Talk to me about screens (again)

[Grumpy Goat]

5 hours ago, CRFan250 said:

I love my madstad with their sport screen(16")....perfect conmbo.

 

 

That one is nice ... I also like the width.

[stringman]

That looks nice!

just found a MRA vario going cheap so will try that

 

[Paddy01]

When you say visor I assume you mean spoiler. I have mine parallel with the screen having fiddled with the angle for a while. I’ve not tried removing the spoiler, I’m not even sure it can be removed. Regarding height, I’m 6ft and can see over ok. Remember that there’s a screen height adjuster if you find it too tall at 5ft 8. If the edging is not already fitted on the screen you’ve bought I wouldn’t bother adding it. It’s a real pain in the arse to fit and only gathers bugs when in place. It also doesn’t detract from the integrity/look of the screen when absent. 

[petshark]

On 4/23/2022 at 8:20 PM, stringman said:

Seems like the MRA Vario is very good.

Can you tell me if you need the visor full up for the benefits?

Also what is the height of just the screen?

Finally has anyone tried it without the visor? what was it like?

 

cheers all

I have and I love it!

I bought the bike with this Givi which was horrible

I have it listed for sale and there is absolutely zero intrest after months. Stay away from this one.

I then bought the Puig touring screen after a lot of research but it wasn't a lot better and I didn't like the look. I then added the MRA touring X-creen spoiler and that solved a lot of turbulence but it looked even worse.

Finally (with the help of this forum) I tried the MRA Touring

I love it so much that I have not changed it back to the Puig barn door during winter as I had originally planned. I just can't bring myself to go back to that look, I really, really dislike it. I have to add that I do wear custom ear plugs with motorcycle filters because the noise is too much for me (already have tinnitus from a career as a musician) but it's not turbulence, just clean air. I can hear music and podcasts perfectly clear via my Cardo with the plugs in.

I could try to install the MRA X-creen spoiler on the MRA touring but I feel like I've gone full circle with the screen thing. I'm never thinking about the screen anymore while I'm riding and to me this it's the best look the Tracer GT can have. I highly recommend it but as others mentioned it's all highly subjective and there's many factors that could change your experience. Height, gear, etc..

I'm 6' and have come to the conclusion that the screens have to be too big for them to work like I want them to so I've goie the other way. I should probably sell the other screens as I don't see them going back on the bike.

[Skidood]

On 4/24/2022 at 2:01 AM, stringman said:

That looks nice!

just found a MRA vario going cheap so will try that

 

If you get it installed, please post some pics.

[stringman]

13 hours ago, petshark said:

I have and I love it!

I bought the bike with this Givi which was horrible

I have it listed for sale and there is absolutely zero intrest after months. Stay away from this one.

I then bought the Puig touring screen after a lot of research but it wasn't a lot better and I didn't like the look. I then added the MRA touring X-creen spoiler and that solved a lot of turbulence but it looked even worse.

Finally (with the help of this forum) I tried the MRA Touring

I love it so much that I have not changed it back to the Puig barn door during winter as I had originally planned. I just can't bring myself to go back to that look, I really, really dislike it. I have to add that I do wear custom ear plugs with motorcycle filters because the noise is too much for me (already have tinnitus from a career as a musician) but it's not turbulence, just clean air. I can hear music and podcasts perfectly clear via my Cardo with the plugs in.

I could try to install the MRA X-creen spoiler on the MRA touring but I feel like I've gone full circle with the screen thing. I'm never thinking about the screen anymore while I'm riding and to me this it's the best look the Tracer GT can have. I highly recommend it but as others mentioned it's all highly subjective and there's many factors that could change your experience. Height, gear, etc..

I'm 6' and have come to the conclusion that the screens have to be too big for them to work like I want them to so I've goie the other way. I should probably sell the other screens as I don't see them going back on the bike.

Thanks for the detailed response.

As I said i put the old tracer screen on and it was horrible, noisy and felt like i was being blown off the bike.

I may well try the puig just to see what difference there is between the GT version differs from the old tracer version.

When I had it on the tracer I could ride with the visor up at 90+ 

You would expect a newer design would be better?

[Ride365]

Love my MRA touring, looks the best of the lot imho and it sure works great for me.

[petshark]

3 hours ago, Ride365 said:

Love my MRA touring, looks the best of the lot imho and it sure works great for me.

It was your endorsement that made me pull the trigger on the MRA Touring and it's been really wonderful. Thanks again.

[stringman]

Well I have got the MRA vario

Tried it out , and was disappointed. I had really high hopes for this.

So far I have tried it in the fully raised position with the visor in the bottom and top position.

Still way more wind and noise than my old 17 tracer with puig touring screen.

To be fair if i crouched down a few inches it was bliss. I have raised bar risers so may drop back down to the original ( does anyone know what size they are? as I dont have them).

One thing I noticed on my old puig that although it was smaller it had a proper mounting bracket that fitted to the bike. The one I have for the GT doesnt seem to have that?

onwards and upwards? 

[petshark]

1 hour ago, stringman said:

Well I have got the MRA vario

Tried it out , and was disappointed. I had really high hopes for this.

