Wintersdark

Yes, but it's somewhat complicated. You can add custom PID's, but you need to know what they are to add them. The Torque forums discusses how to do it.

I can't get good video off my mount; it vibrates too much. TBH; I'd be totally unsurprised if the ECU actually had correct speed numbers but it fudged them up a couple MPH. I've always noted they read high - basically ALL speedos read high - but assumed they roughed in the calibration, not that they fudged it at display time. I mean, there's *lots* of reasons to have them read high. One that reads low exposes the mfg to legal risk, for example. What's interesting is it'll directly compare too if you want - you can put gauges up watching your phone's GPS speed, and the ODB2 reported speed, side by side, and in the setup you can put in your own correction factor to apply to the ODB2 reported speed.

Hey, that's a damn good idea! I love my 90 degree valves, but this is next-level

Definitely mount to a non-handlebar point if at all possible. If you do have to mount on the handlebars, mount from the middle. This, because the bars get somewhat buzzy, and vibration really wrecks the OIS systems in modern smartphones.

Fortunately, one upside of Calgary is that it's sunny 333 days per year. Often freezing cold, but sunny. There's an early summer period of storms, but even then while it drops a LOT of water, it doesn't rain long. Cold is way easier to deal with than rain, because simple heated gear is both more comfortable and way more effective than rain gear. All my rain gear works, but I still end up soggy if I'm riding in it for more than 30 minutes or so. Maybe not soaked, but soggy. But with my heated jacket liner, helmet, and gloves? I can ride for hours in -25c and be nearly uncomfortably hot... with no bulk!

A few of guys in my local riding group have the newer Goldwings. They're insanely comfy, and surprisingly fast and agile given the weight. Really nice machines.

Mine handles me and my wife just fine, and with gear and we're 460lbs together. However, the rear shock is *woefully* incapable of managing that, and will bottom out if you nod your head abruptly. The frame feels fine, though, it's big and sturdy. TBH, though, even for a 260lb guy alone that rear shock is simply insufficient. If you can't afford a new shock, you can at least get an upgraded spring. It's not a great shock to start with, so there's limits, but at $100 vs $1000...

Oh, my god. @betoney had it right. That 47 tooth rear sprocket is wild. And it was exactly what I needed to get the feeling I loved so much with my MT07 back; that wild, hard acceleration off the line. With the stock 45, it just wasn't quite there. I mean, obviously, being a CP3 it's always grunty as heck, but it just wasn't quite there. I'd imagine for the bulk of normal people the 45 is a better way to go (or probably even lower or +1 in the front) because Normal People don't want random power wheelies. I do Yeah, you push through first faster, but I find I just end up a bit higher in the rev band, getting it up and above 4500 and keeping it there without feeling like I have to work for it. It's just there immediately. I can't stop grinning. That's just so damn much fun. That was exactly what I was missing.

I really like this colourway. It's fairly controversial, but I think it's dead sexy. Much better than my grey and red! Mind you, I've only ever seen it in person at a motorcycle show, not in the sun. I found the red to be more red than orange (but still, errr, orangey red?) - but that could either be the lighting that was there, or just the normal "in-between color that nobody agrees on" thing. The black looked pretty sparkly, is it really metallic in the sun?

This is so real it hurts. I remember getting up and walking off 120kph motorcycle accidents with the help of my good friend alcohol. Now, if I sleep slightly askew I'm in pain for days. I miss being a teen/twenty-something and invincible.

Realized that my RGB LED lights where - by design - wired to unswitched power. This because I wanted to be able to leave them on when I park it for a late night coffee or what have you, be able to flash them or screw with them from a distance. However. It then occurred to me: What happens if I have them on, and my remote stops working? What happens if I want to turn them on, or off when I'm riding? I initially planned on wiring the keyfob directly into the bike and building a control panel, but I decided against that for the same reason as the unswitched power - I want to mess with it at a distance. But if the keyfob stops working, or I'm riding and don't want to mess with it, I need a way to toggle power to the whole system, simply. Sooooo... Naked again. Had to install a button, and wanted to move the lights on my crashbars into the side panels to light those rear-facing vents instead. Just couldn't get the lights on the crashbars to not look... Janky. I'd rather invisible when off, and more "understated" (given what they are) in use. So, stripped her down, moved lights around, and installed a waterproof button to toggle power. But then all this showed me what a total disaster the wiring was around my battery. There's only so much you can do when you've got 4 separate extra pairs of leads tying onto the battery, each with their own inline fuse. It's just a mess. I've always got either my tail bag, or my hardcases with me, though; I don't really need that underseat space and in fact, with the tail bag on, it's a pain in the butt to get access to anyways. So, in went a six slot Amazon fuse block, with one fused link attached to the battery, and everything else tied into it. A quality day spent tinkering, and I'm very happy with the results. A button on the handlebars to toggle the lights, and while I still need to tidy up that bit of a rat's nest on the side there, overall the wiring is way, way simpler than it has been for ages.

Can't post a thread like this without a photo!

Yup. I won't argue about hot tires on dry pavement, but once you have lower temps (even around 10c) and / or rain? Theres no comparison. It's *immediately* obvious.

Yup, reads 8-10% high. In fact, every single bike I've ever owned, and every single car reads about that high too. AFAIK the tracer uses the ABS sensor for speed, so changing gearing shouldn't impact the speedo.

