They arrived on Saturday, I had to wait til today to ride one, they have to have more than 25 miles on them before the Riders Edge bikes can be rode.
FYI I am riding this before all the drop protection is on it, and before the rev limiter on first through third is flashed into it.
I am riding it at 4750 ASL, so this will derate the horsepower to 0.94. So 33.5 times 0.94 to reach approx. 31.5 HP.
I was riding in 72 F weather so no derate for temp.
I am 5'6" and 169 Pounds.
These are my opinions, they are always correct. If you have a different opinion then yours is correct for you, mine are always correct for me.
The bike is small. Sits on a 1982 GS1100 Kick Stand as far as I can tell. And the kick stand is switched so it must be up to go into gear.
My dealer turns me loose on bikes I want to ride because he knows my interest is the design function of the bike, not tearing up the equipment.
I tossed my Cor Tech Magnetic on the tank and started the ride.
For me the riding in the beginning is a lot of parking lot work just to see what the engineers did and did not do.
First I check the rear wheel to front wheel tracking in the slow tight turn radius. There is about a 12 percent crabbing of the rear tire in the tight turn lean. This bike goes over further than any Harley I have ridden. (Never been on a street Rod but I hear they go over well too, my VRSCA does not I am always dragging radiator shrouds)
Then the lock to lock turn. This is one of the few mistakes I found in the engineering. The steering turn locks allow for the bike to go over the trail and contact patch creating a situation where a low speed a tight turn will want to through the bike to the ground on the forward axle axis. This can be fixed it desired by adding in 5/8 of an inch to each turn stop.
Turn at speed, at 12 miles per hour the bike can do a 34 foot turn leaned over pretty far. Switching direction of the 12 MPH turn requires 14 feet for a comfortable figure 8 with no tear drop shape to it. (this indicates a gear dragging turn should be about 28 feet, but I am a pussyy so I did not push it to chicken strips of the tires)
Low speed control is very nice, all slow speed maneuvers I performed are with the clutch plates closed up. I do not play in friction zones except start and stop. The rest of my riding is clutch open clutch closed. The loops and figure eights are easily performed with a completely closed clutch. The tightest turns possible do require one to sit more on the higher elevated part of the seat (the side edge of the seat pointed towards the sky in the turn) for best response, failure to reposition does cause a slightly large circle. There is a torque fight bucking at 0.5 MPH when really letting it lug. No one rides in this range, but I wanted to know.
Panic stops are excellent from 45 MPH to O. Not much more than 25 feet on average. When I was doing them I locked the back up twice, this did add 3 feet to the stopping distance. I do lean up on the handle bars when performing a panic stop distance test. So sometimes I get a lot of weight off the rear wheel which is why I think it locked a couple times.
Twisty performance is very good. Lean angle is real good. Please don't respond that your Ducati can take it, it makes you look very stupid. The point is the bike drives very nice in S turns and sweepers, two closing radius turns were tested, excellent machine for these turns. While many push forward on the inner bar, I am a push the inner while curling the wrist up on the outer bar lifting it. The bike will drop right into the new radius with no problem. The bike did allow me to scrape a knee in one of the tighter turns. Though this is due to my flopping the inside knee towards the curbing and riding the outside knee up to the tank line on purpose.
Acceleration is fantastic to 55 MPH. No problem playing in traffic, no problem catching up or passing.
Highway speed.... Acceleration from 55 MPH to 70 MPH is very acceptable, however, 70 to the 87 MPH limit it had with me on it is very slow. 75 MPH is hit fairly easily, but from there above is a crap shoot. Grade and wind play with the 31 HP available and it shows. That said we are talking about a 31 HP machine. So it is what it is, two hour trip, probably OK, 4 I don't think so at highway speeds. I do not think the 750 will be a problem in this area.
Shocks and forks, I took some of the biggest gulley washer dips I know of, never bottomed out and never tried to launch me.
I think they have got something here, I can see these buzzing around town and what not. I can see these being used as a learner bike easy. I can see the 750 as a daily driver and weekender bike pretty easy too.
My ride was 24 miles. I like the thing, but then I bought one so my opinion started the ride as positive.
I will answer questions if I can///
