Robert, I also looked at the kawasaki "Connie" and the Yamaha FJR 1300. My wife rides with me occasionally, and both the Kawi and FJR don't look too comfortable for the passenger. The Triumph Rocket certainly has plenty of power, but the new design looks like a sport bike- passenger seat way up in the air!. The BMW 1600B looks nice, but like you said- price over 26k and maintenance costs are scary.
Look at the Corbin seats if that is the only thing that is stopping you from the Connie. They are much more comfortable and seem to have a more cruiser style riding position, in concerns with height. When I was researching one the other thing was the handle bar height that some modified to a more upright position. When I sat on the Connie I too was not thrilled with the seating position. Pegs are also available to reposition since the bike is used for some cross country runs. But like any bike or pair of shoes sometime you need to wear them in to be comfortable. That is one of the hardest things to do, know how the bike will feel years or even months down the road.
I was so close to pulling the trigger on one before the Valk and would look at it again.
I want a bike that I can repair myself, the BMW with most of the electrical items cannot be. The problem is it takes a scanner that is 15k to read and erase codes. Most of the parts are high tech too and may require factory coding to make them work. So even if you buy the scanner or find one, programing many be an issue.
That is one thing about the Valk that is nice, it still has blink codes to diagnose a problem. The parts do not require any coding to work with the other electronic parts on your bike and you can get them used.
This is more an old school way of doing things since today all car manufactures require some form of coding for their parts and some will not sell you the parts, citing proprietary programing. From light switches to headlights, instrument clusters, all require some form of programing.
Since you no longer have a direct connection to anything in your car even steering, accel and braking, its all electronic. Yes even headlights require programing, you can replace a bulb and sometimes a headlight assembly but anything beyond that requires programing.
