draco_1967

Yeah, I'd consider that very low mileage for a 4 year old bike!

On the 2019-2020 models, the high beam LEDs are triggered by a -12v lead. It seems like a lot of modern LED headlights are triggered that way. If the unit received opposite current, the circuit may not have liked that. Hopefully something isn't fried.

Since your grip heaters only have 2 wires per grip, it won't really matter which wire you hook them to. Just connect one wire from each grip to each plug, and make sure they are connected to the wire on the customled connector that matches up with the wire on the bike-side connector. The grip elements you have don't have a + or - side, they are just a simple circuit that has resistance (the heater element) in the middle.

I have a JK3D kit I pulled of my bike (built a custom seat that eliminates the stock seat forward slope) that you can have. I hate to throw it away, if there is someone who could use it.

The clutch side tends to be cooler, because the bar acts as a heat sink for the heating element (if applied directly to the bar). You may not get enough heat from those if the resistance isn't right. There is a lot of information in this thread:

The Givi light bracket is a great option. On light position, if you want more light on the road, higher is better; if you want to be seen by other road users, lower is better (down on the crash bars gets them wider). Also, for fog lights, you want those low too. Amber lights are much better for getting noticed by others on the road.

As long as the roads are dry, I'll ride down into the teens (F). I have heated jacket, pands, and gloves. When riding in temps below freezing, the heated gear is mostly just to keep the cold from taking over. Too much heat gets sucked away over time at those temps. I only ride my short 20-30 minute commute at those temps.

You can't see it when you are sitting on it! Russell has a sport option that is not quite as wide, but if you are going to spend big bucks on a Russell seat, why not get the more comfortable version?

That's a very cool Idea. I wonder how water resistant they are. If riding in a driving rain at higher speeds, will water work its way in? I wouldn't expect them to hold water out if submerged, but I would hope they could keep stuff dry in a day riding around the PNW. The videos sound like AI generated press copy. There were a lot of statements in there that just didn't quite make sense. It was like they wanted to throw in fancy words just to sound cool, and didn't use them correctly.

I've looked closely at Seth's seats in the past. They seem to be very comfortable.

I thought about adding a heated element, but decided against it. Mostly, it was timing. I didn't want to wait for it to arrive, then fiddle with wiring. I have a trip coming up next week. I'll definitely add it if I decide to redo the cover. This cover was a big experiment for me. I used Sunbrella for the seating surface, and it is not as grippy as I hoped it would be. I did give it a test yesterday on my commute to work. It felt really good! I may change out the red/black speedblock for something to compliment the honeycomb pattern more. Then again, I can't see the honeycomb when my butt is covering it! I am also liking the Dunlop Mutants so far. Yesterday was very wet and cold (switching between rain and snow), and they felt very secure. The handling feels very precise, but there is always that "new tire feel" whenever I put on a new set. I will be testing them out on some good twisty roads in Southern California next weekend.

It is finished! I was able to finish sewing the cover over the last few evenings. The Nakajima started acting up as I was sewing the red top stitch (of course, that is the most contrasting, visible, and unfixable part! 🤬). Skipped stitches, and occasional broken threads made for a really frustrating evening yesterday. Usually, if the machine is doing something bad, it's user error. This time, I missed one of the little thread keepers when I rethreaded the machine. Too much slack was causing the thread to get caught in the hook at the wrong time. After I threaded the machine properly, it worked like a dream. Too late to fix a few mistakes, sadly. I got a few wrinkles when installing the cover at the back of the seat. Overall, I am very happy with how it turned out. It looks pretty good, and it is comfortable. There are two down sides to it: 1) the width makes it a little more challenging to flat-foot (I don't mind much), and 2) the Sunbrella fabric does not have much friction to it. At least when I'm wearing my Aerostich, if I brake hard, I slide forward. The seat is dished out and definitely slopes away from the tank, but with the front end dropping and the binders grabbing, momentum pushes me forward. It's not ideal, but really only a problem on hard, unexpected stops. If I squeeze the tank and am prepared. I don't slide. I think when I am wearing my Kevlar jeans, it won't be as big of an issue either. There seems to be more friction between the fabric and denim/cotton blends than the slicker Cordura. I am looking forward to putting it to the test next weekend. I'm riding out to California for a long weekend.

