I've had people do a double take when they see the 2500cc badge on the cam cover. Sometimes they'll take a photo of it. One chap asked me at a petrol station, 2500... how do you hang on to it?
The answer of course is, easily. It's an easy bike to ride. Is it fast? Of course it is. If you stick a 2.5L engine in a motorcycle you're going to notice. But there's plenty of "conventional" bikes that will out accelerate it - though maybe not in top gear roll-ons.
What I get from the Rocket, that you can't get to the same degree from any other bike in production, isn't so much warp drive acceleration but an overwhelming sense of thrust. Massive motive force at your back, all the time and everywhere, from nothing. For me that's what makes the Rocket uniquely satisfying and that's what I tell people. It's hard to explain to people who haven't ridden one.
Does it vibrate? Of course it does. Any engine with reciprocating moving parts will vibrate. But it's a creamy thrum, not a shudder or high frequency buzz. If it was possible to ride a bike blindfolded and I set off on a Rocket never having seen it, I'd know from the off-beat thrub on pullaways and the clucking from the intake that it was a triple. And I'd know it was longitudinal from the torque reaction at the crankshaft. Boxer engines and transverse V's rock from side to side, the Rocket gives a little rolling twitch. It's not going to be as smooth as a straight six but I get no intrusive vibes anywhere, not through the bars, seat or pegs, and nothing through my legs where they touch the engine.
I traded a 117" M8 Harley to buy my Rocket and to be fair to Harley and Harley riders, I can't say the big M8's are vibratory. You know it's a huge 1.9L V-twin but those engines are a million miles away from the old twin cams and Evo's which shook like a wet dog when you blipped the the throttle. M8's are remarkable smooth as they leave the factory. Obviously if you add lumpy cams, which a lot of people do, you will get the big pulses back but it's not a euphemism to describe it as "character", because that's what it is. It the innate character of a big, long stroke pushrod V-twin.
My Ducati has "Ducati" character. It's got so much compression and valve overlap it's gnarly and thudding off the throttle (It's not a stock engine). It's not a fault, and certainly not annoying. It's just the way it is. All part of the experience.
All my KTMs (I've had three, still got one) have been less thudding than Ducatis, though the Superduke was close off the bottom. It's more a trembling tingle which turns into a 2-stroke-like banshee wail at the top as it takes off like a scalded cat. that's just KTMs.
What I say to people who shake their head at the sight of the Rocket and ask what it's like to ride is, try one. Everyone should before they die, even if it's not your kind of bike. It's an experience in a class of one. There's nothing else like it on the market.
