result of the effort almost immediately. Instead, 40km / h is more the gearing’ s happy zone in these conditions. This made it a struggle for me, for sure, trying to keep it straight and stay upright. Next up, I did about 80km of gravel road. Here the gearing was no issue as the power delivery is very smooth and torquey and the long ratios make for relaxed and deceptively quick travel. Although, I did find on deeper gravel a slightly loose and vague feeling came from the front end once again. On the grass and hard pack dirt riding I did, all felt fine, the tyres were great. Back on the tar-seal roads, the R12G / S
definitely finds its natural, happy place. On big, open roads, the era-correct fly-screen means any decent distances become hard work. The back-roads, which are always more fun, with their slower pace and serpentine nature, suit the bike’ s strong flexible power delivery, easy and relaxed and planted steering, largely plush suspension action, and excellent braking performance very nicely. And the lack of a screen doesn’ t really matter. These are the sort of conditions where you just sit back comfortably on the R12, find a gear, 3rd or 4th it doesn’ t really matter, and gobble up the miles without a care in the world. In no time that
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