As Serowbot and others have mentioned....this bike is torguey.  If you are not yet coordinated at the clutch/throttle/front brake thingies......it can become a real handful real fast.  The Savage is a wonderful bike to own......once  you have mastered the use of the various controls.  Some have posted that they learned on the Savage by riding very carefully around a parking lot, then around the block, then finally out in traffic.....but do go slowly and get very coordinated before trying the higher gears and higher speeds.  When looking for used Savage parts on ebay it is scary to see how many of them have become parts bikes after running into things.......lots of bent forks and smashed front wheels from running head first into big stuff.