jimf

I can answer that from tipover experience. Yes, clutch and stator protectors are useful even with the SW Motech crash bars. I am not sure if they would touch down without protection, but the Woodcraft sliders did get scratched up a little bit. Hope that helps.

Hah! I was saying that, in all caps, every single time I ran a twisty section. Probably my friends on Facebook were saying, "all right, we get it", but I just couldn't help crowing about it. It's amazing how good the FJ is, and how easy it is to ride fast. We may bitch about the suspension being a bit harsh, or Yamaha being slow as hell to get the accessories out there, or whatever, but damn is it a great bike.

Love the Woodcraft sliders. I went with basic stainless steel though, not color matched :-). One of them already made a difference in an at-stop tipover.

It would probably make more sense to you if you regularly rode in flip-flops. (I wish I were joking, but I'm not. My wife and I are always joking about armored t-shirts and such when we see those guys ride by.)

I use the Airwave stuff too. I've been quite pleased with it; the quality has been good, it feels like it might actually do something if I fall down, and it flows tons of air. With the liners in it's 3-season capable. I used to use Joe Rocket mesh, but it never felt substantial enough to take a fall (I called it "half crash capable") and even worse literally fell apart at the seams just wearing it. Complete crap, avoid.

The GS500 is a great all-arounder. Not a lot of power, but good handling and cheap and durable and comfortable with low standover height. It used to be my pick for a recommended beginner's bike, especially since they were plentiful on the used market. These days with all the new 300cc bikes it's a much more open market. The 250cc Ninja was always a favorite for its fun factor, but was really underpowered for a general purpose bike IMO. A modern 300cc bike is a whole other story, with power competitive to the old GS500s, and many of them have ABS now too. Anyway, that's just my way of saying I have a soft spot in my heart for the GS500. Also the Honda Hawk GT / NT650. Great bikes. I hope you enjoy your new FJ even half as much as I am enjoying mine.

What, it's not about water? :-) (One of my peeves too.)

Triples can't have perfect balance, they'll always have some vibration. It's still one of the smoother engines I've owned, but on long drones the buzzing can get annoying, especially in the 4000-5000 RPM range (which is otherwise a very nice cruising RPM). Luckily the motor is super flexible; switch one gear up or down for awhile to change the frequency until your fingers stop buzzing, then back afterward. No big deal IMO. I used to get it bad on the SV650S (90 degree V-twin, better balance characteristics) but with that motor/transmission it wasn't always reasonable to change gears to alleviate it. I just got used to it; if it got too bad I'd put on the throttle lock and shake out my hands for a little bit. Along with beberle's suggestions, I suggest looking at different gloves. I have much worse problems with my thin ventilated gloves than my heavier Helds. A gel-palmed glove might be just the ticket.

Message to ebay sellers and others please design and fabricate good quality and easy to install sun shades for our bikes's intrument clusters. I will buy one for shure thanks. As I posted previously, you can make one yourself in a few minutes. I probably spent all of 15 minutes making mine, and it would be even less now that I've done a couple of them. A couple of people have said that I should manufacture and sell them, but what I made isn't quite up to what I'd consider commercial quality (for instance, cuts were made with scissors so they're not perfectly straight), and to make it worth my time I'd have to charge too much for it, and I'd feel bad about that because it's *really* easy to make one. The ABS plastic I used is probably even more susceptible to melting than is the dash display, though. Of course, it's also a heck of a lot less expensive to replace. When I get around to making version 2 I'll post a template. Another thing you could do, rather than adding a sun shade on the cluster, is to either paint or use a strip of contact paper on the lower part of the windshield. That would stop the lensing effect at its source.

That looks horrible. I should come down and ride that so you don't have to do it again.

Superb. I got through break-in at the base of VT100 on my way up through the Green Mountains, and spent the next three days riding around through the Whites. The bike is good fun even during break in, the first bike I've ever owned that didn't have me crying for an end to the restrictions within a couple of days. Plenty of go-go down low. When you're through break-in, I recommend airing it out a little bit on Hurricane Mountain Road. Worked for me!

Ahh. That must have been caused by lensing of sunlight through the windshield. It may be that the Ermax's shape and the refraction rate of the material was enough, with the sun at just the right angle, to create a good focus. I've never seen anything like that, crazy.