So far I have tried it in the fully raised position with the visor in the bottom and top position.

Still way more wind and noise than my old 17 tracer with puig touring screen.

To be fair if i crouched down a few inches it was bliss. I have raised bar risers so may drop back down to the original ( does anyone know what size they are? as I dont have them).

One thing I noticed on my old puig that although it was smaller it had a proper mounting bracket that fitted to the bike. The one I have for the GT doesnt seem to have that?

onwards and upwards? 

I think the pre-18 model is known for it's weak screen bracket so a larger screen requires reinforcement. They fixed that on the 18+ model (hopefully this doesn't get flagged as adult content :-D ).

The MRA vario is supposedly one of the best ... if you're not too tall. As said at 6' I don't think it would work for me neither. i did get the 'open visor - no earplugs' experience with the Puig Touring and the added MRA x-creen. If you were happy with your Puig before that might work for you.

[texscottyd]

On 4/22/2022 at 3:41 PM, GeeAndTea said:

The stock screen and whomever designed and approved it can burn for eternity in hell.

I still have to laugh at the history of the screens on these bikes:   They went from truly horrendous (2015-2017) to really awful (2018-2020) to not quite mediocre (2021+, although the jury is still out on this... need more data).  {edited for model years… thanks @petshark}

Yamaha's engineers are generally pretty talented, so I think this has to be one of those situations where the overall design parameters have forced a compromise that just doesn't really work for anyone.   At least the aftermarket has a wide range of options to let you tailor to your own needs.  

[petshark]

3 minutes ago, texscottyd said:

I still have to laugh at the history of the screens on these bikes:   They went from truly horrendous (2015-2017) to really awful (2018-2021), to not quite mediocre (2022+, although the jury is still out on this... need more data).

Yamaha's engineers are generally pretty talented, so I think this has to be one of those situations where the overall design parameters have forced a compromise that just doesn't really work for anyone.   At least the aftermarket has a wide range of options to let you tailor to your own needs.  

I have seen some reviews on Youtube were the reviewer actually liked the screen on the 2018-2020 (2021 is already the 9 model). There probably is some kind of sweet spot where it actually works. Find that and you know how tall the engineer in charge is. 

[bowlin01]

34 minutes ago, texscottyd said:

I still have to laugh at the history of the screens on these bikes:   They went from truly horrendous (2015-2017) to really awful (2018-2021), to not quite mediocre (2022+, although the jury is still out on this... need more data).

Yamaha's engineers are generally pretty talented, so I think this has to be one of those situations where the overall design parameters have forced a compromise that just doesn't really work for anyone.   At least the aftermarket has a wide range of options to let you tailor to your own needs.  

Purely by chance I was speaking to another rider who came to ask how I was enjoying my 2018 GT900 as his Son was one of the lead designers of the bike. During the conversation he mentioned that his Son was increasingly frustrated about the compromises Yamaha introduced to the design to meet the cost/ price point parameters. The screen was the biggest thing that was compromised (he didnlt know any more detail), interesting nevertheless.

 

[petshark]

19 minutes ago, bowlin01 said:

Purely by chance I was speaking to another rider who came to ask how I was enjoying my 2018 GT900 as his Son was one of the lead designers of the bike. During the conversation he mentioned that his Son was increasingly frustrated about the compromises Yamaha introduced to the design to meet the cost/ price point parameters. The screen was the biggest thing that was compromised (he didnlt know any more detail), interesting nevertheless.

 

Absolutely. On one side I don't find it surprising that they want to cut corners here to get to a price point but on the other hand why do the R&D for a 'Ducati' style one-hand screen adjustment but not spend a little more to wind-tunnel test the screen itself? Is it that they prefer us (reviewers and consumers) to have one obvious point of failure to nag about?

Maybe Yamaha's data shows that you need to give the consumer something that is very obviously bad but can easily be improved upon and therefor never be a deal-breaker. That way the narrative is controlled and doesn't turn to some other shortcoming that is perhaps harder to fix. It's likely that most reviewers just echo each other so I could see this being some kind of smart strategic move. Just thinking out loud,  I could be completely wrong.

Yamaha does listen and they have fixed so many other design flaws so why not the screen?

 

[stringman]

14 minutes ago, petshark said:

Absolutely. On one side I don't find it surprising that they want to cut corners here to get to a price point but on the other hand why do the R&D for a 'Ducati' style one-hand screen adjustment but not spend a little more to wind-tunnel test the screen itself? Is it that they prefer us (reviewers and consumers) to have one obvious point of failure to nag about?

Maybe Yamaha's data shows that you need to give the consumer something that is very obviously bad but can easily be improved upon and therefor never be a deal-breaker. That way the narrative is controlled and doesn't turn to some other shortcoming that is perhaps harder to fix. It's likely that most reviewers just echo each other so I could see this being some kind of smart strategic move. Just thinking out loud,  I could be completely wrong.

Yamaha does listen and they have fixed so many other design flaws so why not the screen?

 

My thoughts exactly. Once I had the screen how I liked it I locked the bolts off and left it like that for 2 years. I would rather have a screen thats a pain to adjust but works. But I guess that doesnt sound so good

on the brochures!