Well, I am back and we both survived. And I can say that both me and my partner had pretty equal amount of sex, but not with locals. Still, thanks for the hint,
ingridguerci94 
We went with Hertz Ride rental, as they had 1250RT with all three panniers available. Not the cheapest, but I like Hertz.
Unfortunately, their Lisbon office is their busiest, and we came a bit too late to avoid the midday crowd. The bike had only around 3000km on the clock and was pre-dropped on one side.
We had 5 days of riding, having everything from meagre 12 degrees in the rain to sunny 27 degrees in city traffic. We rode about 1200km in total and chicken strips went down to 1cm. There were routes we took, where I could not get to higher gear than the 3rd, with my foot on the rear brake for over an hour. And I haven't touched the surface of neither motorway nor a tolled road.
Local drivers have the advantage of knowing the route, so although I was enjoying myself, I had to let them pass.
Living for a week from one pannier bag is doable, when you have peg-less clothes line with you.
1250RT does not have phone/satnav mount, and I could not get my phone connected, so my navigation was only via audio messages from Google maps on my phone. It worked well outside cities and medieval villages, and allowed me to focus purely on the riding without glancing down on the squiggly line on the phone screen.
Comparing to my 10-year old 1200RT, the gear box is smoother and quieter, quick shifter more civilised, but the screen and menu are painful. Also, the shift-cam change is noticeable and caught my by surprise a few times. And it was always unpleasant surprise. The gearbox felt "sticky" when it warmed up, which I found on my Blue Whale too, but I wanted it to compare to a new bike.
Having done low-speed manoeuvre training couple of weekends before the trip definitely helped.
Overall, Portugal is fantastic place to ride a motorbike and I have a proof below, that RT is a pussy-magnet...
- IMG-20240618-WA0001.jpg (143.18 KiB) Viewed 4896 times
I am here to learn.
