Riding It

• There is a big clank when you shift the gears. I'm told this is normal - this bike only has 3500 miles on it, so it can't be worn out for gosh sakes. I guess with a little practice you can learn to shift it so the clank is minimal.
• The brakes suck, at least in comparision to my V-Star. The V-Star has dual discs on the front and single disc on the rear, so we'd expect them to be better, but these brakes really suck. That's all I can say.
• The bike is of course lighter than the V-Star and it handles nicely. Its fun to ride. It feels fast in the corners.
• When I'm slowing down for a turn, I want to downshift as I'm going into the turn. If I then let out the clutch as I start the turn, the back wheels skids and wants to break loose. This is partly my bad riding practice - I tend to do the same thing on the V-Star, but something about this bike makes it worse. I guess I feel like I need to get into that lower gear because it doesn't have the low end torque that the Star has. So as I get slow for th turn, I want to downshift. Certainly I can learn to not do it, but its interesting that bike makes me want to do it, more than the Star does.
• I have a hard time getting my big steel toed boots under the shift lever. I wind up using the edge of my sole to shift up.