It was a typical short 170-ish mile Saturday ride of endless corners to Newcombs Ranch and back, so I did get a real sense of how the girl likes to be shoved around.
The SeX likes a LOT of body english to stay stable in a corner, even though the steering is very light (So light I had to replace the damper with an Öhlins unit that almost completely maxed out). Still, If I get lazy and just put my butt off the seat and don't get my shoulders over to 'kiss the mirror' as they say, she can be quite the bitch to keep layed over. If my body position is right, simply push on the inside handlebar and she'll confidently shoot around the apex not really bothered by speed changes or bumps.
The Brutalé is the absolute polar opposite.
800cc, 13.3:1 compression (within a tenth of the SX), 125hp, 60lb/ft, 368 dry weight
.34 Power to weight ratio:eagerness: The SX is .44 with what Erik Buell called a "Full race spec engine"
Redline is just north of 12,000 rpm which takes some getting used for me, as she will keep pulling while shrieking those sweet, sweet, triple noises well past what a reasonable person would hold the throttle pinned. I also noticed a totally unreasonable amount of torque for a tiny 800cc engine. Like sub 2000 rpm effortless take offs with no clutch slip. Very surprising but I get the familiar smile when I remember my Speed Triple doing that too
The clutch is super light and very progressive, all that SX left hand workout must have paid off!
The forks are 43mm Marzocchi at the front, Sachs shock at the rear. Brembo monobloc radial calipers on massive disks. They say it's not a race bike (ya right) but all this stuff was right off their F3, uh, race bike.
Lots of similar specs but wow. The Brutalé didn't really care if I was sitting on top of the hard seat or comfortably hanging off the side with my leg locked in the perfect shelf of tank side (You do fill it in the top but that part of the tank is really just an airbox cover like the EBR. The fuel sits mostly under the seat). She did however, like to be a bit man handled at the bars. The steering is super, super light, but you need to push down on the inside bar
and pull up on the outside bar to feel secure while on the side of the tire.
I figured all that out on Saturday morning and then went to the garage for a man-date with the lady to attack her with a spanner set (Thats Italian for wrenches, now that I'm all hoity toity
), and the first thing I checked was tire pressure.
17lbs. Ouch. Near death face and a mental reminder to not be lazy about maintenance ever again.:upset::mad-new:
