from track – is almost invariably rider error, the rider 'freezing' when confronted with an unexpected change in the road or traffic, and thereby failing to negotiate a bend or avoid a hazard, be it vehicle, deer or toast in the road (real example). A couple of years ago I was on a course run by Gary Baldwin of Rapid Training - amongst other things, he's an accident investigator, and I remember him saying that, in about 2/3 of single vehicle accidents involving bikes, at the speed the bike had been travelling, it was perfectly capable of negotiating the bend – it's the rider that wasn't. In these cases, it's the combination of failure to anticipate, target fixation and the operation of what Keith Code calls "Survival Reactions" – instinctive reactions that are actually counterproductive on a bike – that lead to these sort of accidents.

So, as ever:

• If in doubt, back off!
• Remember Jackie Stewart's maxim of "slow in, fast out" - it's as true for bikes as cars.
• On a right-hander, take the furthest left line that's safe into the bend. And hold it - road riding isn't about treating the centreline apex as a target but about maximising your visibility at all times.
• Look where you're going, not where you're trying to avoid: if you stare like a frightened rabbit at an errant car, lump of rock or approaching armco, that's exactly what you'll end up hitting.
• (and this is one of the best bits of advice I was ever given) If all else fails, stick it on its ear – modern motorcycles are almost invariably far more competent than their riders and, even if it does all go pear-shaped, you'll most likely end up low-siding on your side of the road rather than firing straight on into the other lane. Of course, if you end up having to do that, you've failed to anticipate the hazard and are already going too damned fast. Which takes us right back to the first point.

Not all of these are easy to get your head around, and that's where taking advanced training really, really does help you to have more fun and more fun more safely - check out your local IAM or RoSPA group, find out if the local plod run a Bikesafe scheme or book a course with an outfit like Rapid Training. And track-based training (California Superbike School, Ron Haslam, HRT and their ilk) will makes a big difference to your machine handling skills and knowledge of just what you and your machine can do when all else fails.

Knowing the A84

Now for some specifics about the A84. And this is NOT meant as a comprehensive riding guide, simply a note of a few particular problem areas – what you do with the information is up to you. I'm describing the road heading North - that seems to be when most accidents happen, as people head up from the cities of the South.

The A84 starts at Stirling and runs fairly wide and open up to Callander, with a few deceptive bends through the woods after Buchany – the main problems along this stretch are a few blind crests, junctions, particularly those for the Ochtertye Road, at Blair Drummond Safari Park and, paradoxically, the long, straight sections that encourage some seriously dodgy overtaking by improbably ill-equipped vehicles and drivers. Watch out for farm vehicle mud on the road as you approach Doune.

Once past Callander, you're into more three-dimensional territory, as the road twists and turns through the Falls of Leny and then heads along the side of Loch Lubnaig, interspersing long, broad, sweeping sections of road with narrow blind bends and crests around the rocky outcrops along the lochside.

There's a particular Northbound bend at the Northern end of the Falls of Leny (just after you pass the car park entrance on the right) which rises steeply to the left, then crests and drops away very steeply, turning sharp right as it does so. Anyone piling over this crest at high speed and cranked over will simply find that their suspension comprehensively unloads, losing traction and throwing them down the road. Taking the same on a sloppy line and then suddenly finding that you have to turn in hard right puts you right into the head-over-centreline scenario I've described above. And keeping it hard left simply puts you at risk of tail-ending an innocent cyclist who's recently crested the same brow. And, even when you're on line and on speed, the sight of an oncoming enormous coach or artic suddenly appearing to rise out of the earth like a mobile block of flats is disconcerting, to say the least. Go slower than you can possibly think is necessary here.

This particular section has also recently been resurfaced (good) but hasn't had any new white lines painted on it (very bad) - it's now near impossible to pick out the crest and line at night or in heavy rain.

There's a lot of Shellgrip (pale-coloured and grippy stuff) at many (but not all) of the tightest bends. It's a mixed blessing from a bike's point of view, where I'd suggest that predictable consistency of grip is more important than absolute grip at any point, and it is laid with cars in mind, so that it has a nasty habit of running out just at the point where a bike is still leant over but is hard on the gas. Best therefore to use the Shellgrip as a warning of tight bends rather than to rely on it for any reason at all.

Watch out for the well-hidden turnings on the left into the car parks along Loch Lubnaig and for caravans and camper vans lurching into and out of these and various laybays with neither reason nor warning.

