jimf

I wonder how many of us were caught out by that. The biggest I had was a 10mm. I used some vice grips to get it off, seeing as the hardware store near my house was closed for the day. Made a bit of a mess of the bar end in the process, but it worked. :-)

The Oxford controls are slightly easier to use, but the difference is minimal. With the Yamaha grips you tap the menu button once to switch to grip heat control, then the menu cursor buttons are used to raise and lower the heat. The Yamaha system allows only three heat levels, versus five for the Oxfords. I'd give the Oxfords the tip of the hat for that, although the Yamaha system allows you to customize each of the levels to your own preference which is nice in its own way. If the Yamaha stuff has any real advantage I'd say that it is a cleaner looking installation. The throttle side wiring is encased inside a housing along with the throttle cables, and the clutch side doesn't have to have an extra controller stuck to the bars. In my book that's awfully slim differentiation for triple the cost. Unless the Oxford grip material is so soft that it wears out three times as quickly (not likely) it's hard to argue that they aren't a much (much!) better deal. Now this is unvarnished truth. I went OEM because I had the money and wanted to go with as much "stock" equipment as I could, but at the time I had no idea that the Yamaha grips were so much more expensive nor that it would take half a year to get them. I was very close to canceling the order and going for the Oxfords just on account of the delivery delay. Now let's both pray for a nice warm fall so we don't have to use them, right? :-)

The only thing special about synthetic oil is that you don't necessarily have to change it as often. Especially in a motor that runs hot. The FJ motor doesn't run very hot, so I don't consider synthetic particularly necessary, but I prefer to use it anyway because I'm not always that prompt at doing oil changes. If all goes well you won't even know the difference.

did you not notice the hyperlink to the review? In post http://fj-09.org/post/25434 I get "the post you're trying to access could not be found." But actually I thought you were using the future tense, so I hadn't even looked. I'll go do some searching. Thanks!

I knew that, but it's great entertainment to poke fun at the English weather :-). Looking forward to your full review.

Now that is a really sweet looking seat. Comfy? The shape looks really good. I was going to ask if the seat breathed enough to avoid monkey butt, but I am not sure it gets hot enough in your part of the world to worry about that :-). How's the foam? Two of the benefits I got when moving to the Yamaha Comfort Seat were an improved shape -- no hot spots -- and a cover material that doesn't trap the heat and moisture so much. It's not as nice as leather, but it's waaay better than the stock seat's vinyl cover. The only downside is that the foam is slightly too hard when riding in full mesh. I was a little surprised to find that when I put on my heavier riding gear it's pretty near perfect though. I am probably not going to be in the market for a(nother) new seat any time soon, but I would still like to hear how the foam density compares to any other seats you may have tried. I think I would ideally like the foam density to be like the Seat Concepts kit, but shape and cover material seem to matter more to me.

jimf, what did you hear about the PR4's? Was looking at the PR4's as the front gives better stopping in the wet...I heard that they were a bit (but not a lot) less sticky than the PR2s and PR3s, perhaps a result of pushing for longer life. It may be that I'd still be happy with the PR4s despite this, but I was so happy with the PR3s that I will use them as long as I can get them. Actually, now that I'm on the topic, my favorite tire combo lately was the Pilot Power on the front and PR3 rear. The PP was noticeably stickier than the PR3. The PP burned up relatively quickly, but not quicker than a PR3 rear, so I could just change them as a set. From tread pattern I would have thought that the PR3 would be better than the PP in wet, but I had no problem with either. My experience with those tires is from a previous bike, I'm not quite burned through the stock D222s on the FJ yet. The rear should hit wear bars in the next few weeks. I'm trying to decide if I want to put a PR3 on the rear and keep the D222 front, since the front is still in very good shape, or ditch the D222 in favor of PP or PR3 because I like the characteristics of the Michelins better. Not enough better that it's an easy choice though; mostly I like the D222s just fine, except that they don't have quite the edge grip of the Michelins. The fact that I actually noticed this surprises me, and if I'm completely honest with myself I ought not to be pushing hard enough on the road for it to make a difference. But I have, on occasion, and it would be nice if the bike were more planted.

