Hayabusa

[SonicVenum]

You definitely shared that story over on the dearly departed site. It is a helluva tale.

[jhwalker]

You ever encounter any of the fancy electronics? Funny, they either royally piss you off when things are going well, or will flat save your bacon should you make one little screw up.

I understand that very few, if any, will hit the pitch / traction control parameters unless they really need it and are on the verge of something really ugly, like accelerating out of a gas station / car wash combo lot through a wide gutter into a soapy wet hot slick street in front of a vehicle that you misjudged it's closing rate. Grab a fat abrupt handful of that big block Kawasaki's torque in the lower gears, and you could find your ass surfing on your back side in no time (don't forget that vehice bearing down on you at a high closing rate that is not paying attention)!

My "negative" experience was playing roll on and full throttle acceleration testing in full uniform on a fully loaded, labelled and VERY obvious C14 against a pair of our fleet's patrol squad on similarly fully equipped and uniformed Honda ST1300's. If you are going to test, why not test in a real world, yet isolated "semi-controlled" environment, right? Though the Honda has immense low end, immediate onset torque with a nice flat power band. In lower gears, under full throttle you can unintentionally loft the front wheel for a considerable distance. Knowing this, after much experience on the Honda, and having become familiar with the typical big bore Kawasakis (which even with the modern, refined, detuned C14 still has similar heritage flowing through it's blood) is a little "soft" down low, yet more than makes up for it while charging through it's healthy mid range punch while enroute to a classic, healthy cam howling top end. So, being the competitive guy that I am, wantingto crush the hearts and minds of the Honda riders right from the get-go,I raised the rev's , fanned the hydraulic clutch lever, which still offers just enough feedback to side step any real criticism, and let 'er rip. I ceased the advantage of the Honda's initial torque hit and began to loft the Connie's front wheel as both the RPM's , exhaust note and power to the rear wheels via the shaft drive seamlessly began to ramp up in a big hurry. I nosed out a lead, just at the time I reached a very comfortable rate of lift off. Just shy of reaching that magical and elusive "Balance Point" suddenly the whole party shut down without warning to me, as my eyes were glued to my track towards the rapidly approaching horizon, with both ST's still just falling from my extreme outer perimeter of vision on either side. WTF???? As the front end back down in an rather shocking, embarrassing and confusing thud, I glanced down to see several amber ST/ATC or some such shit lamps flickering on the dash board. Just as the Honda's both continued their charge of acceleration passing, me and then leaving me behind in one humiliated state of confusion. I thought I had turned all that fancy shit off at start up. Could it have defaulted to it's dummy proof state? Is it truly not fully capable of being defeated? I may never know. But, that and the thin, floppy factory winscreen and worse yet, the abrupt "kick back" on the rear brake pedal and subsequent iced over sensitivity of the rear brake when attempted to be activated independently at lower (parking lot) speeds REALLY soured me on what I had previously estimated would have been the hands down winner by far of the Sport Touring bikes currently available and on the market.

So, short question, have you not experienced that rear brake phenomenon, am I being overly critical of an otherwise incredible machine or what?

How did I miss this gem?