Wintersdark

Grey. It's the "Nimbus grey" color scheme, so grey and white with red accents. The accent decals are all gone now, and the white side panels are already black. I'd love to get a set of blue wheels too. A second set of wheels would be great for swapping between summer and winter tires too vs having to dismount/remount wheels twice a year, and it'd tie stuff together nicely. Going to get some blue reflective tape for the existing black rims.

Yes. The lower front panels with satin black (matches the plastic around the headlights and beneath the tank perfectly) and everywhere that's currently grey is getting this metallic satin blue. Takes a fair bit of time though. Parts I could bring inside where pretty easy, but most of the body panels are much better to wrap on the bike (where I can get a good stretch because they're attached to the bike)... But it's midwinter here in Calgary, and applying vinyl in sub zero temps, while not impossible, is quite challenging.

Oh, dear god, that thing sounds amazing. Today: wrapping my hardcases. Pretty decent results, not flawless but really acceptable. I'm definitely happy with how it's going!

LED relays are really the best way to go as well, as it allows you to reduce the load on the charging system. The resistors just to increase the power draw to match the incandescent bulbs. Not that you need it, but less power consumed is always better. They're super cheap, too, adjustable relays are about $5 on Amazon.

Finally finished up wrapping the side panels, getting the emblems stuck on and everything reassembled. All in all, I'm very happy with the result. It's got some slight flaws right up in the corners, but it's one of those "you need to know to look" sort of issues. Before: After:

Got well and truly into wrapping my GT. Black satin on the lower, white panels, going to be ghost metallic blue everywhere that's currently gray. First attempt went pretty well, but still ripped it off and tried again (I bought lots of extra vinyl). Ended up really happy with how it looks. Slightly flawed (Not as clean as I'd like around the emblem), but overall it worked out very well. Gonna do the hard cases first, as I'll be able to get a really good result there and more practice before working on the tank "scoop" panels.

TIL there's a Scottoiler alternative. Interesting! I really ought to get one of these things some day.

Yeah, that's the plan. I'm sure they'll be fine for the reinstall, but I suspect they won't last multiple reinstalls, and that's likely in their future.

Pulled and disassembled my front lower fairings (the ones with the blinkers) to prep em for vinyl wrapping. Observations: the cam lock mounting screws are pretty cool, but also wierd. Can't decide if they're needlessly proprietary or genius. Sure was easy to pull the fairings off though. Then disassembled them, and that's where the fun stopped. Those stupid toothed washer nut things holding the inner cover on are, well, stupid. Anyways, later tonight the heat gun plastic knife and fishing line come out to remove the badging and stickers. Tomorrow will be wrapping day!

Well, just got at these (pulling the side covers to vinyl wrap them), and of course while I have a pick set for the life of me I couldn't find any of them. The two "shallow" ones where easy to pry up with a knife and screwdriver, but the deep one I just worked out by pulling/prying/twisting the inner plastic body out. Anyone find a cheaper source of replacement washer things than $3usd each? Mine should be good for another go, but I'll need to replace them if I remove them again. Or a good alternative?

Hahaha it's fun. Maybe I'm a bit broken - I'm willing to accept that as a possibility - but I *love* riding, all the time. I'm warm, dry, and happy, no miserableness at all. Drove in today in the wife's Jeep - it snowed all day after I got home and into the night, and was unsure of how the roads would be - and half the trip was spent shivering and miserable waiting for the damn heat to actually do something useful. I need to put together an automotive 12v adapter for my heated jacket liner - I'm too spoiled by being really warm all the time

So, 800kms in on these tires now. Today's ride home from work included fresh falling snow as well as the remnants of Saturday's snowfall. No clear pavement anywhere, roads varying from as pictured to muddy slushy messes. Getting more confident with trusting them, and learning where the boundaries of traction are. Definitely need to watch where you're putting wheels though when the snow and slush piles up deeper - after an inch or so, it's still rideable but you need to exercise some care turning - it feels a lot like riding a dirt bike in such situations. You still get grip, and things aren't sliding around willy nilly, but it's not the "on rails" sort of grip us primarily street riders are familiar with. At this point I'm comfortable at 80kph on the highway in the snow (100kph limit, and I feel 80kph is perfectly reasonable for anyone who can't see pavement, even in a car). With "normal" tires, snow and slush an inch deep was basically impossible to ride in, so I'd call that a win. Even in TCS2, I haven't had traction control activate at all. Awesome.

