61° and wall-to-wall sunshine this afternoon, so I took The Vibrator for a little spin.
What a peach! The semi-crotch rocket riding position wasn't as uncomfortable as I feared altho coupled with the granite seat I wouldn't want to ride it all day.
Lil' sumbitch scoots! After 5 miles of secondary road to get used to it a little and warm it up good, I turned onto Route 1 and let it eat. The road tips downhill at that point and on the FJ if I go WOT and bang the gears, I'm just touching triple digits by the bottom of the hill. The Ninja hit 85 and was still pulling with another gear to go. 12,000 redline and it's happy to go there any time you want.
I found that it feels happy around 5-6000 RPM which is a hair over 60 MPH in 5th. Never really found the need for 6th, altho it's torquey enough to cruise at 55 in 6th. I expect it get's pretty good mileage under those circumstances. I did a 5th gear roll-on from 50 while passing a car and it pulled hard right up to 75 without a downshift.
Handling is VERY tight. Absolutely no hunting or feeling of it wanting to wander or shake it's head. It's much closer to the ground than my FJ and it was a little unnerving to pitch it into a corner the first couple of times, felt like I was WAY over in knee-dragging territory. Again, absolutely rock solid whether accelerating, braking or neutral throttle.
One of my unofficial benchmarks for handling is how fast I'm comfortable slaloming in and out of the dashed line in the middle of the road. The FJ gets to be a handful at much over 40. The Ninja was nailing it at 50 and with a bit of practice I think I could do it at 55.
I'm VERY impressed. WAY more bike than the 250 version she started out with a few years back. With a more comfortable seat, I could see myself riding one of them.