Chris, your really hitting at this bike again - really it is not needed, to be so negative about a fledgling project such as CCM, more so when your views may be quite influential within the HUBB network by way of your experience, background and travel history.
As you will know and I am sure there will be many people who look up to the like of yourself for advice and guidance from your wide experience which is fair enough, however if you have your facts wrong ( different to your personal views) that then would be very unfair to the likes of CCM looking at what they are trying to achieve and where they are at the moment.
You have not ridden the bike but you have a mate that did not like it - well there are many that have ridden it and thought it excellent - two friends of mine who like yourself have done big trips - massive cross continent trips - on various bikes both say they would consider the bike very high on the list of bikes.
I have not yet ridden the bike for various reasons but still cannot see why your so negative I can only be positive about it in its concept.
The CCM is new and offers something that does not exist to this market - it also appears of high build quality - yes it need proven but so does everything new to the market. CCM have it appears learnt from the past and hopefully (given the chance) moved on into a new chapter with this bike.
Bye the way (as for drz's something many people often refer to) one of the riders i mention above also ownes a drz and does not rate it that highly, constantly goes on about - various aspects of the poor build quality, the know failings and unreliable side of the DRZ series history. Thats not to mention the amount of money spent to bring his particular bike up to a reasonable level - still not comparable to the CCM.
To add to that I did some work on the bike with him recently - and have to say i was shocked at the poor quality of simple things like the electrics and some of the chassis welding - I was surprised as this was on a very low mileage bike.
I currently ride a Cagiva elefant at the moment another bike you would not rate - based on what ? an italian bias a ducati bias -who knows - but the quality of the chassis and general engineering are simply years ahead of its time and even the wiring (now almost 20 years old and with a tiny amount of modifcation) on the Elefant are way ahead of the much more modern drz. (I agree the Elefant is a little more complex to work on the engine) but still easy enough. I think we will never agree on our views over this CCM or the Elefant or the BMW for that matter but hey ho. Why however go on about the CCM - when you have nothing good to say about the machine nor any experience of it.