Here are my thoughts of the Talon after 200 miles. Remember I am coming from a Yamaha 850 with 28" tires and a lot of these comments may be relative to what I'm used to.
At Windrock, we did some pretty nice rock climbs, some rutted out muddy trails, some gravel roads, a little black top, and lots of general trails. We did not do any black trails (I don't think) so mostly blue. The Talon never struggled and handled every obstacle with no issues. I was impressed how easily it climbed over fairly good sized rocks. I was also surprised at how well the ITP Terra Hooks worked on all of the varied terrain including mud.
I rode about 50% in auto and 50% in manual mode. I'm not sure I really like the auto shifting mode. Much of the time it wasn't in the gear I thought it should be in and I found myself either hitting the paddle shifters, blipping the throttle, or slowing down to get the transmission to shift to the gear I wanted. Manual mode however was awesome. I have missed the manual shifting from my P500 days so I really enjoyed the manual mode. I wish the Talon would not default back to auto mode every time the engine is turned on.
I wasn't sure I wanted the Talon R or X prior to purchasing my R. I have always liked the thinner machines and their agility and tight turning. But driving the R this weekend I never really noticed how wide it is (mine is at 70") and it went through tight trails with no issues.
Picking lines with this thing was almost not necessary (at least on the trails we were on). I could pretty much just point it straight and it would go over whatever was in front of me. The larger tires, wider width, and greater ground clearance (from my Yamaha) made a big difference.
I am not impressed with the gearing of the Low range. It feels like it should be geared much lower.
I think I'll add 1.5" seat risers to both seats. My wife is short and has a hard time seeing over the SuperATV flip up windshield as the lower portion of the windshield is right in here line of sight. And adding the risers to my seat will give me a little more legroom.
Storage, both in the cab and in back, is very limited. We have got to figure out a storage solution. My hacked up system this weekend of tying my storage boxes and cooler down in the back was very inconvenient and kinda sketchy. I do, however, want to give a shout out to the $2 bungee cord designed to hold the lid of a kleenex box closed. This bungee cord held my cooler in the back the entire weekend and never gave up. I'm pretty sure I'll bite the bullet and do the packout system for the bed and then add some bags on the doors and under the roof for some more cab storage.
My Talon ha a terrible rattle from the exhaust system at 2800 to 3500 RPM. The rattle has seemed to have gotten progressively worse. I can get the rattle to stop by holding the pipe that goes into the muffler really tight so it doesn't vibrate. But I cannot figure out where exactly it is coming from. I removed the heat shield over this pipe and it did not help. I've check most of the bolts, heat shields, and clamps and everything looks good. I may have to take it back to the dealer to get this fixed as I'm don't really want to take the entire exhaust system apart to find the problem since it's under warranty.
Here's a few pics because POIDH:
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. No easy way to get to the nut so it was a bear to get the bolt out. Nut looked like Honda used super glue on it. I tack welded it back on and when I put the bumper back on it held (and none of the other bolts broke loose either thank goodness). A 30 minute project turning into a 3 hour project.
