PelicanHazard
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2008
- Messages
- 2,507
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA, USA
- Car(s)
- '13 Dart, '03 Ranger, '20 390 Duke, '22 K16GTL
So this weekend, MotoAmerica was here in Pittsburgh. I went with a friend who's gone pretty regularly in the past, and Yamaha was there with test rides. I rode this:
An FJR1300. Quite a step up from my 390 Duke!
The demo route was pretty simple, given the lack of options surrounding the race complex:
I did have some initial difficulties during the low speed exit from the parking area, being unused to the larger bike, but a little bit of speed and it became very easy to manage.
Pros:
An FJR1300. Quite a step up from my 390 Duke!
The demo route was pretty simple, given the lack of options surrounding the race complex:
I did have some initial difficulties during the low speed exit from the parking area, being unused to the larger bike, but a little bit of speed and it became very easy to manage.
Pros:
- POWAH. Exemplified best on the turnpike on-ramp where I went up to highway speed before I even realized it without shifting. Can't manage that in the Duke.
- So smooooooth. I know an inline-four isn't inherently vibration-free, but coming from a single cylinder buzzer, it was downright buttery.
- I've looked at sport-tourers for a while now, but never actually ridden one. With the Duke being so flickable, I thought perhaps a larger and heaver tourer would be a bit much. This one, anyways, hides its weight very well when moving. (Again, couple of issues I had with it while taxiing in and out of the staging area.)
- Overly complicated dashboard. I've probably been spoiled rotten by the Duke's clean TFT screen, but having 3 distinct clusters was a bit busy.
- The fairing was much appreciated, but there wasn't a windshield height that worked well at speed. All the way up covered most of me pretty well, but amplified the wind noise and buffeted my head. Lowering the windshield to clean the air around the helmet and combat the buffeting also did something to the pocket of still air my torso had been enjoying that I didn't like. Maybe a taller windshield that fully covered the helmet would have helped, but I don't know for sure.