Here's a few photos that I took myself. The motorcycle in question is obviously not a ST, but there's a great story behind these photos:
I was riding the
departmental (tertiary) roads in rural France back in 2002, and came across a group of about a dozen French policemen at the side of the road, all riding identical motorcycles. I stopped to talk, and found out that the group consisted of one instructor, and 11 "motorcycle trainees". The instructor told me that his co-instructor was sick that day, he was alone with the trainees, and suggested that I ride "trail" at the end of the group with them. I agreed.
Well.... we set off a a pretty brisk pace, and the pace got faster as we went along. It was way the heck above the speed limits, which at that time were 90 km/h on the back roads... we were hitting 150 km/h on the straights. After about 30 minutes, a bit of a gap was developing between the main group and the two slowest riders, with me at the back. The instructor stopped the group at the side of the road to let the stragglers catch up - and to coach them a bit - and then suggested that I ride ahead of him, to "set the pace" for the group until we reached our final destination.
I politely inquired about exactly what he meant by "set the pace", and he told me that I was free to ride at any speed I wanted, the only restriction being to be reasonable when going through small towns & villages. So... off we went, for another 30 minutes, and I really put the lash to my ST 1100... no speed limits to worry about, and a dozen police directly behind me. For most of the ride, the group managed to stay with me. I had a Garmin StreetPilot on my bike (this was way back in the time when GPS navigators on motorcycles were new and very rare), which meant I could follow the planned route without worrying too much about where the turns or the towns were along the way.
It was a an amazing experience - the group of trainees generally managed to keep up, but not always - and at the end of the ride, the instructor complimented me on "setting the pace" and invited me to join the group for lunch at the training center.
I'll never forget that ride.
Michael
Rural France, 2002
