In the summer of 2014 I took my bran new 500 to a buddy's cabin in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of southern Colorado. The cabin is at 9,800ft elevation and we rode for a week from 8,500ft in the San Luis Valley to up to 12,000 in the mountains. I didn't have 100 miles on the rig when we got up there from here at home at 700ft in Arkansas. We put from 100 to 120 miles per day on the 500 for a week. The first day and half of riding I thought the Honda did OK, but a little sluggish at the higher elevations, about noon of the second day we were running at about 11,000ft on a long straight gravel road when the 500 suddenly gained a gear. All at once it started running like you had put an oxygen tank on it. Places we geared down to 3d to keep going the day before we were running in 5th with no loss of speed or power. The rest of the week that thing ran like a scalded cat. I've taken it back out there once or twice a year since and it does the thing, sometimes a little quicker, like a half a day riding, sometimes it takes two days, but the computer resets or something after I've been out there a while and then it runs great. Doesn't really run bad to start with, but it runs so much better after it resets it's amazing.
