Rob B and I have had the "shall we flog our stradas and go the SP route" many times, and in the end we both stuck with our stradas..you can do some mods without worrying about it drastically affecting the value, and they are more civilised for road use.
With my blue printed, fetted motor, its still knocking out decent horspower (duke2steve reckons it leaves his 748 for dead!), and with the mods ive done its there or thereabouts on the weight side of things compared to an SP.
There was a nice SP5 coming onto the market but Robs mate blagged it (sorry Beancounter!)
My SP5 was Dynoed at 115bhp at the rear wheel.Frankly i odn't really care how much it has,it's what it feels like.At 80000+ it feels WAHEEEEEEEYYYY!!And considering i'm a **** rider,it wasn't exactly humliliated at Cadwell.Given the choice,i would buy an SP and IF you needed a pillion,do the appropriate work to put a strada seat unit on the SP.But i would say that,wouldn't I??
Building your own version of an SP is half the fun. I had a standard 851, now I don't. Those hours spent not riding can be used for thinking about what you are going to next. SP's are SP's and shouldn't be played with or doctored, there simply isn't that many of them. Open season on anything else but!
Agree 100% with Griff, mine was a base model and is now far from it, the build is where a lot of the fun and sense of achievement sits. Don't regret what I've done at all, but wouldn't dream of doing this with an SP version though... btw - New Zealand....nah my Bishop Auckland is much nicer, Teesdale, Weardale, Northumberland and North Yorks just a twist of the wrist away - and to top it off Croft is awfully close... WVT - where are you based ?? love to see those bikes of yours !
...and the steel subframe assembly with grab handles and pillion pegs, with plastic and seat weighs nearly 12kg! the sp subframe with alloy hangers and factory sp seat unit and seat weigh under 3kg. this swap alone made a huge difference to how the bike felt, and pushing it around it feels like a different bike...
Maybe this is what I'd actually been told by the US guys. (I was thinking in lb instead of kg).
851neil - I'm in Sunderland. Call by any time. (Only have the SP4 and RC30 now though. I sold my luvverly Strada to a chap from Gatwick on Saturday. He's a real nice guy, but 'twas a sad day all the same. He'll be posting here soon I imagine).
dyno charts eh - here's mine from my rather special errr 1990 851 lol...nice flat power and torque curves, makes her really easy to ride and in my opinion well worth all of the effort made.
hey neil! i stayed with rellies in bishop auckland when i was over on hols, you remember? i called you on the IOM!! nice part of the world. by the way, what's been done to your "851" to get 134hp at the wheel!!???