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6 gears on the GT (is it worth it)?


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I have a '19 GT.

 

Ok, it has 6 gears... but is it just me or should the gears be more widespread???

To me they seem a lil close. I can do a 0-60 pull in 3 seconds and stay in first gear. Or cruise at 40 mph at 6th gear....

Bring it up to about 80 MPH (the normal traffic flow speed where I live) in 6th gear and im cruising at 6k RPM for hours at a time. Doesn't feel right.

 

I would think the bike would benefit by making the 6th gear at least a lot taller.

 

Opinions?

 

I just got rid of my '03 shadow (to get my GT) and with 5 gears it seemed better distributed between the gearing.

Edited by Bimbim18
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10 minutes ago, Bimbim18 said:

I would think the bike would benefit by making the 6th gear at least a lot taller.

 

If by 'taller' you mean that at a given speed the engine would be pulling fewer/ lower rpm, I couldn't agree more.   I cruise at or around 100kph, this being the common legal maximum here.   At that, the rpm are 4000 - it feels buzzy and I'm almost looking for that seventh gear.   On my last BMW 100kph equated to about 3300 to 3400rm  and everything felt very much more relaxed and less stressed.   Which meant that I was too.   I know that the CP3 engine is bullet-proof, but the 'touring' designation and capabilities of the bike surely do, as you suggest, imply better thought-out gearing.   Oh - and while at it, belt-drive too please!

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Riding a fully-farkled 2019 MT-09 Tracer 900 GT from my bayside home in South East Queensland, Australia.   

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I guess its all personal preference and what you are used to, while @wordsmith prefers lower cruising rpm's, I dont like letting the rpm's drop below 4k and actually prefer them at 5k and above, I dont use 6th unless I am on the interstate and over 70-75 mph. 

I have +2T on the rear sprocket for quicker acceleration which results in slightly higher rpm's on the highway, I have used that gearing on all of my street and dirt bikes for the past 25 years - again, personal preference. 

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***2015 Candy Red FJ-09***

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11 minutes ago, betoney said:

I have +2T on the rear sprocket for quicker acceleration which results in slightly higher rpm's on the highway, I have used that gearing on all of my street and dirt bikes for the past 25 years - again, personal preference. 

I tried going the other way on an earlier Tracer - don't remember the exact sprocket change made - but it was hardly, if at all, worthwhile.

Riding a fully-farkled 2019 MT-09 Tracer 900 GT from my bayside home in South East Queensland, Australia.   

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6th gear is still going strong at 10k rpms 🤯(more than double the national speed limit at that point) .. I skip 1st gear( it's my Launch Control trigger 🙄).. Take off in 2nd... 1st and 2nd are too close in MPH... This motor is happy as pig in mud above 4.5k rpms... 

2012 wr250f - C-class 30+ age group
2015 fz-07- Hordpower Edition-80whp
2015 fj-09- Graves Exhaust w/Woolich tune by 2WDW @120whp
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As someone driving lots of highway kilometers, I too would like the 6th gear to be much taller/higher.. The RPMs are to many. But I don't want to change the gearing on the bike, because I think it's already slow enough in acceleration as it is. Don't want it any slower. Just higher geared in 6th

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1 hour ago, andersh said:

As someone driving lots of highway kilometers, I too would like the 6th gear to be much taller/higher.. The RPMs are to many. But I don't want to change the gearing on the bike, because I think it's already slow enough in acceleration as it is. Don't want it any slower. Just higher geared in 6th

I'd get that checked out. Not much does better than my FJ-09 in 0-60 acceleration.

Every bike/owner combo has a different sweet spot in the band they prefer. Haven't felt any need to change mine but have experimented with gearing changes to good effect on many. On most of my Japanese bikes gearing for lower cruise rpm had the side benefit of making the optimistic speedos nearly accurate lol.  

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I agree with @betoney in that 6th gear is for higher speeds. Much of my highway riding feels much better in 5th. I can't imagine reducing the rpm's in 6th.. it already feels like an overdrive gas saving gear. I would use it more on long trips with extended highway time. 

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23 hours ago, chitown said:

I'd get that checked out. Not much does better than my FJ-09 in 0-60 acceleration.

Every bike/owner combo has a different sweet spot in the band they prefer. Haven't felt any need to change mine but have experimented with gearing changes to good effect on many. On most of my Japanese bikes gearing for lower cruise rpm had the side benefit of making the optimistic speedos nearly accurate lol.  

Checked what out? That the bike feels slow? It' i just my opinion. It is the slowest and most tame bike I have ever owned.

Even compared to my previous bike (XSR900) that shares the same engine, the Tracer GT feels slower, probably because it has more weight and that I'm shielded from the wind.

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8 hours ago, andersh said:

Checked what out? That the bike feels slow? It' i just my opinion. It is the slowest and most tame bike I have ever owned.

Even compared to my previous bike (XSR900) that shares the same engine, the Tracer GT feels slower, probably because it has more weight and that I'm shielded from the wind.

Firstly please don't take anything I say online as deathly serious :)

But, yes I'm surprised by your comment. "feels slower" changes the subject a bit. To me a naked feels busier but not faster. That may be because I switch between naked and non-naked bikes frequently. Both of my track bikes were naked for example. 

While I don't put much faith in magazine or online performance numbers I will use them in a relative sense and all of 09 bikes have close 0-60 times and they're on par with liter super sports. That matches with my experience following experienced riders on high performance bikes. Beyond that of course the 09s get walked. Even the folks that sold their FJ-09 because they hated them usually praise the motor and its performance while hating on the aeros etc. If this was a tame bike IMO I'd probably have sold it as other than legroom and the motor there are better choices. 

Edited by chitown
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/15/2019 at 11:57 PM, wordsmith said:

 Oh - and while at it, belt-drive too please!

Omg if there was a belt option available I would spring for it so fast! That was the only thing that made me hesitate (only for a few seconds)  on getting this bike.  As my daily driver that I keep outside,  granted maintenance is easy on this bike the frequency of how many times I have to do it sucks.

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I dropped a tooth on the rear sprocket (45 teeth to 44, if memory serves) and I really like the result - it''s subtle, but noticeable. The benefit is partly the slightly lower revs in 6th gear (ie. sitting at a tea-totaling 3800rpms at 100kph, instead of 4000), but it also makes the lower gears a bit more useful for the kinds of riding I do. That includes getting around town, where I don't ever need to shift from 2nd gear and partly ripping up the twisties, where that same gear will now take me all the way to 150kph. 

As @betoney said, all personal preference. 

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Interesting, but using this thread as an informal poll, it looks like opinion is spilt about 50/50 on ‘too tall or too short’ with the factory gearing.   Yet another example of the compromises Yamaha’s engineering & design teams had to make, so it seems like they got this one about right for the masses.  

Personally, I’m fine with the stock gearing, and won’t look to alter when the chain & sprockets are due for replacement.  

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