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Wow, what a weekend! Saturday my youngest son (Nick) turned eighteen, and my other son (Matt, 24) brought home a Ducati 848.
Kept asking Nick for the past 2 weeks what he wanted for his birthday and all I got was ‘I don’t know’. So Saturday after I pestered him a bit more, he said he wanted a new bed. Off we go to a local furniture store, let him try out a few beds, lowered his expectations, and purchaseed his bed. Geez, beds are expensive!
Earlier in the morning Matt returned from an out of town trip with his new to him Ducati. His only other bike had been a Kawasaki Ninja 250. Need I say that this is my newest nightmare!
But I digress. The purpose of this post is to give all of you my initial impressions of a SuperTen. Earlier this week I found out that Chaparral Motor Sports in San Bernardino, CA had a Super Ten on display. Wish I had known about this 2 weeks ago as I passed right by there twice on a trip to Death Valley.
So Sunday my wife and I go pick up the new bed because I wasn’t going to spend the extra dough on delivery. First mistake! She said ‘they open at 9:00’; wrong, they open at 11:00. Went to a local mall and killed some time. Told her she had to buy me a Bloody Mary, I ended up buying her some Starbucks coffee! After we got back and set everything up it was (IMHO) too late to start on my ‘honey do’ list. So I casually suggested that maybe we should go a see this new bike that I had put a deposit on sight unseen.
She said ‘call and make sure they’re open and the bike is still there’. I did, and off we went! Oh, BTW, the dealership was 80 miles away. And, I forget to mention, that she wanted to stop at and RV dealership and check out some used toy haulers she’d been scoping out. I thought they where on the way. Second mistake!
Turns out the place she wanted to go was about a 20 mile detour. OK, I said, we’ll go there first. Didn’t have my GPS, maps were not detailed enough for where we were and our phones suck! Finally found the place after numerous wrong turns, and --------- they were closed! Did you call and make sure they were open?
I digress again
OK, so I was able to sit on and inspect a SuperTen (European model). This bike had that factory panniers (no top box), skid plate, and engine guard.
I am more excited now then I was last week! This bike fits me. The ergo’s are pretty much spot on. Seat to peg, seat to handlebar are just what I like. I did find that the handlebar width are really wide, wider than my KLR with ProTaper ATV High bend bars, but not by much. The faring is quite wide in the front but narrows nicely and looks like it will protect the legs in inclement weather. As others have said, it does not feel top heavy at all but I had no idea how much fuel was in the tank.
I was impressed by the stock seat. Plenty wide under the cheeks with no crowding of the boys in front. Don’t know what the seat height was, but I was flat footed with my 32” inseam. My wife found plenty of room on the pillion and didn’t feel that she would slide forward and liked the grab handles.
Here are some details that were interesting to me.
Clutch slave cylinder is easily accessible on the left side of the engine. Makes bleeding a snap.
Coolant reservoir is easy to view. It’s beneath the seat and in front of the rear shock
Air intake on right side of fairing ducts air across the rectifier.
Front forks looks like they can be moved up and down in the tree.
Plenty of adjustment in the rear brake pedal to dial in your preferred location.
Rear shock preload adjust was easy to use. Felt like some sort of screw mechanism; you can make small or large adjustments. Had a cool little indicator to show where it was in its range but you can only see it if your off the bike.
Stuff I didn’t like.
The Yamaha engine protection was …….. well, I’ll let you be the judge. The bar curves downward from its mount to protect the case. There is no other attachment point to the case, only the semi-collapsed tubular crossbar to the other side. There is one small rubber bumper attached to the bar where it is closet to the engine. I was underwhelmed. Oh, and it makes adding oil a little more difficult.
Hand guards are good for wind and brush deflection, but will probably break in a tip over.
So there you have it. Just my take on a machine that I’m pretty sure everyone is going to really like. BTW, I did mention Death Valley. I’ll end this long winded post with one more pic. I almost made it!
