One of the riders this weekend offered his BMW S 1000 RR to ride after lunch. Compared to my bike, this motorcycle is a finely tuned corner carving machine. In contrast my bike is the Japanese tractor that lumbers along the roadway. I’ve only ridden such a bike a few times before. The most recent was a Honda CBR 600 RR. I remember riding that bike along Highway 96 and was miserable about 5 miles down the road.
No one else was taking him up on his offer so I jumped. I mean, how bad could it be? A number of of friends of mine have the same bike and love it. the instrumentation on the bike is very well laid out. I really liked the fact that the motorcycle had a gear position indicator clearly marked on the dashboard. The speedometer is all digital which I personally dislike. For me, there’s something about a needle rising that makes me smile.
On the road this bike was super smooth. I felt almost no vibration from the motor and the powertrain felt smooth as glass. On my bike the riding position is much more upright where is this bike is a fully aggressive sport bike. One of the first things I noticed out of the gate was that the bike was hard to turn. I was putting so much weight on the handlebars that pushing on the right side was difficult because there is so much weight on the left. Once I became conscious of that the bike became much easier to ride. Everything on the motorcycle felt supertight. Your tact and down close to the bike the steering and shifting are very crisp. It felt like whatever gear I was in an engine speed the motor smoothly added more power. For me the ergonomics of the bike felt much more agreeable than the 600 RR.
The bike was fun, but I don’t quite think it’s for me. I didn’t find that same helmet in the wind joy of motorcycling I felt on the Triumph Speed Triple. I think my next bike will be sportier than the V-Strom but my hunch is the Speed Triple is as aggressive as I’d like to get for a bike.
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