Oh, I attempted to even the heat left to right by putting some shrinkwrap tubing over the bar and under the grip for extra insulation. I had no luck trying to get the grip over the tubing without it coming unglued and bunching up, even using (much stronger) spray glue rather than hairspray. After a couple of tries I gave up on that and just glued the grip on the naked bar, but thinking about it afterward I should have cut a double-length portion of the shrinkwrap, glued and shrunk it to the bar, with a floppy end sticking out over the end of the bar long enough that I can pull it completely through the grip and hold it while I pushed the grip on. Then I could have cut the tubing to the right length after it was all together. In quick testing last night the heat doesn't seem to be as uneven as some have suggested, but it's not really cold yet; if I get annoyed by unevenness later in the season I will try the shrinkwrap again.

I should have looked for this before I did my installation, I would have known I needed a 12mm allen key in advance rather than staring at it and swearing because the local hardware store was not open on Sunday :-). Step #9 mentions lubing the wire, but the pictures don't seem to show much in the way of lube. I copiously greased the wire loop, the throttle shroud, and the plastic guide with silicon grease. No sense in going light on the lube on a piece that is definitely going to slide around a lot and that you really don't ever want to bind. I didn't bother to pull out the compressor to blow off the left grip. I pried it away from the bar with a screwdriver and then poured in some alcohol. That dissolved the glue in short order and lubed everything up for easy removal. It went much easier than other grips I've had to remove. I too used extra zip ties. The throttle side wire in particular flopped around too much before I zipped it to one of the throttle cables. I don't know if it's just my imagination, but it seems like I get more vibration through these grips than the originals. I had one hand practically go to sleep just riding a half hour to an errand this morning. I've had that happen before, but usually on long highway drones not little backroads. Anyone else notice this?

I think you mean Michelin PR2s, not Pirelli. I ran a couple sets of PR3s on my old Daytona and liked them a lot. Very good stick even in cold, good water rejection, and good edge grip (better than the D222, that's for sure). I don't know about longevity since I flatted the first set and sold the bike still wearing the second set, but it was certainly "good enough". I've heard that the PR4s aren't as good in some respects as the PR3s, so I'm planning to replace the D222s with PR3s as soon as I burn them up. I had thought that would be next spring/summer, but it's kind of looking like I'll need a new rear within the next month or so.

The OEM ones, I replied to your other thread After inspecting and installing the Yamaha grips it appears to me that the grips themselves aren't anything special. I had originally thought that the high cost of the Yamaha grips was the result of needing a controller that integrated with the Yamaha control system. Instead, it appears that the controller resides on the bike and the grips just wire straight into that. The cost seems to be at least in part because of the fancy replacement for the shell around the throttle tube/cables with one that contains space for the extra loop of wire for the grip. That's nice, but hardly necessary. This opens up the possibility that you might be able to get integrated heated grips on a budget by wiring aftermarket grips into the existing wiring loom/controller. There may be a difference in resistance between the Yamaha grips and aftermarket grips, but if so you could wire in resistors to compensate. Given that a set of Oxford grips is only about $90, this would be only one-third the cost of Yamaha's grips, and of course you can get Oxford grips on Amazon delivered within a couple of days versus the five and a half months I had to wait for Yamaha's grips. I'm sure this would void the warranty if anything went wrong, but matching the resistance of the stock grips ought to be drop-dead simple and I think low-risk. I am not motivated to try it since I finally got the Yamaha grips, but I would be willing to perform a resistance measurement if someone were interested. Or perhaps someone who hasn't installed the Yamaha grips yet (you know who you are) could measure it, saving me the effort of taking the body panels off again.

