Today I took the testride with the S1000XR (New 2020 model). My wife was there with me so she could give some opinions about the rear seat and how the bike feels from her POV.

When you sit on the bike you can notice right away that the seat feels quite different. It’s more narrow and the edges are too sharp. Luckily I’m quite tall and my knees are coming quite high so I don’t feel this sharp edge almost at all. In my 150km testride I didn’t feel uncomfortable and I could ride longer trips easily!

Then I notice the narrow handlebar. But it doesn’t bother me at all! Maybe I should’ve gone to some heavy traffic where you need to use the maximum steering… But in this kind of normal street riding it didn’t bother me (Even I like the wide bar of the old XR!)

The bike feels maybe little bit lighter, it feels like it wants to take the corners tighter and faster -it reminded me about S1000R that I was riding back in 2014. All the buzz or vibration is gone from the handlebars but there was few times when I felt a little bit of buzz in the bike itself -somewhere around 4000rpm.

Since I have owned already 3 XR’s it makes me think “Is this bike really so much better than my old XR?” The price of the new bike is about 4000 euros higher. Is it worth it?
I think there is 2 correct answers to this question!
1) No it is not worth it! Keep the old one and you will be very happy with it!
2) Yes definitely! They made it little bit better, little bit more unique and little more nice in every way (except maybe the seat!)

My wife didn’t like the backseat of the bike. She thought it was too short and the handlers for her were too short also. They should go further behind the seat.
One thing I found very interesting! There was 1 page in this new TFT screen where you can see the leaning angle of the bike… I think I would be staring this page only… all the time! Or at least when I’m riding in the curvy road.

Thank you Biketeam Vantaa for making this testride possible.