This was the very best bike I have ever had and I am very sad that I sold it. At 8000kms it had a stravation problem which I cured by removing the fuel pump and replacing the fuel filters and after that all was fine. I had money to farkle a bit, installed Akro cans, a racing airfilter, deactivated the SLS, had the dealer load the Akrapovic mapping etc.

I needed about 7000km to figure out what kind of bike the SM was. It was unrideable below 4000 which got better with the Akro map but less than 3500 was a nono. In several forums people said get a counter sprocket with a tooth less and it will be fine. That is like having headache every day and taking a pill to get rid of the pain. The cause stays, the pain will return. I met a KTM guy and he said put the original sprocket in, what I did because I was shifting a million times on twisties as the second was far too short. However, the KTM guy said: "Take it as what it is, a pure hooligan bike made only for trashing it and ride it like a kook!" The engines flywheel mass is super low, like on race bikes and the LC8 engine revs through the band like a pure race engine. And this is what it is, a race engine.