muster. Seat height is 890 + mm, so it’ s not a shorty, but the compliant suspension sinks a little on mounting so it’ ll also be OK for shorter riders. Handling is good too, with a stable, balanced ride on all road surfaces. The Fast Ace forks and Sachs shock provide a plush and compliant ride, making it easy to travel long distances in comfort. Brakes are decent Brembo units and are a good match to the bikes performance, weight and handling. Metzler Tourance tyres work well on this bike and give great grip when pushing on through tight and twisty roads. They’ re not bad on gravel either and only got a bit‘ swimmy’ on a section of deep, freshly laid metal I encountered. The SWM’ s stability and balance inspires confident riding on gravel and the bar to peg set-up is perfect for a bit of stand-up work without hunching over. Whilst the bike is no lightweight dirt at 169kg( that’ s wet but with no fuel, so should be around 182kg with a full tank of gas- Ed), for long haul riding it means it’ s nicely planted and comfortably chews up the kilometres. The screen assists here and I found the height perfect for some weather protection and to keep buffeting to a minimum, even when riding a blustery SH16 back from Wellsford. Those two riding lights are also excellent, putting out a bright path ahead and making you all the more obvious to other traffic. If I owned a Superdual I’ d likely move the lights inward a bit on the crash bars in case of an unplanned lie down. For me, the only real foible was the ignition key position, stuck way down between the bar topmount and throttle and brake cable routing. My top hint is to turn the key on before gloving up! However, I think this issue could be greatly improved by rerouting the cables into another part of the bracket. So, there it is, a capable adventure mount without a stack of electronic rider-aid wizardry. Just good old-fashioned thumper magic with a bunch of goodies to help you get there in comfort and style. And at the price position it’ s great value for money. You may just want to add a pair of heated grips for winter longhauls and the package would be complete.
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Great value; capable adventurer; fully-spec’ d
Ignition key tricky to turn
76 KIWI RIDER