GixxerJasen does an FJR Trackday

Anyone who says the FJR loses weight when moving hasn't been pushing the bike hard enough.

Ever since getting my suspension upgraded I've wanted to get it properly set up and do a trackday on it. On Road/Off Road suspension has a good deal when they are set up as a vendor for RideSmart trackdays where they'll set you up for $40, then follow you on the track and make whatever adjustments needed during the day. When my buddy Chris called me and told me that RS had upcoming trackdays for $65, I knew I had to jump on that.

I came up with a few goals for this Sunday trackday.

1. Bike must be usable on Monday to get me to work.

2. Get the suspension set up correctly.

3. Find and learn the limits of the bike.

4. Get my knee down on the FJR

5. Have fun.

Regarding number four, I've gotten my knee down before on other bikes and have plenty of pictures and scuffed pucks, so it wasn't for bragging rights, just a matter of comparison to know how far I was getting the bike over.

Usually I also add in the goal of learn something new or improve some skill further, but I figured with a bigger slower bike than I'm used to, I'd concentrate on the above. Little did I know that the FJR had some things to teach me.

All was looking good for the trackday. Texas has been experiencing non-stop rain for months and it looked like the weekend was the time that old Texas was going to flip the switch from rain to scorching sun. I'll take the sun over the rain for a track day.

Then this happened. Note, I had to be up at 4:45am and this photo was taken at 10:00pm.

Earlier in the day I'd been doing all my prep and packing up to get things ready. I haven't done a trackday in over seven years and I've moved since then, so finding all my stuff was a bit of a chore. I'd prepped the bike by swapping the windshield to my shorty summer screen, removing mirrors, removing bags and checking tire air pressures. Still needed to tape everything up.

I headed out to see the newest TMNT movie with my wife and son and then came back to start finishing up. I went to move the bike around to make it easy to load onto the trailer and the front had that flat feeling. WTF? I fired up the compressor and aired the tire back up. Afterwards I could hear air escaping and could feel it coming out of the valve. Crap, the core is likely stuck or something. I could fiddle with it or I could just stick a new core in there. New core it is. The wife and I headed to the store as I needed a few other things like gatorade, lunch and other stuff for the next day, so I picked up a pack of cores while we were out.

Not sure what happened but the core was jammed into the 90 degree valve stem something good and it got mangled when I tried removing it. This nearly drove me over the edge into a cursing fury, but I managed to remain calm. "Ok now, let's think logically, what do we need to do to fix this so we can ride tomorrow?" Off to the store for a new standard valve stem. Come home, jack up the bike, remove front brakes, remove front wheel, break bead, remove one side of the tire so we can finally get around to fixing the problem. Problem fixed, time to put it all back again.

By the time this setback was fixed and everything was ready to go, I rolled into bed about midnight and was still too torqued up to go to sleep. Sleep came around 12:45am. Looks like my trackday will be sponsored by Monster Energy.

Waiting patiently......

When I pulled in and was looking for my buddy, I heard someone yell "Oh look, another FJR!" After not finding my buddy I parked with this guy. He was doing his first ever track day along with his two buddies on their Indian cruisers, one a full dresser. I enjoy seeing folks get out and learn stuff in a controlled environment even if their bikes aren't ideally suited to the track.

As I mentioned before, Texas has had a ton of rain. Our ground is beyond saturated. Reports from the Cresson track said that Saturday it was sunny but there was still 100 foot wide rivers running across the track. Thankfully Eagles Canyon was better. Sunday was even better. We started out with a ride around the track in pickup trucks so the instructors could go over the corners, where the water was weeping onto the track and which tar snakes sucked. That was followed by a session of Round Robin follow the leader so we could see the lines and problem areas. After that, into the classroom so the instructors could show us an onboard video of the track, the lines, and the problem water areas. We still had at least six bikes crash by running into wet areas.

Apparently the suspension guy had flooding at his house from the recent rains and wasn't able to make it, so the professional suspension setup will have to wait for another day. So much for goal number two.

I've been out on the track with smaller bikes being held up by guys on bigger bikes who park in the corners and go WOT on the straight, so today I'm not going to be that guy. I'm there to work on my corners. I'll make myself easy to pass by running smooth consistent lines and not go full throttle or full speed on the straights. I also know that the FJR is a pig to make stop, so if I'm not going as fast down the straights that'll make that part much easier.

