[leafman60]

Much of the so-called "safety" features of the S1000/UJM are an effort to keep riders from using all the horsepower they like to brag about having! lol Reading the (foundering) motorcycle press, the yearly horsepower wars is a key to selling bikes.

A current year 190 hp bike relegates previous 175 hp bikes to simply also-rans. It's sorta like the 1/4 mile e.t. wars used to be. If a bike bested last year's model by a tenth of a second then it was the new King that everybody wanted to buy.

Fact is, very few riders could/would stroke any of the bikes through a 1/4 mile in that time and, fact is, very few people can now lay-down 190 hp to the asphalt.

Basically, the "traction control" features and other electronic engine control features are there to allow manufacturing and marketing of extermely high horspower machines (to brag about) but to have these electronic progams essentially as governors to prevent the unwitting rider from trying to use that horsepower !

I don't think this march into hyper-hp nirvana is necessarily being young and progressive. Not all young folks are biting in to this cake either. Many of them are wanting something different from the ubiquitous 4-cylinder japanese crotch rockets.
My twins sure get a lot of attention whenever I park them around the crotch rocket crowd, especially the V Twin Guzzis.

Hey, I'm not knocking the japanese bikes and their S1000 cousins. If you like them, then have at it.

As I said, I had a pretty red CBR1000RR before they eliminated the under-seat exhaust. It was nice and I enjoyed it. Lol, it needed traction control, though.

No offense to anyone here. I just prefer the twins such as the boxers and the new Guzzi models. and I'm not that old ... yet!