dnj1965
Member
After a lot of thinking, and a few near misses with other FJRs, I finally landed a used FJR. For those of you who have a FJR and regularly post here, what follows here (and in the sister ride report) is too long and won't be that interesting. Before you move on to better reading, please let me communicate this to you: THANKS. The amount of information on this forum, including the pros and cons of the FJR, technical details, ride reports, etc., was helpful beyond words for someone thinking about buying a FJR. Again, excellent resource here, and thank you to all of you who fill it with such valuable content.
What follows is really written for people thinking about purchasing a FJR, either now or in the future.
I've broken it down into two posts:
This Post:
* Purchase Decision and Buying Experience + Overall Impressions and Thoughts
Soon to be over in Ride Reports:
“Getting my FJR Home – First three rides” - The three-day ride home included St. Louis to Lexington, KY on Day 1, Lexingon, KY to Altoona, PA on Day 2, and Altoona, PA to Hamilton, NY on Day 3.
A lot of text, I know. I hope it helps someone on the fence regarding a new FJR, or a fly-and-ride deal, or whether one can ride hundreds of miles a day on a FJR with little experience... You get the idea. I was pressed for time and busy thinking about riding the bike safely while getting home in a reasonable amount of time, so no photos.
While I was struggling with the decision as to whether to buy a FJR, I really valued reading about other's thoughts going into the buying process, how the buying process worked, and initial reactions to the bike after some real time in the saddle. Below are a lot of the gory details related to my experience, including some personal details, so you can put my observations in perspective.
Here we go...
-----Personal Background
44 year-old male, 6'2”, 225 (our so) pounds, and despite being overweight am in fairly good health and relatively strong. Happy marriage, professionally stable, two great kids (12 and 8). Everyone can find things to complain about their lives. I'll spare you mine. I know I've got it pretty good.
My powered-two wheeled vehicle history is seriously short on road riding and modern machinery. It does, however, date back to the 1970's...
Honda CR50
My first motorcycle. It would run for 3 minutes and then take 20 minutes of work to get it to run again. That bike kept me from buying anything Honda from the early-1970's to 2010 (my wife got an Odyssey this year, and I STILL thought of that POS CR 50).
Yamaha GT80
First sense of motorized bliss. Bike was reliable and fun, hence my fondness for Yamaha. Learned a lot on that bike, and am very thankful that I learned to ride on Iowa sod, which softened some of the steeper parts of my learning curve.
Yamaha QT50 (the Yamahopper!)
Laugh all you want. My family moved from rural Iowa to Iowa City, ending my dirt-bike days. In Iowa at the time you had to be 16 to drive a car or ride a motorcycle. You could, however, ride a 49cc or smaller street-legal machine at the age of 14. Given the distance between my girlfriend's house and mine, that QT50 paid HUGE dividends. Pavlovian conditioning is strong, and I still get excited when I see one ;-). I beat that poor thing, and it ran, ran and ran. That QT50 meant freedom to me. But some of you are still laughing. Yeah, me too ;-)
At 16 I took the motorcycle safety course and bought a Yamaha XS400 Special II with money saved from detasseling corn (search for “manual detasseling” on wikipedia if you've never gotten frostbite and heat-stroke in the same day...). Rode that puppy until just before I turned 18 and went off to college. Sold the bike and commenced with the whole educate yourself / find a partner / establish a career / have some kids / owe the bank money / decide-who-you-are-as-you-realize-life-may-be-shorter-than-you-anticipated THANG.
2008 Yamaha WR250R
Re-took the motorcycle safety course and have been having a blast on the WR. The improvements in suspension and engines is jaw-dropping. Many of you know this, but after a 20-year gap it is really noticeable. My WR is just plain fun. But I found myself wishing the WR had a bit more wind protection and power when playing around on local back-roads with a 55mph speed limit. That, and a bit of wanderlust led me to think I might like to try some overnights, or an Ironbutt, or take a kid or the wife along. So I read. And read some more. The sport-touring segment just seemed to fit, and one thing led to another...
So I thought I wanted a FJR. How could I know? The chicken-egg problem. I've never owned anything even close. I could have been responsible and gotten a used FZ6 just to be sure I could handle a modern road bike and to get more experience. I didn't. The only semi-responsible thing I did is to decide to buy used. I like new in vehicles, but given my lack of experience with large bikes, I figured it was safest to not take the huge depreciation hit if I were to decide to sell the bike in a year.
-----The Search and Buy
Talked to the wife. She generally trusts me, but was worried about two things. The first was someone taking me out. Legitimate worry. The second was my spending more time away form home. I'll need to work on how that will play out... The good news? She wanted another horse. BINGO – green light on a FJR (or at least a yellow).
