WooHoo, I'm not the only one after all!
I took my Imperiale in for it's 600 mile service around 3 weeks ago, I think the cost of the first service is a little steep considering all that the dealer does is an oil and filter change plus a check around to make sure all the nuts and bolts are still in place. Not only that, the dealer still adds the VAT to the cost of the service so it works out at just under 160 quid! I think it's a great little bike though, cheap to run and fun to ride which in my opinion is the essence of motorcycling. For the first few weeks of riding my Imperiale I thought that the throttle was a bit on the 'jerky' side so I adjusted the free play out at the twist grip end and I also noticed that the throttle cable ran through a bracket on the top fork yoke which made the cable very taught so I removed it from the bracket, very easy to do, to give it some slack and after that it seemed a lot better. Also for the first couple of weeks of riding I found that that gear changing was a bit of a 'gamble', difficult to get into gear at lower speeds, so I adjusted the clutch cable and found that after a couple of hundred miles the gear changing has become a lot smoother although I have found that 'blipping' the throttle on down changes helps a great deal.
I have found a couple of 'niggles' with my bike, the ABS light only works when it feels like it and when the engines warmed up and you turn the bike off and leave it for 10 minutes or so, when you start the bike up again the idle is very erratic although none of these things affect the actual riding of the bike so at the moment I will live with it until it's next service.
As for as the modifications on my bike I was going to wind people up and say that I bought a 'limited edition' Imperiale
but to be honest I'm a bit of a tinkerer. The tank and side panel emblems are standard to the bike, I added the Italian flag stickers on the tank because when I was riding home from work one night I managed to get a stone chip on the right side of my tank which p****d me off greatly! I touched the chip in and unless you were looking for it you wouldn't know it was there, but I do know it's there so stickers are my go to remedy for this sort of thing. I changed the chromed plastic mirrors and indicators because I think that chromed plastic is the work of satan! I removed the black covers that hide the throttle body just behind the cylinder barrel and found a nice chromed metal disc that fits nicely on the throttle control that's on the side of the throttle body. I removed the passenger grab handle 'cause I didn't like it and the fork gaiters are actually for a Triumph T100, the fork dimensions are identical.
If you a planning on keeping your Imperiale long term I would recommend changing the disc mounting bolts, Benelli have used M6 socket head bolts made out of cheese that only need a 4mm allen key to remove them, as I'm sure you know brake disc bolts have a nasty habit of corroding themselves into the threads over time and there's no way in hell that these little bugger's are going to come out easily after a few years. I fitted some stainless M6 hex head bolts to the front disc which was easy enough, unfortunately the rear disc bolts aren't quite so easy to change. One more thing, I've spent a little time removing some bolts on my bike and giving them a touch of copper slip, something that Benelli failed to do as this will make life a little easier in the future when doing brake pad changes and the like.
Anyway I hope that I haven't bored you with all this and it would be good to hear about your long term experiences with your new Imperiale, happy riding
