I got lucky today. Scuderia West in San Francisco got their first 950 SM in last week. They plan to make it a demo bike, but they need to get 500 miles on the bike and do the first service before they put it into duty. Because I have been a customer of theirs for a while now and know them quite well, they have been kind enough to let me help them break in some of their demo bikes. Today, my assignment was to put around 200 miles on their new KTM 950 SM bike and let them know what I thought.

Tough job...but...well...you know the rest.

I got a bit of a preview of the bike yesterday when the owner of the shop, Don Lemelin, a couple of his buddies, and Popey and I went out for a ride. Don was on the 950 SM and was kind enough to pass it around amongst us, so we each got a small dose. But today was my chance to take it out on my own for as long as I wanted and really see what it was like on lots of different kinds of roads and while riding at a number of different paces.

These are my impressions of this amazing bike.

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