I used the bike for my daily commute today. Yes, as predicted, the bars are (stupidly?) wide in traffic when filtering. Not sure I CBA to cut them down etc, but may try a set of Renthal street bars on there? But I'll certainly give it a week or so before any decisions are made.
The seating position felt odd again. I think its because when you use the feet forward position the tapering footboard means you don't have your whole foot on it? Again, by the time I got to work, it bothered me less, so hopefully, it's just a period of adjustment needed?
It still feels strange to ride. The seat and bar height doesn't make it feel like the bike you walked up to and got on!?!? Really strange and hard to explain, but it doesn't ride like it looks, if that makes any sense!!

Speaking of getting on it, sadly, that is probably going to cut down the ownership time for me! You cant just forward kick your leg over the centre consul like you would on, say a Tmax. Its too high for that. So I'm getting on and off it like a normal bike, which is what I wanted to avoid. Frankly, the MT-07 was a lot easier to get on and off of.
On a more positive note, the main thing I noticed is just how different this is to the NC700X engine and gearbox! I looked it up and the 700 redlines at 6500 and this is at 8200, so a much more useable range there and it's a lot better bike for it. It makes D (drive) mode actually useful and I didn't need to use S mode at all, whereas on the 700 as soon as I hit traffic S mode was selected. Sure I missed the punch of the MT-07 a few times this morning, but I didn't miss the gear changes!
At this stage, these are more observations than criticisms, but the getting on and off may well be the undoing of it. I'm not going to be able to park it at the front of my house and safely get on and off of it due to the way the garden drops away from the bike. I dropped the NC700X twice cos of my spazzy knee and I don't want this coming down on my leg. So, I'll have to park it in the back garden, which from a theft POV is probably a good thing to keep it away from prying eyes, but it does mean getting off of it, unlocking and relocking the gates etc, which will probably get old quickly.
Bottom line. I really like this bike. It's much better than the NC I had before and even completely different in many ways. I enjoyed my ride in and will be taking the long way home tonight, via a private road which is more like a cart track!

At this stage, I certainly don't want to get rid of it and will (almost) happily make what adjustments are needed to make this bike work for me. Of course, the best thing is to get my knee sorted but the quote on that is £14k if I go privately!

So do I like this bike £14k enough...
