So I joined the ATAS club today. Picked up a 2018 with 4000 miles, I bought Honda Extended warranty for 5 years for $770 which seemed like a no-brainer to me. I fly from Miami to Tampa, picked up the bike in Clearwater, and rode it 280 miles home. First the good. The bike is perfect, almost factory new, the stock tires are smooth on the highway and the power is really good. First time ever riding a DCT, and let me tell yous **** nice. This bike is quiet and smooth, closest thing to an electric bike you can get. I got in some stupid traffic on I75 midday and the DCT made it almost bearable. The seat is comfy, controls are good, brakes are great, suspension seems good and very adjustable. I am 5' 7 and I was worried the bike was going to be too tall. I put the seat in the low position, took out a ton of rear preload and front dampening. The bike sagged right down to where I was comfortable for my first ride. I will cut the seat down some and raise the forks so I can put back some front dampening and figure out the rear. The Panniers are not perfect, but they were included and they work. Plenty of room. Heated grips, nice touch. Windscreen is iffy, I was doing 80 mph for 4 hours with a FF on. It was loud and I felt the wind on my body. The wind was fierce today, it was moving me all around and the **** ton of rigs on the highways made it worse.

Now the bad.

Worst grips ever, lots of hand fatigue, unlike any of my other bikes. Single foot position sucks, this bike needs highway pegs on the crash bars, those are going on right away! Lack of cruise control on a bike with fly-by-wire, comeon seriously? Did anyone at Honda take an extended ride on one of these??? Definitely getting a throttle stabilizer of some sort.

List:

Highway pegs
Grip Puppies
Center Stand (dealer is shipping to me)
Cruise control thingy
50/50 tires- Mitas or Shinko 804-805
Honda Top Storage box.

All in all, I am super happy with the purchase and i think it will be with me for a long time.

kaptkaos, congratulations to your new 2018 ATAS. I hope you will be happy with the bike for a long long time. Please, do yourself a favor and read all about fork seals and fuel pump problems and take proactive/preventive steps to try to avoid them. The problems seem to be real and should not be taken lightly, especially the fuel pump/gas tank problem. They basically 'ruined' my bucket list trip being far away from home. Have fun and stay safe.

I looked at my forks and they have zero stiction and are defect free. I bought 5 year extended Honda warranty, and I wont be doing any trips to other continents, thats what rentals and tours are for!

What proactive/prevative steps can I take to avoid them?


Thanks

Get some seal savers for the forks.

Which make did you get?

And the fuel pump

If you have an ATAS, plan on pulling the tank and flushing it to fix that problem. I don't think anything else will solve it.

I've used the zip on seal savers on my first bike and the slip on ones on my second bike. Both seem to work. I like the longer ones better, not sure why.

Congrats on the ATAS I know what you mean about I-75t traffic, I grew up just south of Clearwater & now live outside St. Louis.
Grip puppies definitely helped although they do soak up some of the heat from the heated grips they're undoubtedly still worth it.
I use a Go-Cruise, the adjustable aluminum model is $30 on amazon. I tried the plastic $18 one but it snapped after a couple months. After trying a bunch of different throttle locks on other bikes I found the Go-Cruise to be the least finicky, cheapest, grip puppies don't interfere with it & it can be universally swapped from bike to bike in 5 seconds.
The windscreen does suck, I installed a Givi D1144ST at 500mi. It's quite a bit taller & wider, doesn't have the hole behind the speedo & eliminated 90% of the buffeting. The only time I get helmet shake is if I'm stuck behind a semi truck, other than that it's smooth airflow with the wind hitting mid faceshield. After installing the windscreen I haven't felt the need for a fork shield to block the updraft. For reference this is my opinion after spending 58k on an ST1300 with a Cee Baily shield. I'm 6'1", 32" inseam with the seat in the high position wearing a Shoei GT Air.
I'm sure there are better street bias tires out there the stock tires weren't as bad as some of the other reviewers made them out to be. I got 5,000 to the wear bars out of the rear, front was more than half gone. Get the preload setup for your weight & they feel confident down to the pegs. Once the stockers wore out I decided to give the Shinko 804/805's a try. No regrets. Mounting was easy front took .75oz, rear took 1.5oz to balance running IRC hd tubes, 33psi front and rear. The initial scrub in was very sketchy but once worn in they make a decent tire on the street once they warm up. I'd say they're 80-90% of the stock tires on road Don't think they can be confidently taken to the pegs but I was shocked a bias ply knobby performed so well on the street, well above my expectations much quieter than expected as well. They are heavier though and the weight can be felt when transferring on a switchback. You also notice the weight on the highway with a slight decrease in power and a 3mpg decrease but are still stable up to 100mph, after that the knobs started to wander a bit. When the Shinko are gone I may try Rally STR or Anakee Adventure but they'd better get a ton more miles and be amazing on the street while still good off-road to justify the extra cost over these Shinkos.

So this weekend I installed the rim tape tubeless conversion and the Mitas E07's. I am glad I went tubeless because doing the tire change in my garage was hard enough, I cant ever see doing it roadside without gouging my rims or pinching a tube. Thank God the tubeless is holding air, i will be plugging leaks, and if I tear a tire, then I guess the buzzards will get me! It would have to be really dire straits for me to try to change a tire roadside, and I dont want to carry all the extra weight in tools. Now I can just carry my plug repair kit and compressor.

The Mitas tires look to be fantastic. I road 50 miles today to test if they were in balance, and scuff them in. THey were smooth, quiet and honestly had plenty of traction on the road for my road skills. They didnt feel much different than the stock Dunlops on the road. I will have to wait and see for rain and off-road. I also raised the forks in the trees. lowering the front a bit to match the low preload I have on the rear. I cut down the seat foam and I can just about flat foot both feet now at 5-7" with my riding boots on.

I installed the center stand, let me tell you those springs are no joke! That was not fun, I ended up having to get help from my neighbor to pull while I aligned and hooked it with a tool we made. So it was a productive weekend of work on the ATAS, almost ready to tackle a trip.

Loving this bike so far, havent ridden my Road GLide since I got this!

The DCT (in sport mode) is the best in stop-n-go traffic, not to mention, unlike your HD you can be stuck in it for hours at high temps and your ATAS will be just fine, lol you’ll be over heated way before your ATAS.. BTW I hate to tell you but, a chunk of broom handle and a coat hanger gets those springs on in around 10sec