I'd argue if your bars wobble when you take your hands off the bars, there's still something wrong. I mean, I'm not a professional mechanic by any means, but I've managed to restore bikes from the 80's, and run new bikes, all where I can ride consistently with no hands on the bars for any amount of time (particularly now I've got cruise control instead of a plastic throttle lock!). Any wobble gets fixed. Hell, I frequently do 10+ minute stretches of my commute without touching my bars. I'd agree with checking wheel alignment, just in case, but I'd suspect the front tire itself. Maybe, just maybe, a suspension setting is uneven though? Are you *sure* both preloads are set the same? Are you *sure* your forks are parallel?

I just use fork clamps personally, and attach my light bar between them -

Is the 2018 a Tracer 900, or FJ09? There's differences between the two, but they're pretty minor.

Heeeeeey, this is an interesting idea. I love the Road 5's, but the only things I don't like about them relate to the front tire, and how it feels in really hard cornering. Maybe I should try this combo the next time around. hah truth here; I pulled my OEM Dunlops at ~1000kms to put my winters on, and ended up doing just this that, selling them to partially fund the purchase of the Road 5's. If you just wanted cheap tires, there's probably dozens of nearly new OEM D222's out there to be had cheap. Best I ever got was my last set of Road's, at 15,000km/9320 miles. Could have done 10k easily enough, as they weren't quite to the wear bars, but the front was cupping and unpleasant to ride. And that stands out for me as being an *incredible* distance on a tire. Twice that? Eeeh, I'd call bullshit on such claims off a motorcycle tire, unless there are really extenuating circumstances... Like riding a GT cruiser/touring tire on a little 150cc bike, and riding suuuuuuper gently. I found the Dunlops where an adequate for dry weather, but appallingly bad in the rain (at least in comparison to the Road 4 and Road 5's I've gotten used to) and absolutely, utterly garbage in sub-zero temperatures where the Road's are still a competent tire.

It's for sure tacky. Absolutely. But I'm really looking forward to the brake light mode - dark normally, all red when I hit the brakes. People are inattentive, and I'm really, REALLY not interested in getting rear ended. However, I really don't like how brake modulators work (from all the times when I'm following someone with them), so... Nice alternative. And when I'm out on a group ride in the evening, I can make her all glowy in the lineup of bikes 😃 But yeah, it's definitely tacky!

Laws are different here We get away with vastly more vehicle modification than you fellows south of the border. It's sketchy based on the color, but I can turn em amber and call them marker lights if need be. As for how to describe it, I think trashy? Sure, I'll go with that. I'll definitely run with them on all the time in brake-only mode, where it's basically like a brake light modulator but way more noticable.

Yes! I've had probably a half dozen of the ELM323's, I keep giving them away and ordering new ones. But the inability to always leave it connected prompted the odblink LX purchase. It's tremendously useful for diagnosing problems, as well as lots of fun.

If you do want to do this, you need the ODB2 adapter (any one is fine, so long as the scantool isn't attached obviously) and you will definitely want this ODBLink LX so it can sleep when the ECU is off - that is, ignition off - it gets power 24/7 but sleeps when it cannot communicate with the ECU. The cheaper amazon/ebay ones (blue adapters) stay on drawing full power all the time and will kill your battery over [some unknown amount of time; a few weeks with a car battery]. Link to the correct adapter in the first post.

Yeah that's not what I mean. I understand how to set sag, as well as compression and rebound damping. None of those have anything to do with my question. It was a pure mechanics question that I had: When you increase the preload, you compress the spring. As the spring is compressed, it's physically smaller. Does this result in shorter total suspension travel? The answer depends on whether travel is limited by the spring becoming fully compressed, or if the forks have stops that they hit regardless of spring length. This can be relevant in how you measure things. Say, at zero preload on the front forks, when fully extended we've got 137mm of travel, and that takes us (IIRC, exact number doesn't matter for the question) to 18mm from the bottom of the tube when fully compressed, so 137+18=155mm from the bottom of the tube when fully extended. Are these numbers the same at max preload? Obviously, the tension is different, but theres *always* 137mm of travel(stop to stop, ignoring sag) regardless of preload setting?

Awesome! I'm fine with the stock setup (running in front), and just using the same bulbs front and rear. I suppose a stock set of front indicators would work in the rear to add running in the rear too though. Thanks! I got to thinking about LED's today, and remembered I had this set in a box, from an aborted project 2 bikes ago. The remote needs a super obscure 27A battery - spent a bit of time googling around for it, just to realize it's a tiny 12v battery. 12v! So, the remote is gonna get hardwired to the bike's battery, and I'm going to run a couple buttons to the handlebars soldered to the board. I did this thing, then: And, of course, because if you're going to do something incredibly dumb, you need to go All The Way: They all turn red when you press on the brake pedal, too, because why not? Just mocked up right now (wiring all on top of the bike as I move stuff around to test it out) but I think I'm gonna keep this.

The Givi/Kappa bars shown aren't going to cause more damage than the little engine sliders do, no way, not in any circumstance. The little engine sliders only help vs. sliding, not impacts. Any side on impact is going to smash the sliders *through* the cases (though it would have smashed the cases anyways), whereas the bars shown will take a fairly substantial impact. They're *extremely* sturdy, falling down is not going to bend them significantly, and as they're attached midway up and at the base, there is little leverage for that to be a concern. Any impact hard enough to bend them in is going to write off the bike, no questions asked. Now, I totally get not liking the appearance/bulk (though they're really not particularly bulky - see @jdavis's pic above, or mine here: But, unquestionably, they're way, way better at protecting your engine and plastics. If laid right over, it's panniers+crash bars+bar ends. Well, and signals, of course.