“It’s a bike that just goes with you, it responds
to your inputs and it’s willing to do anything
you want it to do”. He is absolutely correct.
It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, and there are
those who disparage the marque, foolishly in
my opinion, without ever experiencing this new
iteration. All I’ll say is that the nay-sayers were
all somewhere south of me. I had time to stop,
remove my helmet and check the view before
their arrival. So I grew to like this bike very much,
and very quickly, but initially I put it into corners
with some trepidation on the purpose-made
tyres from Dunlop. The DT3 Radials have a tread
pattern that I wasn’t convinced by as a road-
going racer, but in summer weather at least,
they held track superbly. Pushed to the limits I
found small amounts of squirm at the rear, but
it was immediately controlled with throttle on.
POWER PLANT
It’s a joy to ride hard. The seat position has
a certain magic in its geometry too. Thrown
fast and hard between corners I could feel
the rear wheel track beneath me in a way very,
very few bikes could replicate, it gave a live
confidence to quick running, with each flick the
1200 bit down and charged out of the corner.
I was riding this bastard with my backside.
The new powerplant delivering 120hp to the
stern is frankly brilliant. Liquid cooled and DOHC
with 4 valves per cylinder there is some trickery
going on. A V-twin redlining at 8250rpm is
quite something but the FTR’s delivery is linear
48 KIWI RIDER
and powerful. There is certain vibration that
big twins always have and it never really goes
away even at the top end of its exciting power
delivery, but it’s a pleasing sort of ‘masculine’
vibration, just enough to let you feel its tail-
shaking heritage, and not enough to disturb.
At 226kg the S variant is at the light end
of other Indian bikes by a... healthy margin.
You could probably lose about 5kg alone
with that awful rear tail assembly gone.
The cast aluminium mags are light and not
unattractive, but there are a number of add-
ons that I would consider immediately, and