My only criticism of this amazing bike thus far is on hard downshifts and braking going into corners I get significant rear wheel hop whereby the bike is nearly out of control. I learned long ago how to blip the throttle on hard downshifts but the technique doesn't seem to work so well on this particular bike. Anybody else have this issue? Advice?

All one litre v-twins need a slipper clutch, SD/SDR no exception.

Yeah, my little 800 Monster would do the same thing until I learned the blip technique. After that it was smooth as glass on the hard downshift. Same with the Speed Triple though not as pronounced.

Your'e shifting and braking should be complete before your leaning over into the turn. The brakes on the 1290 are strong enough to enter the turn at the desired speed, just match the engine speed and shoot out of the turn!

I had the same thing happen when I replaced the 1 litre inline 4 bike with the SDR. A lot of torque braking on these things!

Oh, yeah I didn't mean to suggest I am braking into the corner, just setting up for the corner with a hard downshift.

Have the MSR turned on?


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It's not a 1290........................................

I remember when I had my 990 after removing the flies and shafts engine breaking was reduced.

Comrades: The 1290 is of course much more forgiving than the 990's. Slippers help but ultimately it's just technique.

I'm currently racing a little VFR400 which likes to go into corners at about 8k RPM. It gets a little exciting when I ride the big Kato's and forget which machine i'm on...