Craig-
This brings up a point that, as a beginner to riding, I am curious about - it may be beyond the scope of this thread, but here goes...
In the context of this discussion, what exactly is bad handling? Can it be adequately explained in a forum post, or does it have to be experienced to be understood?
As some of you know, I'm new to riding this year, and I have almost nothing to compare the handling of my bike to, other than a KLR 250 dual sport bike (ridden during my 2-day Motorcycle Safety Foundation licensing course), and a '75 BMW R60/6 (my first bike, bought last spring after the course).
The KLR was shite. It
really wasn't set up to fit me well, and was poorly maintained, i.e. it ran terribly throughout. I literally could not brake with my right foot and shift with my left foot from the same seat position. They couldn't get the idle speed to settle where it should have been, so it was either sitting and stalling, or sitting and racing - all weekend long they f*cked with the idle speed while I was trying to learn to ride on the damn thing. And, we never left second gear or the parking lot, so who's to say about the ride?
The BMW (low miles, purchased long-distance, unridden by me, but at a too-good-to-pass-up good price, so I'm told) was tall and heavy, and it had carburetor and carbon build up problems that made it feel like riding a stick of stove wood around. I fixed up the basic power problems of that bike, but sold it when, a) I found a willing buyer who had to have a mid-70's BMW and was ready to pay rather more than I did to prove it; and b) Royal Enfield had a summer sale
. All but a couple of hundred miles of my riding experience has been on the B5.
"They" say the speedmaster tires are no good, but I haven't had any trouble. Will I know that I need different tires when I fall down? I know that there is almost no motorbike my riding style would challenge; I don't ride terribly fast (can't with our bikes, I guess, can we?), and I'm conservative in my cornering, and stopping, when I can be. But as for ride - tires, steering, front and rear shocks - I've got nothing to go on.
Any thoughts?