Peter's much beautified R1 complete with black anodised frame and Marlboro paint job has been the object of much wallet attention from its doting owner over the past couple of years. One of the main recipients of this largesse is the suspension, now Ohlins kit front and rear - which is nice. Colour co-ordinated wheels, windscreen and seat complete the R7 look. It is very pretty, and is a formidable road bike.

The Öhlins forks are excellent. They're not the full-on race ones but £1500 road kit - but they do give amazing feel to the front end and seem to be able to follow all the little humps and bumps without losing contact with the road surface. So corner entry speeds can be fairly ludicrous while the front end feels well in control. Certainly improves on the slightly ponderous R1 steering, spesh on the '98 model, which this one is.

Complementing the front forks is the essential Öhlins rear shock, fully adjustable for everything and able to make a very nice cup of tea when you want one. Just make sure you specify the right spring rate when you order the thing.

There's a lot more choice on the shock market now but Öhlins seem to be popular still. Lot to be said for gold anodising and a nice yellow spring.

PFM braking setup at the front looks the business and gives good stopping. Pete had problems with the first slotted discs as they kept warping, so he's now got different discs with little holes in them. They haven't warped yet, so seem to be performing rather better than the slotted ones.

Six potters seem to be losing favour nowadays as the four pots improve - witness the SP1 and Blade which have storming brakes. To be fair, the original R1 stuff is pretty good.

Posh milled top yoke and lots of little anodised tweaky bits.		Lovely weight-saving Marchesini mag wheels help the bike turn more easily.
AP lever assembly, PFM callipers and lightweight discs.		New rearsets give about an inch lift and setback.

Feeling the need to get some more weight off his wallet, Marlboro Pete decided the bike needed yet more fettling and modifying to justify its existence in his life. First up was to join the ever-growing throng of proud Akrapovic exhaust owners and fitted a full system to his R1 .. so bye bye exup valve.

But, not content with just being noisy, he felt the sluggard R1 needed a bit of a boost to it's feeble horsepower. What to do? Dynojet kit? Already done. Big bore and full race tune? Eeek, no. How about a turbo? What d'ya think this is, Fast Bikes??

Nope, being half sensible Pete decided to get with the current induction philosophy and fit a full pressure ram-air intake system. So, that's an air inlet in the front somewhere, a pressurised carbon fibre airbox and some jetting mods to suit. You can't really see the inlet too clearly, but it's there, honest, just above the radiator.

Verdict? Bit of a hole below 4 grand 'coz the exup has gone, but after that things clean up and the Akrapovic starts to work. Pete reckons he'll get another 15 bhp at 100 mph +, and who are we to argue?