Tracer 900 GT vs Tracer 9 GT + consistency theory

[petshark]

So I've now managed to do a few longer rides on my new-to-me 2021 Tracer 9 GT.

The 2 test-rides I did before didn't do it justice at all! It just keeps getting better and better. The gearbox, the sound, the fit and finish, everything is sturdier and well.. just better (except for the visibility of the dash). I'm even starting to like the hard comfort seat over the much thicker and softer heated comfort seat on the 2019.

The brakes were an obvious weak point so I wanted to change the pads to EBC HH asap they did so much on the older bike but after some hard braking and heat cycling they are great too! Feels like a huge improvement to before. Maybe I'll just keep them. 

What's weird is that the second test-ride on a red T9GT pushed me towards the S1000XR. I was disappointed because it wasn't at al how I remembered the first test ride half a year before. But now this one is at least as good as the first one.

I would not be surprised that if you ride 20 brand new Tracers that some feel extraordinary, some feel like crap and most feel in between. It certainly is that way with guitars that come from the same assembly line. This theory occurred to me before but it didn't seem plausible. Now after riding three 2021's and reading @BVEBRAD's post I'm starting to become more convinced that this could be true.

Edited July 10, 2022 by petshark

[Sunde]

Yeah other than the reflash/recall my T9 has also not had any issues.
I'v done just under 9.000kms so far its been flawless. The clutch was odd for the first 1000kms, but after the first oilchange it became muuch better. 

[Grumpy Goat]

2 hours ago, petshark said:

The brakes were an obvious weak point so I wanted to change the pads to EBC HH asap they did so much on the older bike but after some hard braking and heat cycling they are great too! Feels like a huge improvement to before. Maybe I'll just keep them. 

How are the rear brakes on the T9? Any different / better than the mediocre brakes on the 900 GT? Rode my RS recently and deliberately used rear brake only to check and needless to say they are quite powerful, compared to the "hint of a brake" from the rear of the Tracer.

[KrustyKush]

I’d say the rear brake on my 21 GT is weak. I figure chain fling gets on the rotor. Not much, but some. I frequently clean my rear rotor with brake cleaner but not often enough to keep all the chain oil off it.

I will also say that it is adequate. It does what a rear brake is supposed to do. It takes a fair amount of foot pressure to get it done. 

[knyte]

4 hours ago, petshark said:

I would not be surprised that if you ride 20 brand new Tracers that some feel extraordinary, some feel like crap and most feel in between

Who wants the bike that was hurriedly assembled on a Friday

[betoney]

3 hours ago, KrustyKush said:

I figure chain fling gets on the rotor. Not much, but some. I frequently clean my rear rotor with brake cleaner but not often enough to keep all the chain oil off it.

If you are getting chain lube on the brake rotor on the opposite side of the wheel, you 'might' be using too much, or a type of lube that flings WAY too easy. 

[KrustyKush]

10 hours ago, betoney said:

If you are getting chain lube on the brake rotor on the opposite side of the wheel, you 'might' be using too much, or a type of lube that flings WAY too easy. 

Thanks.  You might  be right, but I doubt it.  Reason I doubt it is because I use a very precise method of oiling my chain.  Each link, by hand, with a small-tip squeeze dropper, followed by a wipe down with towel to remove excess oil.  I use Scottoil without the Scottoiler.  It is summer time, I use the hot weather version.  Chain manufacturer says to use gear oil.  I don't like the gear oil stink, so I use the purpose designed stuff without the stink.  I also don't like the waxy spray on stuff; I don't think it really does very much except stay on the chain.

Actually, I doubt a significant amount of chain oil ever gets onto the rear brake rotor, but we must assume that some  does, because I find spots of oil here and there on the rear end, including on the right side of the wheel.  That's why I go an extra step every few days and wipe off the rear rotor with a brake cleaner solvent.  There's a tremendous amount of air flow back there.  Micro droplets get blown around.  Some will undoubtedly find their way onto the rotor.

Because brake pads, that operate nearby oily chains in windy conditions at high speeds, have been under development for so many decades, I bet pad material isn't much affected by this micro-amount of oil.  Even so, I do clean it off now and again.  I also clean my front rotors.  There's oil out there besides that which comes off a chain.

[betoney]

1 hour ago, KrustyKush said:

Thanks.  You might  be right, but I doubt it.  Reason I doubt it is because I use a very precise method of oiling my chain.  Each link, by hand, with a small-tip squeeze dropper, followed by a wipe down with towel to remove excess oil.

I also don't like the waxy spray on stuff; I don't think it really does very much except stay on the chain.

If the method you use works for you then by all means keep using it.  I'm just saying that I don't have oil all over my rear wheel, especially the right side.

The only chain lube I use is Dupont Teflon Chain Saver at the end of each days ride, while on a road trip that's about every 450 miles.  My current chain has 20,100 miles on it with no noise, slop or need of adjustment, the spray-on-and-let-dry type lubes actually work very well.

[KrustyKush]

1 hour ago, betoney said:

If the method you use works for you then by all means keep using it.  I'm just saying that I don't have oil all over my rear wheel, especially the right side.

The only chain lube I use is Dupont Teflon Chain Saver at the end of each days ride, while on a road trip that's about every 450 miles.  My current chain has 20,100 miles on it with no noise, slop or need of adjustment, the spray-on-and-let-dry type lubes actually work very well.

