Bob
Guest
I read a bit about the 800 when I first bought the NT but there was no BMW dealer near by and I am Honda fan when it comes to reliability. But now there is a BMW dealer only 40 miles away so I think I'll take a look.
2013 Yamaha FJR1300A
- Thread starter tawilke46
- Start date
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Yeah I'm staying with the Japanese. I just can't risk European stuff.
So...
Friday my Macbook wouldn't boot. Took the ferry over to the local apple store. Had to make an appointment a couple of hours hence. Time on my hands, what to do? Heck, why not take a test drive of a '13 FJR1300?
Result: By Saturday night I had a new disk drive in my Macbook ($194) and had traded in my NT for a '13 FJR (way more than $194).
So if someone wants a reasonably farkled NT there's now a red 2010 with ~17,000 miles sitting at Lynnwood Motoplex.
Got some excess NT farkles to be had by those interested. Large Panniers, Rox Risers, assorted windshields. Will post details tomorrow. Tired from rehearsal.
Friday my Macbook wouldn't boot. Took the ferry over to the local apple store. Had to make an appointment a couple of hours hence. Time on my hands, what to do? Heck, why not take a test drive of a '13 FJR1300?
Result: By Saturday night I had a new disk drive in my Macbook ($194) and had traded in my NT for a '13 FJR (way more than $194).
So if someone wants a reasonably farkled NT there's now a red 2010 with ~17,000 miles sitting at Lynnwood Motoplex.
Got some excess NT farkles to be had by those interested. Large Panniers, Rox Risers, assorted windshields. Will post details tomorrow. Tired from rehearsal.
$194 for a hard drive? Yikes - I hope that cost included their time and labor!
Congrats on the FJR! Will look forward to pics/reviews, etc.
Congrats on the FJR! Will look forward to pics/reviews, etc.
Some initial impressions:
I was most interested in the low-speed handling, of course. Such as maneuvering in a parking lot, u-turns, etc. The bike turns a slightly larger radius than an NT, but the weight increase over the NT was barely noticeable. Perfectly fine. I'm happy.
The compartment on the left side of the fairing won't be holding much. It has a switched accessory plug mounted in there. Actually using it takes up a lot of what little room there is. Not a big deal. Anyhow, I fabricated an access plug to SAE lead, plugged it in (running the wire through a rubber flange present in the bottom of the compartment) and hooked it up to my GPS, which I retained from my previous bikes. The compartment, by the way, unlocks when the power is on. Handy but tiny. There is no compartment on the right, which leads me to:
The battery is in the front fairing up on the right side. But they've actually made it tricky to get to, requiring removal of more tupperware than I would have though necessary. Now this isn't something you do every day, so no big deal. However, I may consider trying out a Shorai replacement (again). The reason is that the 7+ pound weight saving is pretty high up on the bike, essentially level with the fuel.
The touring vs sport setting is eye-opening. There's a region of operation (lower RPM) when set in T mode, that, as you accelerate, it can actually feel a bit doggy. S mode can feel like JATO has kicked in, relative to the NT. But overall the throttle-by-wire approach produces a very manageable power control system.
Windshield is being replaced. Stock is super noisy. Enough said.
Riding position is OK, but I'll eventually wind up going to Helibars, I expect. They have a solution kind of like the NT for it. There is a miniscule amount of adjustment available for the stock bars, obtained by a method not contained in the owner's manual. But the internet, being the repository of all that is known to humankind, revealed the method. Seat height is similar to the NT, but the bike is a little wider and so it inhibits leg movement a bit more when wrestling it back out onto, say, my gravel driveway.
Speaking of the owner's manual, it generally contains the information one expects but it is so cheaply manufactured I actually expect it to wear out in a few years. If you follow the maintenance tasks religiously, you'll be in the shop every 4,000 miles. And not just for oil changes, but checking the synchronization of the fuel injection. I'm guessing this stuff is done much more rarely than this.
Suspension is very nice.
My Hippo Hands will fit on the bike, but I'll hold off on that. There are many switches and buttons with which I am not yet familiar and wouldn't want to try to operate without seeing.
Picture of GPS location attached.
I was most interested in the low-speed handling, of course. Such as maneuvering in a parking lot, u-turns, etc. The bike turns a slightly larger radius than an NT, but the weight increase over the NT was barely noticeable. Perfectly fine. I'm happy.