I'm not sure I could charge enough for the seats to make it worth it 😅

I made a ton of progress this weekend. I should have the seat done this week. I extended the seat pan, both front and rear. The rear portion was unsupported where the plastic trapezoid thingy used to be, so that needed something to hold up the foam. It seems I didn't get a picture of that rear support... Then I added a 1" layer of foam to fill in the base, and attached a bolster support of sorts. RDL use a steel spring support, but I don't have the material to make something like that. Hopefully this HDPE will offer enough support to keep things from sagging too much under my fat but. Next, I threw on a big ol' hunk of 3" foam to start creating the the main seat shape. I needed to hack some material to fit in the gaps left under the bolster support too. Did I mention this is messy work? I find an angle grinder with grinding wheel works best for shaping. A flap disk tends to grab much more. If I had an air sander, that would be even better... Finally, I arrive at a shape that I like. It has a slight slope toward the rear, rather than to the front like the stock seat. The front is narrow enough that I can straddle the bike comfortably, and the rear gives nice support for my butt! This got covered with a thin foam to help hide surface imperfections. It still looks a little lumpy, but it will look smoother when the cover compresses things a little more. I forgot to get a picture of this process, but I cover the seat in saran wrap, then a layer of blue masking tape. On that, I draw out the seams for the different panels for the cover. I mark the centerline of the seat and then cut up the panels to create a template. I am going to repeat the hex/honeycomb design, but this time it will be on a dark charcoal material with red stitching. I did a practice piece, and the contrast between the two really makes all the errors stand out! This is the first try: The red stitching shows my issues too well. Stitches overshot, lines not straight, and the rows of hexagons are different sizes. That's a result of the stencil using the same size hexagons, while the pencil traces around the inside edge of one row, and the outside edge of the other, creating a variation of size. I fine-tuned my stencil for the pattern, and started the rear seat again. If I go really slow, I only make minor mistakes that can be corrected. This is going to take a while, but it looks much better.

I found it in the local classifieds. I had an alert on for anything "walking-foot," and I jumped on it as soon as I got the alert.

It seems I don't like doing things the easy way. I could just buy a seat. Instead, I am going to spend money on materials, then use countless hours of my time to make my own. This is the way. I'm weird, because I don't hate the stock seat. It is the most comfortable stock seat I have had. 4 years and 26k miles later, I haven't done anything except the JK3D slope mod, to keep my boys out of the tank. The stock seat is not, however, all day comfortable. Let's fix that! This isn't the first seat I've done. I started in 2015 with my 2012 NC700X seat. I added foam and reshaped things. It turned out ok, but I didn't know how to sew at the time. A local upholstery shop did the cover for me. It is a messy process. Wear PPE and have a plan to keep things clean(ish). The completed seat was pretty comfy. I did a 3600mi trip to run the PCH from Seattle down to San Francisco. From Salt Lake and back it was 7 days. Those were some long days in the saddle, and seat comfort wasn't an issue (rain on the other hand...). When I sold the NC for an '07 FJR1300, I decided to try the Seat Concepts route. They sent the foam and cover, and I stapled it on. It worked pretty well, and was a reasonable cost. I did several rides that were 700-900 mile days without issue. The next seat I did was my 2007 Dirt Ninja. The stock seat on a Ninja 650R is horrendous. I removed most of the stock foam, added some back on, and shaped it up. Then I sewed a cover, and it was awful! Turns out, domestic machines don't like sewing through 3-4 layers of vinyl... The seat was fairly comfortable, but not amazing. I bought a new, heavy-duty domestic machine and tried again. A little more reshaping and I ended up with this. Still far from perfect, but it looked way better, and was a bit more comfy. My buddy also built a Dirt Ninja, and he needed a seat too. I got to work. With what I learned to this point, I was able to come up with something that turned out pretty nice. The seat was much more dished out (he has a cruiser background, and that's what he wanted). There were still some issues with sewing where the different panels meet, plus keeping a consistent stitch length in those spots was a struggle for the HD domestic machine. But the seat still looked pretty slick. Enter the Nakajima 180L! I picked this up for pretty cheap, and it was hardly used at all. Other than dust, the machine looked brand new. Usually these industrial machines have signs of wear in certain spots from hands always rubbing them. A couple weeks ago, I pulled the cover off the Dirt Ninja's seat, did a little more fine-tuning to the foam, extended the seat pan (I added a Versys 650 gas tank for +1 gallon, which left a large gap between the tank and seat), and stitched up another, much nicer cover. The seating surface is Sunbrella canvas, and I stitched the hexagon pattern in it. I was inspired by Blackstitch Label, a local leather worker who does seats and bags. She's on Instagram, if you want to see the art she creates. The Nakajima beat the pants off of my domestic machine! It made everything much easier. That brings me to yesterday, when I pulled the seat cover off of the Tracer. I have been running the seat in the high position, with the JK3D slope mod. The plan is to put the seat in the low position, so the gap between the seat and body work is minimized, and build up the seat foam so it is wider at the rear (similar to Russell, but probably not as extreme). I want the seating surface to be the same height it was in the high position. I will have to fill the gap between the front of the seat and the tank trim. I'll extend the seat pan an inch to do that. I am removing the weird silver plastic trim that goes between the front and rear seat. I hated how my tailbone would sit on that if I scooted back on the seat.

