Indeed, it does seem small and it is.
As I said, the RT bike maybe looks large and heavy, but that is down to nothing more than the bulbous fairing. It’s a very easy bike to ride and to push around. I liked it as a bike but just cannot relate to the WC engine, as explained above. That is not some snobby, “Let’s bash the WC engine because we can” thing, I just don’t like it. If I want a multi-cylinder bike, I’ll buy one; I don’t want something that is pretending to be one, just because the comparatively low power of the engine makes it easier to ride.
There will come a time when the 1600’s weight at rest and / or on the move will become too much for me; in short I will probably lose the confidence it needs. That, I can accept. But, thankfully, I am not there yet. When it happens, I might look again at an RT (I only borrowed one for a full day so I could see the big TFT / Connected app screen in action) and accept my dislike of the engine as a trade-off against what is otherwise a pretty good ‘nice’ easy to ride motorcycle. The 1600 is not *. An RT would undoubtedly do what I would want it to do, which is going on decent length jaunts for several days or a couple of weeks in Western Europe. If I wanted to go five miles to Tesco at Galleons Reach, to meet like minds, I’d take the DLR, which at least is free.
* That probably reads like some sort of Billy Big Bollocks statement. If it does, that is a million miles away from its intent. The 1600 though is a big bike of some considerable weight, matched to a fair degree of readily available power. You do have to be confident riding the thing and definitely not get it pointing the wrong way too often. Get used to it and it’s fantastic at what it does, but only if you like doing what it is good at. If you don’t there are definitely ‘better’ bikes of all sorts, makes and sizes out there, an RT is but one of them.