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Good sports tourer bike?

I travel from Aberdeen to Portsmouth by bike and at the moment I'm riding a ZXR 750. It's a great bike, but for a six hundred mile, ten hour run it kicks the crap out of my back because it's just not designed for long trips.
Recommendations, please, for comfortable sports tourers. Anything that still goes like a rocket, handles reasonably well (though obviously it's not going to be as good as a sportsbike) and that I can fit a serious amount of luggage on.

NOT, please note, anything Honda Goldwing or Harley Davidson Electraglide sized things. If I want something that big, I'll buy a car.

And I don't need price specifics at the moment either.
Thanks all so far. I've been looking at VFR's, hadn't thought of BMW tho... Cheers.

I own a bike accessory business and see all sorts of machines here. I also own Ducati's myself (999 and ST2) but when people ask me for advice on perhaps the best all round bike then I really have no hesitation in saying that pretty much any Honda VFR model is about as good as you can get for doing just about everything very well, some things brilliantly and nothing badly.

Sure the magazines will do reviews on sports tourers periodically and come up with this weeks bike of the year, that is better but overall I believe the VFR is pretty much the bench mark that all others are judged against.

If you don't fancy that then take a look at the modern BMW's they tick all your boxes and the new ones are still a lot of smiles on the twisties. You are covering some serious miles there, how about a Honda Blackbird or one of the big FJ Yamahas? I personally took the ST2 all over Europe many times and it never missed a beat or had any issues at all but I know that people still have a worry about Ducati servicing. The new ST3 though is apparently a fantastic machine designed for what you are doing and independently well received. It is also one of the above mentioned "this weeks bike of the year".

If I were you though I would be looking at a VFR and believe me it would take a lot to get me to not buy Italian but when doing what you are, then the head and heart must combine to overule pure emotion.

Good luck

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