Well, you don't have oil "all over.. rear wheel" because you don't use oil.  You use teflon.  I betcha you could find traces of teflon back there, yes also on your rotor.

However, neither do I have oil "all over."  I hate oil "all over" that's why I apply it so sparingly, and wipe off excess afterwards.  Even so, there is a very tiny amount of fling using my method.  Every day when I oil my chain I also wipe the fling off my side stand, center stand, swingarm, and the rear wheel.  About once a week, because I assume that some of this fling gets onto my rear rotor, I spray a bit of Honda Brake Cleaner onto a folded paper towel and give the rotor a good wipeoff.

I had implied in my earlier post that someone who thinks the rear brake on these bikes is overly "weak" might want to think about how much oil is accumulating on the rotor and pads back there.  Some riders really DO slather it on.  I also said I think the engineering of these pads' materials makes them somewhat immune to small amounts of oil.  But an accumulation of oil over a long period of time.... might be a different result.

 

[Grumpy Goat]

5 hours ago, KrustyKush said:

... Chain manufacturer says to use gear oil.  I don't like the gear oil stink, so I use the purpose designed stuff without the stink.  I also don't like the waxy spray on stuff; I don't think it really does very much except stay on the chain.

Actually, I doubt a significant amount of chain oil ever gets onto the rear brake rotor, but we must assume that some  does, because I find spots of oil here and there on the rear end, including on the right side of the wheel.  That's why I go an extra step every few days and wipe off the rear rotor with a brake cleaner solvent.  There's a tremendous amount of air flow back there.  Micro droplets get blown around.  Some will undoubtedly find their way onto the rotor.

Because brake pads, that operate nearby oily chains in windy conditions at high speeds, have been under development for so many decades, I bet pad material isn't much affected by this micro-amount of oil.  ...

I like / use the Dupont waxy stuff and it works well for me, all without the fling. I also have it in both spray and dropper bottle, the latter of which I use when travelling.

As for the brakes ... my previous BMW S1000R has both a chain and strong rear brakes and I used the waxy lube on that chain as well. I think the weak rear brake on the Tracer is due to the anaemic rear brake caliper.

There is no appreciable buildup of chain lube on anything and I don't wipe anything down regularly. The bike gets washed maybe once a month and the chain gets the waxy stuff every 500 miles.

Pads may make a difference and I have EBC pads slated for that end. I didn't put them on when I fitted the fronts because they were somehow rubbing at a very slight angle. I didn't have time to be faffing about with that so I put the original pads back on for now as they only had about 3500 miles on them IIRC.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Grumpy Goat
To include come comments on [my lack of] lube build-up

[Kenny A.]

Clocked up 2,500 miles on my '21 GT so far,and luvving every minute. 👍  Agree about the rear brake,it is pretty sh*te !! The front brake? Well,that is exact opposite!! 👍

[ZigMerid]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Goat said:

the weak rear brake on the Tracer

I'm not sure a weak rear brake is a bad thing. Given that a rear brake is predominantly for control + adding maybe 10% to total breaking capability when applying the front brake, it must be extraordinarily weak to be noticeable.

Exactly how weak is the rear brake? Do you have to really stomp on it to get any braking effect? I would think that if a rear brake works well enough to help you control slow speed manoeuvres, then it's pretty much doing its job.

[Sunde]

My rear brake is easily pushed into the ABS. Takes firm pushing on the pedeal, but not an excessive amount. If you cant activate the ABS by applying hard rear brake pressure, then IMO you need to get your brake checked
I live on the rear brake for constant small adjustments, so maybe my heavy usage leads to it having more bite? No idea although

Edited July 4, 2022 by Sunde

[petshark]

14 hours ago, ZigMerid said:

I'm not sure a weak rear brake is a bad thing. Given that a rear brake is predominantly for control + adding maybe 10% to total breaking capability when applying the front brake, it must be extraordinarily weak to be noticeable.

Exactly how weak is the rear brake? Do you have to really stomp on it to get any braking effect? I would think that if a rear brake works well enough to help you control slow speed manoeuvres, then it's pretty much doing its job.

 

14 hours ago, Sunde said:

My rear brake is easily pushed into the ABS. Takes firm pushing on the pedeal, but not an excessive amount. If you cant activate the ABS by applying hard rear brake pressure, then IMO you need to get your brake checked
I live on the rear brake for constant small adjustments, so maybe my heavy usage leads to it having more bite? No idea although

This. I don't want more braking power on the rear. If I push hard it goes into ABS so I just want as much range as I can before that happens. 

On the 900GT I changed the front to EBC HH (sintered) and the back to EBC (organic). I think I got the advice on this forum and it was perfect for me. 

Even though I bought the bike with 3400 km on it, I still got a huge improvement by really bedding these stock pads in. By this I mean accelerating to 100km/h and braking very hard and repeating this a couple of times so the brakes get very hot. They'll never have the bite of the EBC HH's but they are now a lot better than both the demo bikes I rode.

[petshark]

On 7/3/2022 at 11:31 PM, Grumpy Goat said:

How are the rear brakes on the T9? Any different / better than the mediocre brakes on the 900 GT? Rode my RS recently and deliberately used rear brake only to check and needless to say they are quite powerful, compared to the "hint of a brake" from the rear of the Tracer.

To answer your question, they are exactly the same as on the 900GT as far as I can tell. Same parts, same feel.