I had my local dealers demo out for a whole morning. I had been a bit concerned about the seat height, but the bike is very narrow so getting my feet down was no problem. You don't realise how small the bike is until you sit on it. It churns over a good few times on the starter before it fires up. It sounds surprisingly loud with the standard exhaust, a deeper note than other V fours I have heard. I took the long way out of town to get a good idea of how it behaved in traffic stop and go conditions. No problem, though finding neutral at a standstill could be tricky. Once out on the open road I started to wind it up a bit. I had to leave the engine map set on the middle "sport" setting as I did not know then how to change it. Pity, as it would have been nice to try the track setting. In sport mode the ignition timing is slightly retarded in the first three gears. It still felt plenty quick though. There is a slight harshness between three and four thousand RPM as you accelerate, but it is not really unpleasant. Call it character. The handling is superb. You are more over the front than on the RSV1000R with a shorter reach to the bars. I made a point of caning it up a hill which has a badly rippled surface . The Suzuki GSXR1000 I used to have got seriously out of shape here and my RSV1000R with no steering damper went into a full blown tankslapper. The RSV4 twitched a couple of times then just carried on. I had read the reports saying it did not have the low end grunt expected from a V4, but I have no complaints. Top gear overtakes at 50/60 MPH are no problem. Up the top end of the rev range it really howls and pulls like crazy. It gets through a tank of fuel pretty quick if you are going for it though. The brakes don't have the initial fierceness of those on the RSV1000R, so they give better feel. More than enough stopping power when you squeeze a little harder. There a lots of quality touches as you look around the bike, but one thing that I was a bit concerned about was that the area of exhaust pipe visible in front of the rear wheel had what looked like rust blotches on it. Surely this is stainless steel, so that would reqire further investigation.
All in all, I really enjoyed my time on the bike. I found it more comfortable than the 1000R and easy to ride. Fifteen grand is a lot of dosh, so I would probably go for the standard version when it comes out. I would need a ride on the new R1 before making a final decision though.
All in all, I really enjoyed my time on the bike. I found it more comfortable than the 1000R and easy to ride. Fifteen grand is a lot of dosh, so I would probably go for the standard version when it comes out. I would need a ride on the new R1 before making a final decision though.
uke
