kbob2000

Pretty sure that's what he meant when he said this. Pretty cool little box. I don't love that it doesn't have much of a side lip but I never have a pillion and this pretty practical and low profile.

I have three. The FJ is my primary; commuter, weekend mountain roads and sport tourer. I also have a GSXR for track days and a KLR 650 for screwing around off road. It's a pretty good mix. I'm considering swapping the KLR and GSXR for a DRZ400SM with a dirt wheel and tire to make more room in the garage. The track here is pretty short and I'm not close enough to any others to warrant keeping the GSXR (not to mention, there's only one track day a month).

I wanted a qs/autoblipper when I did my flash as I fell in love with the setup on the S1000XR I rented in Croatia (always thought of the FJ as the poor mans version of that bike). I emailed 2WDW about adding it and I would like to share their reply. Autoblippers simply aren't a good idea on these bikes, which is why they are not available through FTECU (the tuning software we use for these bikes). They CAN be installed through the Woolich Racing software, but we do NOT recommend it. The transmission simply can't handle the extra abuse long term, and we have seen several fail catastrophically when FTECU was originally trying to develop the Autoblipper technology for these specific models. -2WDW I decided to just skip it due to this advice. I know some people are using them successfully but I plan on having this bike for a while and don't want any avoidable reliability issues.

I rented one! A Tiger 800 Xr in Barcelona which I rode into the Pyrenees in March of 2018. The roads were more remarkable than the bike although I was grateful for the heated grips in the mountains. It was comfortable but I was longing for something more sporty. But seriously, those roads were fantastic.

