Nice write up & very informative ty, I recently took the 08 14 out for a test drive & thought i had to see for myself what it is like , & being a highly experienced rider , iam 42 years old & been driving dirt bikes & gsx-r's for 30 years . My plan was to open this bike up to the red line & see for myself what she can do.. I first did a couple slow turns in the lot to notice any bad handling at low speed & found that this bike was nothing like most say , like hard to handle , I found it was great & almost exactly what i expected for a heavy bike , basically easy to manoevour.Then i took her right to the highway & did not hesitate to see what she can do. From 5000 RPM to red line in 4th gear , let me tell you i had to lower the windshield cuz i was afraid of it blowing off & hitting me , this bike is very fast. She pulled hard right to red line but around 9 thousand rpm its time to hang on tight ! Anyway it exceeded my expectations for power , shifting was smooth & great , when i came to a stop to see about the heat problem , to me i cant understand what all these people are complaining about . I had biker boots on & jeans & that little bit of heat that it throws , the bike itself makes up for that , so no worries there about heat for me! My only major complaint about this bike is that my right hand was killing me after i stopped because i was hanging on so tight when going full throttle! I will be on a 2009 Black model with the bigger windshield , gel-seat & Oyeah that ugly baffle has to go , so my bike will have a slip-on , not sure which one yet but thats about it , maybe matching trunk cuz iam taking off summer of July 09 to tour Canada & US . I hope by then to hook up with some of you riders for a coffee along the way , always ride safe & alert..