maximNikenGT

True test will be how comfortable the mesh jacket is under hotter ambient temperatures e.g, >90 degrees F / 32 degrees C. 

Tried to look up who makes Lumidex and it's a company out of South Korea named Texland Nexko : 

http://texland-nexko.com/lumidex/

Apparently lumidex retains its reflective capabilities in spite of repeated washings and had high abrasion resistance. 

I took out the elbow and shoulder armor to get a closer look at whether the jacket allows fine tuning of armor placement ( it did not).  The jacket does have hook and loop fasteners to attach a separate chest and back protector (sold separately).

What was unusual is that the back has a thin foam layer between the inner liner and the exterior. Am assuming this is more for comfort and breathability than providing additional protection in the event of a fall.

Shoulder and elbow pads are Powertector while back seems to be some kind of foam. Powertector armor is a hard shell outside with foam inner. Flexible at the joints and hopefully  hard enough to reduce / deflect damage in the event of a fall. 

I unzipped the bottom edge of the jacket to see what at inside and found the airbag system nestled inside. 
 

Additional notes:

• Lots of fastening redundancy.  Pocket use  of fold over flaps, with hook and loop fasteners as well as button  snaps ensures nothing comes out of your pockets at any speeds. Front of jacket has same fastening redundancy in terms of zipper, 4 hook and loop fastener strips and 4 button snaps. 
• 5 exterior pockets: 4 in the front and one on the  right  sleeve, and one interior pocket. 
• Sleeves also have cuff zippers to allow expansion for thick cuffs or big watch. 

Vent zips are located:

• Along both sleeve forearms 
• Front arm pit zips
• Rear arm pit zips

Reflective material:

• 6 total Luminescent piping located per arm (4 on the shoulder and 2 along the upper collar bone) for a total of 12
• Shoulder Hit Air logo is very raised  lettering with reflective base
• Shoulders and upper back along collar bones use luminescent Lumidex material (e.g. where just the dots reflect)
• Center of the upper back has both reflective rhombus patch in addition to Lumidex borders
• Lumidex used in edges of hand pockets near the hips

Unusual features:

• 3 position snap cinching straps under the sleeve bicep area. Presumably this is to keep the fabric from flapping against my massive guns...💪💪💪
• Pocket with clear front. I'm assuming this is used to display badge or other identifying documentation. I use it for my Travelpass / toll booth sensor. Have heard some folks use it to hold emergency identification / signaling radio.
• Hit Air shoulder logos are very pronounced and stick out quite a bit 5mm / (1/5 inch). Not sure why this is so pronounced and the material itself is like hard rubber but slick (I'm assuming this is designed to help one slide in the event of a fall by not catching on road irregularities, otherwise it's a very noticeable jacket logo detail that I've not seen before on motorcycle protective gear). 
• First time hearing about Hexa Powertector or Samtek's DynaForce materials.  Both Hexa and Samtek appear to be based out of South Korea and have been making materials for at least 20-30 years. I believe DynaForce is used in Red Wing work boots but that's all I know about it. Anyone know more about these two manufacturers and their products?

Unboxing of a new Hit Air Motorrad 2 Touring Grey Mesh airbag jacket (size = XL) from Hit Air Moto in the USA. Needed to replace an old Dainese GTR jacket I've had from the early 90s with something cooler ( temperature wise) for summer riding. Facts at a glance:

• Weight of XL jacket including tether = 5.4 pounds / 2.45 kg
• Retail cost at time of publishing $825 USD / 753 €
• For a male rider 6' / 183cm tall and 190 lbs / 86 kg, fit is a little big, but if one is planning on  wearing  thicker  under layers / heated vest  or planning to use a separate chest and back protector, then this size is perfect. 
• Jacket Construction lists Hexa Powertector elbow and shoulder armor, Samtex DynaForce, outer shell is 100% polyester and 100% nylon with inner shell of 100% polyester. Airbag bladder tubing is 100% polyurethane. 

Note - once these are installed they cover the compression camping adjustment screws at the bottom of the suspension tubes.  You will have to remove these to adjust compression damping in the future. 

