Background….I’ll be 70 years old later this year. Started riding over 50 years ago. I did some amateur road racing for a few years 40 years ago. I’ve always been into sport bikes and still love speed. I am retired and ride +/- 35,000 miles a year (everything in U.S. measure).
My current bikes are in my sig below. I am on record as saying I’d never own an adventure bike. But the manufacturers have largely left the sport touring market except BMW and to a degree Yamaha. I’m on my second FJR. I’ve owned almost all the ST bikes the last 16 years, including two BMW 1600s two FJRs, ST1300, Concours 14…. Other notable bikes of late, a 1199 Panigale, 1290 SuperDuke GT, two Ninja 1000s, BMW s1000r, and two Goldwings only for two up riding. Those are just a few.
I started talking to a dealer several weeks ago. I was interested in the new 1200 (remember I’m a speed freak) but decided to ride a 900 in the interest of saving money (remember I’m retired). I was not able to ride it except in a very large parking lot as it was not a demo. I was very impressed, but decided it would not likely suit the long trips I take with a friend every year. Last year we did a two week, 5,500 mile trip and a few weeks ago we did a ten day 3,800 mile trip. My friend and I have done long trips every year for the past sixteen years.
The dealer said he had a Rally Pro about to arrive and be put into demo service. I’m interested in a GT Explorer, but I knew the Rally would tell me what I needed to know. So after he encouraged me to ride it as far as I wanted, I did what I’d guess was about 80 miles. I think I was gone about an hour and a half without getting off the bike. A lot of it was 65-80 mph freeway type riding with about ten traffic signals with a lot of traffic backed up at red lights.
highlights….
Easy to ride - throttle response, clutch, brakes etc all worked very smoothly.
Ergonomics- excellent. I’m not used to all the leg room. I‘d like a little narrower handle bars and may do so, but it’s something that I have no doubt I can live with as is. The seat felt quite comfortable for a factory seat. I normally have to replace seats, but this one has a chance of being okay.
Engine - I was not interested in it’s power because I know it has enough for what I’ll use it for (and I have two faster bikes) so I saw no reason to beat up a brand new bike - I was the first one to ride it. But I was interested in responsiveness, vibration and general feel.
As others have mentioned, it has what I call an agricultural feel to it. It reminded me a lot of my SuperDuke but a little smother below 4,000 than the SuperDuke. Low end torque was not very impressive, but okay. Above 4,000 it seemed pretty good.
Vibration has gotten some attention here so I was very concerned given the long trips I will do on the bike. I consciously decided to not use cruise control and see if the vibes numbed my hands. I felt vibration mainly through the pegs above 70 mph. I know I had to be getting some higher frequency vibes in the grips, but it was not really very noticeable. I do wear full gear all the time including gloves.
About 20-30 minutes out I started to feel the tingling/numbness in my hands. This is not unusual for me on four cylinder bikes as well. I found a spot to turn around and head back. I stopped on the roadside for just a couple of minutes. I also set the cruise control for maybe a mile or two at most, then had about 30 minutes more to go. Oddly my hands never got that bad again, and even the foot pegs did not seem to vibrate as much at same speeds as I felt them at earlier. The mirrors vibrate a bit, but not bad enough to be a problem. The effect is as if they were just slightly out of focus.
I reset the gas mileage when I got on the freeway. The first half of the ride was with a pretty good tail wind, and at freeways speeds I was getting up around 50 U.S. MPG. With some stop and go I averaged 48 on the first half. I turned around and was going into the wind and also had some stop and go and I got 43 on that stretch.
I was pleased with the controls except it’s easy to push the toggle button instead of the turn signal. One more thing to get use to. The TFT gauges are fabulous.
bottom line: I may own one soon….very soon. Stay tuned!
My current bikes are in my sig below. I am on record as saying I’d never own an adventure bike. But the manufacturers have largely left the sport touring market except BMW and to a degree Yamaha. I’m on my second FJR. I’ve owned almost all the ST bikes the last 16 years, including two BMW 1600s two FJRs, ST1300, Concours 14…. Other notable bikes of late, a 1199 Panigale, 1290 SuperDuke GT, two Ninja 1000s, BMW s1000r, and two Goldwings only for two up riding. Those are just a few.
I started talking to a dealer several weeks ago. I was interested in the new 1200 (remember I’m a speed freak) but decided to ride a 900 in the interest of saving money (remember I’m retired). I was not able to ride it except in a very large parking lot as it was not a demo. I was very impressed, but decided it would not likely suit the long trips I take with a friend every year. Last year we did a two week, 5,500 mile trip and a few weeks ago we did a ten day 3,800 mile trip. My friend and I have done long trips every year for the past sixteen years.
The dealer said he had a Rally Pro about to arrive and be put into demo service. I’m interested in a GT Explorer, but I knew the Rally would tell me what I needed to know. So after he encouraged me to ride it as far as I wanted, I did what I’d guess was about 80 miles. I think I was gone about an hour and a half without getting off the bike. A lot of it was 65-80 mph freeway type riding with about ten traffic signals with a lot of traffic backed up at red lights.
highlights….
Easy to ride - throttle response, clutch, brakes etc all worked very smoothly.
Ergonomics- excellent. I’m not used to all the leg room. I‘d like a little narrower handle bars and may do so, but it’s something that I have no doubt I can live with as is. The seat felt quite comfortable for a factory seat. I normally have to replace seats, but this one has a chance of being okay.
Engine - I was not interested in it’s power because I know it has enough for what I’ll use it for (and I have two faster bikes) so I saw no reason to beat up a brand new bike - I was the first one to ride it. But I was interested in responsiveness, vibration and general feel.
As others have mentioned, it has what I call an agricultural feel to it. It reminded me a lot of my SuperDuke but a little smother below 4,000 than the SuperDuke. Low end torque was not very impressive, but okay. Above 4,000 it seemed pretty good.
Vibration has gotten some attention here so I was very concerned given the long trips I will do on the bike. I consciously decided to not use cruise control and see if the vibes numbed my hands. I felt vibration mainly through the pegs above 70 mph. I know I had to be getting some higher frequency vibes in the grips, but it was not really very noticeable. I do wear full gear all the time including gloves.
About 20-30 minutes out I started to feel the tingling/numbness in my hands. This is not unusual for me on four cylinder bikes as well. I found a spot to turn around and head back. I stopped on the roadside for just a couple of minutes. I also set the cruise control for maybe a mile or two at most, then had about 30 minutes more to go. Oddly my hands never got that bad again, and even the foot pegs did not seem to vibrate as much at same speeds as I felt them at earlier. The mirrors vibrate a bit, but not bad enough to be a problem. The effect is as if they were just slightly out of focus.
I reset the gas mileage when I got on the freeway. The first half of the ride was with a pretty good tail wind, and at freeways speeds I was getting up around 50 U.S. MPG. With some stop and go I averaged 48 on the first half. I turned around and was going into the wind and also had some stop and go and I got 43 on that stretch.
I was pleased with the controls except it’s easy to push the toggle button instead of the turn signal. One more thing to get use to. The TFT gauges are fabulous.
bottom line: I may own one soon….very soon. Stay tuned!
