I got an invite last week from Dan at Moto Exotica in Vacaville, Ca to Demo the new 2012 Beta RR models that Beta was nice enough to bring up from Pasa Robles, Ca. How lucky am I? I had to re arrange a lot of things at work to make it happen, but I'm glad I did..... it was a great ride! Beta brought two 450's and a 498. They would have brought a 350, but none where available. Seems they are in very high demand right now. Dan however managed to score one the day after our ride...a 350 rs model at his shop now. I'm gonna have to run down there later and check it out. These 2012 models look even more trick in person.
First impression after hopping off my 2008 Beta 450 RS and on to the '12 450rr was that it felt much more nimble. I had the oversized tank on my '08, so that may be some of it, but I do run the stock tank on my bike from time to time and I know how that feels. Still the new Beta's feel slimmer for sure.
The first bike I hopped on was a 450 that had less than an hour on it. It felt a little nervous like new bikes tend to be right out of the box. I asked if I could soften the clickers as I always do breaking in a new bike and they said I could, but that I would need to return the settings back to stock before passings off to another rider. That seemed like too much work, so I left it alone. I was thinking that it was going to be hard to really get a sense of what the suspension could really do without messing around with the settings, but the other 450 they had was broke in with around 700 milies on it. I rode that bike and it was a world of difference. Same settings, just a lot better being broke in.
The motors really do lug down low without flamings out and rev.up quickly. I liked it better than the RFS motor in my Beta.
I thought that there was an article out there that I had read about the gas milage not being that good on these bikes. We did over 65 miles at Stoneyford on them without needing fuel...I'm not sure how many miles further we could have gone, but 65 miles is not too bad.
I didn't spend a lot of time on the 498, but it felt really close to the 450's in terms of weight. I wish I could have gotten more time on it...well all of them for that matter. They are great machines!!!
Overall I was verry impressed. Not only with the bikes, but the company too for doing things like this. Kudos to Moto Exotica and American Beta for letting me check out these amazing machines!
