It's cheating, I know, but I taught an MSF ERC (Experienced Rider Course) last weekend on my WRX. I usually handicap myself with my V-Strom, but my brother arrived Friday night, took off on the V-Strom Saturday morning, and we haven't seen him since. So, Sunday I rode the WR to the range. My co-instructor kept calling the WR "his bicycle" and the cruiser boys and girls in the class thought that was funny, but they didn't seem to be put off by the fact that my ride was about 600 pounds lighter than theirs. I usually just reply, "I didn't pick your bike for you," when students complain that my motorcycle is "too easy" to ride, but that wasn't an issue that weekend.
The further we got into the course, the more fun I was having doing the exercises on the WR. When I rode the last figure-B cornering exercise, I surprised myself when the right peg scraped the ground. I have had the WR on a closed course, a couple of times, and leaned as far as I'm comfortable barely touched the ground with my toe. This time, the peg came up and almost startled me into going outside of the curve. The cool thing was that i didn't feel even slightly uncomfortable and was almost on automatic pilot during the demonstration.
I suspect most of you do this shit all the time, but I'm 63 and don't make much of an effort to push my limits so it was especially fun to be this comfortable leaned well into the turn on the coolest motorcycle I've ever ridden. I would rather be on my WR than any bike imported to the US. My brother is somewhere in North Dakota on my DL650 and he's about as happy. His last bike was some kind of mid-80's Yamaha cruiser and he'd forgotten how much fun dirt roads can be.
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