Tiger's First Time Out

Got the bike on Tuesday and after a extended ride home (for the both us), that first Saturday I decided to take the bike out for its first off road experience. In a way I feel lucky that I can find many gravel roads fairly close to home.  Today was no exception.  I drove over to an area I am very familiar with to test out the new bike and also try out some of the options.

When I hit the first gravel road, I wanted to try out these new "modes". There are two: Off Road and Off Road Pro. So I clicked it into Off Road mode.

I got this message letting me know that the Optimized Cornering ABS has been disabled. Good to know.  One click and the message was gone. I liked this mode as it seems to restrict the power to the rear wheel so it does not spin/drift. Other than that, I did not really notice any differences. I did turn on regular Road mode and on some of the hills, I noticed a few warning lights flashing as I accelerated...guess I was giving it too much power and the wheels were a spinning.

I love the feel of the bike. Standing seemed a perfect fit and the bike feels very balanced. I tried to find some bumpy roads so that I could give standing up and down frequently a try to get a feel for the bike. Granted my bike is not loaded (still waiting on the racks) but it felt great. With a loose grip, the bike just conformed to the road and gravel. There was one section where the gravel was pretty thick and it does get a little squirrely but that is to be expected...its loose gravel.  I never felt like the bike was going to dump me.

I was out for just over 3 hours and covered almost a 116 miles. I left in the early morning so I could be back before it started to get really hot (I took this picture that afternoon). I was surprised I logged that many miles as it did not feel like.  About 35-40% of the miles were off road. Overall a great experience and cannot wait to get out there again tomorrow.