NovaSpyder
New member
I have owned my RT-S SM5 for 10 days now and I love it. I've owned bikes for 35 years and over the winter was thinking of updating my 2001 Honda ST1100. I was looking online at St1300, Bmw's - Sport tooring bikes. One snowy Saturday morning I woke up and thought "What about a Spyder"? I was somewhat interested in them when they first came out but up until then didn't think it was for me. So i decided to get on the net and see what I could find out.
What did I find? Spyderlovers.com! Wow! I found this to be an amazing source of information and humor too. lots of interesting, diverse, and knowledgable people. I was thinking Bob Denman was like Wilson from the TV show Home Improvement, you never saw his face but he had words of wisdom to offer every day. But then I thought that description fit Scotty and then I realized the whole site was full of Wilsons!
Armed with what I learned I decided I would purchace a Spyder RT. So I began the quest. Boy, Spyders are sure cheaper in the US than here in Canada. There is only one dealer in my province, Nova Scotia, and they had a few but the price was still a detraction. Then in March I came across this RT-S on Kijiji but it was 1000 miles away in Ontario. It was a demo with 600 miles on it. So I contacted the owner who turned out to be the owner of a BRP dealership and was currently in Florida for a few months. Did my due diligence on the dealership and found them to be reputable BRP dealer (not much info on Spyders though). So we made a deal. Saved may $ooo's.
Set a date to pick up the Spyder for May 17. I spent the next several weeks lurking on this site, watched all the training videos and read the manual, some parts multiple times. Stlii haven't ridden a Spyder though. Sent an email to the dealer to confirm the 600 mile check was complete, latest software updated and please set the front shocks to five as I will be ryding away two up. My niece decided it wouldbe fun to come withme and I couldn't say no.
So we flew to Toronto, Friday May 17, rented a car, drove 75 minutes to dealership. Spent a bit of time going over the controls, noticed the toolkit was missing so they got another and put it under the seat. Then, we dropped the rental off (conveniently next door) and headed out for our 1000 mile ride home! So now this is my first Spyder ryde. Now I can hear many of you go tsk tsk and I would agree that one should test ride and practice first but sometimes I am stubborn abd sometimes stupid and sometimes both.
Anyway we had a flawless 2.5 day 1000 mile ryde home, still smiling. Oh, the only issue was I thought the handling was squirrly at times and my niece was feeling at times that she was "drifting" so at the first night's stop I remembered to check the shocks, oh-oh, set to 3. Dug out tool kit and no tool for the shocks. I remember seeing it and think i lost it when adjusting the passenger footrests. Now the smart thing would have been to get something to adjust them but then i was afraid to without a jack so we just carried on. Just reduced speed appropriately in turns. Adjusted shocks when I got home, but not easy without the tool. Going to order BajaRons anti-swaybar for sure.
There are not very many Spyders around here, saw one this month, so it draws lots of attention.
So I just want to say a big thank you to Lamont for starting the site and to all of you who provide such great advice, and yes I read problem or negative posts and I considered that information carefully as well. Oops sorry for the long post
pps:
What did I find? Spyderlovers.com! Wow! I found this to be an amazing source of information and humor too. lots of interesting, diverse, and knowledgable people. I was thinking Bob Denman was like Wilson from the TV show Home Improvement, you never saw his face but he had words of wisdom to offer every day. But then I thought that description fit Scotty and then I realized the whole site was full of Wilsons!
Armed with what I learned I decided I would purchace a Spyder RT. So I began the quest. Boy, Spyders are sure cheaper in the US than here in Canada. There is only one dealer in my province, Nova Scotia, and they had a few but the price was still a detraction. Then in March I came across this RT-S on Kijiji but it was 1000 miles away in Ontario. It was a demo with 600 miles on it. So I contacted the owner who turned out to be the owner of a BRP dealership and was currently in Florida for a few months. Did my due diligence on the dealership and found them to be reputable BRP dealer (not much info on Spyders though). So we made a deal. Saved may $ooo's.
Set a date to pick up the Spyder for May 17. I spent the next several weeks lurking on this site, watched all the training videos and read the manual, some parts multiple times. Stlii haven't ridden a Spyder though. Sent an email to the dealer to confirm the 600 mile check was complete, latest software updated and please set the front shocks to five as I will be ryding away two up. My niece decided it wouldbe fun to come withme and I couldn't say no.
So we flew to Toronto, Friday May 17, rented a car, drove 75 minutes to dealership. Spent a bit of time going over the controls, noticed the toolkit was missing so they got another and put it under the seat. Then, we dropped the rental off (conveniently next door) and headed out for our 1000 mile ride home! So now this is my first Spyder ryde. Now I can hear many of you go tsk tsk and I would agree that one should test ride and practice first but sometimes I am stubborn abd sometimes stupid and sometimes both.
Anyway we had a flawless 2.5 day 1000 mile ryde home, still smiling. Oh, the only issue was I thought the handling was squirrly at times and my niece was feeling at times that she was "drifting" so at the first night's stop I remembered to check the shocks, oh-oh, set to 3. Dug out tool kit and no tool for the shocks. I remember seeing it and think i lost it when adjusting the passenger footrests. Now the smart thing would have been to get something to adjust them but then i was afraid to without a jack so we just carried on. Just reduced speed appropriately in turns. Adjusted shocks when I got home, but not easy without the tool. Going to order BajaRons anti-swaybar for sure.
There are not very many Spyders around here, saw one this month, so it draws lots of attention.
So I just want to say a big thank you to Lamont for starting the site and to all of you who provide such great advice, and yes I read problem or negative posts and I considered that information carefully as well. Oops sorry for the long post
pps:
