It doesn’t take a brains of an archdeacon to work out that Ian Carson’s MV is a little bit special. Until you see the dubiously angled rear number plate, you’d swear blind it was an out and out track bike. Armed with a ‘daylight’ MoT, the MV’s lack of lights means it’s a daytime only toy, but that’s alright with us. This wasn’t a tool for getting from A to B in comfort like the Honda (ok, comfort and speed, in all fairness), it was a toy for going round in circles as fast as possible, and it was plain to see.
Ian’s spared no expense on the F3 and it was dripping with bling from tip to toe. Its SC project end-can, full Maxton suspension and Bonamici this that and the other were just a few of the trick bits visible to the naked eye. Some of the coolest bits, though, were the invisible ones, like the MWR airbox conversion, the Hilltop ECU flash and the extra lightweight lithium ion battery.
When I chucked a leg over the 800 I genuinely couldn’t believe how light the bike felt. It felt more like having a pushbike between my legs than a grown-up sized motorbike. Ian told me that he hasn’t had it on the scales but reckoned that with the weight saving he has done it ought to be around the 150kg mark, as opposed to 172kg as standard.