Oops I did it again

Back story

Last year I sold my Honda VFR800 Fi RC46 as I had an itch for another Fireblade. I shopped around but there wasn't much out there that I wanted or wasn't at an inflated price.

With money burning a hole in my pocket and facing a weekly lift sharing commute down south for a while; my search moved to a car to achieve this task.

I had wanted an Audi 80 coupe 2.2e since seeing one rusting in a car park at work many years ago. Some no doubt gin fuelled Facebook sales searching found a well priced VW Corrado G60 very near by for good money. I was quickly seduced and absolutely love the car, despite being a somewhat unsuitable choice for said job, but it decided to remove itself from the road for a while. 

With repairs to the Corrado to do and a few months of solo trips down south coming up I thought I could use a bike to go down rather than using the VW T5 Transporter. I had the CBR400RR NC29 on the road but that would have pretty short legs for such a trip. An idea started to form.

Shopping

 What I needed was something with longer legs to do the ride down south for summer.
Obviously another VFR was the best choice or maybe a Triumph sprint ST/RS. Comfortable and fast enough with a goo tank range.
Also obviously I didn't do that.
My mind was still on Fireblades but since I sold my RR2 around 2010, their price hadn't really changed, they just had more miles on them.
The older bikes were starting to look a bit fragile and I would just feel bad taking a modern classic like that and throwing boring miles on it.
That put the first model like on the right through the fox eyes out of the race, much how I would happily have another.
That left the big comfy jelly mold SC33 98-99 model which would probably have been a good idea, the SC44 00-01 and maybe a CBR1000 (but that's not a fireblade so was pretty unlikely. I was open to outsiders at the right price like a TL1000R, GSXR750 or a Benelli Tornado but as it happened; the RRY-RR1 bikes were coming up well priced and there were a couple locally for sale.

The more I thought of the SC44, the more I liked the idea. It is basically the RR2 with less exciting bodywork. It is pretty in its own right but also half the price. Yer the later bike got a couple of more cubes and some bracing too but it wasn't going to be worth the money for my needs.
I organised to go see two on a wet Saturday afternoon.
The first was in Conningsby and was the cheaper of the two. It had non standard paint, not the best bodywork at that, aftermarket stubby can, power commander, exhaust valve wired open and some fancy wavy front discs.
it was a bit tatty and getting to look close up, it had been repaired poorly once before so the bodywork would most likely need replacing.
It was however cheap and a bit of haggling got it in my garage with change in my pocket and saved me the hassle of driving out to the second machine.
I now had a choice of blade sizes for road riding, not a bad place to be.