After 15 bikeless years I joined the Mid-life crisis money pit owners club by way of a Duke 390 which was hellish fun scooting round the Dales for a couple of years. I never really got on with the looks though and it made you want to wring it's neck all of the time and I have previous knowledge of where that ends up. So I started mooching about looking for something bit more grown up and cruisery and got sucked in to looking at the new modern retro hipster specials - Ducati Scrambler and xsr700, (that Faster Sons Super 7 is proper drool-worthy) but there was something not quite right and they were a lot of money for what they were as they were still new on the market.
Went to have a look at a RE continental and outside of the dealers saw this:
beauty parked outside. 20 mins of a test ride and I was smitten.
Then last October spotted a potential project not far from me which is going to have some aesthetic improvement over the next couple of years.
.I've only ridden it up the drive so far as I bought it on the last dry day of the year but plans and parts are already in motion.
Flat bars on risers, fairing is coming off and single headlight going on, got some lighter exhausts quite cheap which I'm going to mount with more upsweep and then the back end is going to get shortened a little and the arse tidied up. It's a shame it's a grey frame and engine as I think a black frame and engine would look better with what I have in mind but hey ho it was a billy bargain with most of the usual required jobs already done.
) it ended entangled in a gate in a field just a little to the side of the business end of some ploughing equipment 
I didn't have any issues with the handling (and took the steering damper off too!!). Bloody loved it but didn't ever ride it to it's full potential! That was why the 390 was so awesome, slower, smaller, way less power but I could thrash that all over the place and hit the limiter, have no chicken strips front or back and not have any fear!! There was always a point on the bigger bikes where fear kicked in and stopped me going further - something I tried hard to work at on track, on the road that was useful, on track it was just F,ing slow!! 