I removed the seat cover. I'm going to work over the seat and do a new cover for it. Honestly, I'm an oddball, because I found the stock seat to be quite comfortable, especially after the seat slope mod. It still isn't all-day comfortable, so I plan to fix that.

One of the major benefits to working from home several days per week is I can dink around in the garage on my lunch! I swapped the front tire for the Dunlop Mutant. It went fairly easily doing it by hand. I love that the Bridgestones are so compliant - they are easy to mount/dismount. The dunlop took a little effort, but not bad. I changed the rear on Saturday at my buddy's house. He has a pneumatic changer, and that makes things super easy. The big, wide rears are not as fun to do by hand. Motion Pro Bead Pro worked great! I noticed a pretty decent dent in the rim. I am not sure when that happened. I don't recall hitting anything with that much force, but it could have been 2022. The wheel holds air just fine, but I'll be on the lookout for a spare front. Fresh meat! You do what you have to when your friend has the tire changer! I might have been able to fit the front on there too, but I knew I could do it pretty easily by hand.

I would rather not deal with the anxiety of worrying when I will hit the cords, especially when I have a trip coming up that is ~1200 miles of riding. I've been there before, and it completely ruins the fun of a trip.

The new Mutants arrived. They look cool, and the tread is pretty deep. I liked the Bridgestone T32s, and got decent miles on them, but I did too much commuting and wheelie/launch practice 😆, so the center wore out with plenty of tread left on the sides. I'm at the wear indicators on the center, so out they will go. They are "M+S" rated, but I don't think I'll be giving that rating a go. I'll wait until the roads are a little clearer...

I have some VisionX Optimus lights with amber fog beam covers on them on my Tracer. They do a lot for visibility (others seeing me), and they do a good job of filling in the stock headlights. I find the amber feels more natural mixed with the cool white of the headlights. If I pop off the covers, the beam is a really good spot that will go quite far. I use a Skene dimmer and run them at 50% most of they time, but they go 100% when I hit the high beam switch. On my other bike, I have the Optimus lights as the main headlights, and a pair of these for aux/fog lights. They work really nicely, and throw a ton of light. The amber is a fog light, shining the light lower with a very clean cutoff. The white shines higher and farther. You can't run both white and amber at the same time on these, but I haven't felt the need to.

The white stuff is flying (and sticking) around here, so I haven't done much with the Tracer in the last couple of weeks. I did just order a new chain/sprockets, and some new shoes. The chain still has a bit more life, but I was ordering a set for my other bike, and I figured I might as well get one to have ready for the Tracer too. For tires, I decided to try the Dunlop Mutants. It has a lot of good reviews, including a glowing endorsement from Ryan F9. They aren't the cheapest tires, but only a few $ more than the Bridgestone T32s I have currently. @piotrek it looks like you are running those, right? How do you like them?

They do take a little time to adjust to. First, just getting used to looking a little lower for the mirror. Second, they are convex, so cars are definitely closer than they seem in the reflection. It didn't take long for my brain to make the adjustment, and they are very natural to use now. I love them!

I wired up some Heat Demon heaters under my stock grips on my 2019 non-GT. I picked up some OEM turn signal connectors, and wired them according to a diagram in another thread here. Since they are wired in to the factory location, they work with the dash/handlebar controls. No extra buttons anywhere. They get HOT too. I only put them on the high setting when I first start out on a very cold morning.

I have a set of CRG Arrow mirrors with Rottweiler mounts (attaches to my Barkbusters). They are spendy, but very high quality. I actually got mine second hand for about 60% of new cost. I ended up liking them so much, I put a set on my other bike (which I also scored used!). No the best pic... Here is a closeup of them on my other bike: I will say, these mirrors are tough! On my other bike, they have taken several falls on both sides in the dirt. They rotate out of the way, and I haven't had any issues with broken glass or bent anything. The aluminum housing has a few scratches, but nothing serious. If you are eliminating handguards completely, CRG has a bar-end adapter that you need to purchase separately to install the mirrors.