What did you do to your FJ-tracer-gt today?

[Seattle]

Got a good deal on a set of Michelin Road 5s that I’m looking forward to scrubbing in.

[2and3cylinders]

How muchie from where, or lokel yokel?

[Wintersdark]

2 hours ago, piotrek said:

The KTM guards aren't much good near freezing either. I absolutely hate thick gloves, so I have high hopes for the Enduro Grip Mitts when mercury falls. With the grip heaters I should be able to ride out the season in some comfort. I will eventually wuss out... 😒

Heated grips+heated gloves = warm hands without handguards down to -25C easily.  I use heated glove liners, which I wear under a thinner pair of +1 size leather gloves.   But a good set of handguards and heated grips go a long way before that's necessary.  I'm actually ordering a set of those Enduro 3/4 Grip Mitts myself right now; they'll move quickly between the Tenere and the Tracer, and will hopefully keep me in normal gloves much longer. 

[piotrek]

7 hours ago, Wintersdark said:

Heated grips+heated gloves = warm hands without handguards down to -25C easily.

LOL... I am not that aspirational, and snow/ice/salt/sand will come well before we get down to these temperatures. I suppose an ATV would be fun on the GTA streets in the winter, but the FJ?... nah.

Are you getting winters for the Tracer or the T7?... both? I imagine the T7 is good to go for the every day,  but I remember you mentioned something about ice racing at one point. Too soon? 😁

Edited September 27, 2021 by piotrek

[texscottyd]

3 hours ago, Seattle said:

Got a good deal on a set of Michelin Road 5s that I’m looking forward to scrubbing in.

You’re going to love them!   

[betoney]

On 9/25/2021 at 1:22 PM, piotrek said:

Hand guards went on last night. Appreciated them in the morning. Changed the coolant today. It was good to see the old fluid come out clean blue. 👍

 

14 hours ago, 1moreroad said:

I did that early last week.  Givi touring screen is back on, too.  It was much appreciated the next morning when it was 50 degrees instead of the predicted 60 and I had minimal layers on.  Nice quiet air for commuting, too.

 

11 hours ago, Wintersdark said:

Just put mine back on too.  They're not great hand guards, but they do make a difference when it's cold.  Gonna swap my sport screen back for the stocker too, and have the winter tires going on right now. 

Yeah, unfortunately its getting to be that cold time of year, I'll have to pull them out of storage.  My favorite time each year is when I can remove the hand guards and switch to the small flyscreen, so having to put everything back on due to cold weather isn't something I look forward to.

[Xstoff]

On 9/25/2021 at 4:55 PM, hawk said:

Hey did you have any problem fitting the oem springs into the Puig footrests? I'm struggling with the left side one 

Not at all... was pretty easy indeed! Just pushing the footpeg mount, putting the pin, and done. 

I think I received 2 right side mounts though, but it fitted, so I didn't look any further.

Just make sure you have the mounts :

https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/puig-rider-footpeg-mounts-yamaha-fz6-r-fz-07-fz-09-mt-09-fj-09-tracer-900-fjr1300-niken?sku_id=1175633

The only tricky part was to remove the pin "holder" on the right side, it was a pain in the ass!

[Xstoff]

16 hours ago, Seattle said:

Got a good deal on a set of Michelin Road 5s that I’m looking forward to scrubbing in.

I remember the PR4's were giving a lot of confidence on the wet!

Hopefully those are as good!

[Wintersdark]

On 9/26/2021 at 8:01 PM, piotrek said:

LOL... I am not that aspirational, and snow/ice/salt/sand will come well before we get down to these temperatures. I suppose an ATV would be fun on the GTA streets in the winter, but the FJ?... nah.

