ZigMerid

Jeez. There are just 5 new Tracers listed on bikesales in Australia. Adjusting for population that should be around 50 at most to match the US. I wonder whether US dealers are listing non-existent bikes with generic ads as lead generators? I know sleazy car dealers seem to do that here.

How much inventory do dealers generally hold? Is it really possible that they have overstocked to the point of having enough inventory to sell for a whole year? Or do people expect them to run out some time during the year and just tell their customers to go elsewhere? It all just seems a bit weird, especially since it's an incremental model tweak so it's not like they've got to pull in a whole bunch of additional spare parts or train up service techs. But then maybe the Tracer is a pretty boutique, so it doesn't really make much difference one way or the other to Mr Yammy? Is there a public resource which shows Tracer sales for 2022? Maybe that'll explain it.

One of the best things about this forum is that it's an escape from the tribalism that infests most other social media. And frankly tribalism that's infesting real life too! Sure we're a tribe of motorcycle riders who enjoying romping around on our trusty steeds and think we're the better for it, but mostly we focus on our commonality rather than our differences. Given the size and distribution of this forum, it's guaranteed that if you deride some thing, someone or some place you're bound to be insulting a fellow rider who may not have the luxury of choices you enjoy. Even if expressed under the thinly veiled guise of a joke, no one finds it funny and no one cares to hear it in the first place. So.... back to tracers?

I do like the white as it's much more low key. My plan is to buy in 2023 as they become available. While it'd be nice to think we're special, I think every market which is getting the 2023 model will have access to the white.

As I understand it, the plain 2023 9GT still has twin screens. The 9GT+, which is new in 2023, has the single screen along with a few other goodies.

It might be more promising in Australia as their web site is showing just the black and white models now. White is only available in the 2023 release, correct? https://www.yamaha-motor.com.au/products/motorcycle/road/sport-touring

Similarly, someone recently posted (not sure where) that Yamaha is unsure whether the 2023 GT+ will be sold in Australia. They ended up booking a 2023 white 9GT for delivery. The question is, who decides what models are sold where? I imagine it's probably the importers and dealers since they have to deal with service, training, warranty, floor plan costs, marketing and more. I expect that Yamaha manufacturing is happy to ship product to any dealer on the planet so long as they get paid. I'm also assuming that the bikes are essentially the same in different markets so that manufacturing for EU is as easy as for US or AU and so on. Is that a reasonable assumption?

The other matter is the licensing process. In the US it's still pretty easy to get a license, but in other places it's become quite an extensive and expensive process. In California, e.g., you basically pass a knowledge test then take an MSF course and you're good to go. By contrast, in Australia, you first have to have a car license for at least a year, then you have to go thru a rider training course to get a learner's license. Once you get your learner's license, all riding must be supervised by an experienced rider. The next step is to pass a provisional license test which you need to hold for 2 years prior to applying for an open license. In summary: Car license (which is a whole process in itself requiring 100 hours of driving experience) Learners Provisional Open With each stage typically requiring a course, a knowledge test and a practical test. So, starting from scratch it's realistically a 3 year process before you gain an open license. I believe there are similar steps in the EU/UK. Not that I'm against the extended learning process as beginner riders are a huge component of the road fatality stats and even experience riders are 3 times more likely to die than car drivers, but it is a fairly large barrier to entry that didn't exist 20 years ago. (PS. I might have got the finer details a little off as I've had my license forever and have only seen the process second-hand, but the essentials I believe to be correct).

Which I calculate to be 280-ish km which is pretty pathetic in my neck of the woods, being country Australia. I got over 400km on my old V-Strom and thought that to be *just* acceptable for my application 🙂 I think it'd have to be 6 gallons to make it fully realise the "Tourer" part of Sports Tourer. I note that the 9GT+ still has the same tank size so there is zero chance of Mr Yamaha changing this unfortunately. Sigh.

Have you considered the offical Yamaha "LED Fog Light Stays" that are normally used for their fog lights? Then pick your preferred lights from a good vendor? Search for B5UH54A50000

So the only definition of "old school" that you meet is that you pick and choose tech that works for you. On that basis I suspect that pretty much every one on this forum is "old school" 🙂 FWIW. If you were really "old school" I'd expect you to be waxing lyrical about kick-starting and rampaging against ABS and fuel injection and maybe even wanting drum brakes instead of them new-fangled disc brakes thingies. I hate to be the one that says it, but you are far far away from "old school". I would describe you as practical.

So why are you hanging out in a Tracer forum and talking about BT TPMS systems? Both are very new school. I get you felt a need to say something, but it's not really congruent with this forum nor your past posts. What are you actually trying to say that's relevant to the rest of us?