Running along the contour of a lochside, you are of course following a spring line so, even on the sunniest days, there are damp patches on the road, invariably (of course) on the exit from tight bends - being hard on it when you hit one of these can make life interesting.

Once North of Strathyre (and you were sticking to the 30mph limit there, weren't you?), there's a complex of deceptive and bumpy bends past a couple of cottages at Beananach (not signed), then a long sweeping section up towards Lochearnhead. Watch out here for the short-notice left turn into the Golden Larches restaurant at Balquhidder Station. Past Lochearnhead and you're into Glen Ogle and rising rapidly to the head of the road – once you're away from the glen floor, there are some well (and a few not-so-well) sighted curves up the mountainside before you crest the summit and immediately run into another series of off-camber bends and sweeps, with turnings into tourist lay-bys (and a snack van). Thereafter, it's downhill towards Lix Toll and the turning to Killin, which marks the end of the A84. There's a final sting in the tail – as you drop into the forested section of the road, there are a couple of near 90-degree bends, left and then right, followed by a sharp curve down towards the petrol station, which partially conceals the turn to Killin and the traffic slowing down to turn right there.

And that's the A84, not a long road, but one that, with common sense and a helping of awareness, makes for a superb ride, and one that I and everyone else around here would much rather you were around to do many times. If you find this remotely useful and you spot a slightly grubby grey Ducati parked up outside the Munro Inn in Strathyre, drop in and buy me a second coffee!

What my sightline does now include is a small cluster of other bikes, working their way past the inevitable camper vans and second-gear tourist Hyundais. First up is a GSX1400 with a very tense-looking rider – several tens of kilos too much bike for the road. A R1200GS pilot is cruising along in his shirt sleeves and, as we're both running with panniers, I have to wait several bends before there's sufficient clearance to bop past without pinging his Touratechs into the scenery. Now it gets interesting: the rider of the bright green thing I can see on the horizon is actually putting some effort into his riding and it's some time before I realise that the gap is closing. He's riding track lines on the road therefore can't actually see where he's going so I do manage to disprove the rumour that Kawasaki sports bikes self-destruct if overtaken by a tourer. By now we're over the pass itself and dropping towards Aberfoyle – the last few hairpins are of Alpine grade as they drop into the village and their new surface lends confidence and a little cautious exuberance. The Wee But'n'Ben Bistro offers a mean baked spud and welcome caffeine shot, fuelling me up nicely for the return journey. In the process, there's a slightly surreal conversation with a couple who've waddled in on a Harley and a much more resonant one with the local postmaster, who rides an SV and aspires Ducatiwards. Before turning the dial back up for the return trip, I detour briefly to Dounan's, the school camp on the edge of town where I spent a happy month at the tender age of ten. It's still much as I remember it but, in the sad absence of nubile and impressionable sixth-former girls, I pause only briefly before turning around. There's another detour – a smallish B road that leads from Aberfoyle over the hills by Loch Ard to the hidden Eastern shore of Loch Lomond at Inversnaid, another of the homes of Rob Roy – his first being two houses up the glen from our place. The road surface is however so bad that I call a halt after a few miles – a full motocrosser would be a better bet along here. In fact, most of today's run would have been perfect for a full-on Supermoto rather than anything over-large and over-powered for the road, which is pretty much anything else. There's one other problem with this road: trying to stop hooting with laughter long enough to concentrate on where I'm vaguely supposed to be going.

"For those many non-horsey people, that "Please Pass Wide and Slow" fluorescent tabard (or similar) you may well have seen moving along a country lane, is not meant to describe the obstacle in front of you – the rider is actually asking for your consideration in safely passing the horse, for both your safety and theirs.

Horses are ‘flight’ animals, meaning they would rather run than stand and fight, and, as with any domesticated animal, are slightly unpredictable. High speeds of approach, revving engines, honking and not allowing much space when passing could well spook a horse – and then you or another road user could well be faced with a half-ton panicked animal looking for an easy escape route, and not all horses are natural jumpers!!

Country lanes are in use by us all; on foot, with children, dogs, on bikes or horseback and in vehicles of all sizes – and we DO need to respect each road user. If you find horses in your path, two-a-breast, we are not catching up on local gossip (only!) but we are trying to make ourselves as visible as possible and attempting to slow vehicles approaching our animals, before passing.

