Hi Marc - WELCOME!  As a relatively newbie, I'm growing to enjoy my thumper as I start adding on miles.  Hope you have  as much fun with your new bike, ride safe.

Thanks for the welcome. It's much appreciated.
Now I'm off to post my first ? (after searching, of course)

Welcome to a great site - I went through the parent thingie also and couldn't get my first bike (officially) till I was almost over the hill.

Welcome to the best motorcycle forum on the net.  You won't find a friendlier bunch anywhere.  As a new rider you will also find this site, and the people here, to be a wonderful resource for all things Savage and motorcycles in general.

Savage_Rob wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:11:

I guess my parent was a bad influence! But I agree with the extra life insurance helping the spouse accept the new motorcycle. As soon as I bought the new one,  he upped my life insurance so he & his "new wife" could enjoy life after I kill my fool self on that @$#% bike.

I have had some fun fooling around with the seat as i am 6'4".  Love the bike but i am just too big... the seat is up and back four or five inches right now and it doesn't feel bad...just trying to decide what to do and how permanent to make it...thought of lifting the back of the tank but not the front so it would match the seat...then putting some sort of metal cover in to hide the space...good winter project, methinks!

Good luck!

Welcome to our little corner of the motorcycle world! They've really got a cool Savage/S40 world going here. And welcome to the two-wheeled Savage life. I'm sure you're quite excited and have to keep checking on your bike. Being a new rider/owner, too, of an '04 Savage, I still check on it all the time, even though it's awfully cold where I am, so I just go out into the garage and admire it and hope for a warm up and no ice on the weekend. I've heard a lot about the size of this bike, but I sat on a lot of bigger bikes before going with the Savage and it always felt right to me in the store. I'm 6'0, too, but I think it's very comfortable and have no complaints. To me, it feels very manageable and controllable, which I think makes it safer and more enjoyable. My main beef is the way the seat slides you forward and this, I think, leads to the angle I sit on the bike with and my back stiffening up. So I'm going to be raising the front of the seat, too, to change the seating angle.