Well, if nobody objects, I'll continue...
Re. traffic lights: I know about the loops. In my riding area, most of the lights work without any trouble or special aim on my part. The rest don't seem to work no matter where I put the bike, and I've tried all sorts of positioning. JVS, I can't remember where you live, but where I am in midcoast Maine, we're not talking about a ton of traffic all the time (except on some of the main roads in summer - tourist traffic! I know how to avoid it
). Almost all of the lights that give me trouble are lights that were added to intersections in the past 10 or so years - before the lights, we managed fine without them. So the light running I'm talking about is at the same intersections where not too long ago there were stop signs, and during slack hours, I treat them as such. The light stays green for the main road, and I sit and wait for another car to come behind me or across from me to change the light in my favor - at my morning commute time, this could easily be 5 minutes or longer. Why the don't set the lights to flash (yellow for the main road, red for the side roads) is beyond me, but that's another rant...
Ace -
the EFI surging you talk about has been mentioned before, but I don't believe my "problem" is engine related. The period of my surge pulses seems to be related to how fast the bike is rolling in 1st gear, and isn't affected by the engine rpm - it's roughly about 4 little "bumps" a second, for only as long as it takes me to fully release the clutch. I never feel it at any time other than starting from a stand-still in 1st gear.
I've done a bit of experimentation to try to figure it out - if I ease the clutch so it's slipping but also driving the bike, I can change the throttle position, and engine rpm, without changing the bike speed. In these instances, my surge remains constant regardless of the engine rpms.
If I'm very gently getting the bike moving, with light throttle, the surge is barely noticeable. If I go for an aggressive quicker start with more throttle, the surge is much more prevalent - the pulse rate doesn't change, but it's a stronger surge. It hasn't gotten any worse or better in the almost 3k miles and 10 months I've been riding it, so I'm calling it a quirk. Clutch cable adjustment is fine, bike shifts fine... I've had people tell me I'm destroying my clutch by letting it slip (umm... isn't that its job?), but so far no one has told me that I shouldn't ride it in its current state...