Are you getting winters for the Tracer or the T7?... both? I imagine the T7 is good to go for the every day,  but I remember you mentioned something about ice racing at one point. Too soon? 😁

So, the Tracer is getting it's winters put on right now as it's also being checked for that vibration issue, which is a bit of a frustrating irritant, but whatever - they insist it's the tires (T32's with still around 50% tread to the wear bars), or the chain (which is new as of June, as is the front sprocket, both bought from them, and which runs perfectly smoothly when the tire is spun and has been kept constantly lubricated with the autooiler), or the rear wheel bearing.  I agreed to replace the rear wheel bearing, and swap the bridgestones for my winters (and those bridgestones will go right back on in spring), and I'm just waiting for them to say it's the chain when it still happens.  Anyways, I digress!

I've ordered a box of 200 iGrip tire studs, which I'm going to screw into the stock Pirelli's on the T7.  This will give me the Tracer for clear and cold days where the winter's really shine, and the T7 for ice and snow.  

But yeah... Ontario winters are a LOT wetter than ours.  I dunno how much I'd push things there.  Here in Calgary, it snows only rarely and almost never much, and roads that don't get immediately plowed end up packed down and sanded right away.  That packed down snow stays forever, but it's not bad to ride on with the winters and I think studs will be hilarious fun.  I've seen enough pictures and video of Ontario ice storms, blizzards, crazy icy roads and general winter misery.  I don't think I'd want to go outside at all.  

 

[romedius33]

it was raining today so I went for a ride. I got wet.

[hawk]

On 9/27/2021 at 12:37 PM, Xstoff said:

Not at all... was pretty easy indeed! Just pushing the footpeg mount, putting the pin, and done. 

I think I received 2 right side mounts though, but it fitted, so I didn't look any further.

Just make sure you have the mounts :

https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/puig-rider-footpeg-mounts-yamaha-fz6-r-fz-07-fz-09-mt-09-fj-09-tracer-900-fjr1300-niken?sku_id=1175633

The only tricky part was to remove the pin "holder" on the right side, it was a pain in the ass!

I put my Puigs on several years ago but couldn't find the left side spring so I used zip ties.  This week I finally found a spring but it was too thick so I ground it.  Today I finally found the OEM spring while searching for something else hahaha

[piotrek]

22 hours ago, Wintersdark said:

I've ordered a box of 200 iGrip tire studs, which I'm going to screw into the stock Pirelli's on the T7.

Huh... that easy, eh? Here I thought you'd need new tires for that.

[Wintersdark]

1 minute ago, piotrek said:

Huh... that easy, eh? Here I thought you'd need new tires for that.

https://www.igripstore.com/

Ordered a set of 200 SS11's.  Then, yeah, it's time to pre-drill a bunch of small holes, use the included tool to drill the studs into the tires.  Gotta be sure you've got sufficient depth for the screws, obviously, but it's a tubed bike so as long as you don't fully penetrate the carcass and screw into the tube, there's some flex room there.  

I'm undecided if I'm going to use the stock Pirelli Scorpion Rally STR's or buy a set of Shinko's (705's?  More street biased, but I'm not going to be doing hard offroad stuff during the winter) to stud, though.  But the "which tires to use" rabbit hole goes deeeeeeeep, and it's way easier to just pop studs into the tires on the bike and worry about that rabbit hole in the spring. 

 

[Clegg78]

Huh, how much different do studded tires ride??

 

[Wintersdark]

18 minutes ago, Clegg78 said:

Huh, how much different do studded tires ride??

 

Dunno, I've never had studded tires on a bike.  

They (the SS11's in particular) stick out 3mm in total 1.5mm of carbide bit, 1.5 of stainless nut.  I'd expect a similar result to studded tires on a car, really - worse traction normally, better traction in ice and snow.   Some vibration, and clattery noise, lots of noise.  The plan is to start out fairly mild, studding every few sets of blocks, alternating middle blocks and side blocks (as per the Pirelli's).  Too many studs and bare pavement traction will suffer a lot, and even when it's snowy there's a bunch of roads that get aggressively plowed here.  I can always add more if needed.