Looked locally. Couldn't quite find what I wanted. A few on this site sold right as I was making contact with the seller, and then things worked out with the unit I bought:
2008 with about 7k miles, HeliBars, V-Stream, newish Michelin PR2's, Hyperlites, Throttlemeister, BMW grips, Spencer LD seat modification, dual Heat Troller, Cortech tank bag, red light tripper and Gerbings heated gloves. Photos of the bike made it look brand new. The seller clearly took great care of the bike.
So I contacted the seller. I was nervous about everything involved in this process. Buying a bike 1000+ miles away, from someone I didn't know, when I've never ridden a FJR, nevermind this actual unit. But the seller and I hit it off immediately. Maybe I'm too trusting, but it just felt right. We worked out a deal quickly, and he kindly agreed to pick me up at the airport and to ship back to me the stock windshield, heated gloves, etc. Since I was on a trip with my family and I had to work out some other details, there were over two weeks of a wait from the deal being struck and picking up the bike. Plenty of time for me to plan, worry and second guess.
Some details, as I wondered about these things when I was working through this stuff...
How to pay? Seemed crazy to get on an airplane with that much cash. Seller would be nuts to sign everything over to me based on a personal check. Went with a Certified Cashier's Check (as I understand it, the “Certified” part is the bank promising that the money is good, and the “Cashier's” part means they took the money out of my account as the check was drafted, in effect putting it into escrow). Modern scam artists, of course, have figured out how to forge cashier's checks, but my bank is small enough that a call to the local branch from the seller's bank brought the needed assurance that everything was on the up-and-up.
No liens on the bike, which made that part easy.
What to do about a license plate? I've read about seller's letting their plates be used for the trip back. I'm paranoid by nature, and worried that, strictly speaking, this would be mis-representing the registration and ownership of the bike. Missouri (where the seller lives) offers temporary registration, even for out-of-state residents. Thankfully I had read all of their regulations, as the folks behind the counter did not think what I wanted to do was possible. I had brought a printed version of the relevant passages from their own web pages, which went a long way in smoothing things over. One sticking point was that the MO temp registration does not have a tag for motorcycles. I did not want to ride 1000+ miles with no tag on the back, so I fashioned my own using cardboard, a printed “temp” tag of my design, and clear packing tape. I saw dozens of LEO's on the way home, and was not ever pulled over, so my temp tags served their purpose.
About a week before I was to leave I boxed up and mailed my riding gear to the seller via USPS priority mail. Again, a lot of trust here, as we've never met, and I was sending my boots, riding pants, jacket, helmet, new GPS and case, gloves, and other clothing and supplies (naproxen [generic aleve], sunblock, eye-drops, etc.). Must have been $800 worth of stuff in that box.
So, Thursday, August 12, I'm awake at 4 AM (EST) to make a 6:30 flight from Syracuse to Detroit, and then Detroit to St. Louis. Seller picks me up at the airport at about 9:45 local time, and is just as nice in person as one could hope for. Great guy.
We hit his credit union where we notarize the bill of sell, verify funds, and sign things over. Then off to the Missouri motor vehicle office for my temporary registration. Bit of a nervous moment for me when when I see the VIN on my insurance card does not exactly match the VIN on the other documents. The good and bad is that I brought several copies of my insurance forms. Why is this bad? Because I accidentally grabbed one copy of the card for my WR250R, which is, like FJR, a 2008 Yamaha, making parts of the VIN look eerily similar. I did, indeed, have the right VIN on all the documents, but I gained some gray hair as this played out. I'm such a OCD freak... I'm working on that.
Did I mention that when we got out of the airport it was hotter than the hinges of Hades? More on this in the ride report.
Overall impressions and thoughts (keeping in mind my limited history and experience with bikes of this nature...)
With no real touring or slab riding experience, I flew 1100 miles, picked up an FJR, and rode it home. Day 1 was roughly 360 miles (after the flight and taking care of business), Day 2 was roughly 470 miles and Day 3 was roughly 280 miles. This bike is very well suited to cranking out miles.
I had limited time on twisty secondary roads, but hit some local ones on my way home. Smiles per mile quotient was huge, even with both bags loaded.
Torque is my friend. Thank you FJR torque. Thank you.
Below 4k RPM my bike is smooth as butter. Somewhere in the 4 k range the vibrations change. Is it a “buzz”? Some would call it that. Was it troublesome? Not for me. I did quickly get to where I could tell how fast I was going based on how the bike felt.
Hand pain? None. Throttlemeister was used as needed. I did feel my clutch hand during a traffic jam. But still, no pain even after three days of riding, just a bit of wrist fatigue towards the end of each day.
