Hello all! So I myself like to know everyone else's opinions when they get an opportunity to try out a different bike. Yesterday my buddy picked up an 01' honda f4i and since his riding experience is limited and his riding gear is about 4 hours away in his hometown I decided to ride it back for him. I was glad to this because as I mentioned in another thread one of my buddies does a lot of touring on his F4I so I was curious. So hear are some of my thoughts on the differences between the bikes.
So first off the seating position. The bike was still very easy to sit up right. I am a little lanky so my arms could reach the bars without much problem but having them raised up would have helped. Now the good thing about them being lower is that when I opened up and tucked in it felt a lot better than with our bike. But at general cruising when I am not hiding behind the windscreen I did take a lot more buffeting to the chest but it really did not bother me as much as I thought it would. The only thing that did bother me from being lanky with my long legs is that my legs did seem to get a lot more tight with the way the pegs were positioned. I was having to stretch them out a lot more to keep them a little limber or least from cramping.
Handling and power for this bike was a little different. It was hard for me to gage exactly how our bike would match up 0-100 but I can tell you this bike was just as fast if not a bit faster than ours. It definitely had more higher end torque than hours but most of us know that our bike lacks this already. But overall very smooth, easy to control the power and it had the kick when you wanted it. Handling was a little different. It did not feel as top heavy as our bike does. I didn't take into corners too hard just cause it was a different feel from ours and I definitely don't think I have enough experience to really ride that thing through twisties to its potential. But for the cornering I did do it felt great. I do like our bike better in the cornering category but as I said, I am biased for that part.
Just some other side note things, this bike did feel a lot warmer around my legs than our bikes. I also love the two headlight set-up seemed to work great at night but if I had a projector with my HID set up I am sure I would think differently.
I think that was everything I wanted to say if you have any questions just let me know I would be happy to answer them.
So first off the seating position. The bike was still very easy to sit up right. I am a little lanky so my arms could reach the bars without much problem but having them raised up would have helped. Now the good thing about them being lower is that when I opened up and tucked in it felt a lot better than with our bike. But at general cruising when I am not hiding behind the windscreen I did take a lot more buffeting to the chest but it really did not bother me as much as I thought it would. The only thing that did bother me from being lanky with my long legs is that my legs did seem to get a lot more tight with the way the pegs were positioned. I was having to stretch them out a lot more to keep them a little limber or least from cramping.
Handling and power for this bike was a little different. It was hard for me to gage exactly how our bike would match up 0-100 but I can tell you this bike was just as fast if not a bit faster than ours. It definitely had more higher end torque than hours but most of us know that our bike lacks this already. But overall very smooth, easy to control the power and it had the kick when you wanted it. Handling was a little different. It did not feel as top heavy as our bike does. I didn't take into corners too hard just cause it was a different feel from ours and I definitely don't think I have enough experience to really ride that thing through twisties to its potential. But for the cornering I did do it felt great. I do like our bike better in the cornering category but as I said, I am biased for that part.
Just some other side note things, this bike did feel a lot warmer around my legs than our bikes. I also love the two headlight set-up seemed to work great at night but if I had a projector with my HID set up I am sure I would think differently.
I think that was everything I wanted to say if you have any questions just let me know I would be happy to answer them.
