Wintersdark

Nice! The Tracer is such a slick machine. All the little quality of life things are marvelous; very much like Yamaha collected a list of FJ issues and common mods and just fixed everything and made all the common mods stock. I've never been so happy with a bike off the showroom floor before.

I'm with you here. I'm thinking it's a wheel alignment issue.

Yeah, it's pretty quick doing a clean and lube, particularly when you do it a heck of a lot. But, there's still a fair bit of setup - particularly as I've never before had a garage, and while I do have one now I can't yet get my bike into it for silly winter reasons. So, I have to drag out all my cleaning supplies to the curb, lay down cardboard or something over the ice and snow (or worse, sloppy slush), then clean and lube the chain in below freezing temps. The process is fast, but it's a pain in the ass and not much fun. Not so! It's a constant flow of oil while riding. It doesn't get put on top of crusted sand and salt, rather it prevents it from ever getting crusted in the first place. With normal chain lube, you want it to be sticky so it doesn't get flung off and you don't need to constantly re-lube. This, however, causes salt and grime to stick to the chain requiring cleaning. That's not a problem if you're only riding on clean dry roads, or just wet roads, but when you're riding through the garbage I'm riding through it gets crusty quick. With an oiler like this, you want a mineral oil that's *not* sticky. It maintains a film over the chain all the time, and anything that gets onto it is simply flung off the lubed steel of the chain, all the while ensuring there's never bare steel. It's a very small amount that's added (and only while you're moving) but it's constant. Even after 150kms spent riding through sand, gravel and salty water, my chain and sprocket is spotlessly clean and covered with a nice, thin film of oil. Looks like I just cleaned and lubed it.

The Tutoro Trek automatic chain oiler! I wanted to get an oiler as I ride year round, all weather. Being Canadian, this means the majority of my riding involves rain, slush, snow, road salt, sand, and all sorts of other nasties. I was cleaning and lubing my chain approximately twice weekly (necessary, as it'd be rusty and salty crusted within days) and that was just an enormous pain in my ass. There were several options (also Scottoiler and others) but I went with the Tutoro due to its innovative design. Unlike Scottoilers and others, it doesn't need to tie into your bike's electrical or vacuum systems. It can be mounted anywhere, and is dead simple. It's internal valve is actuated by vibration, so as soon as your bike stops moving, it stops flowing oil. Simple systems last longer, and have less potential for issues. Installation was dead easy, though I decided against relying entire on zipties and replaced the foam backing for the included "foot" with automotive trim adhesive, and supplemented with the included zip ties. Theres lots of very flexible mounting options, but this seemed most practical for me. Total install took about 20 minutes, most of that being spent deciding exactly where I wanted it. Only an Allen key (included) and an 8mm wrench where required. The unit is primed by placing a magnet (included, but any will work) on top of the unit which holds open the vibration valve. After the oil flows through there, there is a metering valve you adjust to determine flow rate, then it's down the tube to the nozzle on your rear sprocket. Oil then covers the teeth of the sprocket and flows into *both* sides of the chain - only a single sided nozzle is required and while a dual nozzle is available even the manufacturer says it's completely unnecessary. After installation, I thoroughly washed the bike, and (with great difficulty) did not re-lube the chain, instead opting to see how effective the oiler was on a clean but only marginally lubed chain. I opened the valve to 4 turns out, and went for a ride. Now, despite riding through quite a few puddles and lots of road grit (no longer shiny and clean 😭), the chain alone is completely clean and well lubed. Gotta say, I'm very happy. Minimal fling on the rim, no different than when I've lubed with gear oil in the past. I'll come back to this once I've got a couple thousand km's on it or if something happens, but right out of the gate I'm really, really happy with it. Biggest cons: The trek kit includes a triangular shaped piece to hold the nozzle. I couldn't figure out a practical way to use this, however, due to the shape of the swingarm. However, there's a bolt hole for spools in a very useful place, so I used a looped bit of metal strapping secured by a random bolt there to secure the nozzle in a permanent manner. I wish the kit included more hose routing sticky clamps. 4 are included, but I ended up using 3 actually - I'd have liked more however. Mounting with the wheel on makes it really hard to hide the tubing. I ended up not bothering, but I'll remount it all inside the swingarm when I next remove my wheels for tire changes.

