My Thoughts On The '06

[twowheelnut]

Most excellent write up by all those in this thread. Special thanks to TWN for his writeup & Yambone, Rogue, & Repairman for the photos. Those of us in other parts of the country appreciate the effort & info. Ron

So, is my check in the mail yet?

 

[RonBB]

Will most certainly try to respond in kind when possible. Ron

 

[Rogue]

One thing we need is to be seen on our bikes.  What is Yamaha doing going to one headlight on dip.  Is this a DOT insanity?  This is crazy.  One reason I heard is that it makes cagers think it is a car.  Well whoop de doo ain't that what is needed?  The bigger they think we are the better off we are as I see it.Looks like there is an easy mounting point for sliders though.

Triplet.. your seeing the flash from Rogues camera. There's no way possible for the bike to be allowed to run inside the show !

At first that's all I could think of to account for it - maybe it's the flash. Sometimes they wire the bike to lite the thing up but doesn't seem that way. So many bikes are coming out with only one light on dip. BMW does that on a few of their bikes. Guess that it's because they use that tiny high output bright.

I was trying to figure out what you were talking about.

Yea, Thats the flash from my camera.

 

[tripletango]

Most excellent write up by all those in this thread.  Special thanks to TWN for his writeup & Yambone, Rogue, & Repairman for the photos.  Those of us in other parts of the country appreciate the effort & info.  Ron

So, is my check in the mail yet?

yep got revved up on the 1 headlight issue. Super job super photos. Well done lads.

 

[FJR&R]

Yamaha says the AE comes with heated grips. Admittedly, I didn't spend alot of time looking at the AE, but the controller for the heated grips escapes me. Did the show bike have heated grips? Just curious if they got away from that mondo controller they sell as a factory option. I did the Dean Woodward install and it came out sweet!

 

[Rogue]

Yamaha says the AE comes with heated grips. Admittedly, I didn't spend alot of time looking at the AE, but the controller for the heated grips escapes me. Did the show bike have heated grips? Just curious if they got away from that mondo controller they sell as a factory option. I did the Dean Woodward install and it came out sweet!

I didn't think to look. I just zoomed on the pics I took and didn't see anything

 

[Rogue]

I asked him about the wimpy alternator... he took my number and said he would ask around to see if Yamaha had anything in the works for the future and call me next week.

...and the check's in the mail. I won't co... never mind.

I'm not holding my breath but at least I got more than a blank look.

Got a message on my phone from the guy from Cypress... he says the 06' has a 590 watt output!

 

[turbodave_98]

Just checking out how I look on my soon to be AE. Seems to fit me pretty good, huh??

 

[RadioHowie]

Dude.....

That's Schaweeeeeetttt!

[SIZE=7pt](thought I'd help out with corrected image link...hope you don't mind)[/SIZE]

 

[Carnifex]

TWN, great report.
Got curious about the GT you mentioned. Urrrp! Hey, they sorta stole the notched front fender and cans from the '04 FJR... Came up with quite a teutonic vision here:

TWN, great report. 
Got curious about the GT you mentioned.  Urrrp!  Hey, they sorta stole the notched front fender and cans from the '04 FJR...  Came up with quite a teutonic vision here:

IMGsnip/IMG

I love my FJR, but oooooo is that pretty.

 

[twowheelnut]

I love my FJR, but oooooo is that pretty.

That bike has the best stock ergonomics and is the most comfortable bike I ever sat on - for 5 minutes. But, as I said, too bad it's a BMW...

 

[Yambone]

Well, beauty is in your own eye, but personally, I think the new GT just looks bad. Severely straight lines on the fairing followed by rounded saddlebags creates a bulky look.

Having said that, if you blink and take a quick look, you can almost see an FJR in there. BMW obviously 'stole' some ideas from Yammie on this one. And how a bike looks is secondary to how it performs, though I have no experience with the GT.

I enjoyed RDFrantz' take on the GT. With the FJR I got a reliable, lower cost, easy to maintain at home, all around performance winner. The BMW products appear to have some great traits, like excellent wind management and ergos. But they also come equipped with *baggage* associated with high initial cost, high maintenance costs, linked brakes, and now the Mother of all Monitors to check your activity, dealer computer needed to do maintenance(?). No thanks.

Funny, a few short years ago, the Beemerphile were clamoring for an RT body with an inline-4 K engine. The first GT failed to impress a lot of folks and many people jumped ship to the FJR. This new GT might come closer to filling the original bill, just looking at it.

Overall, I'm glad to see companies 'stealing' ideas from each other to build better bikes. Glad to see Yam step up with improvements in the '06, etc. But I enjoy this discussion only as a spectator aboard my outstanding '04 FJR, with no real thought of changing to anything else.

 

[dcarver]

TurboDave - no pix?

 

[dcarver]

I asked him about the wimpy alternator... he took my number and said he would ask around to see if Yamaha had anything in the works for the future and call me next week.

...and the check's in the mail. I won't co... never mind.

I'm not holding my breath but at least I got more than a blank look.

Got a message on my phone from the guy from Cypress... he says the 06' has a 590 watt output!

Rogue - If this is true... Radman will have to stop development on his 3rd stage neutron impregnator nu-klear deevice..

 

[RadioHowie]

TurboDave - no pix?

TurboDave typo'd in his image placeholder command when he posted the picture.

I posted the corrected pix in my reply 5 posts or so back...the one that says "Schaweeeet".

It's a little, tiny pic. I d'loaded it to blow it up, but it pixellated to hellangone so just stayed with TD's original from his posting site.

 

[JSimon]

That BMW looks nice although I don't know that I care for the look of the seat, mainly the color, the headlight assembly looks a little odd as well.

One thing that really surprises me about the new Yamaha's, they still have got horrible looking wheel castings. This bother anyone else? I had an old Virago that had cast wheels, they looked great from a distance but were really rough looking up close, it doesn't look as though Yamaha has gotten much better in the past 20 years when it comes to making wheels.

Another thing I found to be odd, what's up with the Galaxy Blue to Cobalt Blue? They look all but the same to me. I like the color of the 04 the best by far, I was hoping for something a little more distict for the 06. The new silver is awesome, too bad you have to go the route of the AE to get it. Every other model seems to have a Raven option, too bad the FJR doesn't have a black model.

JS

 

[tripletango]

How much is the BMW K1200GT ??

 

[Clark Kent]

  I didn't whip it out to measure,

Two, If you had "whipped it out to measure" How many time would you have had to "whip it out" to measue the total height? Maybe 22 times for a 32" height? :haha:

And if you whipped it over 20 times :aacute: wouldn't the seat have been all sticky for the next guy? :blushing:

CK :super1:

PS That sometimes happens to me just looking at the FJR

 

[tripletango]

Yamaha says the AE comes with heated grips.  Admittedly, I didn't spend alot of time looking at the AE, but the controller for the heated grips escapes me.  Did the show bike have heated grips?  Just curious if they got away from that mondo controller they sell as a factory option.  I did the Dean Woodward install and it came out sweet!

I didn't think to look. I just zoomed on the pics I took and didn't see anything

The heated grip controller on the AE is where the hazard light button is now.

 

[Constant Mesh]

I think the large round knob and LED indicator (inside the highlighted vertical rectangle) to the right of the horn button are the heated grips controls/indicators. See this photo:

https://www.yamaha-motor.com/sport/products.../3/0/image.aspx