Jim, this should be on it's own thread for mods as its a good one. I just experienced my dash melting on the upper part due to unseasonably high temperatures of 28-30 Celsius!! Damn it. What melted? I can't imagine that the FJ dash melted at only 30C. That's not even a particularly hot summer day. As for its own thread, the mod is pretty simple. I just bought the ABS sheet I mentioned, measured out what I wanted with a couple of 45 degree cuts on each side, and then folded it into shape. The folding is easy: Clamp a straightedge or piece of wood to the ABS at the fold point. Put the ABS on a(nother) piece of wood. Apply heat gun to seam until plastic is pliable. Bend to desired angle. Remove heat, hold until it sets (maybe 15 seconds). Voila! (That's how I folded the GPS shade. With the FJ dash shade, which was the first time I'd tried to fold plastic, I only used the straightedge clamped to the ABS and did the folding with my fingers rather than with a block of wood. As you can see, it's not as clean a fold as a result because I didn't have even pressure for the length of the fold.) I will re-do the FJ dash shade eventually because it's not long enough to shade the whole display a lot of the time. I'll make it look more like the GPS shade, which works brilliantly. Maybe if/when I do I'll create a template and post it.

I made sun shades for the FJ's instrument cluster and my GPS. First I bought a bit of ABS plastic that's textured on one side: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0049MWXM8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Then I cut a piece and used my heat gun to shape it so it fit the instrument cluster, and attached it with 3M Dual Lock: That worked pretty well, so I made another one for the GPS (which needs it much more badly): They don't look too bad, and they do make a big difference, and it was less than $10 in materials (even paying way too much for the sheet of ABS).

Race Blue is not available in the US. I will never understand how they figure out what to import into the US or not. It defies all reason. It's like Suzuki saying that they didn't import the GSX-S750 to the US right away because "nakeds don't sell in the US." Yea? Like the SV650, right? Nobody in the US bought any of *those*. I grant that the SV's replacement, the Gladius, didn't sell ... but that's not because it was a naked. It was because it was kinda lousy. And when that's pretty much the only naked bike Suzuki even tried to sell here for most of the last decade, well.... Then Yamaha comes along with the FZ-09 and whattaya know, that sold just fine. But maybe some focus group said that Americans don't like blue or white bikes.

Congratulations! I'm looking at that one perhaps for my daughter in a year or two when she'll start driving/riding. There are so many great small bikes now.

I just went at it with vice grip pliers, which were handy. (The open wrenches were one tray lower in the toolbox -- waaay too much effort .) Yea, they got slightly mangled ... right before I tossed them. :-)

I bought both the Ermax touring and sport screens. I'm 5'4" with a 28" inseam, which puts my torso in the L to XL range. Your helmet is probably a couple of inches higher than mine and I think that is enough to put you in the sweet spot for at least the sport screen. On low, the sport screen is the quietest of the two for me in most usage. Despite the fact that the airstream is hitting me mid-shoulder, however, I still get some rumbles in the helmet. If I were a couple of inches taller or the screen were a couple of inches lower the helmet would be in completely clear air, so I bet it would be perfect for you. The only caveat I have with the sport screen is that despite being pretty quiet in normal conditions at a variety of speeds it was quite noisy with strong crosswinds whereas the touring screen wasn't. I'm pretty sure if I get something like a laminar lip the sport screen would be pretty near perfect, and I'll try that sometime in the coming months. The touring screen works best for me at the mid position. It's not high enough to keep the airstream off the helmet (high position might be, but the cutouts for the handguards don't work if it's in high position so I won't use it) and can get pretty rumbly by 80mph but it's still a lot quieter than stock. At backroads speeds it works pretty well, and in colder weather it's really nice to have the extra coverage. I'm not sure if a taller rider would be able to adjust that screen to avoid the rumbles any more than I can. I don't think I could use a laminar lip with the touring screen, it would be in my line of sight. I can't help but recommend the Ermax screens. They're inexpensive (so I bought both so I can switch them seasonally) and both are big upgrades from stock even if you're like me and cannot get completely clean air. If there's any one thing to be aware of it's that the Ermax screens don't ship with mounting hardware and the Yamaha bolts are literally made of plastic. I destroyed one despite being careful. I sourced new stainless bolts from a local hardware store, plus grommets, for about $4. If you do that before you destroy one of the bolts you'll probably be happier. :-)