Huh. I've been pretty pleased with the fit of my RevIt Tornado (which is, as far as I can tell, the same as the AirWave except sold with liners). The RevIt gear I have isn't sized L/XL/XXL but rather using European sizes. Revzilla's site did a great job of helping me figure out the right size on the first try. One of the things that I find very hard is guessing whether or not the manufacturer's sizing is intended to go over normal clothes or not, and Revzilla's video guide was helpful in this respect. Some specific fit information: For a size 36 waist and 28" inseam I bought size 54 short. With the liners in place the waist is a little snug over jeans and belt, but it's not too bad. Certainly good enough for the commute. Wearing just an under layer while touring is roomy and long-distance comfortable, with or without liners. I cinch the waist straps to get a perfect fit. The legs are just slightly too long for me, despite being a "short" size, but not enough to be annoying and better than every suit I've ever owned other than the custom-size Roadcrafter. I wear an XL T shirt loosely and the size 54 jacket is comfortable, plenty of room to move, and fits just about the right snugness if I'm wearing it with the liner in place over a heated vest. The cut of the jacket is pretty boxy, so if you're trim you might find it too loose around the middle. I'm turning into a fat old guy so the cut works for me. I have been quite pleased with this gear. With liners out it flows tons of air both jacket and pants. I've owned the set for a couple of years now and ridden with it quite a bit and it's holding up well, although the white color I bought really does show the dirt even after washing. The liners are perfect for spring and fall riding, and provide decent protection in moderate rain, although I still prefer rain gear so the mesh shell doesn't get soaked. Zippers are high quality, pockets are good.

And here I was being proud of the ~1100mi I did a week ago, a loop from Boston out to the Adirondacks then up to Mount Tremblant then east back through Sorell and down to Stowe and finally back to Boston. You put me to shame! :-) I did a similar trip last spring, although I didn't make it as far west as the Adirondacks and instead zig-zagged around in the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire with a side trip into Maine. On that trip my only complaint was that the stock seat had hot spots on the inside of my thighs. Since then I replaced the stock seat with a Yamaha Comfort Seat, which while a little more firm than I would like was still good enough that my butt wasn't bothering me at the end of 9+ hour days. I can live with that. If I had been using normal gear, rather than the super-thin mesh gear, it likely would have been perfect. Oh, and that I would have liked to have heated grips while in some of the mountains. Yamaha finally delivered those two days after I got back, after a five and a half month wait. What I did to my FJ last weekend was to install the grips. I'm totally ready for fall now. My next FJ upgrade is going to have to be to the tires. At 4,000mi the rear is getting near the wear bars. Ideally I'd like to wait until spring for that, just in terms of budget, but I'm not sure it will make it.

I had a ride this summer where it was a torrential downpour. When I climb on the bike I normally stand on the inside peg to get my leg over; it's a lot easier when the bike is fully packed and looks less silly than the kick-the-foot-onto-the-seat-and-hop technique. In the rain, though, I slipped right off no matter how careful I was. It was disconcerting. I haven't had trouble while actually riding the bike, thankfully. My Sidis are almost worn through the sole and that likely doesn't help, but when dry I never have any trouble. I would be ok with more of a motocross footpeg, I think.

my UK version of the manual says tyre pressures are 36 front, 42 rear, in pounds per square inch this seems to be universal on sports or sports touring bikes whether of Japanese or European manufacture and is the pressure my local dealer set the tyres too, as did the independent tyre fitter I used recently Those are the same recommended pressures as in the US. The FJ is the first bike I've ever owned with recommended pressures anywhere near that high. Everything else -- mostly Japanese, but with a Triumph Daytona 675 thrown in -- was more like 32-34 front and 34-36 rear. But my understanding is that the FJ's pressures are not unusual for touring bikes, especially loaded; this is the first bike I've owned that wasn't either a "lightweight" cruiser or a sportbike. I haven't felt the need to deviate from the factory recommendations because the handling is fine with me (205lbs) and partially loaded luggage (probably 30-35lbs) on the bike, but I could see how it could be too high if you're a featherweight and running the bike naked. I've let pressure bleed down through laziness and not had the handling significantly change as low as 33 and 38, or at least not enough for me to notice on my commute. If I were running twisties regularly I bet I'd be more sensitive. Fully loaded for touring? The stock pressures were fine as far as I was concerned. Handling good enough to scrape hard parts, to snap through technical turns with alacrity, and no trouble with traction wet or dry. As a result, it's hard for me to believe that the Yamaha recommendations are terrible in this case (unlike, say, their chain slack measurement). YMMV, especially if you're not running the stock Dunlops, or you're lighter than I am, or you don't use luggage, or you're running with a pillion, or the moon is waning....

jimf: Hope you enjoy Canada! What part are you traveling to? I'm in Ontario but have family on both coasts! A camp a bit north of Montreal in Saint-Alphonse-Rodriguez. I'm going to be posting pics and things over on the "Trips" part of the board.