Bemused cyclists who have come up behind a horse and rider may well wonder why we ask that they “say something” whilst approaching. Again, this is purely for safety, as horses generally cannot hear bikes. The sudden appearance of something moving up behind them, without warning, is as frightening to them as a preying animal (natural instincts are in us all!) – however, horses are bright enough to acknowledge that it probably isn’t dangerous if it sounds ‘human’.

The Lothian & Borders Police Road Safety Unit held a meeting with the British Horse Society at the end of last year, and a staggering statistic came to light - “64% of all road deaths happen on roads regarded as rural and therefore quiet”.

PLEASE don’t add to that statistic – give considerations to horses and all other road users in our beautiful glens and don’t ruin your day or anyone else’s because you couldn’t be bothered to briefly slow down for that ‘obstacle’ in front of you.

Thought for the day: When sitting on a ‘FLIGHT’ animal, believe us – we want you to pass us and not crawl along behind us… …but SAFELY, for all our sakes.

With thanks for reading this,
from B.R.A.- the Balquhidder Riding Association." – Thanks there to Tanya and Karen for words and picture.

Can't say fairer than that, to which I'll add my own observations that motorcyclists are probably a horse's worst nightmare: fast, loud and sudden (and the bikes themselves aren't much better…). If coming up on a horse or group of horses, do slow down a long way in advance, giving yourself time to check them out and ask yourself: have they obviously heard you coming? do any of the animals (and/or riders) look nervous? are they changing formation in anticipation of your passing? If in any doubt whatsoever, wait until you're sure that they're aware of you and that the party is composed and ready for you, then pass as above – wide and slow. If you're approaching them from the front and on a narrow road, you might even be advised to pull over, shut the engine off and wait until they're well past before lighting up again – I tend to do this as I've noticed that twins such as Ducatis and BMWs seem, at low revs, to cause more equine consternation than fours.

…To Sublime

Then I jumped back on the ST to head home. Now hang on a minute: discounting its current pogo-stick behaviour from the service-overdue rear shock, this was the revelation of the day – I've spent four years and 40,000 miles setting this machine up to suit exactly how I ride and in understanding its preferences and propensities – the end result is a machine that fits me like a favourite running shoe and which always works with me, whatever I do and wherever I go. So here's a first step: I'm taking the ST in next week for a suspension rebuild and upgrade: a full service for the rear Ohlins plus a slightly stiffer spring and K-Tech internals for the forks to bring them up from merely good to something approaching the quality of the rear Ohlins. Then I'll decide where to go with the toy fund. Now there the 1098S is currently on a shortlist of two, the other being that Aga.

The sun did come out this morning, albeit a pale, wan thing struggling in the Southern sky against the mountainous black clouds that have seen it off for the last week, but I don't need much to inspire me, so it's time to stick my nose outside and see what the local blacktop has to offer. That's as opposed to the local pot-holed and rubble-strewn tracks, into which category my drive firmly falls – I either have to upgrade it or buy either an R1200GS and matching tartan slippers. But for now, 'tis but a challenge to be overcome so, togged up in full Inuit gear, I fuel up the ST4s and point its nose out of the garage door. A kilometre of tiptoeing around flooded potholes and through inches-deep Autumnal leaf mould and I'm finally on the black stuff - a humpback bridge and a twisty, corkscrewing single-track road from the village toward the main road.

I've now got to rebuild my biking infrastructure: find a local club; a friendly Ducati dealer and of course the necessary biker-friendly watering holes across the country. Of the last there appears to be no lack; there's are several localish riding groups with whom I should get in touch and I've gone from having four Ducati dealers within an hour's ride to having two in the entire country. Fortunately, Ducati Glasgow seem like a really decent bunch and they're only an hour or so's cruise away – less by motorway. So lots to learn, but it's looking good so far…

And our courtyard has a really good echo – just perfect for warming up Ducatis.

But here's the problem: this car, like many of its contemporaries, is simply dangerous. In the pursuit of secondary safety (protecting the occupants when an accident happens), Toyota have severely compromised primary safety (being able to avoid having an accident in the first place). The Aygo follows the fashion for very heavily raked A-pillars which means that, to provide modern standards of rollover protection, those same pillars need to be hugely heavy and wide to cope with the oblique load path. Then, in order to place the mirrors where they can actually be seen by the driver, they've mounted them on large triangular infill panels in the acute angle twixt A-pillar and base of the window, thus effectively blocking a complete cone of vision.