Back / Neck Pain? A bit of neck tenderness that was easy to relieve with a gentle stretch or rub. Thank you Helibars.
Butt Pain? Couple of tender spots, but never pain. Goldbond green + technical fabric boxer-briefs + changing positions + my particular seat = Hundreds of miles with few issues.
A few random things:
The bike “clunks” when I shift more than any other bike I've ridden. Maybe my technique is off, or the transmission on a 120+ HP bike just has to be heftier than on a 20+ HP bike... Just sounds like a good, solid “CLUNK” sometimes. I'll assume this is normal unless someone tells me otherwise.
Why are the buttons to control the trip computer and clock on the right side of the bike? They should be in easy reach of the clutch hand... I'm guessing there was a risk-management vs. engineering debate and engineering lost.
I missed the electronic cruise control that was on the R1200RT I recently rented. The Throttlemiester did its job with regards to wrist and hand relief, but a cruise control would be really nice addition to the bike. Yeah I know about the audiovox - That install is beyond my technical skills.
Really happy with the brakes. Nice, powerful, smooth stops.
At 6' 2" I wanted another inch or two on the VStream. Maybe a higher end helmet would help?
At slow speed, at anything off straight vertical, the bike feels like there is a rope on the steering tube pulling at a 45-degree angle towards the ground. I'm guessing this is the “top-heavy” I keep reading about. In a slow-speed maneuver at a gas station I felt her starting to go over. I simultaneously dragged some rear brake, upped the throttle and feathered out a bit more clutch – all in an attempt to get some forward momentum going without adding too much speed. I have no idea if this was the right approach, but it did keep it upright. It was hard to not just stick a leg out, but I had read enough to worry there was no way that was going to keep her up with that approach. I will have to be careful with this, as I worry I'll get too "comfortable" and lose the focus required with this bike at slow speeds.
Where does this leave things? I'm a very happy FJR owner. If you are new to reading this forum, believe what you read here. It is a great bike. Perfect? Nope. And I'm sure I'll find other things to not like (and to love) as we get to know each other. But if you've read this far, you should get a sense that the FJR took an effective newbie 1000+ miles in three days with no real problems. And I had FUN. This bike was made to travel, and if that is what you want to do, with a bike that is spirited but comfortable... Go for it. I did, and I'm very happy with that decision.
Details of my trip home in the ride-report area.
Thanks for reading.
dnj
What follows is really written for people thinking about purchasing a FJR, either now or in the future.
I've broken it down into two posts:
This Post:
* Purchase Decision and Buying Experience + Overall Impressions and Thoughts
Soon to be over in Ride Reports:
“Getting my FJR Home – First three rides” - The three-day ride home included St. Louis to Lexington, KY on Day 1, Lexingon, KY to Altoona, PA on Day 2, and Altoona, PA to Hamilton, NY on Day 3.
A lot of text, I know. I hope it helps someone on the fence regarding a new FJR, or a fly-and-ride deal, or whether one can ride hundreds of miles a day on a FJR with little experience... You get the idea. I was pressed for time and busy thinking about riding the bike safely while getting home in a reasonable amount of time, so no photos.
While I was struggling with the decision as to whether to buy a FJR, I really valued reading about other's thoughts going into the buying process, how the buying process worked, and initial reactions to the bike after some real time in the saddle. Below are a lot of the gory details related to my experience, including some personal details, so you can put my observations in perspective.
Here we go...
-----Personal Background
44 year-old male, 6'2”, 225 (our so) pounds, and despite being overweight am in fairly good health and relatively strong. Happy marriage, professionally stable, two great kids (12 and 8). Everyone can find things to complain about their lives. I'll spare you mine. I know I've got it pretty good.
My powered-two wheeled vehicle history is seriously short on road riding and modern machinery. It does, however, date back to the 1970's...
Honda CR50
My first motorcycle. It would run for 3 minutes and then take 20 minutes of work to get it to run again. That bike kept me from buying anything Honda from the early-1970's to 2010 (my wife got an Odyssey this year, and I STILL thought of that POS CR 50).
Yamaha GT80
First sense of motorized bliss. Bike was reliable and fun, hence my fondness for Yamaha. Learned a lot on that bike, and am very thankful that I learned to ride on Iowa sod, which softened some of the steeper parts of my learning curve.
Yamaha QT50 (the Yamahopper!)
