I've had this thing operational for about 3 weeks....lots of around town riding, bike nite (quite a hit) and FINALLY, yesterday, after a week long tour in Oregon(post coming) and 10 days of landscaping of my yard, I cleaned and prepped the bike, showered, put on my track leathers and went to the Sierras, ALONE. Late Sunday afternoon, most traffic back home, my favorite road actually had new paving! It was glorious! For simplicity, I'll just list my impressions....
The first thing I noticed was the blend of Busa power with the lightness of the overall package. Everything happens now.
What I mean in terms of overall characteristics is...
"flickable" is an overused word but this bike goes where you put it, especially with the leverage afforded with the superbike bars.
the radial front brake master cylinder squeezing Braking rotors on CZ wheels with a 465 pound package must be learned, coming down from over 100 mph hard feels like I could do a controlled brakie ANY dam time I wanted to.... with my HAYBUS Busa and my preexisting skills, I am very comfortable riding quite fast knowing I have a significant safety margin "built in" to the overall experience. With the Superbyke, it seems 2 or 3 levels up on what I'm used to.
I feel I have SO MUCH to learn before I feel competent as a high performance rider with this thing. That being said, I'm sure my corner speeds are much higher on this black missle than on the HAYBUS, I have NO CLUE what it's limits are and that is what freaks me out....I kinda knew this was going to be the case but had no idea what a wide margin!
Race Tech front end, stock rear shock....I have to mess with compression damping, I hate it now (I don't know what the lighter package will do in terms of "what must I do to the rear shock, if anything?")
Another thing to be learned is, in high speed track style cornering, body position is good yet unfamiliar for me (with the bars). It's odd to be "over, tight and low with knee down when arms are up with the bars! Sometimes I want to straightleg the corners like riding a dirt mile!
4 or 5 folks asked me for some first impressions so that's them.
I gotta throw in a little Harley story now....I'm way out in the mountains, come up to a T intersection with stop sign. I stop and here come 3 Harleys, going really fast (the direction I was turning to). I came up behind them and saw the last guy eyeing me in his rear view. They really were riding way faster than I cruise (about 85-95 mph) but I stayed with em. We came upon a just occurred traffic collision involving about 4 cars...6-7 people sitting on hill beside the road and FIVE CHP cars and TWO Sheriff cars there. We went by at 60 and no one even looked at us. WELL, knowing that every black and white within 100 square miles was at that location made me feel much better about my speed so when the Harley boys picked it up to 90, I followed suit. I noticed that whenever I looked like I might pass they went even faster. It just didn't feel friendly, maybe I''m wrong about that, anyways, we came upon a pretty steep hill that had two lanes in our direction (middle passing lane) with a sign that said "slower traffic keep right". All three bikes went into the "slow" lane but REALLY picked it up, about 110 mph (their open pipes sounded like a WW II dogfight). I thought, "OK, I get it, they are messing with me, going to the slow lane but full throttling so I 'couldn't' pass them!" SO, I downshifted to second, popped the clutch, and I think my front wheel came down when speedshifting into fourth going by the 2nd guy at about 140 mph. As I went by the lead guy the road went into a big gentle sweeper so I got my butt off, stuck out my knee and, with a gentle roll down of the throttle, disappeared over the horizon! I can't believe I call myself a responsible citizen. Anyways, it was so fun stepping on V twin bullying with Busa big end! Doyle (the seldom but sometimes hooligan)
The first thing I noticed was the blend of Busa power with the lightness of the overall package. Everything happens now.
What I mean in terms of overall characteristics is...
"flickable" is an overused word but this bike goes where you put it, especially with the leverage afforded with the superbike bars.
the radial front brake master cylinder squeezing Braking rotors on CZ wheels with a 465 pound package must be learned, coming down from over 100 mph hard feels like I could do a controlled brakie ANY dam time I wanted to.... with my HAYBUS Busa and my preexisting skills, I am very comfortable riding quite fast knowing I have a significant safety margin "built in" to the overall experience. With the Superbyke, it seems 2 or 3 levels up on what I'm used to.
I feel I have SO MUCH to learn before I feel competent as a high performance rider with this thing. That being said, I'm sure my corner speeds are much higher on this black missle than on the HAYBUS, I have NO CLUE what it's limits are and that is what freaks me out....I kinda knew this was going to be the case but had no idea what a wide margin!
Race Tech front end, stock rear shock....I have to mess with compression damping, I hate it now (I don't know what the lighter package will do in terms of "what must I do to the rear shock, if anything?")
Another thing to be learned is, in high speed track style cornering, body position is good yet unfamiliar for me (with the bars). It's odd to be "over, tight and low with knee down when arms are up with the bars! Sometimes I want to straightleg the corners like riding a dirt mile!
4 or 5 folks asked me for some first impressions so that's them.
I gotta throw in a little Harley story now....I'm way out in the mountains, come up to a T intersection with stop sign. I stop and here come 3 Harleys, going really fast (the direction I was turning to). I came up behind them and saw the last guy eyeing me in his rear view. They really were riding way faster than I cruise (about 85-95 mph) but I stayed with em. We came upon a just occurred traffic collision involving about 4 cars...6-7 people sitting on hill beside the road and FIVE CHP cars and TWO Sheriff cars there. We went by at 60 and no one even looked at us. WELL, knowing that every black and white within 100 square miles was at that location made me feel much better about my speed so when the Harley boys picked it up to 90, I followed suit. I noticed that whenever I looked like I might pass they went even faster. It just didn't feel friendly, maybe I''m wrong about that, anyways, we came upon a pretty steep hill that had two lanes in our direction (middle passing lane) with a sign that said "slower traffic keep right". All three bikes went into the "slow" lane but REALLY picked it up, about 110 mph (their open pipes sounded like a WW II dogfight). I thought, "OK, I get it, they are messing with me, going to the slow lane but full throttling so I 'couldn't' pass them!" SO, I downshifted to second, popped the clutch, and I think my front wheel came down when speedshifting into fourth going by the 2nd guy at about 140 mph. As I went by the lead guy the road went into a big gentle sweeper so I got my butt off, stuck out my knee and, with a gentle roll down of the throttle, disappeared over the horizon! I can't believe I call myself a responsible citizen. Anyways, it was so fun stepping on V twin bullying with Busa big end! Doyle (the seldom but sometimes hooligan)
