What’s it like on the road?

Initially a bit weird, to be honest. The offbeat engine note sounds as if someone’s left a plug lead loose, for starters. Boot it into gear, pull away and blimey - it just goes. First gear is pretty tall, but even so you don’t need to slip the clutch or give it a fistful of revs to get it off the line cleanly. It’s the same further up the rev range: open the throttle and it does what you tell it in a way that fools you into believing it has world-beating midrange. In fact it hasn’t. From 5000rpm upwards the 2009 model was actually the weakest of the big four litre-class superbikes, with Honda’s Fireblade giving well over 10bhp more all the way up to the top end of the…

You're reading a preview of

RiDE United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 2017

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.