The ride home from the dealership was good. The automatic transmission didn’t take too much getting used to and most things were where they should be and did what they should. Brakes braked and mirrors mirrored, the suspension smoothed out the bumps and the seat was comfortable. I found the riding position suited me well, no strange aches and pains and I could get my feet flat on the floor with no trouble.

I kept it in Drive (D) mode for the first ride of about 50 miles and got an indicated 95mpg! Really can’t complain at that, especially as I just drove at the speed limit on most of the roads I was on, so I wasn’t going purposely slow.

Wear and tear

The bike has done about 20,000 miles from new, but doesn’t look too bad for that mileage. There are some slight scrape marks on the right hand lower side engine cases, indicative of a slow speed tumble, plus some on the mirror stem on the left side, which are strange and I can’t explain, but nothing serious – maybe a slide against a garage wall? There are a couple of very small early stage pittings on the fork legs, but nothing to cause undue concern as they are barely visible. I’ve used silicon oil on these fork tubes to add a little bit of corrosion resistance. The rear shock is showing signs of corrosion on its lower parts, together with light corrosion on the rear suspension linkages and paint peeling on the spring, but again nothing of concern. A bit of corrosion on the very lower parts of the frame and on the front brake lever, but I think that’ll be easily fixed. Another strangeness is a slightly bent footbrake pedal, maybe part of the same low speed tumble on that side. The rest is almost as new, shiny and no other obvious damage. Overall, very good.

Bike feel

Well, the first few rides have gone well, the main thing that causes me anxiety is low speed manoeuvring – doing tight turns in the road or pulling out of a road junction. Normally I would be feathering the clutch to control the speed, but that is now automatic and I have to rely on the computer getting it right, which, to be fair, on the whole it does – it’s just that I don’t yet trust it 100%. But I think the more I ride it the more I’ll get used to it. It is said that dragging the rear brake stabilises things nicely in slow manoeuvres, but I haven’t tried that yet. But, hey, I’m only about 150 miles into riding it so far!

The brakes feel fine and work very well and seem powerful enough, so no complaints there. The parking brake (yes, it has one – on the left handlebar) was supplied too lose, so the first job I did on it was to adjust that, and now it’s just fine. The parking brake is needed as when the engine stops it always goes into neutral, so there’s no engine compression to stop the bike rolling down a hill when parked, for example.

The suspension is best described as adequate. Not as plush as it could be, but then a) it’s done over 20,000 miles, and b) it is built to a budget price, so perhaps to be expected. Overall, the suspension is not bad, and the handling on bends and on braking is great, so I won’t be touching it just yet.

The seat seems good and is not causing me any bum ache so far, but the most I’ve ridden it is about 1.5 hours in one go, so I’ll give the final verdict on the seat a bit later. The passenger seat isn’t getting used, so can’t comment on that yet, but it doesn’t look overly luxurious, shall we say…

The riding position is about spot on for road riding with a slight lean forward, but no wrist ache. I’ve had a little shoulder ache, but I put that down to not having ridden a road bike for so long, and it seems to be easing off. I’ll let you know if it lingers. The mirrors are very good, no vibration and the view is good. The screen is higher than standard and works well, keeping the wind blast off my chest, but it still has some helmet buffering. However, I don’t think I can expect much more on a sub-Goldwing motorbike really! I’ve been spoiled.

The power delivery is great with good low down grunt, reminiscent of the Harley that I had, with the sound to go with it. The 270º crank and ‘special’ ignition timing (different for each cylinder apparently) probably has a lot to do with that, plus the long stroke motor and ‘tuned’ silencer. Pulling away in D-mode is a pure aural delight! In sport mode 1 (the only one I’ve tried so far) it takes off very well, but I’m still yet to give it its head, so early days yet, but it appears more than adequate so far.

In traffic it’s quite nimble and feels surprisingly narrow, so it filters through ok. Low speed feet up stability is amazing – it just doesn’t want to fall over! The engine picks up quickly and gear changes are generally not noticeable. In fact, the low revving nature of the engine and the ‘gentle’ exhaust sound do hide the speed that you’re really doing, so it’s easy to get caught out in town, doing 40 when it should be 30, and the same out of town. The speed is accurate at 30, but over reads by about 10% above that.

The switch gear mostly works ok, but the horn seems in the wrong place, above the indicator switch, meaning a necessarily quick stab at the horn usually misses. I think this is because the front and rear lower switches on the left hand switch cluster are for manual gear changing, no room for the horn switch low down. The indicator switch seems sticky at times, and I’ll have to investigate and hopefully fix this. Switch gear on the right hand side is fine.

The dashboard is good, having readings for most things including which gear is in use and the driving mode selected. What it lacks is air and engine temperature; the latter I think is really essential for normal riding just to know that the engine is ok. Average mpg is shown, which has the effect of modifying my riding, and the rev meter changes colour to show how fuel efficiently I’m riding, but as I’m colour-blind that’s wasted on me!

The lights seem ok, but I’ve not ridden in the dark to check out the headlight yet, but other road users seem to spot the ‘always on’ headlight, so I guess it’s basically ok.

OK, so it seems good, but what changes do I want to make to it? Click here to find out…