Bridgestone Trailwing tyres, which seemed to perform well on the dry roads bearing in mind there were damp patches everywhere. One test for me is a little slow riding. This bike is exceptional for slow controlled riding. The fuelling and engine combination allow clutch out, not throttle riding and remains very smooth. With the balance to do full lock turns, and have the clutch out, no throttle – this is the bike to turn up with at one of EKAM’s slow riding courses. You could filter through traffic in Canterbury while drinking a latte in one hand and using your mobile phone in the other – for those with flip up lids anyway. If you’re after a bike that you can commute on, then have a bit of fun at the weekend – then this is one of those bikes. Some of the observers have bikes that are practical and comfortable that they use just for observing – this is the bike I would have. Suzuki prices are currently £5,571 for the X model and £6,421 for the GT – Alford Bros are knocking 10% off for club members and have finance deals running from Dec to March next year. Now, where’s my credit card…. Mine’s called Ruby. Geoff’s is called Doris. John’s is called Sadi.  What am I talking about? Satnavs, of course. I’ve been doing a survey and have discovered that many people give their satnavs girls’ names. Why? Is it because the voice telling you where to go is female; or do they get you in such a whirl that they remind you of a hurricane? One of our members, who asked to remain anonymous, doesn’t have a sat nav, but when his wife is navigating he calls her the sat nag! Many EKAM members will remember a little rant I had in this magazine a couple of years ago after we’d been following a friend who couldn’t follow his satnav. I swore we’d never get one. So here we are in 2010 with a Garmin Zumo 660  called Ruby who, we hope, will enable us to navigate straight to any hotel in any town this side of Moscow. Up to now, the signs aren’t entirely promising. Buying a satnav is the easy part, getting it to take you where no biker has been before would defeat even Captain Kirk. I won’t bore you with the set up problems we encountered, suffice to say that it took weeks, help from Charles Tassell, endless repeated downloads and many on-line chats with the Garmin Helpdesk to achieve lift off. We put it to the test in the car last November on a known route to see some friends in the countryside near Tonbridge. We tapped in their postcode and off we went. This was a useful test as we disagreed with Ruby’s suggestions going and took our own route, but coming back we followed Ruby and got home quicker. Ian took her with him as company on several work-related trips and reported no problems. Then Christmas intervened, the snow came down and all thought travel was suspended. By mid January, we had started to think about touring holidays and were looking at hotels in various parts of France. Let’s see if Ruby can find them, we said. Best Western? Nope. Mercure? No chance. Comfort Inn right next to the motorway? Never heard of it. Let’s try the postcode. Mon Dieu, you mean a French postcode? Non! How about the road name? Ah! Maybe. But what do you mean you want a house number? The hotel hasn’t got one! And Ruby goes off in a huff – to say nothing of her owners!