1moreroad

Converted for a summer of commuting in the Deep South. Short windscreen, low position, and bar end weights instead of hand guards. Just in time for high temps to drop 15 degrees in a day and over 20 degrees in 3.

Your FJ (Tracer or T9 reluctantly ok, too) parked on a small town main street or town square.

It's probably not selling for < $4/gal right now. MS has some of the cheapest gas in the country and most no-name gas stations are at $4 for 87 octane with ethanol. I pay between $4.80 and $5/gal for 93 octane. BTW - the difference between $3/gal (which I haven't seen in years) and $6/gal for a 45 mpg motorcycle traveling 10,000 miles/year is < $700. It's another consumable cost for a motorcycle not a make/break expense compared even to some other maintenance items.

The FJ on a small town main Street or square.

Fun ride today over in the Arkansas Delta. The weather has been unstable (the 30% chance of rain yesterday turned into a commute home with thunderstorms), so I didn’t want to commit to a ride over to the Ozarks which would have been 600+ miles. So I picked a couple of locations I wanted to see and strung them together into a 440 mile ride. For a change, I didn’t have a planned route, but just used the GPS to hop from stop to stop. The whole ride came together well. After the thunderstorm Friday, I realized that, while my jacket didn’t leak, the water wasn’t beading up on the Gore tex, so I stopped at REI for some Nikwax. Then I stopped at motorcycle dealers in Memphis and Jonesboro. I talked to the Yamaha dealer in Memphis about the FJ’s 2nd valve job later this year (they’re 3 - 5 weeks behind on work right now). At the different dealers, I test sat a new BMW R-RT (impressive seat and screen), Goldwing (impressive screen, tank splays my legs out too far), Kawi Z900 and Z900RS (RS-SE might work, the base Z900 rear seat isn’t even useful for luggage), and a few others. The only Yamaha I saw was a 700 Tenere that had already been sold. I couldn’t believe that Kawi is still making the ZZR1400 and Concours 14. They feel like bikes from a different age (which they basically are). The customized Suzi DR400SM is available for sale – custom plastics and an awkward looking but maybe effective windscreen. Then I headed up to Walnut Ridge, on the so-called Rock N Roll Highway 67. Walnut Ridge’s claim to fame is that the Beatles traveled through their airport one weekend. Carl Perkins (Jackson, TN), Johnny Cash (Dyers, AR), Elvis Presley (Tupelo, MS) also all performed in the area. Walnut Ridge has commemorated both with a Beatles park and a Guitar walkway. https://www.arkansas.com/articles/musical-heritage-arkansass-upper-delta By now I was getting hot and thirsty. More and more little coffee places are popping up around the AR Delta. They’re drive-throughs or trailers – not full-blown, sit down places. Slurped down a blended mocha and rolled on. I was finally able to get a good ride in on Crowley’s Ridge (https://www.arkansas.com/articles/exploring-crowleys-ridge) from Harrison to Helena. I’ve tried to ride across it or down it, but I’ve either run into traffic or private property and dirt roads. I finally figured out the main route and a couple of good extensions off of it. I did make a short stop in Forrest City (named after Nathanial Bedford Forrest who camped there while building a railroad after the Civil War). Not much going on there especially with a population of 15,000, but the murals are nice. Last stop was Helena, AR. The downtown contains an odd collection of statues, memorials, and museums. There is a boxcar built in the mid-19th century used to deliver supplies to the French right after WWII, a T33 jet trainer, and a new memorial to the Elaine Massacre, something I never knew about until this afternoon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_massacre). Unfortunately there is not much active downtown, at least on a Saturday late afternoon. Even restaurants that should have been open, weren’t. I did get a picture (in the distance) of the Mississippi River bridge on the edge of Helena.

@bowlin01 - There's a pump at the bottom of this water tower. Does that count?

Sounds like they are doing as well as Yamaha in 2015 - my FJ panniers, grips, and pannier locks all came separately. The locks arrived 2 or 3 weeks after a trip (a month or more after the panniers) so I used zip ties to keep the panniers closed on that 1st trip. Enjoy the new bike. I really want to read a write up on it.

It sounds like a mostly good start to a great trip. When a friend and I rode in 2006, we found tire wear to be very fast in the desert. Slower as you moved east into cooler, damper weather. He still ended up having to replace a tire at a BMW dealer in Little Rock or North Little Rock, I think. Call ahead to a shop if you can. Most shops will be sympathetic and replace a tire if they find you are out on the road, but some will put you in line with every/any other repair. And then there are some shops that simply won't have a tire that fits our bikes.