Laugh all you want. My family moved from rural Iowa to Iowa City, ending my dirt-bike days. In Iowa at the time you had to be 16 to drive a car or ride a motorcycle. You could, however, ride a 49cc or smaller street-legal machine at the age of 14. Given the distance between my girlfriend's house and mine, that QT50 paid HUGE dividends. Pavlovian conditioning is strong, and I still get excited when I see one ;-). I beat that poor thing, and it ran, ran and ran. That QT50 meant freedom to me. But some of you are still laughing. Yeah, me too ;-)
At 16 I took the motorcycle safety course and bought a Yamaha XS400 Special II with money saved from detasseling corn (search for “manual detasseling” on wikipedia if you've never gotten frostbite and heat-stroke in the same day...). Rode that puppy until just before I turned 18 and went off to college. Sold the bike and commenced with the whole educate yourself / find a partner / establish a career / have some kids / owe the bank money / decide-who-you-are-as-you-realize-life-may-be-shorter-than-you-anticipated THANG.
2008 Yamaha WR250R
Re-took the motorcycle safety course and have been having a blast on the WR. The improvements in suspension and engines is jaw-dropping. Many of you know this, but after a 20-year gap it is really noticeable. My WR is just plain fun. But I found myself wishing the WR had a bit more wind protection and power when playing around on local back-roads with a 55mph speed limit. That, and a bit of wanderlust led me to think I might like to try some overnights, or an Ironbutt, or take a kid or the wife along. So I read. And read some more. The sport-touring segment just seemed to fit, and one thing led to another...
So I thought I wanted a FJR. How could I know? The chicken-egg problem. I've never owned anything even close. I could have been responsible and gotten a used FZ6 just to be sure I could handle a modern road bike and to get more experience. I didn't. The only semi-responsible thing I did is to decide to buy used. I like new in vehicles, but given my lack of experience with large bikes, I figured it was safest to not take the huge depreciation hit if I were to decide to sell the bike in a year.
-----The Search and Buy
Talked to the wife. She generally trusts me, but was worried about two things. The first was someone taking me out. Legitimate worry. The second was my spending more time away form home. I'll need to work on how that will play out... The good news? She wanted another horse. BINGO – green light on a FJR (or at least a yellow).
Looked locally. Couldn't quite find what I wanted. A few on this site sold right as I was making contact with the seller, and then things worked out with the unit I bought:
2008 with about 7k miles, HeliBars, V-Stream, newish Michelin PR2's, Hyperlites, Throttlemeister, BMW grips, Spencer LD seat modification, dual Heat Troller, Cortech tank bag, red light tripper and Gerbings heated gloves. Photos of the bike made it look brand new. The seller clearly took great care of the bike.
So I contacted the seller. I was nervous about everything involved in this process. Buying a bike 1000+ miles away, from someone I didn't know, when I've never ridden a FJR, nevermind this actual unit. But the seller and I hit it off immediately. Maybe I'm too trusting, but it just felt right. We worked out a deal quickly, and he kindly agreed to pick me up at the airport and to ship back to me the stock windshield, heated gloves, etc. Since I was on a trip with my family and I had to work out some other details, there were over two weeks of a wait from the deal being struck and picking up the bike. Plenty of time for me to plan, worry and second guess.
Some details, as I wondered about these things when I was working through this stuff...
How to pay? Seemed crazy to get on an airplane with that much cash. Seller would be nuts to sign everything over to me based on a personal check. Went with a Certified Cashier's Check (as I understand it, the “Certified” part is the bank promising that the money is good, and the “Cashier's” part means they took the money out of my account as the check was drafted, in effect putting it into escrow). Modern scam artists, of course, have figured out how to forge cashier's checks, but my bank is small enough that a call to the local branch from the seller's bank brought the needed assurance that everything was on the up-and-up.
No liens on the bike, which made that part easy.
What to do about a license plate? I've read about seller's letting their plates be used for the trip back. I'm paranoid by nature, and worried that, strictly speaking, this would be mis-representing the registration and ownership of the bike. Missouri (where the seller lives) offers temporary registration, even for out-of-state residents. Thankfully I had read all of their regulations, as the folks behind the counter did not think what I wanted to do was possible. I had brought a printed version of the relevant passages from their own web pages, which went a long way in smoothing things over. One sticking point was that the MO temp registration does not have a tag for motorcycles. I did not want to ride 1000+ miles with no tag on the back, so I fashioned my own using cardboard, a printed “temp” tag of my design, and clear packing tape. I saw dozens of LEO's on the way home, and was not ever pulled over, so my temp tags served their purpose.
About a week before I was to leave I boxed up and mailed my riding gear to the seller via USPS priority mail. Again, a lot of trust here, as we've never met, and I was sending my boots, riding pants, jacket, helmet, new GPS and case, gloves, and other clothing and supplies (naproxen [generic aleve], sunblock, eye-drops, etc.). Must have been $800 worth of stuff in that box.
