Bare - Are you not familiar with the Honda RVT?
Yeah, I'm familiar with it. Kinda the Superbike version of the Honda Super Hawk. A friend I rode with a lot had a Super Hawk. He raced at Willow Springs quite successfully, so was quite fast. I chased him through the canyons with my Yamaha ThunderAce and finally got to where I could keep up with him. As far as the bike went, it used about 50% more gas than the Yamaha did and was very short ranged. I have another friend a Super Hawk that I've ridden several times. It's a nice bike, but the range is still an issue with that. The RC51s were way out of my price range, so I never had much interest in them.
I had a Ducati for a couple of years just before that. I had a Suzuki VX800 that got T-boned by a Buick and the Suzuki was replaced immediately with a Honda Hawk, then after the crash settlement was complete, that took a year or so, got me the Ducati. Sold it in '96. My V-twin appetite was sated. The only one I really liked, but not in the top 5, was the Honda. Just no soul! You hafta understand that my interest in the Sportster was in 1966. No Hardley interest since. No more V-twins until the Guzzi. That one is, by far, the best V-Twin I've owned. A most underrated motorcycle. They pretty much fall in the Enfield category as being unknown!
Bare