The first session I was getting a feel for things. I also knew that my tire pressures were too high on my normal street settings but I like to feel the difference so I can make adjustments later if necessary. I got a little slide once that caused some pucker moments but all went well. I lowered the pressure between settings and things were much better. Two bikes went down in this session. I'm running slow but I am still on track for goal number 1.

The next sessions I started pushing harder and harder. I was practicing hanging off the bike because I know she'll drag hard parts if you aren't careful. Thankfully the upgraded suspension means she'll squat less and give me more cornering clearance. I'm practicing the technique that has been given to me in the past which is a bit disgusting to talk about. Most riders think they are hanging off but have only shifted in the seat slightly. I've been told to put the edge of the seat in your crack. Most times riders including myself find that shoves them much further over than they were before and it works out fairly well. So this is the method I was using.

Not sure which session it was but my peg feeler touched down on the track. I know that when the feeler goes down, the kickstand, centerstand and pipes are soon to follow, in that order. I didn't realize until later but the kickstand touched down too. The track surface was such that it was a pretty grabby feeling when it touched down instead of sliding like I've felt before, so it was kind of unnerving. After the second such touchdown I decided I needed to slow down or hang off more. Hang off more it is. ECR has four double apex left hand turns, so lots of time to work on this.

Man, my whole rear was way off the seat. I was hanging off for all she was worth. I learned a second thing about the low pegs on the FJR. Not only are they lower than a sport bike meaning they'll touch down sooner, but it's also a LOOOOONG reach around her fat middle and down to the peg on the far side. Leaning left at one point I was still locked in but my foot wasn't reaching the peg on the right. I was fine but it was distracting and unnerving so I slid a bit back over so there was contact with the peg. Short legs suck, because I was keeping the pegs off the ground but my knee wasn't finding pavement. I might not have been sticking my leg out far enough, and even though I wanted to find the ground, keeping the bike going smoothly and not crashing were more important. I kind of gave up on goal number four.

I was having a ball though, even if I wasn't passing anyone and folks were going by me on the straights like crazy. I did have several guys who would pass me on the straight and then I'd hang with them through the next corner only to have them blast off on the next straight. Between sessions I started thinking about weight. The FJR is about 220 pounds heavier than a standard Gixxer. This means that riding the track on an FJR is kind of like this...



I'm totally feeling the weight of the bike now. I can feel it braking, I can feel it cornering, I can feel it flinging the bike around. I wish I'd run my heart rate monitor because this is like doing 20 super intense workout sessions. I'm still having fun though which was one of my goals and I'm learning better form and hanging off, which wasn't a goal but is happening anyway.

During lunch me and my buddy decide to sit out the first session after lunch which was good as there was a bad crash that got the session red flagged and shut down early.

I finished up the day with one more session that I ran the gopro on. It wasn't my fastest session as I was kind of winding down, but still I did well. I'll post the link to a video of the lap later.

As for that goal of getting my knee down....I was this >< close!

We had a class session about thinking ahead to the next corner and passing appropriately, IE, if you are going to pass someone between a right hand corner and a left hand corner, try to pass on the left because you know the rider will ride wide coming out of the right hander and then start coming back to the right to set up for the next corner. Twice on this session I had someone blast up my right as I'm coming back across, one of which I had to take evasive action to avoid contact with. Crazy as it hasn't happened all day yet within minutes of discussing this in class it happens. Thankfully we'd already decided to pack up after this session so we ended the day there.

Weather had been good to us, 88F and sunny was better than the weather had been, and far better than it usually is by this point in June. It was pretty humid with all the evaporating rain though. By the end of the day, the small river in the braking zone at the end of the back straight had dried up considerably as well and the track was running fast. Good times, but I think I'm ready for something lighter and smaller for the track. This is likely the last trackday for the FJR.

Oh yea, and goal number 1?

Here she is at home at the end of the day. I did fix her back up for commuting duty and rode in on Monday.



Youtube video of a single lap. The frosted windscreen (need to finish sanding and polishing it) is a bit of an obstruction but you get the idea.

Video was cool. Liked listening to the whine of the engine coming out of the corners and watching you shift with the paddles.

Thanks for taking us along.

Yea, the GoPro picks up the whine pretty good. The AE made short work of any shifting duties out there.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, yes, those are PR2's on the bike.

Also, just an observation. In seven years your leathers will oddly shrink. I came down to choosing between running my back protector or breathing. Need to figure that one out.