So, Thursday, August 12, I'm awake at 4 AM (EST) to make a 6:30 flight from Syracuse to Detroit, and then Detroit to St. Louis. Seller picks me up at the airport at about 9:45 local time, and is just as nice in person as one could hope for. Great guy.
We hit his credit union where we notarize the bill of sell, verify funds, and sign things over. Then off to the Missouri motor vehicle office for my temporary registration. Bit of a nervous moment for me when when I see the VIN on my insurance card does not exactly match the VIN on the other documents. The good and bad is that I brought several copies of my insurance forms. Why is this bad? Because I accidentally grabbed one copy of the card for my WR250R, which is, like FJR, a 2008 Yamaha, making parts of the VIN look eerily similar. I did, indeed, have the right VIN on all the documents, but I gained some gray hair as this played out. I'm such a OCD freak... I'm working on that.
Did I mention that when we got out of the airport it was hotter than the hinges of Hades? More on this in the ride report.
Overall impressions and thoughts (keeping in mind my limited history and experience with bikes of this nature...)
With no real touring or slab riding experience, I flew 1100 miles, picked up an FJR, and rode it home. Day 1 was roughly 360 miles (after the flight and taking care of business), Day 2 was roughly 470 miles and Day 3 was roughly 280 miles. This bike is very well suited to cranking out miles.
I had limited time on twisty secondary roads, but hit some local ones on my way home. Smiles per mile quotient was huge, even with both bags loaded.
Torque is my friend. Thank you FJR torque. Thank you.
Below 4k RPM my bike is smooth as butter. Somewhere in the 4 k range the vibrations change. Is it a “buzz”? Some would call it that. Was it troublesome? Not for me. I did quickly get to where I could tell how fast I was going based on how the bike felt.
Hand pain? None. Throttlemeister was used as needed. I did feel my clutch hand during a traffic jam. But still, no pain even after three days of riding, just a bit of wrist fatigue towards the end of each day.
Back / Neck Pain? A bit of neck tenderness that was easy to relieve with a gentle stretch or rub. Thank you Helibars.
Butt Pain? Couple of tender spots, but never pain. Goldbond green + technical fabric boxer-briefs + changing positions + my particular seat = Hundreds of miles with few issues.
A few random things:
The bike “clunks” when I shift more than any other bike I've ridden. Maybe my technique is off, or the transmission on a 120+ HP bike just has to be heftier than on a 20+ HP bike... Just sounds like a good, solid “CLUNK” sometimes. I'll assume this is normal unless someone tells me otherwise.
Why are the buttons to control the trip computer and clock on the right side of the bike? They should be in easy reach of the clutch hand... I'm guessing there was a risk-management vs. engineering debate and engineering lost.
I missed the electronic cruise control that was on the R1200RT I recently rented. The Throttlemiester did its job with regards to wrist and hand relief, but a cruise control would be really nice addition to the bike. Yeah I know about the audiovox - That install is beyond my technical skills.
Really happy with the brakes. Nice, powerful, smooth stops.
At 6' 2" I wanted another inch or two on the VStream. Maybe a higher end helmet would help?
At slow speed, at anything off straight vertical, the bike feels like there is a rope on the steering tube pulling at a 45-degree angle towards the ground. I'm guessing this is the “top-heavy” I keep reading about. In a slow-speed maneuver at a gas station I felt her starting to go over. I simultaneously dragged some rear brake, upped the throttle and feathered out a bit more clutch – all in an attempt to get some forward momentum going without adding too much speed. I have no idea if this was the right approach, but it did keep it upright. It was hard to not just stick a leg out, but I had read enough to worry there was no way that was going to keep her up with that approach. I will have to be careful with this, as I worry I'll get too "comfortable" and lose the focus required with this bike at slow speeds.
Where does this leave things? I'm a very happy FJR owner. If you are new to reading this forum, believe what you read here. It is a great bike. Perfect? Nope. And I'm sure I'll find other things to not like (and to love) as we get to know each other. But if you've read this far, you should get a sense that the FJR took an effective newbie 1000+ miles in three days with no real problems. And I had FUN. This bike was made to travel, and if that is what you want to do, with a bike that is spirited but comfortable... Go for it. I did, and I'm very happy with that decision.
Details of my trip home in the ride-report area.
Thanks for reading.
dnj
Last edited by a moderator:
Most buyers just ride home on the current plates, then hit the local DMV. The Man isn't psychic, he can't tell that you aren't the owner of record, and if stopped you have signed paperwork to prove that you just bought the bike and it's yours legally.