Recent research by the UK's TRL (Transport Research Laboratory) has shown that the A-pillars of modern cars can block vision of an approaching motorcycle for up to four seconds. In the case of this Toyota, I'd say that the same would be true of a 40-tonne semi. This car was bad enough with myself in the driver's seat, and I'm 6' tall. My mother found the car undriveable, as her primary line of vision was directly in line with the mounting panels for the mirrors and the mirrors themselves – she simply had no side vision whatsoever. All the salesman could do was suggest a booster seat!

I got back in the little old Peugeot afterwards and was amazed - while the Toyota undoubtedly has far greater secondary safety, the Peugeot's primary safety is vastly superior - great all-round vision, that direct steering and real fun to drive. Backwards into the future - I may well buy the old wagon off my mum for track days if she can ever find a worthy replacement. That does however leave us motorcyclists with the problem that there are many of these cars on the road, and we need to be continually alert for the fact that the drivers simply can't see us. Thanks so very much, Toyota et al.

Two hours and rather less than thirty miles later, I was still slithering towards the M6 motorway at Birmingham. At this rate my mother would be keeping my Turkey warm for Boxing Day. At which point a small icy particle of inspiration sleeted through my brain, thusly: Trains get places (eventually) even in bad weather. Trains have guard's vans for the luggage. My motorcycle would fit in a guards van. So rather than the M6 slip, I turned directly for the centre of Birmingham and New Street station. I bought a ticket for Edinburgh, and one for my Honda, just to add some legitimacy, however spurious, to the exercise. Unbelievably, even for the time, I managed to blag self, luggage and bike onto the second train to Edinburgh, the guard on the first having exercised the micro-power of the disenfranchised in telling me to, "Sod off, sonny". The train was so crowded that I spent the entire journey lying along the bike, my feet on the its handlebars and using my rucksack as a pillow. All whilst doing 70mph up the West Coast Main Line. I'm sure Einstein would have had something pithy to say about frames of reference...

My parents were just a little surprised when I and Honda materialised from the storm, looking like nothing so much as a rather baggy Yeti. They were even more surprised that i was actually moderately warm and dry underneath. It was some time before they realised that my final ride home had been all of the six miles from Waverley station – just as I was working myself into a Munchausenesque fable of lashed-to-the-mast heroism, my father, who'd wandered into the garage to eyeball a bike with precisely four times as many cylinders as any he'd ever owned, spotted the British Rail luggage tag still affixed to the Honda's rack. The game was up.

So honour of course demanded that I did in fact ride back all the way to Warwick. By now it was January 2 and the storm had abated to the point where it was merely lashing with rain from a Westerly gale: sheer luxury. Waving my parents goodbye, I turned South and towards the hills of the Scottish Borders. It's a reasonably well established fact that hills rise and that, as they rise, the temperature falls. By the time I was 50 miles from Edinburgh, I was riding in the teeth of a blizzard: not dry fluffy snow either, but big soggy flakes that hit, stuck and melted on my one-piece oversuit. This I had been expecting: I was wearing multiple layers of thermal underwear, ski gear, woolly seaboot socks, silk undergloves and those good old mainstays of British foul-weather exercise, Wellington boots. All would have been well, save for one thing: rather than having the legs of my oversuit OVER my wellies, I had stylishly tucked them INTO their tops. The rest was inevitable: the melting snow ran down my waterproofs and oh so efficiently filled up my boots. Capillary action via my socks then dragged the freezing meltwater up my rapidly chilling legs. At Coldstream, i spent the best part of an hour in the toilet of a petrol station, holding, in turn, wellies and feet under the hot-air drier.

The next couple of hundred miles are now a merciful blur in my memory. Suffice it to say that by roughly 2am I had made it as far as the Southbound M6 near Birmingham. The wind had dropped, the snow had vanished and the night looked set fair, even if I was tired beyond the need for mere sleep. But was I about to let off that easily? I think not – the fog that now descended just got thicker and thicker, reducing my world to a small yellow glowing bubble of reflected headlight and the glint of the cats-eyes marking the motorway lanes. It was so thick that I was riding by looking down to my left in order to follow the adjacent lane markers - nothing else was visible.