Yes! That's the one, thank you sir! It's amazing how much better this colorway looks without the white panels.

Installed my Tutoro auto oiler, and as it's one of the few above freezing days this year went for a spin and a stop at a local car wash. An annoyance here is that while I ride all winter, it's very difficult to wash my bike. See, when it's -20ish, water tends to flash freeze and there's a danger of damaging things if you're using any quantity. And even when it's only around freezing during the day, getting the ground wet tends to just make ice issues way worse. And, obviously, just washing things when it's really cold *sucks*. However, manual car washes are really hard to find and, clearly, riding through an automatic wash is very much only a fun summer thing. But, we just moved and it turns out there's a local manual car wash just about two miles away. So, got her all washed up nice and shiny and got a great chance to see just how well the oiler works with a subsequent spirited ride. 5C doesn't sound warm, but when it's been super cold for months it's like a balmy summer day, and it was a good chance to get her going fast and carve up some corners. Edit: An aside here: The matte black vinyl on my front lower panels has held up marvelously over the winter's riding. I'm genuinely impressed, as they're very much in a high-wear area, constantly sprayed with salt and gravel. They look fantastic.

Hah they were my first add-ons too; I literally took them off my MT07 at the dealership while trading it in and put them on the Tracer

The matte black really blends in with the other black plastics on the bike, too - I forget who did it, but someone did their lower front panels (2019) with the matte black plastidip and it blended in really well. I've got matte black vinyl on mine, and I'm very happy with it. Plastidip would probably be the better solution for the problem in this thread, though, as it tends to fill small scratches whereas vinyl highlights them.

I ride a lot, year round. Commute to work daily on sanded and salted snowy/slushy/wet roads. Just a couple days take it from freshly cleaned and lubed to fully rust covered and crusty. The rest of the bike rinses off fine, but the chain needs constant oiling. Even under normal summer circumstances though I do a bare minimum of 50kms per day, so a 500km interval sees every two weeks. I've gone through a bunch of chains over the years, and more aggressive lubing is a lot cheaper.

Because it gets crusted in salt and road grime. Winter riding does have some downsides, unfortunately.

Ordered a Tutoro automatic oiler. Looking forward to not needing to clean my chain several times a week anymore.

Man, I do not miss ICBC. Insuring my 2019 GT to the max here in Alberta (AFTER rate hikes due to the new government), with extra endorsements covering accessories added to the bike and the value of my gear, with full purchase price repaid if the bike is written off in the full 3 years following it's purchase? $350/year. My last shitty 80's bike in BC cost me some $800 a year to insure with bare bones minimal coverage.

Me too. Perhaps OT for the forum, but they're such awesome little cars. So hard to find one not dissolving these days, and certainly at any kind of reasonable price.

That's common here too - year round, actually. This February we saw a 25C change over a single day. "Winter" (defined as months where it could be below freezing and/or snow) runs from mid September through early June. If I didn't ride in such conditions, I could only ride for some 3-4 months of the year. Not acceptable for me - I can't justify riding a $13000 bike just a couple months of the year.

@ABlast82 Herm, I think I missed this. Yeah, while these tires certainly help with (light) snow riding, as a rule of thumb their main benefit is just that: good grip in very cold temperatures. I'm a BC boy myself (moved to Calgary some 8 years ago now), and that's where my winter riding comes from initially. Good if the rating is needed in particular. A decent option for regular (coastal) BC riding though before such legal requirements exist is a set of Road 5's. They get great traction down to -5, and usable traction to -10 if you're cautious till they warm up some. I ran them and Road 4's before them in past years. Given the prices are the same though, the Anlas tires are a better choice for purely winter riding.

Noted above - I'll drive the wife's Jeep, or take an Uber. These days, it's more Uber as since we moved, the wife needs the Jeep to drive the kids to school. We've an autistic child, and didn't want him to have to deal with two major life changes at the same time. That's pretty uncommon, though. Calgary, while usually very cold through October - April, sees 333 days of sun per year. Things would be significantly different if I lived, say, in Ontario where it snows much more. This year, that's encompassed a whopping three Uber trips - if I'm working 7am to 7pm, she can pick me up after work, and if 7pm to 7am, she can drive me in.

