I have to say that it's quite a compact little bike and has high pegs so after about an hour and a half I welcomed a fuel stop... That's about it for negatives.
The thing handles, it's too much fun to ride it hard and at speeds which made me wish that I hadn't checked the speedo
It didn't have Dynamic Pro mode so normal Dynamic or Road were used, even in Road the suspension was quite firm over our lovely moonscape style roads and conversely even in Dynamic the throttle wasn't snatchy and low rev grunt was impressive even as low as 30 in 6th.The sound was great with the howling 4 cylinder and standard Akrapovic end can letting out a crack or some pops every time the throttle was closed or the down blipper used, the QS and blipper are the best that I have ever used, almost always seamless unless I balked the change, the peg was too high for my preference. Easily fixed. It wasn't even horrible on fuel, I put a tenner in and was having fun for about 70 miles without burning it all.
To sum it up, for me it's an awesome little toy bike, not much weather protection or long range comfort but great handling and grin factor without much vibration, which was a pleasant surprise. On the way home I set everything to SPORT on the SDGT and hit the same roads, the speeds were a little lower (5-10mph) but the bike was a bigger hoot and was leaving the ground over crests, wheelieing and not using much more than half the revs.
It could never replace the SDGT but would make a great addition to my garage, now, where's that lottery ticket...
Being an advocate of this fine machine, and having it for over 4 years now with 33K on the clock, I can only say it makes me grin like a loon most rides, its agile, and as for soul, well mine has plenty, with a touch of jazz and funk thrown in.