Hey, you can't just drop that there without even a pic, come on

Fantastic work!

Yep. I strongly object to things *massively* overpriced purely because of the name. It's particularly bad in the motorcycle space, but in other industries too. I mean, bring some value to the table and sure, but a sticker with your name on it doesn't make your part better than the next one. I can understand Americans wanting to buy American, but as I'm not American that has no value to me. American, Japanese, German, Russian, Chinese... *Shrugs* all foreign parts to me. Today: brought my bike in to have the stupid CEL cleared after triggering it running the bike on the centerstand. Also ordered an adapter for my code reader, but I didn't want to suffer through a month of that stupid yellow light. Also, it was kinda fun to show off the winter tires, as nobody here has seen them before.

Yeah, without the right tires it's basically useless. With normal street tires, actual snow is virtually impossible to ride in. Even with these tires, you're limited to a light coating of snow before it's a problem. You can manage deeper snow with dirt tires (TKC80's, Shinko 805's) but they're largely useless come highway speeds and icy pavement. With these, though? I left work (picture above) without any issue. Just rode away as I normally would - if maybe a bit gentler than I'd do with sunny, clear and dry pavement. No issue doing the speed limit all the way home. Likewise, snow is fairly uncommon here - Calgary is a very, very dry place. Most roads get pretty reliably cleared fast, though snow elsewhere sticks around basically all winter because it's bloody cold. Some roads never get plowed, though, so they just get snow packed down and (hopefully) covered in gravel. Either way, these are really ideal for that sort of condition. Places where people get deeper snow more frequently... Yeah, there's not really a good solution there. Maybe a KLR with big knobblies and a willingness to lay it down now and then.

Well, a few days of commuting in, and had a nice snowy ride home to really test stuff! A layer of snow over the packed ice and frozen slush at -4c. No problems at all. There's definitely a loose snow depth limit for these tires. If it's shallow enough that you don't fill the treads with packed snow, they handle it just fine. These tires get enormously better traction on ice than my work boots do. Bike was parked on ice, and I nearly fell trying to get on it with the fresh snow on top, but the tires didn't care even a little bit. Pro tip: don't forget to brush the snow off your windshield first, or as soon as you hit 40-50kph, you'll get a face full of snow.

Why? Yoshi could sell it at half the price easily. Paying over $100 for a simple black painted bent bit of metal is (in my books anyways) crazy. Now, I'd certainly go name brand where quality and reliability are important, but this? It's functionally identical to the Yoshi but a third of the price. They're not "ripping off" Yoshi or stealing IP - a tail tidy like this is a simple license plate bracket not some clever invention. I chose to spend a lot less for my random bracket, and also ride with no shame... And an extra $70 in my pocket.

You can get full on waterproof boot covers too, which largely achieve the same ends. Much like my pants, I find for much of your body just keeping the wind(and definitely water!) off is sufficient to keep you warm, so long as your body core is good. I'd love a pair of heated glove liners though - there's some that integrate with my heated jacket liner. As @Ahmed noted above, heated grips are great but you can have issues with thumbs and the topside of your hands in really cold weather.

For sure. A heated seat is wholly unnecessary, but I bet it feels awesome. I know I don't need heated seats in a car either, but I love them there too. I have riding over pants that aren't actually insulated but have a waterproof liner. It goes on the outside, armoured mesh inside, normal jeans underneath. That's always enough for my lower body and in previous years I've actually just wore jeans, maybe with long johns in colder temps. These were more a step for safety than anything, but they do keep my legs a fair bit warmer for keeping the wind off. Heated jackets or vests are key though, and not just in the winter. Going on a long trip through the mountains? Particularly in the edge seasons, mornings and evenings can be cold. I'd argue you only really need to heat your core and your hands. Everything else ends up fine except in extreme circumstances. But having that heat on your core is a *wonderful* thing. Also, the heated helmet is pure luxury... Well, and utility: breath freezing on the inside of your visor can be very problematic. But thats another extreme circumstance most don't need to deal with.