One of these days ....

Do it!

Oh yea, and the last I saw, the other FJR guy was still riding and having fun.

Full dresser Indian guy was dragging floorboards as was expected.

The other Indian went down though. Said he saw the bike flip and go for a rollover. Thankfully the off track areas were muddy and soft because he has to replace his handlebars, and clean a ton of mud out of the nooks and crannies of his bike. He was also chuffed about his non-dented but scratched gas tank. I commented that for a flip he got off well, and his bike must be built like a tank. If he'd done that with a gixxer he'd need a garbage bag to get his bike home.

That Smoker thread might explain some of the shrinking of those leathers.

That looks like a lot of fun Jason, glad you could get your tire situation figured out before track day. Thanks for posting the video. +1 on the smoker thread haha.

Nice!

Always wanted to try one of those on my Buell but now that replacement parts are unheard of I probably won't.

Nice ride report - you should do that more often!!!

I would like to try a track day some time, but not on the FJR. Something much lighter.

Not having my mirrors would take a lot of getting used to.

hppants said:

Not having my mirrors would take a lot of getting used to.

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On the track it isn't so bad. You focus on what's ahead, it's up to the rider doing the passing to do so in a safe manner. If you are worrying only about what's ahead, you don't need your mirrors.

Losing a mirror in Aspen, that's another story. I was messed up for a day or so till I got used to it not being there and having to do a half saddle turn around to see if I'm clear on the right.

I think this might be the same corner. For comparison, the last trackday I did was at this particular track, and I was on something a smidge lighter.

Most excellent ride report!

I've done several track days on my 09 FJR and it's funny how different experiences lead to different conclusions. I don't think the FJR is all that much of a pig!

Perhaps it's because my aftermarket suspension is better suited than yours? Perhaps my body positioning is a big better? Perhaps you are riding faster, or harder than I am? One thing is for sure: My nearly 500k miles on FJRs leads to a high degree of familiarity and comfort on the FJR - even pushing it on the track.

I did one track day on my FZ-8 and I did not feel near as comfortable on that smaller bike than I do on my FJR. I only had 900 miles on it at the time. Didn't feel like I could ride it as aggressively. My gut tells me I am faster in the corners on my FJR.

My LAST choice of tire on the track would be the PR2, but to each his own.

One of the things I love about the FJR on a track is it's limited cornering clearance. Yes, you read that right! Now with my overly stiff shock I have a good bit more cornering clearance than stock, but can still scrape pegs when riding corners aggressively. On the track, if I scrape a peg before I scrape a knee I know I need to work on my body positioning and getting off a bit more. I love that the FJR gives that feedback.

Here are my glory photos:

SkooterG said:

I did one track day on my FZ-8 and I did not feel near as comfortable on that smaller bike than I do on my FJR. I only had 900 miles on it at the time. Didn't feel like I could ride it as aggressively. My gut tells me I am faster in the corners on my FJR.

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I tell you, that supermoto kicks butt. I had never ridden this track, had only had the supermoto for two weeks, was on stock tires and had been off the track for a long time. I've never felt so comfortable so quickly as I did that bike. Loved it.

SkooterG said:

My LAST choice of tire on the track would be the PR2, but to each his own.

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Hey, not my first choice either. But they were on the bike so what ya gonna do?

SkooterG said:

One of the things I love about the FJR on a track is it's limited cornering clearance. Yes, you read that right! Now with my overly stiff shock I have a good bit more cornering clearance than stock, but can still scrape pegs when riding corners aggressively. On the track, if I scrape a peg before I scrape a knee I know I need to work on my body positioning and getting off a bit more. I love that the FJR gives that feedback.

Click to expand...

That's kind of what I was hinting at. I wasn't expecting to learn much but riding a fat bike on the track WILL teach you proper body position. Who knew? I should suggest FJR's for Team Yamaha so Rossi can work on his body position.

Nice write up Jasen. I almost pulled the trigger on those same early June ECR track schools when they offered them at half-off, but our 33rd anniversary fell on that weekend.

You are whetting my appetite for the Monday 6/27 Creeson school I'm scheduled to attend. It's the make-up day for the April 17 RideSmart that got cancelled due to some especially nasty weather. The FJR is, however, staying home in favor of the FZ1.

Having done the school, would you suggest signing up for a second day (in this case Sunday 6/26) or not? I'm giving some thought to it since I'll be making the trip from Tyler anyway.