Added SW-Motech crash bars, easy as cake, except that the instructions didn't bother to specify the torque spec (it says "use torque for bolt DIN" or something like that, thanks guys). PDF service manual to the rescue (33 lb/ft). Also installed a fuse block and permanent GPS mount. I can't even tell you how much I am going to like having a permanent GPS mount, it was a pain in the neck screwing on the RAM ball every time on the old bike. I stopped short of installing the heatroller and tank bag power for now, I don't need those until my long trip in mid-May. Perhaps I will just use the power port for the tank bag. Pics to follow tomorrow when it's daylight. Plus, the first long ride of the FJ.

Sidi Vertigo. If they're good enough for the racers, they're good enough for me.

I added an Ermax screen and Woodcraft clutch and stator protectors: and finally CSG folding adjustable brake and clutch levers: [span] [/span][span] The fun part was that while trying to put on the brake lever the bolt jumped (all of its own accord, sometimes they do that) and fell inside the plastics. I removed most of the plastics looking for it (kudos to Yamaha, this is by far the easiest of any bike I've ever owned) but to no effect. I ended up using a spare 5mm bolt for now until a replacement ships. Still to come, a Givi back, Yamaha rack, Yamaha luggage, and a bunch of electrical mods.[/span]

And I did. Medium position was pretty good up until supra-legal speeds, and not too bad even up there. More rumbly than the helmet in clean air, but similar noise level. For reference I'm 5'4" although with a L torso (just very short legs). If I were just a little shorter I'd be entirely behind the windscreen. I couldn't try the high position because the Ermax interferes with the handguards in that position. That's ok, I think that would be too close to my line of sight anyway. I'm thinking I'll pick up a shorty screen for more airflow when it's hot. Switching is certainly easy and they're not expensive. I'm not convinced that the adjuster knobs for the screen are very well done. They seem to come loose of their own accord, and it's not like I've done a lot of miles yet. I might just replace them with regular bolts, I am not likely to do much messing with screen height after I'm dialed in anyway.

Thank God for Ermax. The stock screen is insanely noisy. On high position it was deafening for me, on low it was only crazy loud. I could get clean air by standing on the pegs or tucking right down inside the screen, but nothing like a normal riding position worked. I'm still playing with the Ermax screen. On low I still get a bit of noise although I suspect a tall rider would find it just right. I think it might be best on high for me, maybe push the airstream over the helmet entirely. I'll be trying that out on the way back from lunch. Can't argue with the ease of switching screens. I think it took longer to get the Ermax out of its packaging than to switch.

It doesn't have cutouts for the handguards, so they'll bump the screen before you hit the lock. That's probably at least part of why the Yamaha screen is so narrow, and it's why the Ermax has cutouts. On the plus side, that means the Madstad screen has better coverage, and probably less noise/turbulence. On the minus, you either deal with interference or you remove the handguards. Take your pick. I know that some people don't care for the handguards and that makes the decision easier. I like the handguards so I wouldn't even consider the Madstad screen. I bought the Ermax because a number of people said it has less noise/turbulence than the Yamaha screen, and at $105 it's not terribly expensive.

and the last part of your comment may be what Yamaha found i.e. most brochures end up on the coffee tables of tyre kickers or the walls of teenage Rossi fans and have little impact on actual sales when the majority of buying customers are already well informed before entering the showroom from the myriad of online and print media we are bombarded with. You seem to be a prime example of this type of buyer with your micro-analysis of every aspect of the bike from multimedia resources, even before you actually saw one for real!I would have liked to have a glossy brochure to stare at while I waited to be able to buy the bike, and to show to people. But, realistically, I had already decided I was going to buy the bike by then so it would have done Yamaha no good. I have to say that Yamaha's online information wasn't actually helpful to my purchase decision at all -- the site is pretty much just dry specs, and they don't even have any desktop images (which is just silly). I got almost all of my information from various reviews and (eventually) this very forum. I think I must have read everything ever written in English about the bike between October of last year and just last week ... or if I didn't, I certainly *tried*. The only useful bits I got directly from Yamaha was the part numbers for the various accessories I bought.