etex

I went to UT Austin; lived there for about 14 years (no, it did not take me 14 years to graduate). It seems hard to believe now, but Austin was a sleepy middle sized college town in the 60's and 70's. A beautiful, quiet town. Empty streets downtown after 6pm and weekends. Home to Barton Springs, the Capitol grounds (the state capitol building was open and available to the public 24 x 7 with just a few guards walking around), Eeyore's birthday party at Pease park (free beer for all!) and Willie Nelson was young (as was I). Then, the technology industry came, along with crowds, traffic worse than anything and other big city ailments. Austin is not the city of old, no longer the old River City. Austin hurts my soul when I must go there now. Sorry to meander into maudlin memories of time past and gone.

I've ridden out of Hot Springs during two rain sodden days last spring. Road to Petit Jean and parts east and west. Lots of twisties and scenery. Arkansas is a beautiful state. I'll be visiting again sometime. And the next time I'll be on my Tracer 9.

Thanks!

I installed hand guards on my CB500x hoping that in the winter they'd help keep my hands warmer, but really I don't think they helped me at all with warmth. They do protect from flying bugs and rocks, but my gloves do a fair job at protecting from those flying objects. Truth is, I just don't like how hand guards look. So I took off the guards from my new bike. I harvested those lights from my CB500x; they are Denali 2.0 TriOptic LED lights and are a good example of overpriced motorcycle farkles. However, Denali stuff is good quality - those lights are in perfect condition despite almost 60000 miles on a pretty buzzy Honda and they do supply good quantities of reliable light. One of the lights is set as a spotlight, and one a broader beam light; I believe more light and a larger headlight "puddle" on the front helps to reduce cage driver's errors that might get me killed. One thing that I definitely do not like about the Tracer is the high beam headlight element going completely off when the high beam is turned off, reducing the size of the lighted area "puddle" of the headlights for other drivers to a one small low beam. Seems to me that having two dual beam (high and low) headlights is is much safer idea. I do like the quantity and light spread of the headlights on my Tracer. I did have to raise the low beam slightly. The fork mounts are from Amazon, and although definitely not an example of over priced motorcycle farkles, they appear, at the present, to be of good quality and they fit nicely; Amazon Link

I told my son the other day - who rides an XSR - that I liked my CB500x, but that I love my Tracer 9. It is so quick, stable, and nimble. I live near Longview, which is between Dallas and Shreveport. There is a large network of farm to market roads around here, which is mainly where I ride. I'm retired, so I can ride whenever the need hits, which is fairly often.

Thanks for the welcome. For sure I want to know what I need and can afford before before buying stuff. I'll be looking for ideas and cautions here. All things for a motorcycle seem to cost much more than I would think they should, so I do investigate before I invest. Also, generally I'll do all the maintenance on my bike, so I may bug folks about that as much as what the best and cheapest farkle is. I'm looking forward to learning the world of Yamaha.

I'm a proud owner of a 2022 Yamaha Tracer 9 GT. I've ridden bikes since 1968 when I bought a Honda CB160. A couple of years later I bought a Honda CB400II. A few years after that, I took a brief break from riding and sold my bike. Only about 40 years later, I bought a 2018 Honda CB500X and rode it for about five years and about 60,000 miles, mainly on paved roads. The 500x is a good bike, reliable, adequately powered, flickable and responsive. But nowhere as nice and responsive as my new Tracer 9 GT. I have yet to explore all the power it has. It seems really planted and stuck to the road (I had road 5 tires on my CB500x, but I think I like the Battlax tires on my tracer better). It spite of its 110 plus horsepower, the throttle is quite controllable, and at no point have I felt like the bike was going faster than I wanted it to. The torque at lower speeds even in higher gear ranges is amazing. And passing power - the CB500x would get the job done, but the Tracer 9 gets it done a whole lot faster. I've never had a bike this powerful, with so many bells and whistles, and never a Yamaha. I'll have a lot of questions- hopefully I won't wear out my welcome too soon!