pain is over.
i picked my new silver 04 up tonight. this will be my steet bike. i rode it home on the freeway 33 miles in 58 degree weather around dusk. some comments.
i picked up the bike and it had .8 miles on it. 11.5K out the door. cash.
the blue dash is sick, especially at night. very easy to read and see tach and speed. the shift light is big -about the size of a nickle and is bright white. very cool. it came programmed at 7000rpm. on the freeway, my engine temp was 160 degrees. once in traffic, it got as high as about 216 degrees. the bike throws off a lot of heat to the rider, but my seat did not get hot. summertime will probably be a different story, but i had and RC51 which was like riding a toaster oven.
the bike is pretty loud, especially around 6000-8000. i barely went above 7000, but when i did, the bike sounded like a friggen monster, even at 100mph.
i hit a max of 102mph on the way home in 4th or 5th, but just for a moment. i couldn't believe how fast teh bike was at 100mph. nuts!!!
first gear is tall, but by no means too tall to use without a problem -i didn't find i needed to use much clutch to get the bike going at all (contrary to what a journalist said). in fact, i liked the tall 1st when i hit some traffic across the Bay Bridge entering San Francisco. you can easily ride in 1st up to 50-60mph no prob. kinda cool i thought, especially for the city, but maybe one day i'll want more low-end. to early to tell i guess. the low-end *felt* plentiful to me by the way, but i'm used to a GSXR 750 and 2001 R6 which you ride in the rev range if you want power. this bike seems no different. low-end torque to me is sorta unimportant since if you want power you just ride the torque curve rather than bog the bike. i raced GP, so maybe i'm used to high rpm riding though. street riders might want to change gearing.
by the way, bike feels / rides like my R6. it might even have felt smaller with MEAN bite when you twist the throttle. when downshifting, the stock exhaust makes a bitchen gurgle/ boil sound that actually sounds like a V-Twin. sick for a stock exhaust i thought. i hope my Graves slip-ons accentuate that gurgle sound. very wicked.
Gearbox was very smooth and shifts were very positive, althogh again, i wasn't riding hard at all. i had no problem finding neutral and my only complaint is that i can't see how i switch the shift pattern from street to race. this sucks actually. how the F can they make this bike and not have it easily switchable from street to race shift pattern? crappy.
front brakes make a serious hissing noise when applied. i dragged them a little hear and there to help them bed a bit. i got on the brakes a little harder at one point and they didn't feel strong or weak. i am used to more power on my race bike, but mabe once these break in, they'll feel more powerful.
on the freeway my lights were exceptionally bright and i could see the light pattern across all 4 lanes and up the embankments. the lights are very very bright. the brights are even brigher of course and they are super powerful. they look very cool and wiht the outside running lights, they are very bad ass from a pure looks perspective.
cheers. #774 :beer
