+500 km test run

As preparation for the upcoming longer trip heading to the shores of the Barents sea and Norwegian sea I did a + 540 km test run. The purpose was to test the packing and most of all the bearable daily saddle time on the 690. The long trip has to be done in 3 days which means that on average the daily amount of kilometres must be around 700 (435 miles). I had no doubts that the bike could handle anything that was required, but my ass on the other hand, might not. I decided to ditch the "ergo" seat and use the standard seat as it feels much more comfortable no matter how I've tried to break in the ergo seat.

Test run results

Seat / comfort
8 hours of seat time today. The stock seat is bearable, but at 400 km (5-6 hrs) mark it was not really fun anymore. Riding standing up is not really an option at higher speeds as it too wears you down. 

Mileage

As expected the daily km amount of +500 is no issue. Today's run was over 9 hours, but only because the route included some pretty tiny forest roads.

Packing
The waterproof duffel bag works good enough. I will be ditching the KTM rear bag. Refilling is a chore, but it only takes 3 minutes extra to move the bag out of the way and back again. Not too bad. I will be packing only the bare essentials, so the duffel and tank bag combined will be enough. If push comes to shove, I will put some stuff in a back bag.

Vibration
Everything is very comfy up to 94 km/h. After that, there is still plenty of go left, but some buzz starts to make itself know. Neglible at first, but once you hang at 100 km/h for an hour, you will feel it.