Today I did a 300km round-trip of the local twisties to properly familiarise myself with the R1. Man, am I sore!
The R1 handles and provides feedback like a dream. Man, the VTR was "numb" in comparison. Talk about confidence inspiring. Every little interaction with a bump, stone, twig, whatever, is broadcast back through the chassis to let the rider know exactly what's going on. Wow, I never knew that bikes could feel this good. Absolutely visceral road-rider interaction.
Any line through a corner I wanted to take, the bike did it. It did exactly what I told it to. A patch of stringy bark mid-corner, with a few bits of gravel, those damn white reflectors in the middle, and a nasty ripple? Yep, happy to make 4 mid-corner line adjustments to thread through it all and keep tyre happily in contact with bitumen, all while cranked over hard. Enter a corner a little too hot? (Something that's somewhat easy to do with the R1's monster engine). No problem, just feather the front brake and the front wheel suspension feedback is there telling you exactly what's going on, and all of a sudden I'm feeling like I'm a pro-racer (yeah, in my dreams!), braking deep into corners with nary a concern about the front wheel's traction because it's telling me exactly how hard I'm pushing it, which to be honest, wasn't really that hard but the difference is now I can tell that I'm not pushing it hard, unlike the VTR where in comparison the VTR's feedback is something akin to attempting to assemble a technical lego kit with boxing gloves on. Heck, I literally used to sleep at night and a recurring nightmare about riding the VTR, and losing the front-end for no adequately explained reason.
What a monster engine! Almost a total waste really, but then somehow, it's not a waste. Despite the 11750rpm redline, I kept the engine toodling along in the 3000-6000rpm range throughout most of the ride, especially in the tighter stuff (e.g. the famous Reefton Spur which is 24km of 50-80kph non-stop gruelling swervery) purely because the engine makes stupid power otherwise and the last thing you want is to exit one 60kph semi-hairpin, and accelerate hard over the next 80m to hit 140kph as you enter the next 75kph semi-hairpin, braking like an idiot. The bike purely has too much top-end power to be used sensibly on the road, but despite that, the engine is absolutely fantastic for lazy 2nd/3rd gear up-down transitions through the swervery just using the ample luscious low-end grunt to smoothly drive through the corners and on to the next, rather than dancing on the gear-lever trying to keep a small engine on song. Sure, the engine has all this top-end power that's next to useless on the road, but that doesn't matter, because it has all this ample low-end drive which perfectly suits the tight stuff just as well.
Yep, the R1 is almost as light and flickable as a 250, as visceral as a surgeon with a scalpel, and an engine which is every bit as "lazy" and grunty as a big V-twin, but with the monster top-end should you ever feel the need to show off. I tell ya, I'm in love with motorcycling all over again, but even moreso than before. I never in my dreams thought that bikes could be this good.
I am sore. I can barely walk from hanging off the bike for 2.5hrs straight flicking from side-to-side transitioning my bulk with muscles that have long since forgotten that they had a purpose in life.
But I am happy!