Saw a post from a fellow owner in the Niken Facebook group inquiring about how to address stone chipping away plastic from the mirror stems. Luckily I've not encountered this but was wondering if anyone has actually applied paint protective film (not graphics tape) to their bikes and how much did that cost? I am considering some film protection given how long lead times can be for Niken replacement parts in the USA. Given that they didn't seem to sell that many Nikens here. 

Wanted to document a review of summer pants by Richa.  Needed a pair of cooler (temp wise) wearing pants and jacket and picked these up on sale. 

Initial thoughts- XL sizing for 6' tall 190 pounds male is perfect, but the D30 knee pads seem too low. 

I flipped the pants inside out to see if the knee pads were removable for washing and noticed that they have individual hook and loop fasteners to adjust knee pad height in the legs is only in the knee pads. The hip pads are not D30 but some kind of  thin foam that does not appear to be removable. 

Good hip adjustability via hook and loop fasteners as well as ability to expand leg  cuffs to accommodate riding boots. There are also attachment points on the front via loop strap and a zipper edge along the rear to secure against the jacket equivalent of these pants. 

Now that I've confirmed fit is OK I'm going to Scotchgard the outside with water repellent before use.  Once that sits in then I'll take the pants out for a shakedown ride and to see at what temperatures / speeds are the pants too cold for me and whether the additional breathability really becomes a major issue when I get caught in the rain.  

18 hours ago, lpawelek said:

I found the mud flaps finally. But now more info than on the web site.

https://www.yamaha-motor.eu/gb/en/products/motorcycles/sport-touring/niken-gt-2023/accessories/niken-gt-mud-flaps/bfd-215e0-00-00/?path=/?page=4#/

Thanks for the screen grab - i'm very curious if they fit the <2023 Nikens...

Interesting aspect regarding the fog lights cannot remain on while high beams are on. When I took my bike in for inspection last year I  remember leaving the fog lights off prior to starting inspection. It passed with no issues. 

Just wrapping up a trip in Northern Italy operating out of Milan. Hit Milan, Turin,  Lake Como, Varenna, and Genoa. Was struck by the popularity of all the MP3 Piaggios in Milan and then remembered that one of the highest country volume of Nikens in the world is Italy. One would prefer the smaller footprint of the MP3s in major cities like Milan where parking is challenging and the roads are more challenging for two wheeled vehicles  due  to the volume of railroad/metro tracks all throughout the cities. Three wheels are much safer on these kind of operating conditions.  

On 3/4/2023 at 7:31 PM, someguy said:

Crash course in motorcycle damping

Velocity-Force curves visualise the damping characteristics of automotive dampers. Low velocity (AKA 'low speed') represents dynamic vehicle roll-yaw-pitch motion, whilst high velocity (AKA 'high speed') represents hitting a large pothole or landing from a jump.

Cartridge forks offer digressive damping. Progressive is undesirable because it give you worst of both worlds - wallowing with handling, but harshness with big bumps. This is what old school damper rods offer (e.g. Royal Enfield, SV650, MT07 etc).

There are 3 stages to a cartridge damper. 1st stage is low velocity, and this is where the clickers operate (it's just a pointy screw over an orifice). 2nd stage is high velocity, and handled by the shim stack. Stage 3 is basically crash landing, and the oil begins to hydrolock even with the shim stack fully open.

Twiddling the compression damping clickers just changes the shape of the Stage 1 curve. Stage 2 can only be tuned by the shim stack. Stage 3 is tuned by the port size that's covered by the shim stack (the 'valve').

Twiddling the clickers will not change the gradient of the Stage 2 line. Only changing oil viscosity will do that.

Sources:

https://racetech.com/page/title/Emulators-How They Work

https://www.peterverdone.com/archive/damping.htm

Very helpful synopsis of all the variables that can affect motorcycle suspension tuning. These are the basic principles at play, which calls to my mind an analogy to cooking. The variables illustrated here are the cooking ingredients, but where the magic occurs is the recipe/dialing in of the suspension variables for a given track / riding use case. This is why race teams use test laps to make suspension adjustments to optimize the various variables. 

