Oh, 2015! I suppose it must have got back in one peice then, otherwise I've have heard about it. And there I was looking forward to putting in a huge repair bill.
Can we expect a suitable magazine article, comparing and contrasting all the FF's you've blagged rides in? Be a piy to waste all that experience.

The Cmax was a damn sight more relaxing to ride in congested central London traffic than the Ecomobile was the year before! (As you would expect). And of course, being automatic, one's left hand remains free to take photos, eat sandwiches and so forth while bimbling along with all the other riders. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to ride it at speed on the open road, but around town it was easy to handle and very comfortable, if somewhat porky. PNB

I assume you're referring to th weight increase over a stock Tmax? Amy idea what the actual weight increase is? I never got a chance to wiegh it and neither have it's subsequent owners. It would be interesting to know. The inevitable seat back and footboxes are the major weight additions but the bodywork is about as light as it could be (in GRP) and I was surprised by the weight of the bags of left-over Tmax parts. Less than 25Kgs would be good.

Simon, in his regular Naples/Britol/Naples trips reported the top speed as stock, as you'd expect with the rev. limiter, but slightly better fuel consumption. No real surprises. The inability to up the gearing seriously limits the benefit of the aerodynamic improvement.

Yes and no are the answers to the above 2 questions. Shouldn't be hard to establish the wet weights of both the original and Cmaxed machines though. Of course, the 'dead' extra weight of the Cmax's 'fin' is much higher than anything on the original, even while the 'live' weight of the rider is lower. I would guess at 20-25kgs heavier than stock, although in fairness one should really weigh the original with at least a rack, top box and scooter bag to allow for the Cmax's increased luggage capacity, and maybe soft throw-over panniers too!

Interestingly, with regard to the top speed, I have just been looking at the dyno printout of my own Mk2Tmax and Burgman 650 and while both machines had identical top speeds on the autobahn of a true 104mph, the Tmax, with its humble 37bhp at the rear wheel, was actually able to rev out to 115mph on the dyno, while the Burger King stopped dead at 106mph due to the rev limiter. This implies that the Cmax should be able to go considerably faster than standard, if the aerodynamics were good enough, without changing the gearing. Of course, this Cmax was based on a post-2008 Mk3Tmax rather than a 2004 Mk2, but I'd be surprised if the gearing or rev limitation was any different because the power was pretty much identical at a claimed 44bhp at the crank.

I think you'd be surprised by how light epoxy GRP is.. although the 'fin' obviously adds some weight. I was also surprised by how heavy the Tmax rear end bits were - handgrips, number plate etc. However, in my piece on basic parameters in FF design (books, this site) I said that achieving a weight increase of 'only' 25 KGs. would be a cause for celebration, due mainly to the inability to incorporate the essential footbox and seat back into the production design, so I'm naturally interested in how close to that figure I got on this "Out of hand" conversion. In terms of absolute comparison it might be worth noting the the Cmax fuel tank is rather larger, and hence heavier, than the Tmax item. Perhaps one day someone will actually weigh it.

Simon, with no experience of the Tmax original reported that the Cmax ran up to a top speed and stopped accelerating at that point, as I remember, slightly above 100 mph indicated. He did quite a lot of local (Italian) research on Tmax performance features (They're raced in Italy) and seemed convinced it was running into the rev limiter at the same revs as a stock Tmax - but using less fuel than stock running continuously at full throttle. He's probably got more experience than most, running at this rate several times from Naples to Bristol. Apparantly the Italian racers have 'cracked' the rev limiter software now, but he decided not to incorporate this feature for reliability reasons.

I think it's worth noting the long and reliable service this FF has provided. It's not perfect, a bit too slow ('only' 100 mph) and the tele forks provide clumsy steering for such an agile vehicle. But it's an easy conversion, giving a very low seat and considerable freedom in layout, with no alteration or effect on the working parts. The complete disinterest shown by Yamaha and English 'kit' bike makers, not to mention the lack of individual imitators (Colin Ferguson excepted) says more about the possibility of 'mainstreaming' FFs in England than any particular feature of this FF