With the first 500 or so miles on my RT, bump steering has been the major negative in my early experience. The riding around here is primarily on two lane roads and highways. Most of these roads started out as gravel, then oiled gravel and then they finally got a top coat of asphalt. With no 'proper' road bed, the surfaces are irregular, aka bumpy. Unlike a motorcycle, the RT seems sensitive to these bumps and reacts in two axes; roll and yaw.

The roll movement produces a side-to-side body movement that becomes fatiguing, but the yaw axis movement is worse. With each bump the Spyder makes a small change in direction (bump steer). I can let go of the handlebars for perhaps 2 seconds, then I have to make a correction. If I let go for 5 seconds, I'm out of the lane, and 10 seconds would put me in the ditch. It's much different than my motorcycle where you go straight down the road and the suspension just absorbs most of the bumps. The Spyder is nervous and intense by comparison and not at all relaxing to ride in bumpy conditions.

The bottom line result is that I'm riding less and exhausted after a short (2-3 hour) ride. I find my self looking for a short route back home about 1½ hours out. A long ride isn't even plausible under these conditions. Shoulder/neck/upper back fatigue are significant, and I hope the change to reduced reach bars will alleviate some of that fatigue. I pick up those bars today and plan to talk to the service manager about alignment options, since toe out can aggravate bump steer.

It's hard to believe they're all like this.