I bought the Norden with hopes that it may be a better long distance bike than the 890 Adventure. On Sunday and Monday morning I took it for it's first 1500 mile/36 hour ride. Mostly I am pleased with the bike but like any other new bike there are some things that need sorting.
Wind management. The bike is pretty good up to about 70mph. Around 75mph the buffeting becomes really bad. I have a cheap eBay wind deflector mounted on top of the windshield. It was definitely helping because one of the hinges broke after 800 miles and things got much worse. I agree with Mooseb that the mirrors are probably a big cause of buffeting. There is no way those big pie plates don't cause turbulence.
Because I was running 70% highway and 30% backroads I figured I would run the stock tires instead of my Contis. Seemed a good plan to save the center of my good tires and use up the OEMs. If you haven't switched out the OEM tires yet you will be pleasantly surprised by the improvement. Going back to the Pirellis was a shocker. They had about 300 miles on them when I left and the rear looks pretty worn at 2000. Tare not very good in the rain either.
The seat is really good. In 36 hours I hardly felt any sore spots or any discomfort. That's high praise for a stock seat.
The suspension works great!! The bike handled well in big winds from every direction including several thunderstorms where the wind seemed to come from everywhere. Wind blast from traffic or semi trucks did not upset the bike in the least although the buffeting became much worse.
Fuel mileage, What's up with that. I saw everything from 37mpg to 49mpg. For reference my 890 is consistently between 45mpg and 50mpg. I could not correlate the change in mileage to anything, wind, speed, traffic or a particular brand of fuel. Maybe it will improve as I put more miles on bike? I did not have bags on the bike, I only had a 40L dry bag strapped to the back seat. I did notice a big change immediately from 1 tank to the next which made me think fuel quality may be an issue but it never happened again. Also once consumption registers on the dash it is slow to change.
Overall I think this is a GREAT bike. I'm really pleased with it and not bothered that a few things need sorting. That's pretty much always the case. Mostly I'm looking forward to piling as many miles on it as I can as quickly as I can.
