FJRAT

20040804 I found a dealer that left this one in the crate when their PDPer couldn't get financed. I take delivery in 5 days.

20040809 Pick up day. The dealer was out polishing the bike when I arrived.

Dealer said it would have 1 mile from factory and up to 4 from dealer test ride. Not so! There were zero miles from the factory, and I got to do the test ride.

This bike goes off with a bang. It literally feels like pulling a trigger when you accelerate off a stop. It's a fantastically powerful bike. It's nice and quiet, too.

I've got greasy new tires and a tender engine, so I haven't explored any limits at all, yet. I will say the bike is very agile compared to anything else I've ridden. It's completely neutral in corners and feels very well planted.

The reviewers were right about the heat gun blast coming off the left side right at your leg. There are mods to reposition the fan to fix this. The riding position is nice, but I may put the 1 inch risers in, anyway.

Break-in

20040821 With about 750 miles on the clock, and a nice evening taking shape, I decided to take the back roads out of Baltimore and head out toward Frederick. People who don't live in Frederick like to call it Fredneck. I think that's probably funny unless you live there.

20040822 Beautiful cool day. I took a morning ride up to Cadoris State Park in Pennsylvania. I was hoping to rent a sailboat, but all they had were canoes and paddleboats.

20040822 Break-in is DONE.

At the 1000 mile mark

Likes:

• Great power
• Great handling - the bike is extremely agile
• Comfortable riding position and seat
• Great suspension
• Nice wind protection - even at the lowest setting, the windscreen works great. Also, unlike the ST1300, I don't get pushed around in the dirty air behind semis with the windscreen all the way up.
• Nice light feel at speed in the twisties.
• Great brakes - except for some of the ABS quirks
• Nice Range - the bike should be good for about 250 miles on a tank.
• The bike seems telepathic. It takes so little input on the throttle to change this bike's speed that it seems to be doing what you want before you even realized you wanted it. Does that make sense? As soon as you pick a place in traffic that you want the bike to be, there you are.

Dislikes:

• Throttle response - the on/off transitions are sometimes startling. The low-speed control is also not up to par with the ST1300. At parking lot speeds, the bike sputters a bit, as if it were running rich.
• HEAT!
• The ABS system seems to kick in early on the front wheel - either that or I'm at impending lockup with every stop. Also, and this is mentioned in the manual, the ABS kicks in under hard braking on bumpy surfaces. This adds some distance to stops in Pennsylvania, where the roads can be quite bumpy
• BUZZ- This bike is much, much buzzier than my other in-line 4, the Honda CB700SC. Between 4k and 5k it's too much. I'm going to try bar-end weights and gel to see if that helps.