Post by hairbear31 on Jun 13, 2011 23:52:21 GMT -5
Passed 1000 miles today so here's a review of my IB Tornado.
Everything on the bike is stock, I haven't made any mods to the bike "yet".
It's a very comfortable ride, the seat is wide and well padded and the running boards give you plenty of room to place your feet and change foot position when you need to. I'm in a wheelchair and I had plenty of room on the passenger to strap down my chair and still have room for a passenger.
There is also a lot of storage, I put 3 bags of groceries and a six pack in the main storage compartment under the seat, as well as a bunch of tools in the small compartment under the seat. it has a good sized glove box large enough to hold my rain suit on one side and a couple bottles of soda on the other, there are also 2 compartments under the handlebars large enough for my cellphone, wallet, and a couple pair of sunglasses. the right one is also where the radiator cap is.
The bike has plenty of acceleration from 0-55mph, 55+ pickup starts to drop off and tops out at about 67mph, I'm getting about 70mpg and it has a 3 gallon tank (I use premium gas and I add the ethanol treatment to it). Reverse is quite touchy and I have to feather the throttle to keep from spinning the tires when backing up. it has a simple R-N-D shifter on the right side. haven't had any problem changing gears and I use reverse a lot since I can't use my legs to push it back.
the bike handles quite well, I can do a U-turn in the road without going of onto the should, at 65mph strong winds and gusts don't bother it at all, it corners well, you don't have to fight the steering to take corners, I have had the inside tire lift enough to spin if I take off to fast. ( taking off from a dead stop it really wants to go and I'm already at 35-40 by time I come out of the turn) leaning into it does stop it from lifting up.
The tires seem decent with deep tread and little wear so far. The bike has 3 disc brakes that work well and stopping the bike in a relatively short distance. took me a little getting used to braking with both front and rear breaks without one or the other locking up and skidding.
the rear end had 4 shocks that works pretty good for smoothing out rough roads, they come set at the softest setting, the front forks are kind of on the stiff side and the only wait to adjust them is to change out the springs.
All the lights are bright and the rear brake light sets high and raps around the back end of the seat so is quite visible to other vehicles, the headlights line up nicely for seeing the road at night with high or low beams. it doesn't have a reverse light. the plate light lights up the plate well. there were no holes to bolt the plate on so I had to drill my own. the digital dash is bright and has a large # readout for the MPH, for some reason it doesn't have a trip odometer which would have been nice to have, also the dash is in Kilometers and can't be switched to MPH, then sent me a new dash that's in MPH, but I haven't bothered to put it in yet since I'm already used to Kilometers.
I've had a couple small issues with the bike, the latch on the glove compartment broke off after opening it a couple of times, waiting for the replacement part from IB, the rear fender has developed some stress cracks around a couple of bolts, but nothing to bad, most likely because of some rough dirt roads I've been on. One of the brackets that holds the front right side of the rear fender broke where it bolts to the frame from the looks they made the bends while the metal was cold and it cracked, a friend welded the brake and haven't had an issue with it since, but still getting another from IB.
All and all I'm extremely happy with my Tornado, payed $3995 shipped and it was worth every penny, I bought a small trailer for it and will be putting a hitch on it soon, It's a sharp looking bike and I lost count on how many ppl have stopped to asked about it and where they can get one.
I've only gotten started and plan to put several thousand more miles on it this summer.
Everything on the bike is stock, I haven't made any mods to the bike "yet".
It's a very comfortable ride, the seat is wide and well padded and the running boards give you plenty of room to place your feet and change foot position when you need to. I'm in a wheelchair and I had plenty of room on the passenger to strap down my chair and still have room for a passenger.
There is also a lot of storage, I put 3 bags of groceries and a six pack in the main storage compartment under the seat, as well as a bunch of tools in the small compartment under the seat. it has a good sized glove box large enough to hold my rain suit on one side and a couple bottles of soda on the other, there are also 2 compartments under the handlebars large enough for my cellphone, wallet, and a couple pair of sunglasses. the right one is also where the radiator cap is.
The bike has plenty of acceleration from 0-55mph, 55+ pickup starts to drop off and tops out at about 67mph, I'm getting about 70mpg and it has a 3 gallon tank (I use premium gas and I add the ethanol treatment to it). Reverse is quite touchy and I have to feather the throttle to keep from spinning the tires when backing up. it has a simple R-N-D shifter on the right side. haven't had any problem changing gears and I use reverse a lot since I can't use my legs to push it back.
the bike handles quite well, I can do a U-turn in the road without going of onto the should, at 65mph strong winds and gusts don't bother it at all, it corners well, you don't have to fight the steering to take corners, I have had the inside tire lift enough to spin if I take off to fast. ( taking off from a dead stop it really wants to go and I'm already at 35-40 by time I come out of the turn) leaning into it does stop it from lifting up.
The tires seem decent with deep tread and little wear so far. The bike has 3 disc brakes that work well and stopping the bike in a relatively short distance. took me a little getting used to braking with both front and rear breaks without one or the other locking up and skidding.
the rear end had 4 shocks that works pretty good for smoothing out rough roads, they come set at the softest setting, the front forks are kind of on the stiff side and the only wait to adjust them is to change out the springs.
All the lights are bright and the rear brake light sets high and raps around the back end of the seat so is quite visible to other vehicles, the headlights line up nicely for seeing the road at night with high or low beams. it doesn't have a reverse light. the plate light lights up the plate well. there were no holes to bolt the plate on so I had to drill my own. the digital dash is bright and has a large # readout for the MPH, for some reason it doesn't have a trip odometer which would have been nice to have, also the dash is in Kilometers and can't be switched to MPH, then sent me a new dash that's in MPH, but I haven't bothered to put it in yet since I'm already used to Kilometers.
I've had a couple small issues with the bike, the latch on the glove compartment broke off after opening it a couple of times, waiting for the replacement part from IB, the rear fender has developed some stress cracks around a couple of bolts, but nothing to bad, most likely because of some rough dirt roads I've been on. One of the brackets that holds the front right side of the rear fender broke where it bolts to the frame from the looks they made the bends while the metal was cold and it cracked, a friend welded the brake and haven't had an issue with it since, but still getting another from IB.
All and all I'm extremely happy with my Tornado, payed $3995 shipped and it was worth every penny, I bought a small trailer for it and will be putting a hitch on it soon, It's a sharp looking bike and I lost count on how many ppl have stopped to asked about it and where they can get one.
I've only gotten started and plan to put several thousand more miles on it this summer.
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