Schumy

On 2/25/2023 at 12:44 AM, texscottyd said:

State inspection and tag renewal… boring stuff, but you can always take the long way home!  😀

The inspector actually did me a solid, and passed me after quietly pointing out ‘off the record’ that my license plate light is out…  sometimes it’s just your lucky day. 

Same story for me last Wednesday 😂

Did the state inspection (here in Romania it's called "periodic technical inspection") and found out that my license plate light is not working. But the inspector was nice enough and passed me.

After, I rode my Tracer for the first time in 2023 for around 100 km/60 miles and it was great.

I'm sorry to hear about your family tragic fate. Yes, the first half of the 1900s (also most of the second half) had some very dark periods in Romania. Fortunately, things got better after 2000 and today is a beautiful country to live in (of course, with ups and downs).
Bucovina is still a little bit over a half part of Romania and is one of those good places to visit by motorcycle. Here is an older trip of mine there: https://vladtrips.blogspot.com/2017/06/raita-pe-la-manastiri.html .

First ride of the year. It was a short one (only 55 km/ 35miles) but was enought for only 6 C/ 42 F.

On 3/19/2021 at 5:23 PM, knyte said:

So if the exhaust is warming the chain up enough such that the oil won't adhere, what's that doing to the o-rings - regardless of lubrication?

It's a good observation, but I think that would be problematic for city riding with a lot of stop and go traffic. Otherwise, when you're going over 20mph/ 30km/h  the air current under the bike is strong enough so that the chain is not affected by the exhaust heat.

I just mounted a Scottoiler Vsystem on my Tracer (I'm using the vaccumatic system for some time now, already had it on my previous 2 bikes). The Scottoiler oil (I use the red one - around here gets quite hot around the summer) is basically like gear oil. Yes, if you don't set it up right it will make a lot of mess, but the oil washes off the bike quite easily with a soft degreaser (that's not attacking the O-rings and bikes surfaces) and soap compared to chain spray (especially those "white" ones which collect a lot of mess around the front sprocket and chain guard).

21 hours ago, texscottyd said:

Glad your initial impressions are all positive.   The lighter weight of the Tracer/FJ, along with that hypnotic CP3 engine, make it a really entertaining bike to ride in most real world situations.   What it lacks in refinement, it makes up for with character:  There are certainly better bikes for touring cross-country, but it seems to fall into a unique hooligan-sport-touring category that suits me perfectly.

Regarding the reliability question, there are several folks here with well over 100K miles on their bike.  They seem to be very reliable overall, although I suppose you can always find someone with a story that's the exception to the rule.   The only semi-consistent complaint I've heard is very tight exhaust valve clearance at the first 24K service interval.   My bike is coming due for that service, so I'll be interested to see what I find.  

Honestly, I made a decision and bought the Tracer in about two weeks. I read a lot of reviews and owner feedbacks in that short period of time, but I haven't seen many with very high mileage. The only high mileage review I found was about a german owner who rode it for 120.000 km/ 75.000 miles and it was almost problem free (some injection problem after the 40k km/24k miles big service and the gear indicator doesn't always shows the 4th and 6th gear).

I read about the tight exhaust valves and I was thinking checking them in the near future. I still have a few miles left (I'm around 32k km/20k miles mark) but I don't see any problem about servicing them sooner.

20 hours ago, Wintersdark said:

I've never seen (or, honestly, even heard of) a TDM...

I think there are maybe a couple in all North America (if I remember correctly, I saw on Advrider Forum a long time ago somebody imported one in the US), but in Europe they are very popular, mainly in the UK, Italy and Greece. Even the France law enforcements still use it.

On 3/8/2021 at 2:22 AM, texscottyd said:

Congrats!  So do tell, what are your first impressions? 

It's a great bike, very different - sporty- compared to my last one (a 2005 Yamaha TDM 900 - I know it wasn't sold in North America, but it is supposed to be the predecessor of the Tracers, as the TDM 850 was the first crossover bike back at the beginnings of the 90's).  I was amazed by how light it felt (the Tracer is about 20 kg/ 44 lbs lighter) and how easy it would flick around corners (17' vs 18' front wheel and a shorter wheelbase).

For now I'm glad I chose the Tracer against an FJR (gen II). I previously owned two (a 2003 gen I and a 2007 gen II) and it was a great bike for long highway rides, but it was heavy and not very fast around bendy roads. I think the Tracer is a better option for me as I exclusively ride solo and the roads around me are the curvy type. My only concern is around the reliability as I hope the Tracer will prove in time to be as good as the FJR and the TDM (there are plenty of both models 100k+ miles problem free).

Two days ago I rode for the first time my new (to me) lava red 2016 Tracer.

I'm still amazed and simply can't wait for the next ride (unfortunately we still have to wait 2-3 weeks for +10C/+50F).