The rear lights of a car emerging from the mist in front of me were a welcome point of reference, so much so that I latched onto the vision and simply followed it. I held this position for quite some time, until I realised that he was driving rather more slowly than before. Figuring that he'd seem something ahead that I couldn't, I slowed down too. He slowed down further. So did I. He then stopped. In the absence of much alternative and in my own internal fog of weariness, I stopped too. My brain was slowly processing the fact that I was now stopped, for no apparently good reason, on the M6. I hadn't reached any sort of conclusion when a figure emerged from out of the murk, in the process of seating his uniform cap on his head. "Good evening, sir", said the slightly bemused looking Policeman, "And can I help you?". "Hello officer" I mumbled through helmet and balaclava, "What's the hold-up on the road?". "Hold-up, sir? Now what hold-up would that be?". At this point a small swirling of the fog momentarily lifted the visibility to all of thirty feet, quite enough to reveal that the car I'd been following was a police car and that he was now parked on one of the raised "pig perches' that are found alongside British motorways. I'd only gone and followed him onto it. To his huge credit, his reaction was one of sympathy rather than derision and, when he found out how long I'd been on the road for, he insisted on escorting me the rest of the way down the motorway until I peeled off into the suburbs of Warwick and home.

That was twenty-five years ago. Tomorrow, I'm moving house, back to Scotland after more than twenty years in Surrey. This time my motorcycle is going in the removals van and I, partner and cats are doing the journey in the heated comfort of my four-wheeled BMW. I think I'd call that progress.

In the early eighties, I occasionally knocked around on an R90/6 and on one of the first K100s to hit these shores ("What shores?" – "Mine's a gin & tonic, thank you…") – compared to my Pantah, it was like riding a fast-spin washing machine that was attached to the world by rubber bands. Slack rubber bands. Thankfully chassis and suspension have improved over the years and BMW, after a short-lived attempt to abandon the Boxer twin layout, still offer a range composed predominantly of the twins plus four-cylinder heavyweights. I've ridden several of the current generation of both and am generally of the opinion that there are some truly excellent chassis here, all however desperately in search of decent engines.

Low-speed manoeuvering is a doddle: smooth injection pickup with only little drivetrain shunt apparent, and decent steering lock makes for easy filtering through traffic queues. First impressions are of considerable flexibility, so I drop it straight into top gear, to find that it'll pull perfectly happily, if slowly, from 2200rpm. Winding it on in the lower gears, a tsunami of torque from 3000rpm sweeps bike and rider along, albeit with a deceptively soft delivery and a fairly insistent buzz of vibration – it misses the instant joie-de-vivre punch of a four-valve Ducati, delivering its power more like the 1000cc DesmoDue engine, if less smoothly. Which is a compliment nontheless. Then came 5000rpm, at which point and as one, my fillings fell out – the vibration from that point upwards is truly 'orrible, numbing fingers, rattling teeth and causing anyone with mechanical empathy to hover a couple of fingers over the clutch lever. Which is a damn shame, because it's at 6000rpm that everything happens: the engine, which has so far felt like a somewhat overblown and under-refined normal Boxer engine, takes the potion and comes over all Mr Hyde, lurching and leering at respectable society with that most un-BMW of things, a dramatic powerband. Impressive for an air and oil-cooled flat twin, no matter what the capacity. But the vibration, oh the vibration... Then, come 7500rpm, it's all over – Hyde is back in his box and the engine smooths out slightly, but there's little point in chasing the 8500 red line – time to upshift on the usefully light gearbox (clutchless upshifts are easy – once again, very un-BMW) and go through it all again in the next gear.

The R1200S' general chassis demeanour seems slightly on the understeery side of neutral, remembering that this was a machine on settings that were definitely not tailored for me: while the (optional) Ohlins suspension (front and rear) did its usual masterclass job of turning small bumps into a magic carpet ride, I could definitely have done with a couple more clicks of rebound damping front and rear and a little less preload.

A couple of corners later, I deliberately overbrake, trying to stand the machine on its nose. At which point the ABS steps in and calls a halt to proceedings, leaving me momentarily with the feeling that I've lost brakes altogether. The system is effective, much smoother in action than its earlier iterations and generally unobtrusive, but does cut in a little too early for the, ah, sporting ride. This is where it comes second-best to Ducati's ABS which, on a dry warm road, will cheerfully allow you to get the machine into a stoppie before deciding that enough is enough. I haven't ridden an ABS-equipped Triumph and please speak to me not of the Honda VFR's Combined Braking System/ABS combination.

