To compare to the R1 is not really fair because the R1 makes the Blade feel tiny / cramped up - as you say its one to try and you can sell on easy enough if needed I think you will enjoy it once its run it - I'd leave the engine stock - get the suspension set up correctly for your weight. The K6 / K7 can was epic in its noise / shape (standard one) - then tighter regs came in and it went huge!
Told you that you would be happy with your purchase Mike! The run in miles are a bit of a pain especially as the bikes giddy point is around the 8k rev range, Suzuki made some changes to the throttle bodies from the 08+ models where they made the throttle tubes wider which made the induction noise a lot more pronounced on those models! With regards to the build quality I have found it pretty decent but I tend to stay away from that crap they put on our roads each year! The salt does a number on any bike no matter the manufacturer! tbh Honda have been decreasing in there standards for last few years penny pinching on thickness of anodising and quality of bolts, even reducing where and how much grease they use on things like suspension linkages. These finishing differences was really evident when me and Colin were working on his older blackbird from 97 and his SP1 from 2000 to his 2010 blade! Enjoy your new steed mate and get some pics up soon as you can.
Ok but all bikes are mass produced and there a loads of pics of each model already on the tinkerweb but we still wanna see some snapshots of YOURS!
Yep it's all your fault GIV honda sales have dropped since your thread "fancy a change " I was well happy with the blade then you mentioned a change and I starting looking at other bikes and ended up with the BMW. I will say though the bmw forum is very unfriendly it took about 4 days to get a Hi and welcome to the forum and I only got 1 of those .
No no none of that nonsense here please .Having had three Blades and having met in person "Lord Honda of Devon" I still have enough credits to hang about here .