At first glance we see a clean and simple bike with not a lot of wasted space. For this particular bike the paint is black with black highlights and not a lot of flash; however, the shop has a full line of paint schemes if you do like the flash, so it's up to you. We got out on the highway and with a twist of the throttle we could feel the bike's power.
Hitting Second gear we could feel the front tire starting to lift off the ground. The bike handled very well at all speeds, but seemed to calm down at about 85 mph. This seemed to be its sweet spot. We were able to take our hands off the bars and the bike tracked straight and had little vibration, even with the rigid frame. However, the long arm of the law did not seem to think so-you guessed it, we got pulled over. It took a few clever words to talk our way out of this one, and we went with the easy ones like, "It's not my fault, we were just trying not to be late to the police officers' ball." He laughed, and then asked about the bike.
After he was sure we would follow all the rules from here on out he let us go on our way. After about 95 miles into the test ride we needed to get gas, as we were really low and almost had to switch to reserve. This was a good time to stop, because as you can see, the seat is a metal pan with no padding. Even with the mono-shock tucked under the pan, it was still a hard place to sit. The pan has been cut and shaped so that "you," the owner, can cover it any way you like, whether it's padded with some hand-tooled leather or just covered with a one-piece skin-it's up to you.
We had a chance to put over 2,000 miles on the bike within less than three weeks between the staff here, and the only thing we think needs improvement is the seat. Even with the different sized riders on-staff, for the most part all we needed to do was adjust the handlebars. The bike was fun to ride and handled well at all speeds. We got a lot of attention anywhere we took it, especially when we pulled up next to a pretty young lady in her BMW trying to have a conversation on her cell phone...not with these loud pipes in your ear, sweetie! She gave us a dirty look, and we gave her a great big smile. If this is the start of where the team at Count's Kustoms is going to take their line of production bikes, then we can't wait to see what's next.