It's not just that dealer, nobody can get them (in the US, anyway). I too have been waiting since April and have tried a couple of different sources and it's the same story everywhere. The last notification I got, just the other day, was that they're now backordered until December 18. That date likely is no more reliable than the half dozen or so other backorder dates I was given since April 1, which is to say that there's no correlation between backorder date and when stuff might actually show up. There have been people on this forum who got them from dealers who happened to have stock, but it seems like very catch-as-catch-can. My dealer was up front with me early on in the process that Yamaha's ability to deliver certain accessories ("almost anything that's expensive") is very poor. Yamaha complains that the dealers don't sell the options, but when customers do try to buy them Yamaha can't deliver. That was the case for heated grips, luggage, luggage mounts, and frame sliders for me. They successfully delivered the rear rack and engine guards on time, luggage two months later (missing two backorder dates), and luggage mounts two and a half months later (slightly ahead of the third backorder date). I'm very close to canceling my grip order and going with some Oxfords. It's more than a little debatable as to whether or not the integration of the Yamaha units is worth three times the price to begin with. I could very nearly pay for my entire upcoming six day trip to Canada with the price difference.

Cucamonga (aka yocracing.com) just got back to me and said that it's on "National backorder" until September 30. So, no luck there either.

Yea, the idea that some dealer had them sitting in stock while I've waited four months set me off, too. My dealer just got back to me and quoted September 30. This is at least the sixth date they've given me, none of which has been accurate so far. I'm trying Cucamonga and the suggestion of someone on this forum (who will be nameless because I already can't remember who, but thank you! :-) because "what the hell." The worst that happens is that they can't get them either. If they come through I'll cancel the order with my dealer, and finally close out the FJ purchase I started on April 1st.

Jim, is this a local Yamaha dealer, or online? A dealer. You cannot order the Yamaha grip heaters online from Yamaha, only through dealers. I would think that my dealer sucks if it were not the case that 1) I've dealt with them for years as a Suzuki customer and never had any problem like this; 2) They were fine with many of the things I ordered for the FJ; and 3) They were up-front with me about the difficulty in getting some parts out of Yamaha ("almost everything that's expensive, like luggage"). Since I haven't needed heated grips for the last couple of months I've not been stressed about it, but at this point I'm starting to wonder if I'll get them by fall. I'd really like to have them sometime in the next two weeks before I do a lot of riding in the mountains on the way up to Canada. Maybe it will be nice up in the mountains, but if it isn't....

At *least* 2 months. I'm more than three and a half months into my wait for the things to show up. It was a joke that I might not have them by fall when the first two backorder dates passed without any grips. Now it's not a joke anymore, it's ridiculous. I don't know how much longer I'm willing to wait before I order a non-Yamaha set (which would be about 70% less expensive!). I would really like them now, please.

A few weeks ago I wrote up a review of the Ermax Sport plus Puig visor over in my introduction thread. In the hopes that it will be easier to find in a more relevant thread, here it is again. Since I wrote this I've put a bunch more miles on the bike and I'm still pretty darn happy with this screen setup. I keep meaning to experiment with the Puig position but then I ride it and completely forget about it. :-) I even get better rain protection than I anticipated; got to try it out in a real frog-strangler a couple of weeks ago. The other thing I forgot to mention originally is that I really like the fact that this setup puts the Puig visor well below my line of vision. It's not horribly intrusive even on the Ermax Touring screen, but I don't even notice it on the Sport. I think the smaller windscreen even fits the bike's aesthetics better. Hope this helps someone out. Wish I had a pic to post, but I'm off on holiday right now. -- cut here -- I finally had the time to put the Puig visor (medium size) on the Ermax sport screen (on medium height) and take it out for a couple of hundred miles of mixed riding. Verdict? This is my favorite screen setup of the five I've tried: Yamaha stock, Ermax touring, Ermax touring + Puig, Ermax sport, Ermax sport + Puig. Even at rather supra-legal highway speeds the wind is only a light rumble. At backroads speeds it's basically nothing, as good as or better than anything else I've ever used. It's easy to hear my music and even if the earplug doesn't seal properly it's no big deal. On top of that it's low enough that the screen is completely out of my way visually. I will have to debate whether or not to go back to the touring screen with Puig in the fall, for more coverage against the cold, but I can say right now that I would be happy to run the sport+Puig setup permanently. It's quieter than the touring + Puig and still does a pretty good job with wind protection. (Maybe too good for yesterday's 90-105F weather. ) YMMV, of course. When I tried poking my head up a few inches I got a lot more wind rumble, so if you're a little taller maybe it wouldn't work as well, although perhaps in the highest screen position it would cover most people. I'm 5'4", although with a L/XL torso so my head height is closer to average than my absolute height would suggest.