Thanks all who replied. While it's clear the steel stems are recommended as presumably being more robust than stock, there doesn't seem to be anyone saying they've experienced any actually failures. The main disadvantage of steel stems is that you have to wait until a tire change to install them. Having said that, I'll probably end up getting some as it seems like pretty cheap insurance and they look nice enough as well 🙂 The other disadvantage is if you use their "security feature" (which appears to be just an odd-ball locking nut) then you have additional hassle when adjusting the pressure. I normally do this at home with a little electric pump, so no big deal for me. I'm a bit torn about the T-stem. The convenience is obvious but I'm not sure I like the idea of adding that sort of unbalanced weight to a wheel. Realistically unlikely to be a big deal considering wheels are hardly perfect and the combined weight of wheel + tire is a heck of a lot in comparison to a stem which is closer to the center of mass than most of the rest of the spinning bits anyway. One big advantage of the T-stem is that you can use the anti-theft feature of the Fobo without any inconvenience. But theft isn't an issue in my situation. Anyway, good discussion. I've learnt a few things and tire pressure is something I always worry about when I'm riding. Pretty critical for us two-wheelers.

I see Fobo sell a selection of stems. I understand why the T-stem might be useful as that makes life a little easier when adjusting the pressure, but why do they sell the short single valve stems? Is that because the extra weight of the monitor stresses the regular rubber stems that are normally installed on the wheel? I guess asking this another way. Do I just replace the dust caps on my current stems with the Fobo caps and it's all ready to go or are special stems needed/recommended?

Perfect. Thanks mate. They are closer together than I imagined. But then I had only seen what people had done when they mounted lights on their crash bars, which by their nature have to stick out from the engine. PS. Nice horn mount. A nice loud horn is always the first thing I add to a new bike.

Just curious? Is anyone running with the Yammy fog light stays? And if so, any chance of a couple of photos please?

Not that it will help current owners, but if rumors about the 2023 model are correct then the dash will at least be different and maybe even better! I know digital dashes are cool and all, but at least we could read the old steam gages that used to adorn our steads. Mind you, I love all the extra info that's available, so it's kinda win-some, lose-some for me.

Yeah. I'm not really a fan of crash bars. I see their purpose and all, but aesthetically, ug. At this stage I still prefer the light-weight "stays" that Mr Yamaha sells and perhaps some 3rd party lights since there is a lot of competition in that space so good products at good prices are easy to come by.

I've not heard of case guards being available for the 9GT, but what lights did you used and what sort of costs were involved?

I'm looking at the official fog-light kit and stays but they are pretty pricy so I'm wondering whether people have gone with third party options and whether they were happy with that choice. I'm currently thinking of going with the offical mounting "stay" (as they call it) and picking some third party lights as I figure the mount part is always the pain-point when adding lights. https://shop.yamaha-motor.com.au/accessories/road/road/sport-touring/tracer-9-gt/b5u-h54a5-00 Yeah, nay?

The rumour mill agrees with you in that there are suggestions that for 2023 the dual display will become a single display and that cruise control will become active cruise control with lidar or somesuch to match the speed of the traffic ahead. Chasing market with new features is all well and good, but I hope they also address some of the fundamental issues that are well known in the current line-up. Whether Yamaha do or not will tell us which market they care about. Are they interested in making a knowledgeable customer-base happy (and thus generating sales thru word of mouth and recommendations) or do they see their future in selling to those who can only read marketing brochures? I wait with both trepidation and hope.

Great info. Thanks. Knowing that a claimed adaptor cable actually works is always the tricky bit, so first hand reports are invaluable.

Oh yeah of little faith. One of the first general purpose computers in the world (ENIAC) took up more room than a large garage, had far less computing power than your TV and required a team of people to keep it running. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#/media/File:Eniac.jpg Similarly the first gasoline automobile (at least the one most recognized by historians - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benz_Patent-Motorwagen#:~:text=The Benz Patent-Motorwagen (",patented and unveiled in 1886.) was 954cc, produced a whopping 0.75 horse power, was slower than a horse and had less range than a well-nourished human. Yes, we're getting way off topic here, but we've had well over a century of refinement of gasoline engines, so they have quite a head start over alternatives. I for one have faith in human ingenuity. Having owned an EV for a number of years, I can assure you that if when they get the range sorted, the step change from gasoline powered to electric power will be vastly better than the step change from carbs and jets to FI was. Yes, you lose some of the visceral pleasures that some of us know and love, but man, the increase in torque and reduction in maintenance and complexity is very appealing to others. The other minor matter is that most people do not ride across several states as a matter of course. I happen to travel those distances as a natural consequence of where I live, so I'm acutely aware of the distance issue, but solving for 90% of the population is still a game changer, even if the last 10% linger on with traditional solutions for a while. Tl;dr: Humans can do amazing things if they put their mind to it. PS. Speaking of visceral pleasures. Those who ride horses will wonder what all the fuss is with gasoline powered machinery. Nothing beats riding a living breathing ton of muscle which sweats and pants and bucks like a dragon. Gasoline machinery pales in comparison. It's all relative.

Oh man. I'm so glad not to be dealing with jets and carbs. I'll take a few flat spots any day of the week rather than deal with that troglodyte magic. But maybe that's just me. Heck I could hardly balance carbs on my single pot Honda 😀

Agreed. If you're old skool and think that the run-in period is when the metal surfaces are getting all friendly with each other and microscopic metal fragments are deposited into the oil, then your initial batch of oil and the oil filter have already done the hard yards at 830km (hard meters maybe?). Better not to have that goop in the system any longer than necessary if you're going on an extended trip. I don't know whether it's still true, but I was under the impression that the initial batch of oil is especially selected for run-in and may differ from the regular oil used at each change. Does anyone know whether this is still the case?