John, looks like the OP has his knee bent and foot flat on the ground so perhaps saddle height is less of an issue for him as it was for me on the R850R which I found to be a very comfortable machine compared to more race oriented bikes of the time.
Howard... After 20 years in the garage loft are you saying my leathers have shrunk....surely not..! Or is there any other reason they might feel somewhat ..err..tight.. (-:
As for ever larger engines I think that started around the time that California introduced smog laws, and grew exponentially in terms of additional complexity and cubic capacity from then on to maintain power output while keeping time with ever increasing emission regulation. In my yoof a 750 Norton Atlas or RE SQ four were thought of as BIG bikes... (-: The largest capacity bike I rode was the first of Honda`s Gold Wing imports.