Carl
Kept asking Nick for the past 2 weeks what he wanted for his birthday and all I got was ‘I don’t know’. So Saturday after I pestered him a bit more, he said he wanted a new bed. Off we go to a local furniture store, let him try out a few beds, lowered his expectations, and purchaseed his bed. Geez, beds are expensive!
Earlier in the morning Matt returned from an out of town trip with his new to him Ducati. His only other bike had been a Kawasaki Ninja 250. Need I say that this is my newest nightmare!
But I digress. The purpose of this post is to give all of you my initial impressions of a SuperTen. Earlier this week I found out that Chaparral Motor Sports in San Bernardino, CA had a Super Ten on display. Wish I had known about this 2 weeks ago as I passed right by there twice on a trip to Death Valley.
So Sunday my wife and I go pick up the new bed because I wasn’t going to spend the extra dough on delivery. First mistake! She said ‘they open at 9:00’; wrong, they open at 11:00. Went to a local mall and killed some time. Told her she had to buy me a Bloody Mary, I ended up buying her some Starbucks coffee! After we got back and set everything up it was (IMHO) too late to start on my ‘honey do’ list. So I casually suggested that maybe we should go a see this new bike that I had put a deposit on sight unseen.
She said ‘call and make sure they’re open and the bike is still there’. I did, and off we went! Oh, BTW, the dealership was 80 miles away. And, I forget to mention, that she wanted to stop at and RV dealership and check out some used toy haulers she’d been scoping out. I thought they where on the way. Second mistake!
Turns out the place she wanted to go was about a 20 mile detour. OK, I said, we’ll go there first. Didn’t have my GPS, maps were not detailed enough for where we were and our phones suck! Finally found the place after numerous wrong turns, and --------- they were closed! Did you call and make sure they were open?
I digress again
OK, so I was able to sit on and inspect a SuperTen (European model). This bike had that factory panniers (no top box), skid plate, and engine guard.
I am more excited now then I was last week! This bike fits me. The ergo’s are pretty much spot on. Seat to peg, seat to handlebar are just what I like. I did find that the handlebar width are really wide, wider than my KLR with ProTaper ATV High bend bars, but not by much. The faring is quite wide in the front but narrows nicely and looks like it will protect the legs in inclement weather. As others have said, it does not feel top heavy at all but I had no idea how much fuel was in the tank.
I was impressed by the stock seat. Plenty wide under the cheeks with no crowding of the boys in front. Don’t know what the seat height was, but I was flat footed with my 32” inseam. My wife found plenty of room on the pillion and didn’t feel that she would slide forward and liked the grab handles.
Here are some details that were interesting to me.
Clutch slave cylinder is easily accessible on the left side of the engine. Makes bleeding a snap.
Coolant reservoir is easy to view. It’s beneath the seat and in front of the rear shock
Air intake on right side of fairing ducts air across the rectifier.
Front forks looks like they can be moved up and down in the tree.
Plenty of adjustment in the rear brake pedal to dial in your preferred location.
Rear shock preload adjust was easy to use. Felt like some sort of screw mechanism; you can make small or large adjustments. Had a cool little indicator to show where it was in its range but you can only see it if your off the bike.
Stuff I didn’t like.
The Yamaha engine protection was …….. well, I’ll let you be the judge. The bar curves downward from its mount to protect the case. There is no other attachment point to the case, only the semi-collapsed tubular crossbar to the other side. There is one small rubber bumper attached to the bar where it is closet to the engine. I was underwhelmed. Oh, and it makes adding oil a little more difficult.
Hand guards are good for wind and brush deflection, but will probably break in a tip over.
So there you have it. Just my take on a machine that I’m pretty sure everyone is going to really like. BTW, I did mention Death Valley. I’ll end this long winded post with one more pic. I almost made it!
Carl
) No, my wife pried me off to go look at DR200. Now I gotta find a used one as soon as I get rid a couple of dirt bikes :exclaim: