Wintersdark

I wrapped mine originally when I was going to wrap the whole bike; but I ended up pulling it off the lids and only wrapping the lower front "triangles" (mine's grey & red with white triangles; wanted them black). Wrapping the lids is actually pretty easy - took me two tries to get it right (so have a bunch of extra vinyl) but once you have the technique down it's simple. No trimming needed for the reflector. Get a heat gun, or even hair dryer. Heat it, then run some fishing line underneath: it's just stuck on with some double sided body tape. Heat and peel off the remaining tape, and if you still want them, just stick them back onto the wrapped lid with new bodywork tape. They come off - and go back on - really easy, and the tape is readily available for just a couple dollars.

If you get proper heated gear, it's very nice. Spread out across your arms, torso, back of neck, with temperature control. Quality does matter

It reads down to -9C, after which point it just says "Low"

A Ninja 650 has a a wheelbase 3" shorter than an older FJ, and 5" shorter than a Tracer. It's gonna be a lot more nimble. For sure I'm a huge proponent of N+1. There are bikes that are great for One Bike People, a "do everything machine" and the Tracer is an excellent example of one, but you'll find bikes made for a specific purpose tend to just do that thing better (at the expense of other things, of course). Most of my life, finances have limited me to one bike at a time, but I'm MUCH happier now having two bikes in the stable, and eyeballing a third (Hey there, MT10, how you doin?)

So today? Today is too cold to ride. It's -35 today. That's too cold to ride. It's too cold to be outside at all.

Working over Christmas, while it's an absolutely stupid -25 to -30c before windchill. Just gross.

This is what I'm using right now: https://www.blackfootonline.ca/venture-heat-deluxe-e-jacket-liner Blackfoot online is the online store of a local Calgary dealership. It's very thin, and comfortable to wear under your jacket even on a warm day. It packs up small, too, though I rarely bother removing it - so much nicer than having to bring multiple layers on a trip; just pressing a button at your waist or the wireless remove control (comes with a handlebar mount) and you're instantly toasty. I prefer this control scheme to the Gerbing/Warm'n'safe "heat controller" method with the knobs, mostly because I don't really see a need for more granular control than 3 stages, and it's less wires and fiddling. They don't expect you to pay extra for the heat controller or wiring harness, which is always a plus. Note that all of these use the same barrel connectors, so they are compatible with each other.

My wife has one of these. They're actually pretty damn good. Not nearly as much heat output as a plug in jacket liner, but excellent for general purpose wearing when it's cold out. They're a great way to be warm and comfy when out and about in our winter temps, but I'd never want to rely on a battery operated heated gear while riding: if the battery dies, you suddenly find yourself *VERY* cold. If you're really on top of charging and track how long it's good for, that may be ok, but I'd forget to charge it for sure.

HEATED HELMETS: In the winter, I ride with a GMax MD01-S. It's exactly the same helmet as their MD01 (regular motorcycle helmet) but also features extra breath guards and an electric visor. Same ECE-25 rated modular helmet. This is very often the case: snow mobile helmets generally *are* motorcycle helmets - exactly the same part numbers - but they're often cheaper and have extra padding/features. Even without such a helmet, though, open up fortnine/revzilla, and search for "electric visor" and "heated visor" - they're available for a number of regular helmets, and they're bloody amazing. No icing, no fogging, feels like a sunbeam on your face while you're riding. HEATED GEAR: As to heated gear, I tend to run First Gear/Venture Heat/Warm 'n' Safe gear (it's all the same rebranded). Jacket liner, glove liners or heated gloves. Don't expect heated grips to do the job below freezing. You want a jacket liner with sleeves because your arms are fully exposed to the wind and can't be shielded; you lose a lot of heat there. You can make do with a vest, but you run into that problem where while you're not freezing to death, you're not comfortable. If you want to ride in the winter, it's crucial you're comfortable, or it won't be enjoyable. Generally speaking, prefer heated gear that's as thin as possible, and sized to be snug against your body. Loose heated gear is inefficient heated gear. You don't need insulation on your heated gear and it's generally counter productive as the added bulk just gets in the way, particularly if you've got a thermal liner on your motorcycle jacket. Too much bulk impedes comfort, and as I said, it's crucial you're comfortable. Heated pant liners exist, and the whole set interconnects with the jacket liner and gloves, though honestly I've never found the need. Heated socks are the only place I'd go battery, as I don't wear heated pant liners, but here too a good pair of boots keeps the toes warm enough for me. Personally, I happily ride down to about -20C/-5F, at which point I'm still warm head to toe. I'll ride down to around -30 if I'm already out and need to get home. However, the real limiting factor here is tires. TIRES: With a good set of rain tires like Road 5's, I find I'm pretty happy to -15C, but after that the tires start to lose grip. Not dangerously so, but you have to be easy on the throttle and hard acceleration can trigger traction control. This point is around -20 to -25 on the Anlas winter tires/my Tenere's Motoz Adventures. Below -15C, you MUST give them some time to warm up. They'll get warm pretty quick, but when you first take off and you've got tires below -15C, they're quite slippy. If you're NOT using rain or winter tires and instead regular sporty tires, they're going to be very, very slippy below 0C. What's really crucial with tires is the formulation. Not how hard/soft they are - what temperatures they're intended to run at. Most sport tires are very soft, but they're formulated to grip best at higher temperatures, and in the winter your tires are not going to get warm enough. Most sport tires recommend a minimum temperature of 13C! What you REALLY want is tires with high silica content. Silica makes tires grip water MUCH better - frozen or otherwise - and grip much better when cold. Thus, at a minimum, tires formulated for rain. The grip difference between Road 5's and the stock Dunlops on icy pavement is absolutely amazing. SNOW: So, if you don't have actual winter tires, don't bother trying to ride in snow. With winters, a light dusting of snow (less than an inch) is manageable and feels like riding in dirt. With my Tenere's studded Motoz knobbies, I'm pretty good for 2" of snow. You DO need to maintain much longer follow distances than normal, of course, because you've basically only got the rear brake for stopping - got to be really careful with the front brake. ABS is a very real question: I keep ABS on, despite it lengthening stopping distances with the rear only in the snow (in a similar manner to how it does offroad), because with ABS on I can use the front as well. With ABS off, it's too easy to lock the front and if you do that, you hit the ground fast. If you've got a better hand for the front brake than I do, you may be better off with ABS off, but... eeeeh. Traction control is great in the snow. STUDS: They work, and they work pretty darn well, but they're spendy. For tubeless 17" MC tires, you'd want smaller studs due to the lack of tread depth - iGrip SS08's or SS11's, depending on tread depth. A set of 17" 70/30 M+S rated adventure tires with studs is a very strong option here. However, the studs are expensive. I've got $300cad in studs in my Tenere (300 SS11's, 21+18 rims make for big tires), but don't bother with them on the Tracer (and also don't ride the Tracer in as poor of conditions). You'd be looking at $170cad to stud a pair of 17's with 200 SS08's. SUMMARY: Conditions matter, much more than temperature. If you're in a humid area, you'll find temps around freezing are by far the worst, because you get lots of ice from melting snow, and melt/freeze cycles result in thicker, smoother ice. Cold is much less of a problem, so long as your tires can still grip. The coldest I've ever ridden was around -35 to -40C (this on my old MT07), and was still warm there, but for spots. Knees got cold and that sucked - if I where to ride in these temps, I'd actually invest in heated pant liners. Grip was kinda poor - not so bad that you can't ride safely at the speed limit, but it was pretty easy to break the rear loose with an twitchy wrist. Below -15C, it's very unforgiving: absolutely no exposed skin. Exposed skin will freeze, and that's no fun. A neck gaiter stuffed under the helmet/over the jacket collar to prevent wind ingress, good seals around your wrists between jacket and gloves, good boots. Riding overpants (particularly waterproof ones, or ones with a waterproof liner) help keep the legs warm. Cinch that waist line up: a cold breeze up your back is not a good time.

Mounted up Quadlock phone mounts on both the Tracer and the Tenere - both with wireless charging and vibration dampeners. My home made wireless charging RAM X-Grip worked, but I find fiddling with the rubber band restraint and the X-Grip itself to be annoying with gloves on, which makes it more time consuming to quickly grab or replace the phone. That fiddliness drove me in the past to ignore the rubber band for short trips, which resulted in a phone that came off the bike at 180, so... Not gonna do that. And while the XGrip+rubber band thing work well on the street, I'm deeply dubious about them offroad so getting another for the Tenere seemed dangerous. The two Quadlock mounts, though, at provide a unified system across the two bikes so I can just mount and go no matter what I'm riding. And less worries about vibration damaging my phone's camera. Fancy!

Trailmax Missions? I was actually pretty curious how they'd be in the snow. The Pirelli's are.... eeeeeeh. They're okay after they warm up, but are terrible when stone cold, even studded. I'm really, REALLY impressed with the Motoz Adventure tires in the snow. Really good grip. High silica formulation makes such a huge difference. Edit: lol wrong forum, this is the Tracer forum, not Tenere. Yeah, the stock Dunlops are REALLY bad in the snow. I've found, Tracer side, the only tires I'm willing to ride in the snow at all are the Anlas Wintergrip Plus winter tires, and even then only in very shallow snow. It's very tough to get snow-friendly 17" tires. It's been pretty consistently below -25c over the last week or so, and my Revit Sand jacket is in for repairs (broken zipper) so I've been a wimp. My summer jacket's good down to around -15c with the heated gear cranked up, but when you're looking at -30, it's just not enough without extra layers. Really hoping they get my winter jacket back asap. Been about a week without riding and I'm getting twitchy.

Ooof. The bike will turn faster on the side of the tire, so you need to be leaning it. The trick - as @OZVFR mentions - is just leaning the bike under you instead of leaning with it. You CAN lean with the bike at any speed and that will ultimately get you the fastest cornering, but at low speeds it's much less forgiving of mistakes and traction loss. Meanwhile, if you lean the bike under you and remain upright yourself, you keep the center of gravity closer to being over the contact patch resulting in easier control and better grip. You'll see this happen in any low speed maneuvering video, and it's absolutely necessary when riding in low traction circumstances such as dirt.

Yeah, I really need to carry a proper first aid kit. Usually, I've got a ziplock bag with rolls of gauze, a couple pads, and tape - which is really adequate for "plz don't bleed out" but that's really about it - can make bandages and tourniquets, splits if there's branches about. Like @1moreroadmy phone is unlocked when connected to my Sena, so I can make a call so long as it's within bluetooth range (which is actually extremely long). There's also an emergency mode activated by clicking the power button repeatedly that sends audio and video to a preset contact as well as location information. This is great for if I'm riding on my own, but obviously is only useful if the phone survives the crash (probable) and am within cell coverage (on my Tracer, probable, on my Tenere who the heck knows). Surviving a crash, though, with a good, sturdy protective case? If I survive the crash, the phone almost certainly will. My old Samsung S8+ went off my MT07 at 180kph on a freeway, and still worked. It's body was completely broken, the screen was only half visible, and the camera physically gone, but it still worked. Given your phone will still typically work with a totally broken screen, there's pretty good odds it'll survive a crash, even if it's on a handlebar mount. May be hard to find though. I wouldn't want to rely on it 100%, as particularly on a handlebar mount it could end up anywhere in a crash, way out of reach, particularly not for relaying critical information to first responders.

It's a Princess Auto (Canadian Harbour Freight) motorcycle dolly - came with a kickstand extension, and this is for the rear tire, but I removed that as it makes a wonderful centerstand dolly. Cost about $40.

This is mine. Many sturdy, much rolling, such wow!

That's the thing, though. All the Jeep did was push the bike backwards. Not down, or over, or anything else crazy that way, just pushed it backwards (downhill!) with the only rolling resistance being the kickstand on the pavement - the wheels could freely rotate. But you're probably right, and I'm just been needlessly worried. As I said above, people all over the world do this all the time, and I've literally never heard of a kickstand breaking when it's done. But the nature of how it broke, well... Not confidence inspiring.