Hey there folks, I thought I would copy the long post I made last winter in the FZ07 forum last year when I still lived in Germany and had my MT07. I moved to Albuquerque in January and bought a FJ-09 within 2 weeks. The lines separate my original post from the stuff I'm adding today. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want something to read that isn’t a “which exhaust, tires, flash, bars, seat should I get” thread? I’m bored and its winter so here’s my moto-story. I’ve been wanting to throw down my experience with riding for a while so here goes. My moto-background is… I took the MSF course in 2006 and picked up a 2004 Katana for $3700 with about 3K miles. I sold my car and commuted for about a year, put about 4K miles on the Kat. Didn’t have great gear and got a little tired of getting wet and sold the bike. Honestly, enjoyed the bike for ergos, power and sound. Picked up a 2004 CBR600RR about 8 months later which I owned for about 1.5 years and barely rode at all. I went to Iraq for about half that time but mostly I didn’t enjoy sport biking in the Florida panhandle. I also needed a little cash on hand to buy my house. Went about a year and a half without a bike and then bought a Harley Fatboy as my dad was moving down with his and I wanted to be able to ride with him. Also bought a Nightster for my wife not too long after as she didn’t care for being on the back of a bike. I rode it more than her though, as I had several issues with mine and it was in the shop a bit. Not to mention, it’s pretty difficult to ride when you have small kids. Didn’t do any long trips in the remainder of my time in Florida although I always wanted to. Moved to Germany in 2013 and decided not to bring the Harley as I was afraid of maintenance costs. Didn’t have a bike for 3 years until I offered a co-worker $500 for his 2006 GSXR 600 that had been sitting in various garages for the last 4 years. He took it without a second of deliberation, just wanted to be rid of it. I nursed it back to health and rode it for what little bit I was home during that year. I was bitten by the bug at this point and just wanted another bike that was fun but a bit more comfortable than the GSXR. I scoured the internet for the winter and decided my tax free status made the MT-07 and unbeatable deal. I picked up my 2017 ABS model in Tech Black in February ’17. As I started it at the dealer to head home, I knew an exhaust was in my future. I ordered a Mivv system which is really popular in Europe that night. Literally installed in the morning before work the day after I got it. My plan from there was to buy all the stuff I wanted for the bike over the first few months of having it so I could enjoy it for the next 3 summers (leaving in Jan of 2020) with no regrets or wishing I would have bought something sooner. So I ordered Bitubo suspension from Paul at Bellissimoto, FTecu bench kit, CRG mirrors, levers, Givi windscreen, R&G axel and frame protection, SW Motech Blaze bags, Ogio All Elements waterproof duffle, a USB power adapter, phone mount and some red decals to change up the appearance a bit… all within the first 3-4 months. Was able to do a couple of trips down to Switzerland and Italy that summer. Got a little over 5K miles despite being gone for work quite a bit. Fall came around and I ordered heated gloves and a wiring harness for the bike to extend my season. I was able to ride every month from Feb 2017 to Dec 2018 at least once, sometimes with snow on the ground. I did a moto-camping trip into the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) where some of my all-time favorite roads are in May 2018 before I had to leave for 7 weeks in Romania. I bought a Bagster seat when I got back from that trip as I suffered quite a bit on the way home (mostly my fault for not taking more breaks). I was able to take a few trips to in 2018 and rent bikes as well. In March, I went to Barcelona with to friends and rode a Triumph Tiger 800 xR for 2 days into the Pyrenes. Really fantastic roads around there and I love Barcelona. In July when I was in Romania for work, I solo rented a BMW F650GS for 2 days and rode the Transfagarsan Highway, saw Vlad the Impaler’s castle and rode the highest pass in Romania (Transalpina?). It was a cool trip although the weather generally really sucked. In August the real treat of the summer was renting a BMW S1000XR in Zagreb, Croatia with a couple of friends. We rode down into Bosnia for an hour or so and then back into Croatia for the night. Rode up the coast and stayed over the border in Italy the next night, and then spent the last day riding across Slovenia (besides a 30 min dip into Austria on a killer road on which I managed to get a ticket). Really awesome time besides dropping bike in a gravel parking lot on top of a mountain (last day). Rental guy was super cool and got some the replacement parts on ebay so I didn’t go broke fixing scratches. The S1000XR is an amazing machine! The quick-shifter and auto-blipper were ridiculously fun. It isn’t something I was interested in but, wow. Just fricking wow. There’s plenty of reviews out there so I won’t spend too much time on it, but it’s a do it all weapon. I didn’t love the tires that were on it and I’m glad I don’t have to pay for maintenance for it but it’s pretty perfect for someone who wants a versatile bike (if ya got the cash). I should mention that I started riding on the track in 2018 as well. I put some Michelin Power RSs on the GSXR in April and took it to Mettet, a small track in Belgium. Didn’t make it back until August and was able to have a lot of fun booking a whole weekend and getting pretty comfortable with kneedown antics. Did another weekend in September and got moved to group 3 because of my laptimes (group 4 is fastest) and that was pretty satisfying. Destroyed my rear tire on that weekend and got a new one put on at the same time I had Road 5s mounted to my 07. Tried to squeeze one last track day out at the end of September at Zolder but went down as it seems I should have replaced the front when I did the rear. The cheap Chinese plastics on the GSXR exploded, broke off left clip on and cracked the stator cover ending my season a few sessions early. Only cost about $200 to fix mechanically and I got some used track fairings on FB marketplace for 300 (almost 2 sets actually). That pretty much brings me to now, looking out the window at 6 inches of snow. Looking forward to more trips and track days in my last year living in Germany! I tried to be brief if you can't tell from my writing style. Hope I didn’t put anyone to sleep, lol. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So that brings us to February 2019. My last year in Germany, I was able to do one moto-camping trip to the Black Forest. I paid for 5 track days and was able to do 3 of them, one I didn't attend because of weather and one I couldn't go on because a work trip got shifted on top of it. The highlight of the year though, was an 11 day trip to Isle of Man for the TT. I rode 732 miles in 26 hours, including putting my bike on the channel tunnel train, riding in London Friday afternoon traffic, staying the night with a friend in a not so on-the-way location. I had a blast riding in London, honestly. My only experience lane-splitting and I wish that was legal everywhere. I left my friend's house at 4 in the morning to make my ferry only to have it delayed by hours. Camped 9 nights on a rugby field and endured what we were told was the worst TT weather ever. Literally every person we talked to told us they had been coming for 25 years and they had never seen so much rain. Luckily, I had a new tent which kept me dry and mostly really enjoyed the experience. Riding on the island was fantastic and riding the mountain section with no speed limit was insanely fun. The people we met there were insanely nice and I highly recommend anyone interested make it a bucket list item (rent a bike there, it's the only way to do it if you can't ride there on yours). That about covers 2019s highlights for me. I borrowed a truck for a Saturday and bought my FJ 470 miles away in Arizona. It was at a Harley dealer for $5500 with an Akra, PC5 and 4600 miles. Couldn't find a decent deal anywhere closer. I replaced the tires with Road 5s, added a Sargent seat and took it to Highway 191 in February. Not a popular destination that time of year, lol. I didn't see a single motorcycle. I road down from Springerville and cut back over into New Mexico to 180 to do a loop as it was a bit of scouting trip. Camped on 78 (which was a great road as well) and headed up 191 in the morning. First part of the route was super sketchy with sandy gravel(?) on top of it but some sections were clear and I had some fun. There was still feet of snow on the higher sections (sides of the road) and some icy runoff across the the pavement in areas but all easily crossed with extreme caution. I'll definitely be back once I'm allowed to go more than an hour away from home again. I ordered some Givi cases and top box from Motostorm in Italy before I left and the Fedex guy pulled up in front of my house when I was taking off my gear when I got home. I got by with the Daypack SW Motech tank bag, an Ogio waterproof duffle strapped to the rear seat and an Ogio tail bag strapped on top of that on the trip. That pretty much brings us to the present day quarantine period. I have done quite a bit of commuting with nearly 2000 miles since purchase. I'm really enjoying the bike although I miss the lightness of the 07. I haven't really gotten the chance to push it in the curves too much with the cold temps and winter road debris. I was lucky enough to be surrounded by fantastic roads in the Eifel region of Germany and now it takes nearly an hour to get to a good road but the weather is much more favorable for frequent riding. Enjoyed the forum so far and read a ton over the last few months. Hope everyone is doing well with the madness and maybe I distracted you from it for a bit.

Thanks! Always great to get route tips! Looking forward to a long riding season compared to my last area.

I brought my FJ-09 home yesterday to Albuquerque, thought it was funny to see this post. I had a 940 mile roundtrip day, driving to Kingman, Arizona to pick it up. Looking forward to doing some longer rides including to check out old 666. I just moved here a week ago so I have no New Mexico miles yet.