The New Toy!

[Duken4evr]

Ah, what a difference an exhaust and some tail tidyness make!

Riding it is a blast. All the fun of a sportbike without the compressed seating position. It's actually taking me sometime to figure out how to ride the bike aggressively though. Just a matter of getting use to things.

I know what you mean. The FZ was slow steering as delivered as it rode low in the tail. A bit of sag setting and sliding the forks up a bit in the tubes made a night/day difference. The wide bars give you leverage. I found using the bar to emphasize counter steering will really snap roll the FZ over where I used to steer my TLS more with my legs, as sawing away too much at the bars made it a bit twitchy. I bet the Kawi is similar. In exchange, my FZ has front end stability and trustworthiness that my TLS, even with benefit of springs and valving, could only dream of. It rails on the 115 mph sweeper The bike is stupid easy to ride fast on a nice canyon road. Leaned over in a long left hander and don't want to shift? Don't. Just rev it more. One time in that situation riding hard and I thought I might be approaching the limiter. Nope, 2,500 rpm to go

I wonder if she will really wake up with some PCIII love and secondary butterfly elimination. This is a common mod on bikes with computer controlled secondary butterflies. My bike went from numb to FCR dirt bike carb'd sharp when I ditched the secondaries, installed a map on my PCIII for it and put the control over how much air goes into the engine solely in my right hand where it belongs. Seems to me that the Japanese makers soften these types of bikes a bit. Likely there is more info on that issue and how to get around it on a forum dedicated to these bikes.

As BP will attest, my FZ runs like a raped ape. I wish he could have ridden it in stock form. It was almost turdlike. Now it scares the crap out of me on demand. I expect your new Kawi will do the same!

Regarding sound, a TL sounds great everywhere, just putting around or on the gas. A liter class I4 sounds rather meek just cruising around, but positively demonic as it approaches the rev limiter under heavy throttle. I find my FZ to be very "musical" above 10,000 rpm and it is so unstrained and smooth running there. The harder you ride it, the better it feels and sounds. Different and less accessible music, but a big I4 sure sings a bad ass song in the right time and place.

In the end, there is nothing like 145ish hp in a sit up all day comfy package to get the blood flowing. My fully set up TLS was a tough act to follow and it was not love at first ride on my stock FZ. All it took was some set up. Now I love my "super duper standard" You are gonna love yours too, more and more as you make it yours and time goes on I think

[BurnCycle]

A PCIII and a little work to the airbox seems to go a long way from what I've been reading on the forums. The airbox mod reminds me a lot of the Joe V. mod for the TLR. Until I can fund a PCIII I can't do much right now though.

The first 1100 miles went by fairly quickly.

[Ryan NJ]

Aaarrrggghhhhh! Where's the SV? Summit is all tore up so you need to come to NJMP for the ride of your life what an awesome set of tracks.

[NineDV]

Nice set of cans and a clean tail... what guy couldnt look?