06 FJR vs R1 in the Canyons: First Impression

[trmn8er]

Nice write up and I agree. The FJR most definely has sportbike DNA, just a little more meat on her bones.I regularly ride the FJR with the sportbike club and love to harass the sportbikes and be comfortable.

I love my R-1 and just brought home a new 06. My '02 R-1 is now track only.

As a LA Crest rider, I am sure you know Big Tujunga as well. The Crest is too CHP and Sheriff and we, my group, have found Big T up and left at the stop sign and over to Palmdale a lonely ride with little to no regular enforcement. Newcombs has new ownership but we still stop there on the rides.

See you up there, and glad you like the FJR like the rest of us. :evilsmiley03:

DrEvil777, as you know, past Newcombs the road is now closed, so I had to backtrack down to Big T, made the right, and went all the way down to Palmdale, then accross 138. It was a nice ride, but I still miss being able to ride all the way to Wrightwood via 2.

 

[FJRMGM]

that's it - the FJR is just a big-boned sport bike. Yeah....

 

[DrEvil777]

Nice write up and I agree. The FJR most definitely has sportbike DNA, just a little more meat on her bones.

I regularly ride the FJR with the sportbike club and love to harass the sportbikes and be comfortable.

I love my R-1 and just brought home a new 06. My '02 R-1 is now track only.

As a LA Crest rider, I am sure you know Big Tujunga as well. The Crest is too CHP and Sheriff and we, my group, have found Big T up and left at the stop sign and over to Palmdale a lonely ride with little to no regular enforcement. Newcombs has new ownership but we still stop there on the rides.

See you up there, and glad you like the FJR like the rest of us. :evilsmiley03:

DrEvil777, as you know, past Newcombs the road is now closed, so I had to backtrack down to Big T, made the right, and went all the way down to Palmdale, then accross 138. It was a nice ride, but I still miss being able to ride all the way to Wrightwood via 2.

They also seem to take away from us, the motorcyclists. We have been riding Frasier Park, and above Malibu and Santa Barbara for the last three months.

My point is that we avoid the Crest like the plague. The worst was taking a slow paced ride on the FJR up the Crest to be stopped by CHP and then be told that my stock exhaust and mufflers were aftermarket, too loud, and then they tried to hand me a ticket. It just goes to show that the CHP hates sportbikes because they let HD riders by with straight pipes, that CHP is money grubbing and picking on sportbikes and that you don't need much cranial vault contents to wear brown polyester and work for the state.

 

[Blueliner]

Great write-up! I can sure relate to much of that, especially the surprise I felt the first time I went up a canyon. Despite that though, you will miss that R1 once in a while and wonder if a two bike stable is more suited to you. For me it looks like a 2 bike stable is a few too few. Every so often I have a huge desire to go up the canyons on a 420 lbs wet rocket ship as opposed to my 480 lbs wet FZ or way heavy FJR. Next spring it may be time to add that small, flickable, over powered machine to the mix. Lets see if that happens to you too.

Glad you are enjoying to FJR, it really is a fine bike.