A new FJ rider

[Waiex191]

As I've posted before, my son has a V30 Magna that a neighbor gave him. I was worried he had been ruined as once he was used to the Magna he didn't like the standard seating position of my GN400 any more.  I saw some hope on the long highway ride we took yesterday as the cruiser seating position is not great for high speeds and long distances.  So today I let him ride my FJ.

"Does this speedometer read fast or is it just that easy to go fast?"

[fj1289]

KOOKALOO!   

[Millietant]

I get where you're coming from Bryan, in the late 1990's (I think around '97) my wife's VF 750 was waiting for its bodywork to come back from the painters when we were due to ride over to Switzerland for a 5 day tour, so she was without a bike.

My dad said we could borrow his GSX 600, which we did, but after we'd had a couple of local ride-outs, Liz said that after riding her 750 for a few years she didn't fancy going back to a "small, buzzy 600" for a long tour - so she claimed the FJ. Despite the extra weight, once she'd done a few Black Forest and Swiss Alp hairpin-bend climbs, she said she couldn't believe how easy the FJ was to ride, to the point that when we got home, she claimed the FJ for every ride until her VF was ready again. Even then, after that, she was always hankering for something with a "bit more oomph" than the 750 (sorted that with her 2001 FZ1/Fazer 1000).

What made it worse was that she even took my colour matched leathers when she rode the FJ 

Just noticed, these are the only photo's I have found of my FJ with the Motad Neta exhaust on it.



I have to admmit that I loved that little 600.....a great bike !

[Bill_Rockoff]

Nice!

When my son had a learner's permit, we rode together with him on my wife's Ninja 250 and me on the FJ1200. He had been riding dirtbikes for ten years by that point, but we switched bikes for a while so he could try something with some power on the wide-open roads that stood between the twisties and home. When we stopped, I asked what he thought of the FJ and he said "It's definitely 'the Easy button' on the highway." It gets better on longer trips, too, "Oh man, I knew I shouldn't have taken the fun way through the twisties. It added like an hour to my trip, and I'm expected for dinner in five hours but I'm still 400 miles away. I better call when I stop for gas, let them know I'm going to be late." {open throttle, tuck in a bit} "Huh, how about that, looks like I'm actually going to be early."


"Does this speedometer read fast or is it just that easy to go fast?" Cute quote. Answer is "both, really." The speedometers on these bikes are somewhere between "optimistic" and "completely divorced from reality" so I have typically just assumed it's off by ten percent and done the math in my head, when curious; that's pretty close. "'A bit less than ninety' you say? So, basically eighty then, where closing the throttle for half a second will bring me back into actual compliance with the law." But they're awfully nice for covering ground in a hurry. I've towed to FJ rallies from time to time, but the easiest way I have to get the FJ 300 miles away is to ride it 300 miles.

[Waiex191]

Answer is "both, really." The speedometers on these bikes are somewhere between "optimistic" and "completely divorced from reality" so I have typically just assumed it's off by ten percent and done the math in my head, when curious; that's pretty close.

I agree with the both comment.  I also use about 10% as the error estimate, which I got from timing myself at 60 in a marked mile a long time ago.  So at 85 indicated I'm calling it about 76.5 mph.  Back before I stopped riding that would have been speeding, and actually that is where my FJ, radar detector and I used to cruise.  Now that we have 70MPH highways it's not even really speeding.  

What made it worse was that she even took my colour matched leathers when she rode the FJ

You have a funny definition of worse Dean - I'm still getting grief for the two of us taking the bikes while my wife and younger son took the Buick.

Speaking of the 10% error - the fastest I've ever gone was about 155 indicated, which I've always counted as about 140.  It took me two tries to find the needle because it was waaaaay over on the right.  I'm too old for that foolishness now.  Heck, that's about 25mph more than you need to cut an elk in half.

[Millietant]

  - I guess I do Bryan........

Speedo wise, I always assumed 10% error before I could measure it with any reasonable confidence. Now I usually have my small Garmin Edge 200 GPS speedo/tracker on my bars while riding. At a steady 70 mph indicated on my FJ speedo the other day, my GPS was saying 66.3 mph.

I've checked it across a big range of speeds many times over the last few years and my FJ speedo seems to vary between about 5% and 7% fast at any given speed.

My Aprilia RSV speedo only deviated by about 3% max, with 166 mph on the speedo down the back straight at the Nurburgring showing 160.7 mph on my Garmin.

[ribbert]

.... the fastest I've ever gone was about 155 ..... I'm too old for that foolishness now.

Codswallop, you get old when you stop doing it.

Noel

[Millietant]

Exactly Noel