Believe it or not, what turned me off was reading it has 147 hp at 11,000 rpms. (I'm sure someone who just read that spilled their coffee on themselves and their keyboard. Sorry. ) The styling was a close second.It's trying to compete with the Suzuki GSX-S1000 (150hp), Kawasaki NINJA® 1100SX (134 hp), BMW M1000XR (201 hp) and BMW S1000XR (170 hp). I wish the manufacturers would focus on bikes that can be ridden on normal streets and be fully appreciated --- and less on bikes that can only be fully utilized on a race track.
147 hp on a sub-500 lb bike is ...a lot of adjectives cross my mind. "Crazy", and not in a good way. "Donor-bike" is another that popped into my mind. And you only get that 147 hp when you're up at screaming high rpms. The only way you could fully utilize that kind of acceleration and speed would be while being featured on the 5 o'clock news where the video shows 5 police cars following you home.
I like where the NT1100 sits. I think it has 105 hp, the same as my F900XR. One of the other guys at church has a BMW S1000XR, and I've done a bit of comparing of his bike vs my F900XR. One web site says his bike with 170 hp will get to 60 mph in 3.0 seconds. That same web site says my XR with 105 hp will get to 60 in 3.2 seconds. Why are the times so close? Because his hp isn't developed till he gets to 9000-11000 rpms. Most of us would never ride in that rpm range for more than 5% of the time. Useful on a track...not so much on public roads.
That's a long convoluted way of saying I'd rather ride a slow bike fast, than a fast bike slow.
Chris








