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From 390 duke to tracer 900 GT . Is it too big of a jump?


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19 minutes ago, Victorvnv said:

Defenitely keeping this one for years to come! Can’t wait to make a huge road trip to Yellowstone maybe next week!

Congratulations on the new bike, the more you get used to it the more you will love it.

Before taking it out on a road trip, consider doing its first oil change.  Brand new motors get a lot of metal particles in the oil, I did the first oil change at just over 100 miles and was amazed at the amount of silver in the oil. 

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

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14 minutes ago, betoney said:

Congratulations on the new bike, the more you get used to it the more you will love it.

Before taking it out on a road trip, consider doing its first oil change.  Brand new motors get a lot of metal particles in the oil, I did the first oil change at just over 100 miles and was amazed at the amount of silver in the oil. 

I was actually wondering about this. Does it have to be at 600 miles or can it be earlier? If it’s earlier wouldn’t it have some negative impact based on the fact that it haven’t adjusted itself yet? Also would it be ok to put those first 600 miles at once ( say a trip to LA and back) or should it be mostly city riding ?

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9 minutes ago, Victorvnv said:

I was actually wondering about this. Does it have to be at 600 miles or can it be earlier? If it’s earlier wouldn’t it have some negative impact based on the fact that it haven’t adjusted itself yet? Also would it be ok to put those first 600 miles at once ( say a trip to LA and back) or should it be mostly city riding ?

There's nothing 'wrong' with changing the oil before 600 miles, I was just mentioning it because I found a lot of metal particles in the oil at 100 miles. 

As far as engine break-in goes, I wont get into that as there are many opinions on that subject and most people believe that all of them are wrong except theirs.  I simply rode mine in a normal manner including a few runs up to 9k and back.  Your experience my differ, please do what you feel comfortable with.👍

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

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Congratulations on the new GT and welcome to the forum. Nothing wrong with changing the oil and filter early, ride the bike normally and don't lug the engine.

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He who dies with the most toys wins.

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Im in the San Jose area....lets go for a ride........Ive had my GT for two years....its a  great street bike.

I refer to the throttle as dial a horsepower.......only want 20 hp. just dont twist the throttle to far......

If ya still got the stock tires....get rid of them as soon as possible. The best handling change I did was to put on some Road 5s.

Wait till the motor really gets broke in. It gets really good. 

Edited by duckie
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Welcome! I think people focus too much on engine displacement when looking for a first or second bike, while ignoring things like overall weight. Weight has a huge affect on your ability to handle the bike and learn. You mentioned that maybe you should have gotten something in the 600-700cc range. The Versys 650 is in that range, and it has less power than the Tracer. But it also weighs about the same as the Tracer so in my opinion there isn't a huge difference in terms of your learning curve. 

Also, although the Tracer is powerful and has a great motor, it isn't one of those deceptively fast bikes where you are cruising along and all of a sudden you're going 100mph without realizing it. Yes, it'll go that fast if you really want it to, but 100mph on the Tracer *feels* like 100mph. If you get in over your head on this bike you have no one to blame but yourself. 

I would never recommend the Tracer as a first bike, but as a second bike after something like the KTM 390? Yes, you should be fine. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

All great answers here, but I'll weigh in too because it's a nice day and I'm sitting in the sun. 

The Tracer is a very manageable bike.  Powerful, but easy to ride, and less violent than the base MT09 due to the longer swingarm.  Because you've got good power across the rev range, you don't run into the Traditional I4 Newbie Trap where there's such a pronounced increase in power at high RPM so suddenly it's easy to get into trouble.  You certainly can get going pretty fast - the bike will top 130mph in no time at all - but not accidentally.  I wouldn't recommend it as a first bike (though I wouldn't dissuade someone who I felt wasn't stupid and was considering one) but after you've got the basics of riding down, it's an easy bike to ride.

@keithu is very much spot on here that the weight is a very significant factor in terms of performance and handling.  For it's class, the Tracer is a very light machine (particularly as he compared it to the Versys) and this makes it handle very easily.  It also serves to make that 845cc powerplant much more effective overall, as it's the HP:weight ratio that you really care about for performance.  While it's heavier than your 390 was for sure, it's still a pretty light bike overall and really agile - not a machine you need to wrestle around.  

@duckie is right too, the stock tires are pretty garbage.  I'm also a huge proponent of Road 5's, but there's a wide range of very good tires out there.  I recommend buying a set of good tires, then selling the largely-new stock tires on Craigslist, TBH.

As for oil, what's important to know is you cannot harm things by changing oil too often.  Well, other than the environmental impact, I guess.  There's no benefit to "breaking in" the oil itself; it only degrades over time.  It's REALLY easy to change the oil, too, so it's kind of nice "getting to know each other" time!

Break in processes, well like @betoney I'm not going to firmly say anything is the "right" way.  However, my experience is that there's not catastrophically wrong ways (within reason) - I've known people who just ride it like normal, I've known people to take the users manual to heart (I did on my MT07, in fact, as it was my first brand new 0 miles on the clock machine), and people who ride hard, revving all the way through the range.  Fortnine did a comparison video on break-in methods too.  

In the end, it doesn't seem to really make much of a difference either way.  If any particular way is actually better or worse, it doesn't seem like it is by any large margin.  If I bought another bike at the start of it's break in period (bought the Tracer right after it's break in was finished) I'd just ride it exactly like normal, maybe give it a hundred miles or so before REALLY pushing it hard, but yeah.  Just ride, and don't worry about it.  

The only important part is (as Betony said above) be *sure* to do that first oil change.  Hell, do it early, and then do it again then.  Oil is cheap, and particularly over the first couple hundred miles you're gonna get all kinds of sparklies in there.  

 

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