Heated gear is a huge deal when you're riding in the cold. People always comment things like "oh, that's way too cold for me" but the reality is I'm warmer than I would be in my car, and indeed warmer than I'd be on a 20c ride in the summer. Gotta be relaxed to ride well, and you've got to be warm to be relaxed. I'm planning on fiddling with my seat next year, and for sure it's getting a heating element too. Personally, removed the crash bar highway pegs I added. Couldn't get them right enough to feel safe, and I'm really paranoid about footpegs letting go/twisting when I'm using them. Was nice to have a forward spot for me feet on longer rides, but just couldn't relax with them. Also did more winter tire testing on the way to work (detailed in that thread), and tightened up my fork preload as it was at nearly the softest setting.

So, trip into work done. Like my test ride, loose snow is still a no-go, and packed snow and ice is sketchy but manageable. Trip in in B mode (since I've been reminded that's a thing), TCS1, 0c. 0n the cleared /mostly cleared and slushy roads? Right from the start, great grip. Testing out emergency stopping on both brakes, very good - not dry summer day good, but light rain in the summer with appropriate tires good. On actually dry roads, just like my Road 5's. Using just the rear, you trigger ABS at roughly the same point you would normally - once too much weight is transferred forwards, so you need pretty substantial pressure to do it. I had it up to 180 on the highway, coming off an on-ramp hard, and it felt well planted around the on-ramp and accelerating hard onto the highway. Very slight vibration after 160/100mph, but nothing substantial. Because braking is good, stoplight to stoplight riding is fine. No worries about stopping in time, nor about losing rear traction accelerating from a stop. The tires handle some snow/slush fine, so the odd lump breaking off a car in front of you isn't a problem if you (like any other hazard) just hit it straight on and upright. Likewise, we've got a lot of gravel around. These handle it much better than other tires, with more spacing between the tread blocks. All in all, the real benefit here is very good cold performance. If you want to ride in snow, these aren't the solution. I'd go more with a KLR or other dual light dual sport and TKC80's or some such. But, for cold weather riding, these are substantially better, particularly when you're just getting started and tires are very cold.

I prefer to go with "not tossing it down the road" in the first place I would love an old KLR for that though, then I'd goof off a lot more! Sadly, the spare cash just isn't there for a second bike. I've managed a quarter century of riding without damaging anything in the winter though, so I'm not too concerned. Got crash bars on the Tracer, so a low speed oops won't damage anything. And, yeah, it's insured to the tits, so should I write it off, I just get a new one and don't lose a dime.

Pshaw! If I never rode in the cold, I'd never ride. Our winter lasts from late September to May. I mean, for sure most people do just that - I don't see a lot of fellow riders on the road when it's well below freezing - but I deeply resent having to drive, so any time I can ride, I do. As I said above: heated helmet, jacket, etc; I'm warm and toasty - with the press of a button, I can be uncomfortably hot instantly. Got a lot of money invested in this bike, so damnit, I'm gonna ride it

That's tonight's ride - I only have an MC license, not a car license(silly renewal issue years ago, I'd have to take another road test to get my regular car license back and just haven't), so 99% of my commuting is on the bike. I've a 25km each way commute, just regular street riding. about 10km of highway, the rest is stoplight to stoplight, on and off ramps, stuff like that. These look super cool, but are only practical for ice racing. Everyone asks where my studs are, but studs + pavement = no traction whatsoever. On car tires, they're retractable, but that doesn't happen on MC studded tires. Nobody does! Every time I'm at a shop and mention them, it's suddenly show and tell time and everyone says the same thing: "I didn't know they made winter tires for motorcycles!" I'm a denizen of Calgary now; Vancouver previously, and have always ridden in the winter but never had tires like these before. They're showing up a bit in Ontario, because of the winter tire requirements - few ride in actual snow (and these don't really help with actual snow either, to be sure - they're better than regular MC tires for sure, but not good enough to ride safely in snow). They're a German make, and I had to have them custom ordered. However, it's not as hard to find a shop that can get them then you'd think, as Anlas also produces the Capra-X dirt tires which are (apparently?) quite popular, so most shops can actually order them in - they just don't know they exist in the first place. Mail order wise, Pete's Superbike will ship them anywhere in Canada. I just bought them at the local bike shop, though, and had them price-match Pete's.