Yeah, for sure it's very strong for direct loading - putting weight on it I have no problem with at all. While I'm 6'4", I'm old and pretty broken and have to step onto bikes most of the time (step onto one pedal and over) to avoid looking hilariously feeble trying to get onto the bike. The issue I have with spinning the bike on the kickstand is you're putting a lot of weight on the stand (ok, in and of itself) but then rotating the bike, applying a lot of rotational strain that it's not intended to take. That thin spot probably is a point to control breakage and prevent damage to the frame, but still: the kickstand breaks there when you just push the bike backwards while it's leaning on the kickstand, and it breaks rather than dragging/sliding on the pavement. Because that's all that happened with mine: the spare tire on the rear of the jeep pushed the bike backwards while it was in neutral on the kickstand. No hard impact (she was backing up slowly), and the tire softened what impact there may have been. Just backwards pressure. Which is exactly what you're doing when you brace the kickstand and pull the bike back to lift the rear and turn it around. With all that said, I expect you'd be fine spinning the bike around on the kickstand. People do it all the time, and have no problems. But after that happened to me, I'm really reluctant to risk it happening while I'm manhandling the bike around.

Funny, I find the warmer the winter, the harder it is to ride. Being warm and comfortable is trivially easy, but when it's warmer, it tends to rain more, then freeze. And snow more. Ice buildup is really a pain in the butt. But just cold? Heated gear and done.

Yes, the wife backed her jeep into my Tracer. It didn't fail during regular use. I'm just saying that the side stand is not nearly as thick and sturdy as I expected it to be; mine was surprisingly thin. Edit: I should say, though, that I do this without any worry with my Tenere 700. It's got a much sturdier, longer kickstand. However, it's still not common for me, mostly because I'm fine just backing it out of small places I rode it in to, and in my garage, I've got a centerstand dolly and a lift, both with great wheels.

Lots of people do this regularly without any problem. However. When my Tracer's kickstand broke, I was really kind of shocked by how thin it actually was; it's just a hollow tube. I'm not super interested in putting odd strains on it's replacement now So, yeah. I don't. I mean, I'd do it if I needed to for some odd reason, but it's not something I'm doing on the regular.

Which ones? I'm vaguely aware Givi has a set, but I haven't seen them. Is there another set? I'd considered the Givi ones, but then I bought my OBR Adv Grip Mitts as they were both cheaper and seemed more likely to actually work.

The manual says every gear, and it does work in every gear. But for first -> second, to work reliably you need both 5k+ rpm AND heavy throttle. If you're not accelerating hard it'll miss. The thing is, with the GT's quickshifter it's really best used as a sport quickshifter, not a "easy highway mile munching option". It doesn't work well at lower RPM's and definitely not when you're not on the throttle. It's most noticeable from first to second though, because you can miss entirely and end up in neutral and even when it is successful it's really jerky if you don't meet the conditions above. So it's really not an "easymode" riding option, more just a "shift faster when you're giving it the beans" option.

So much so that I never, ever use the quickshifter between first and second. It's like 50-50 if it'll make it into second or not. Always a deliberate shift with clutch from first to second for me. That's been a "feature" of all three CP engines I've owned, however - it's REALLY easy to blow that first to second shift, with or without a quickshifter. My MT09 did it, my Tracer does it, and my Tenere does it too.

Worst MC seat I've ever had, hands down. Terrible.

hah yeah, I hear this. I honestly never once gave any thought to a motorcycle's seat before I got my 2018 MT07. Every bike before that, going back decades, never thought about the seat at all. Now, to be fair, the MT07's seat is kind of awful, just a board, and for the years immediately prior to that I wasn't on any rides over an hour at a time, but I feel it's much more a problem with getting old than seats in general. The Tracer seat isn't particularly bad (particularly with the slope mod); and it's much more comfortable than a lot of bikes these days... But yeah, these days, I get 2, 2 and a half hours at *max* before I've got to rest and stretch. I don't think any amount of seat replacing is really going to change that. That said, it doesn't much matter anyways because my bladder wouldn't let me go much longer anyways.