Never owned one before, or sat on or ridden one, said I never would but, here I am. Bought a 2020 1250 TE Rallye a few weeks ago, after 5 years and 35000 miles on a Multistrada 1200 Granturismo, as I've reached 'that age' and wanted to see what all the fuss was about, I see that many of them on the road so they must be half decent! Rode it a few hundred miles home, not knowing what any of the electronics did, or how to change them, was sort of impressed, was certainly smooth and comfortable but, not a very involving ride!
Got it home and learned how to change stuff, suspension preload was in low and road, map was in road, tyres were past their best with squared rear and front was very triangular in shape, brakes were pretty awful with way too much travel on the rear and front was wooden. I did a few more rides like this whilst I awaited new tyres and pads. I was trying to ride it like my old Multistrada which was a quite high revving beast, that didn't go well, locking the rear up into corners as I was down shifting at way too many revs, hitting the limiter loads too, hence, soon realised I need to ride this bike in a different manner!
New tyres on TA3's, new pads in EBC HH, bled the brakes, preload in auto and dynamic, opened up Dynamic Pro map too and, changed the way I ride.
No more limiter hits, can't see much point in going over 7750rpm to be honest, use one gear higher than my old bike in most cases, use the ample torque instead of high revs AND don't smash it down the box TOO early, it's an engine which doesn't like to be rushed too much.
Anyway, I'm more than happy now, it's very agile for a quite large bike, I rode with a well ridden V4 Pikes Peak on Sunday and he couldn't gap me on the fast technical roads in mid Wales, really is quite an impressive machine.
Got it home and learned how to change stuff, suspension preload was in low and road, map was in road, tyres were past their best with squared rear and front was very triangular in shape, brakes were pretty awful with way too much travel on the rear and front was wooden. I did a few more rides like this whilst I awaited new tyres and pads. I was trying to ride it like my old Multistrada which was a quite high revving beast, that didn't go well, locking the rear up into corners as I was down shifting at way too many revs, hitting the limiter loads too, hence, soon realised I need to ride this bike in a different manner!
New tyres on TA3's, new pads in EBC HH, bled the brakes, preload in auto and dynamic, opened up Dynamic Pro map too and, changed the way I ride.
No more limiter hits, can't see much point in going over 7750rpm to be honest, use one gear higher than my old bike in most cases, use the ample torque instead of high revs AND don't smash it down the box TOO early, it's an engine which doesn't like to be rushed too much.
Anyway, I'm more than happy now, it's very agile for a quite large bike, I rode with a well ridden V4 Pikes Peak on Sunday and he couldn't gap me on the fast technical roads in mid Wales, really is quite an impressive machine.
The GS isn’t as quick, it just seems to gather momentum rapidly
