this bike is my 2nd bike above 600cc my last bike was a kawasaki Z750 so my comparisons are based on this.
Well in the three days that i have had this bike I have fallen over with it twice and filled it with diesel once! not a scratch on her. This bike is one solid pice of kit!! the diesel incident was all I can describe as a learning curve (the AA had to come out to me) but compared to the time I filled my Z with diesel this was easy to resolve. We ended up unscrewing the two nuts at the front of the tank, once youve done this the whole tank is on an axle and you can just lift it up to vertical posistion a couple more nuts later and you have diesel pissing all over your local petrol station!!
Somthing else that took me by suprise was the bike will start if the side stand is down but you wont be able to go anywhere (i worked this out after an embarrassing call to Doug at motorcycles 4 less) I thought after two days that I had broken it!
After these few glitches i have been able to concentrate on just riding the bloody thing rather than standing or lying underneath it scratchin my head. Ill admit im still getting to grips with droppin my gears at exactly the right time as to have a nice smooth run. I think I end up changing gear far to early wich then causes the bike to do its vibrating thing but with a gear change back down you enter smoooooth heaven. I havnt opened her up yet as I am determined to keep it under 6000 rpm for 600miles.
When I was told to keep it below 6000rpm i felt abit gutted but holy shit this thing can do 100mph below 6000rpm. I look forward to mastering the gear changes cos when you do it right it feels lush! puts a smile on yer face.
I pretty much take the same jouerney to work everyday and this bikes handling round corners is superb compared to my old Z, the bars are so bloody wide aswell, not to mention the suspension it just makes my whole journey to work a real pleasnt ride!! Its foggy over here at the minute and you see the beams through the fog and i tell you what they are bloody brilliant, they kinda meet up at a point you feel like your in star wars.
The wow factor is particually noticeable when other riders pass you, Its no longer a quick dismissable nod its almost like thier face is magnatised to your bike!!
There is not a single negative thing that i could say about my new bike except one thing, the key is exactly the same as one of the forklift truck keys we use at work, but hey ill get over it.
I am still trying to find the idle screw Im sure it needs to be running at a very slightly higher rev, and without sounding stupid theres no petrol indicator apart from the one that tells you your about to run out or maybee Im wrong.
200 miles done on it so far so 1/4 of the way there to first service cant wait to open that deep booming engine up just a little bit more, ill keep you informed of my progress.