You reminded me of this guy: http://www.longhaulpaul.com/ms5000/ I met him at a moto show in Boston last winter. He has multiple sclerosis, like my wife. Hot weather just wipes you out if you have that disease, but he wanted to keep riding no matter what so he had a custom cooling system built that runs coolant through a vest from a pump/compressor on the back of the bike. It's quite sophisticated. Apparently they're going to try to commercialize that; I could see a market in Arizona :-). When I was riding through the California Central Valley in 110-115F heat last fall I filled a camelback with ice and water. Cold water on demand makes an incredible difference and the cold on your back doesn't hurt either, although it doesn't really carry through the spine protector so much. It worked well enough that I wasn't too bad despite riding for several hundred miles. A friend mentioned that you can put the camelback under your jacket and the ice will help keep you cool, although I haven't tried that yet. I'm not sure my jacket would still fit with the camelback inside anyway, but perhaps if you did it a lot you could just get a bigger jacket. Now that hot weather is here again I've been thinking of making a shirt with pockets for tubes or sacks running down the chest and/or sides, or maybe just hung around my neck or strapped near my kidneys, that I can fill with ice. A couple of those jogger-size camelback bladders might be about the right size and easily sourced at most sporting goods stores. I figure that you can find ice a-plenty at many gas stations, easy enough to refill when you refuel. That would be cheap and simple without much to break. What's more, it would work even better with a full protection suit than it would with mesh -- cool AND safe. A middle-tech solution I've thought about, but probably won't try just because it's not that hot for that long around here, would use one of those ice water pump systems they used to use for keeping knees and shoulders cool after surgery. I believe those have been pulled from the market because too many people got frostbite, but you can probably still find them on eBay, or alternatively you could build your own using e.g. a fish tank pump. Pump ice water from a cooler strapped to the pillion seat through tubing stitched into a shirt or vest and connected to the pump with quick disconnect valves. You can run a few different circuits to get all-over cooling and to level the cooling effect. You don't need to flow a lot of water so you don't need a pump that draws that much power, surely less than a heated vest uses. Perhaps build a thermostat from a simple timing circuit; flow cold for 'n' minutes, idle for 'n' minutes, repeat. Voila, you've got yourself a personal cooling system for maybe a couple of hundred bucks.

Takes less than 5 minutes to change the rear preload. What is your preload set to? It's probably too little for you even without luggage. I agree, it probably has always been too little, but I was reasonably happy with it with just me. With the loaded soft luggage it was clearly too soft, but I liked having the lower seat height :-). There's no excuse for not fixing it now. I'll get right on that (after watching today's stage of Le Tour; priorities!).

FWIW, with the Yamaha hard bags on the bike it wobbles a hell of a lot easier than it did without them, when riding at 70+mph; just give the bars a little push and it'll wobble away for a bit. The difference versus no luggage was quite obvious. It's not hard to control, but a bit disconcerting. I'm more or less of the opinion that the extra weight on the rear changed the geometry just enough to cause this. It certainly pushed the rear out of the "this feels reasonably good" range into the "this feels a bit overloaded" state. I've not yet bothered to add some rear preload to compensate, on account of I'm both busy and lazy :-), but that's the plan as soon as I can find time to experiment. That would jive with the fixes several others have mentioned. I'm a little surprised that adding more rake/trail makes it less stable, if that's what's going on. Two-wheeler dynamics certainly aren't intuitive. I've never before had a bike whose behavior changed so much just from adding mostly empty luggage, eesh.