I'm left a little puzzled over the positioning and intent of the R1200S: Despite its being 15bhp or so down on power, the 1200cc engine in the sibling R1200GS is a far more civilised and useable item, even if only in relative terms. In the R1200S, I really do get the impression that BMW have taken the pursuit of power a step too far beyond the need for rideability and a notch beyond what the Boxer engine is comfortably capable of. It's a strange world where the all-round tourer in the range offers a more satisfying ride than the sports bike and would, I suspect, be very little distance behind it on the road. It's that "Chassis in search of an engine" thing again, and I'd welcome the day when BMW get their act together in both simultaneously. They've managed it with their cars for years, so why not with the bikes?

After hooning around some of the South-East's finest twisties (which are very fine indeed), I turn back towards Guildford on the A3, trying to find a relaxed cruising gear that doesn't actually give me double vision. When I stop to top off the tank I find myself reaching for the diesel nozzle… Back at Vine's, whose bike this is, I hand back the keys, retrieve my own bike from the midst of their row of demonstrators and head back for the open road. I find myself immediately revelling in the tautness, responsiveness and smooth power of the Ducati, flicking it from side to side just to enjoy the steering response and letting the chassis tell me the maker's name on the manhole covers (Stanton PLC, if you must know). At this point, the world has become a better place and I'm absolutely no closer to finding a worthy successor to the ST4s.

More images of the R1200S are in the gallery.

I spent today at meetings in London: it was hot, dirty and noisy and I was contributing both considerable decibelage and a fug of semi-combusted hydrocarbons to the ambience by whomping around on a 1000cc Ducati. At regular intervals the phrase, "there has to be a better way to do this", kept springing to mind. Of course, my bicycle would have been perfect for the job. Had I been able to get it there: with a despairingly predictable lack of joined-up thinking on transport and the environment, the UK government has allowed the rail operators to ban bicycles from most services. Which has rather put a stop to that.

This evening however I've found that better way: I went somewhere else in space and time, to where the whole future arrives, not with a bang, but with a muted whirring - to my first close encounter with the ENV – the world's first dedicated fuel cell powered motorcycle.

What it does have in common with the RR is that they'll hit the market at about the same time - late 2007. Oh yes, and they both have two wheels. However, whereas one is simply the spectacular apotheosis of current motorcycle design, the other represents the first thoughtful steps towards the era beyond oil and beyond internal combustion.

Of course you've got to get the hydrogen in the first place, so you need the infrastructure to generate and distribute the stuff, preferably without creating a net carbon imbalance along the way. In an ideal world, we'd generate the hydrogen directly from renewables or closed cycle sources – there's a wonderful example on Yakushima island in Japan where Honda are testing their FCX fuel cell car. Here the electricity required for the electrolysis process (splitting water to generate hydrogen) is produced entirely by the island's hydro-electric plant. On a household or local scale, there exist hydrogen generators (reformers), which run on a wide range of fuels including propane, LNG, gasoline, kerosene, diesel, bio-diesel and ammonia. For someone (like myself) planning a true eco-house, there therefore exists the possibility of fuelling the thing from the output of a domestic digester/fermenter. Which would take the phrase, "going like shit off a shovel", to a whole new level of literality…

Move downstream of the fuel cell power plant and you're completely in the realm of electrickery and the effective management of a power train that delivers maximum torque at minimum revs. An electric motorcycle is potentially the ideal wheelie machine: the challenge for the power train designer is to stop it doing so. I can cope with that.

The folks behind this remarkable and inspirational machine are Intelligent Energy, an offshoot of Loughborough University. They're now going through all tedious but vital work needed to turn this first, albeit highly professional (it was designed by famed design firm and bike nuts Seymour Powell) technology demonstrator into reliable daily transport. Not a task to be underestimated but, with time, dogged patience and a little ingenuity, something that is entirely achievable, and achievable at a real-world price – they're talking about £5000 or so for the first production batch.

Where the demonstrator uses a removable fuel cell and has cycle parts taken in large part from high-end mountain bikes (lovely Hope brakes and forks), the production prototype has a fixed power unit and has adopted parts from light motorcycles, not least including Ohlins suspension.

There's even better news to come for us ecopetrolheads: there now exists a compact 75Kw version of the fuel cell – that's around 100bhp in old-speak. Hang two of those together and you've got something to potentially and silently worry the RR. Now you're talking…