Same thing happened to me at Tally. Sportbiketracktime let me keep the centerstand on so long as I zip tied it. The FJ touched pegs before centerstand. Like my old Ninja, my FJ has never touch anything down on the street but touched pegs down in the 2nd session on the track. So much easier to ride hard on the track. 2nd bike makes sense if you want to do track days.

I could be interested in an HD PA 975 in a couple of years as an FJ replacement. I will always be a road rider and commuter, but there are enough dirt roads between AR and NC that I could explore for years. My problem will probably be the same as now - desirable motorcycles are getting so expensive, that I'm starting to cross shop them with Miatas (and have enough fun sliding the F150 around on dirt).

In March we rode the Dragon on a Friday morning around 9 am. I think I saw maybe a dozen other riders. Only downside was the "resort" was empty. We did have a blast on the Cherohala. Zero other traffic in our direction. Just one rider to BS with at the lunch place in Tellico Plains.

For private sale, $0.50 on the $1 for the cost of useful accessories (like luggage not the beak and not install cost) and NADA guide value on the bile is how I've priced used motos in the past. Good luck on the sale. Sorry to see it go.

That's something at the computer - I would guess a physical connection (poorly seated chip, connector not locked in, etc.) or just a bad flash. It's possible they could have loaded the wrong program. With that much "wrong" I'm surprised it even runs.

How did Grattan go? I did 1 track day at Tally on the FJ.

Wow! ...scrolls through expecting a full trip report... Pictures or it didn't happen.

Wouldn't a 4" to 5" lower seat interfere with rear shock placement / suspension geometry? Plus a 660 triple might be packaged narrower at the back of the tank making the reach to the ground easier (effectively a lower seat height than the number suggests).

Following a Ford Model T on the way out of town on a short ride with my wife (definitely Ford guessing at the Model T part). Top speed on it was 35 mph, but it couldn't go that fast on the uphills.

You're missing 666 (now actually 191) in AZ, the Ozarks, and there are better ways to get to the Dragon. Just need an out and back on the Dragon on a weekday. Definitely can spend days in the Smokies, but you just need to ride the Dragon once each way. You'll miss too much of you don't explore that area. Ride up through Dahlonega and back through Ceasars Head Park. If you're in Natchez, you need to ride Port Gibson road. It's one of the best in MS (a low bar)

Back in the 1990s, I had a Saturn with a coolant leak (this is relevant because they had aluminum radiators). The shop added a bright green additive that let them trace it back to a slightly distorted radiator cap. New cap fixed the problem. Since Yamaha uses some of the same parts across different models, there was a metal Kia radiator cap that worked in place of the plastic cap on my WR250X. If it's the cap, do some Googling and you might find a more robust cap.

Cross country traveler could roll through Helena AR and see the MS and AR Delta. Or head more north Dyersburg to Jonesboro or even more north through Cairo and take a ferry across the Ohio River. The bridge over the Mississippi River at Helena takes maybe an extra hour compared to rolling through Memphis. And Birmingham has sh** drivers even compared to Memphis. Too many of them have no idea where there exit is but they'll cross 4 lanes of traffic at the last minute when they see it! 😀

I was seeing the same thing. Weird Road 5 and 6 are about the same price. I went with Dunlop Roadsmart 3s. Tires were about $100 cheaper than Mich Road 5 or 6 and Dunlop still has their rebate program in effect, so I should have a $60 rebate coming. I'll be doing a lot of straight line commuting this summer, and the Roadsmart 3s are good enough. I actually got more miles out of 3s than the rear Roadsmart 4 I tried and they grip much more reliably than the Sportmax I tried on the front (available when I needed it for a short tour) toward end of life. Nothing like two small front end slides to make you ride like a grandma.

https://www.motionpro.com/c/alignment-tools

Good luck. You'll have a blast. Post a map when you know your rough route!

Better than nice weekdays and weekend storms. Water-wise, this has not been a bad year down here. Temperatures are something else altogether (for the South).

I installed PIAAs on the front fender mount bolts with some thread lock to keep them from rotating. I installed them about 2.5 years ago with no issues. Silver bezel is flood lights. They add more light to either side of the bike and help fill in light on the ground to look for deer, potholes, etc. https://www.piaa.com/store/p/657-PIAA-LP270-2-75-LED-Driving-Light-Kit-SAE-Compliant.aspx