My Banditess

 I bought the Bandit 1200S about 3 months before the end of the validity period of CBR600's inspection deadline, but not because of the inspection itself, but for other few reasons:
- I wanted to know how it is to ride a brand-new motorbike, from its first kilometer, and at the time I was able to buy the Bandit at about 70% of its price, that is, at the same price I could buy one that had already been run for around 20,000km by someone else.
-The CBR600 was almost perfect, but it was too small, even for me. I always sit on the front side of the seat, in which position my knees bumped into the cowl.
-I had already run the CBR for around 30,000 miles and I had started to be concerned about revving it too high.
-On Japan streets everybody runs around 10~20km faster than the speed limits (that's around 70kmph for most of the roads). One who would try to run with 80 or 90 would get surely involved in an accident sooner or later, but usually not later than 6 months... On the other hand, everybody starts running before the traffic light goes green and steps hard on the accelerator. I always wait for the light to change (on a closed-circuit race, everybody does!).In these conditions, on my 600cmc CBR, made to deliver its best power at more than 7000rpm, I could not get the best of it at these speeds, and on the other hand at almost every traffic light had to let the hurried guys in front of me most of the times. So that I started to look for a motorbike made to deliver enough power at low speeds.
-I WANTED a new motorbike.
The Bandit solved all these problems. It is quite light for a twelve-hundred naked, it is strong enough to rocket-start two seconds after a car and pass it before 20 meters, has no down-cowl to bump one's knees on it...
It has a lot of other splendid features, many of them not specified by its makers;
-by contrast to usual motorbike mirrors, which are extremely hard to move (and if they get lighter they would be moved also by the wind on the highway) the mirrors may be pulled close to the cowling and pushed back into the same position. This allow the rider to switch them in when running through narrow spaces between cars (situation which is ubicuous in Japan).
- its gravity center is quite low, and this combined with the dimensions of the fork, caster, etc. gives it a special sort of balance when banked for a tight U-turn, with the handle fully locked.
-it has a centerstand, which makes it easy to maintain the chain. The distance between the engin top and the tank is enough to permit plug change without being necessary to remove any part (except the plug cable, stoopid...).
-it has a low gas consume. After I changed its plugs to iridium plugs, it never went under 15km/l in any conditions, even on prolongued traffic-freezes, and went up to 22km/l on long trips, better than the CBR600 and much better than the CBR1000F or even than my present VFR750. -the braking system was the best I had up to now. 6 pod double disk on the front and 2 pod single disk on the rear. The braking feeling was at least as light and controllable as that of the CBR600, even if the weight was more than 30kg heavier. Moreover, pad wearing was quite slow: I changed the front pads at 15,000km and the second double pair of pads still had a few milimeters left when I sold it at 33,000km. The rear brake was very hard to lock, even stomped hardly, but very controllable on U-turns and very low speed balance. I do not know how, but when I sold the bike, the pads had still 4 to 5 mm left!
-I fell with that bike for four times, three times to the right and one to the left side (only at low speeds), but all it got were small scratches on the engine cover, mirror and muffler. I always thought about buying engine guards, but eventually I did not.