I initially bought my bike as I’d already ridden one while I was learning how to ride. I’d heard that it was a simple bike to get on with and was ideal for what I thought would be fairly local use, ie traveling around and in London.
I soon discovered that most people didn’t really notice you, as it was not a tall bike, so the first modification that it had was the fitting of a Renegade end can. This made it very noticeable due to the noise that it made, in fact some people on bigger bikes would look round to see what was following them.
The original tyres (Dunlop D103’s) were not, in my opinion very good, being very hard compound and when crossing white lines they tended to twitch, this therefore didn‘t inspire confidence. I changed these at 6000 miles when they still had a lot of tread left. The new tyres (Bridgestone BT45’s) were a totally different matter, offering loads of grip and encouraging the full use of the rubber.
I have done a few long trips on the bike, one to Liverpool which was too far really but I did the return trip in a total of 7.5 hours which shows what the bikes capable of, another to Derby, the most recent was on Honda MAC day.
Other things that I have changed on the bike are the handlebars, the fitting of a Scottoiler and at Renegades it was re-jetted and put on the dyno. This has given it quite a bit of extra urge and the power delivery is much smoother (see the dynographs in the tech forum) with it reving freely all the way to the red line.
I must admit that since I passed my test (April 20th) I’ve gained a lot of confidence because of this bike, its very easy to ride and is also forgiving when you make unforced errors, the consequences of this are that I have gained valuable experience, which I am sure if I’d ridden a different bike might well have occasioned a couple of trips to the hospital (for example my accident on the TDM).
Servicing is very straight forward, with everything easy to get to (for a bike). Any adjustments or checks that you need to make, for example the chain, the water expansion tank and oil filler cap are easy to do. The headlight is also easy, there being just 3 screws on the outside of the headlight housing to remove. The rear light though is a bit more difficult as really you need to remove the seat to be able to get at it.
Other things that are not very good are the pegs, they are too close to the ground and if you want to lean the bike over at more than 45 deg they will ground. The front forks are a little on the soft side, but that I’m told is easy to rectify.
Around town in heavy traffic it’s almost as nimble as a scooter, the steering is sharp and accurate plus its perfectly capable of squeezing through narrow gaps that other bikes can’t use.
Performance leaves a bit to be desired when you start off from lights but as long as you keep the revs fairly high (6000 upwards) and make use of the gears, its respectable.
Fuel consumption is very good in normal use, with a range, without using reserve, of 220 to 230 miles this is with a tank capacity of 18 litres (2.5 ltr reserve). However since I’ve had it re-jetted and using the performance improvements, I have got as little as 185 miles before reserve.
My impression of the bike is that its very good for the beginner as well as a good commuting bike that can be used almost like a sports tourer (if you are of average size). Its quite fast, Honda’s figures are for a max speed of about 125mph, I feel this is a little optimistic, but if its tuned its perfectly feasible.
All in all the bike is a very good all rounder happy to potter about at 30 in 4th or 5th gear, yet happy to be ridden quite hard, maximum speed is reached in 5th gear with 6th as an overdrive.
I am now thinking of doing further alterations to it, in preparation for track days next year.
Unfortunately I'm unable to put the original photo's up, but here are a few from June '04 after it had been resprayed, the bike has changed quite a bit from standard.