The compartment on the left side of the fairing won't be holding much. It has a switched accessory plug mounted in there. Actually using it takes up a lot of what little room there is. Not a big deal. Anyhow, I fabricated an access plug to SAE lead, plugged it in (running the wire through a rubber flange present in the bottom of the compartment) and hooked it up to my GPS, which I retained from my previous bikes. The compartment, by the way, unlocks when the power is on. Handy but tiny. There is no compartment on the right, which leads me to:
The battery is in the front fairing up on the right side. But they've actually made it tricky to get to, requiring removal of more tupperware than I would have though necessary. Now this isn't something you do every day, so no big deal. However, I may consider trying out a Shorai replacement (again). The reason is that the 7+ pound weight saving is pretty high up on the bike, essentially level with the fuel.
The touring vs sport setting is eye-opening. There's a region of operation (lower RPM) when set in T mode, that, as you accelerate, it can actually feel a bit doggy. S mode can feel like JATO has kicked in, relative to the NT. But overall the throttle-by-wire approach produces a very manageable power control system.
Windshield is being replaced. Stock is super noisy. Enough said.
Riding position is OK, but I'll eventually wind up going to Helibars, I expect. They have a solution kind of like the NT for it. There is a miniscule amount of adjustment available for the stock bars, obtained by a method not contained in the owner's manual. But the internet, being the repository of all that is known to humankind, revealed the method. Seat height is similar to the NT, but the bike is a little wider and so it inhibits leg movement a bit more when wrestling it back out onto, say, my gravel driveway.
Speaking of the owner's manual, it generally contains the information one expects but it is so cheaply manufactured I actually expect it to wear out in a few years. If you follow the maintenance tasks religiously, you'll be in the shop every 4,000 miles. And not just for oil changes, but checking the synchronization of the fuel injection. I'm guessing this stuff is done much more rarely than this.
Suspension is very nice.
My Hippo Hands will fit on the bike, but I'll hold off on that. There are many switches and buttons with which I am not yet familiar and wouldn't want to try to operate without seeing.
Picture of GPS location attached.
Attachments
A little follow-up:
Installed my Yamaha OEM trunk yesterday. They supply you with a lock for it when you buy the bike whether you intend to install this trunk or not. Anyway, I didn't carefully read the instructions on installing the lock on the trunk and overlooked the detail that one needs a tamper-proof torx head (T10) to install the factory lock to the case. So I'm sitting there like some chimpanzee trying to figure out why none of my torx heads would go in. Then I looked really carefully. DOH! Fortunately, I actually have a set of these tools (overkill tool buy from years ago), from there it was easy.
Installed my Yamaha OEM trunk yesterday. They supply you with a lock for it when you buy the bike whether you intend to install this trunk or not. Anyway, I didn't carefully read the instructions on installing the lock on the trunk and overlooked the detail that one needs a tamper-proof torx head (T10) to install the factory lock to the case. So I'm sitting there like some chimpanzee trying to figure out why none of my torx heads would go in. Then I looked really carefully. DOH! Fortunately, I actually have a set of these tools (overkill tool buy from years ago), from there it was easy.
RedBird
Site Supporter
Rich, I installed the new Helibars unit (not the replacement top triple clamp - the bridge unit) on my 2009 FJR and it makes quite a difference in the reach to the bars. I really like it. Install was not too difficult. You do have to remove the triple clamp, but only to remove the original bar mounting piece then it goes right back on. The ignition lock stays in place on the clamp when you do this. There is a short extention with a bleeder that you install for the front brake line, all other lines and cables are stock. A good addition. Next up for me is a Russell saddle.
FYI - motorcycle larry has a replacement triple clamp (plus additional risers for it if needed) that moves the bars back so that approach is available also.
FYI - motorcycle larry has a replacement triple clamp (plus additional risers for it if needed) that moves the bars back so that approach is available also.
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Thanks. I do have the helibars "bridge" approach on order.
I saw Ken's (Redbird's) "new" FJR yesterday when he brought me a stock NT seat so I can send Russell my saddle so they can recover the front part. The FJR is a really nice-looking bike. Ken has added tip-over bars that look like they'd be worth it for me if I owned one. His bike is black and they're not very noticeable at all.
An amusing comparison between this site and the FJR site I now frequent. Over here we're perfectly happy that the speedometer is accurate to about 1 MPH when checked against GPS. On the other site, there are actually folks (not a lot) complaining that a difference of 1 MPH exists and castigate Yamaha for not fixing this "defect". Interestingly, higher discrepancies have been reported when displaying in KPH. I'll check that out for grins as soon as I can get unchained for a few hours.
That's funny, my Explorer's speedometer routinely lists speed as 3mph faster than what my Garmin says.