Ran across this on the Bridgestone site where US tires must have minimum 2/32 in (~1.6mm) depth. Obviously  one should replace them sooner if the tire doesn't feel safe to ride on. 

I've not seen anyone in this forum post a longer side stand but do recall the Niken Facebook forum of an owner who did install shorter ones to accommodate lowering links: https://www.facebook.com/groups/358343504707298/permalink/1365437017331270/

I'm sure it can be done but I suspect that in doing so you may be trading one problem for another in that a longer kickstand might make the Niken more susceptible to being knocked over by wind gusts (assuming the upright angle of the bike becomes closer to perpendicular to the ground from the longer sidestand).

With respect to the recent hip surgery, one thing I've been researching is whether an electrical actuator can be added to the GT's center stand similar to what the BMW K1200LTs have. This might be a more expensive solution in attempting to maximize your motorcycling fun by minimizing the effort it takes to swing a  leg over the bike by allowing you to use the footpegs instead of the ground while center stand is deployed. Admittedly the Niken is a very tall bike compared to most. 

Closest thing I've been able to find is made by a company called Matt Risley Innovations who makes electric center stands for Harleys  that might work with the Yamaha but would require customization.  

https://www.mricustoms.com/product-category/electric-center-stand/

Welcome to the group!

Took me a little bit to recall what you were referring to and had to go look at my bike to jog the memory. 

The keys needed to unlock the panniers are SW MOTECH branded keys and should accompany the bike. Luckily my prior owner kept everything and made sure I had it all. Mine only has a number 53 on the key  - not sure if that is a universal key code for the pannier mounting brackets but maybe that will help in case you need to get replacement keys made. 

Was checking tread depth on my car tires with a Steelman tread depth tester and was good all around. Depth tester is green if you have >6mm, 3< yellow < 6, and red if <3mm for auto tires. 

Just for fun I decided to test my Niken tires and all three tires showed in yellow / borderline red for replacement on the depth tester. Fronts showed 4 mm of depth while rear tire showed 3mm depth remaining.

I happened to have a brand new set of front replacement Pirelli Diablo Rossi tires and those showed 6mm deep tread remaining. 

So what should the actual tread depth (in mm) be for motorcycle tires before  one  needs replacing? 

All in an attempt to expand motorcycling to a broader range of people. Wouldn't the world be a better place if more rode motorcycles? 

Yamaha is trying to pioneer safety technologies in motorcycling through self leveling system..

https://global.yamaha-motor.com/news/2023/0327/newsletter.html

Video of AMSAS in action 

https://www.motorcyclesports.net/articles/kawasaki-continues-to-develop-three-wheel-drive-concept
 

Additional patent filing photos by Kawasaki. 

14 hours ago, Heli ATP said:

More from Kawasaki..

https://www.webbikeworld.com/kawasaki-files-further-patents-for-leaning-three-wheeler/

Had to look up what the Kawasaki Noslisu cargo bike was since I was not familiar with it. Came across this video  (jump to 1:26 mark to actually see a very brief glimpse of the suspension that would be the inspiration for them).

Also note that at 1:50 and 2:01 marks appears to show the noslisu with self leveling capabilities with and without rider. Later parts suggest that the noslisu parks without using a kickstand and utilizing a self leveling parking feature.

Suspension front end engineering appears to be more like what Tilting Motor Works approach is with its conversions vs the Niken. 

On 3/1/2023 at 8:10 PM, knyte said:

Quite a lengthy thread here on helmet stink

HA! Poster called it "swamp helmet" 😄

 

Stumbled across this site looking for accessories. 

How often do you all clean your helmet?

Also this is the first time I've seen someone recommend applying carnauba wax to a face shield. Anyone attempt this?

https://www.araiamericas.com/care-and-cleaning

Will check with original poster out of Spain.  

This just in from a fellow owner. Mounting lights on the suspension directly to the bolts was clever. Personally like the stealthy look and if you have these style/size of lights this may be a potential mounting solution. 

One must be sure that the auxiliary lights in question aren't so large that they end up  interfering with the front suspension clearance while leaning/turning. 

What kind of tires are those?