I've now ridden just under 1,000 miles on the new RSV4 and all I can say is an emphatic "WOW!!!" The bike is just amazing, it is everything I hoped it would be and more. I took it on a nice ride last month with my buddy Bill, up around Lake Berryessa, over to Middletown, then to Hopland, and back over HW29 and HW128. The handling is superb, with the most confidence-inspiring chassis I have ever been on. Every corner is effortless, the bike seems to know what you want it to do with only the slightest bit of input. The front brakes are one-finger for all but the most drastic panic-braking, which requires two fingers. I could change lines mid-corner, trail brake without a second thought, and the bike never seemed the least bit unstable.
On this ride, the bike was not fully broken in so I had to keep it under 6500rpm. With this restriction, it was completely civilized even when I set the fuel map to the "T" setting (for "Track"). The power delivery is very smooth, almost deceptively so. It's very easy to get up a pretty good head of steam without realizing it until you glance down at the speedo and exclaim to yourself "D'OH!"
I let Bill ride it on a particularly twisty section of HW29. I kept seeing him shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head in amazement. When we stopped to swap back to our own bikes, he was just laughing and saying it was the most incredible sport bike he had ever ridden (and he's ridden a lot of different sport bikes, as have I). He even called me that night after he got home just to heap more praise on the bike. Yes, it's that good.