I'm thinking of a strip of aluminum across both, then I could mount accessory switches to it. My LED floodlamp is currently just wired to one of the unused accessory cables in the cluster, so it's always on when the bike is on (I didn't want to start trying to tie it into the highbeams, because the whole lighting system is weirdly complex and incredibly expensive to replace) and I'm quite short on handlebar space for more controls as it stands. But it'd be really easy to get a couple lit LED switches in there that way, nice and neatly. Edit: And as a bonus, I'd prefer such switches be on the rider side of the handlebars anyways, making flipping those caps around more beneficial!

I did not know that! That's really awesome, though, and will thankfully still be fully visible when the caps are reversed. Don't have a need for the attachment point yet, but really good to know it's there.

Stock risers come facing backwards, at least mine did. But the caps have a notchy point that sticks out another half inch or so forwards. See here: The back side of the caps don't have that lip.

I got a fault code running my 2019 GT on the center stand. Not in neutral, but in gear it absolutely did throw a code. There's a chance that @betoney is right above that turning off TCS first will prevent that. However, there are *two* faults regarding running the bike on the center stand, in gear. First is that TCS will trigger (this presents as the bike "stumbling" rather than idling nicely, and is substantially worse if you give it throttle). After a bit, this will cause the TCS to fault out and turn off. It's reset by turning off the bike completely for a few seconds, then going for a ride. The second is that the differing wheel speed reads will cause a separate fault, and this fault is the one that needs to be reset VIA ODB2. Whether this fault will still occur if you disable TCS I just don't know. It takes a while for this one to happen - you can run the bike in gear on the center stand briefly and it's fine. I'm not sure how long, though - I wasn't really interested in testing in detail, as I don't have an adapter yet and having the check engine light lit locks you out of the dash menus and such, which is really annyoing. With regards to powered idling to clean the chain, it's perfectly safe to do that so long as you're not touching the chain, particularly on the bottom pass heading towards the rear sprocket. That's the fingerchopper. I had this fault because I was doing that, but it's impossible to lose fingers if your fingers aren't anywhere they can get bound up and you're not using rags or other things that can get caught. I'd just use spray cleaners and lube, and one of those three sided brushes to brush the top and sides of the chain while it's on the sprocket. No pinch points, nothing to get caught, makes chain cleaning/lubing super easy, fast, and not even requiring gloves.

Is it a GT, or an FJ09?

~takes a walk out to the garage to look at handlebar risers~ Oh! Just the caps on top of the risers! Brilliant idea. Just a little, but yeah, it's damn awkward to get your hand in there when gloved. Particularly with my giant paws in 4XL gloves.

Maybe doing something wrong. What RPM's are you shifting at, and with what throttle? The quickshifter is designed to shift at high RPMs under acceleration. It's clunkier at steady speed, and significantly so at low RPM and/or minimal throttle. That is, it's not great to use to shift into a cruising gear after acceleration, and definitely not if you're putszing about at 3-4k rpm. It certainly works fine, but often feels like a clumsier shift. Where the QS shines, though, is under hard acceleration. Then it's super slick. So, tap when accelerating, shift normally otherwise.

I'm 100% in the "work on your own machine" camp personally, but I find even if you're there, it's WAY nicer to have a machine that's more reliable. I mean, I love working on my bike, but I'd far rather be doing random maintenance tasks or mods, vs. necessary repairs. I like to work on my bike when I want to do it, not because it's broken down yet again. That, incidentally, is what pushed me from a life of rebuilding 80's machines into buying new bikes. I was able to keep those old bikes running, but got tired of having to keep them running

I'm 6'4" as well. I've come from exclusively naked and standard bikes, typically just with small decorative screens, and wind pressure has no effect on me at all - I've never found wind on a motorcycle to be even remotely tiring, I just lean on it and relax. But the buffetting is kind of annoying, and I've been contemplating doing something similar, and pulling my windscreen in favour of a small fly screen. Got pics of what you did with yours?