Mid-Life Rider

A mile into test riding an FJR I was hooked. This is what a motorcycle was supposed to feel like. Fifteen minutes later, I stuck my butt in front of Frank the salesman and said, “I’ll take it.” For the record, if I could only own one bike, and I hope that day never comes, it would be a Sport Touring bike. And if I never own one other than my 2006 FJR, that will be just fine.

Six months before, I had sight-unseen put a deposit down on what was to become my FRJ. As in I had never laid eyes on one. In fact, I hardly knew they existed until I had read a comparo in a magazine the month before (I’ll see if I can find which one).

About a year before that, I had bought my first motorcycle since 1981. That purchase decision had been slightly more considered. After riding a Moto Guzzi Ballabio, an Aprilia Futura, an Aprilia Tuono, and a Ducati Multistrada, I had bought the Duc . . . an S version with all the high-spec components. At the time it seemed like all the motorcycle I could handle and all the motorcycle I would need. It promised endless horizons, scrappy back road handling, and easy around town slogging. Perfect for someone who didn’t really have a clue.

Except that it wasn’t perfect (they never are). Although it never let me down, I never loved it. Touring on it always left me wondering if the Duc would leave me waiting along side some road to nowhere. I never really felt confident pushing on the back roads (likely having as much to do with my lack of training and what proved later to be a slow leak in the rear tire, but I digress). Everything about it was pricey. And though I kept telling myself it didn’t matter, it did matter . . . it’s astonishingly ugly for something designed and made by Italians.

By comparison, it was like the FJR was from another universe. It tracked like a locomotive, a quality I came to prize over and over again while traversing the high deserts of Oregon and Nevada. It didn’t exactly “drop” into a corner in the way a sport bike does, but it’s not like it didn’t either. A firm pressure on the opposite bar and a bit of a weight shift and over the old girl went, holding the line like a pit bull. I was hooked on that first ride and I am hooked again every time I roll out of the garage on it. It is a hugely capable bike.

For those not in the know, the FJR is Yamaha’s entry into a category BMW pretty much invented and some would say owns: the Sport Touring motorcycle. The idea is to combine the heft and all-day comfort of a touring bike, with the handling and performance of a sport bike. You probably had that figured by the words “sport touring.” Or to put it another way, the bike you’d want to take if you were going to ride all day on twisty roads. Or better still, five all-days.

Sport Touring bikes aren’t big sellers here in the Big PX for reasons that aren’t completely clear to me. Whatever. They spin my crank. If I had to, I’d happily own and ride any of the contenders from BMW, Honda, Triumph, Kawasaki, Moto Guzzi, and of course Yamaha.

The heart of any Sport Touring bike is the engine. Another dumb statement I suppose, but in this case, there’s a point to be made. You’re looking for a lump that performs across every criteria you can specify. Bags of torque across the range for hauling people and possessions. Big horsepower for sustaining high speeds (not practical in this country, but it’s part of the design brief). Usable gas mileage and/or a big gas tank for crossing states in a single bound. Anvil-like reliability so you don’t think about anything other than the long horizon when you’re on the road between nowhere and nowhere.

The FJR delivers solidly against all reasonable performance criteria. It’s got more than enough power . . . I’ve had mine up to a very large number on the track and and even bigger number on a verrrrrrryyyyyyy long straight road in nowhere Nevada. Yes, yes, I know. And it does all that high performing, fully loaded, while delivering high 30s to low 40s miles per gallon. It’s a stud.

I bought the bike for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I fell in love with the idea of going long. I barely register on the scale really hardcore long distance riders measure by, but the semi-normal people I traffic with think me daft. 250 miles in a day is barely a warm-up. 450 really puts me in the zone. Somewhere between there and 700 miles is the real deal. Stringing together a bunch of those days is heaven on earth. The FJR eats that sort of riding for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s happy enough slogging the big slab, but fairly dances when the roads narrow up and the horizons shrink to meters.

Take the bags off and the FJR can show its skirts to a poorly ridden open classer. But at some point, and this really shows up on the track, it runs out of ground clearance. And all that weight does make for manly work if you’re really horsing it through the twisty bits. It’s willing and capable. It’s just not as happy as you or it wants it to be riding north of 7/10s.

Few FJR owners leave well enough alone. The after market has rallied to the cause with a nicely rounded selection of bits and bobs for fitting the feejer to the needs and aims of the owner. Unlike sports bikes, few of these mods are aimed at the power plant: once you’ve added a Power Commander and an exhaust (and not many owners do the later), you’re pretty much done. Instead, most of the big dollars are lavished on things like custom saddles, windscreens, various electronic whatsits, and occasionally suspension rebuilds. You can see my list of farkles here.

I’ve got a bit over 13,000 on my FJR as of February of 2008. If I do all the riding I expect to do on it this year, I should be looking at 25,000 on the odo by the end of the year. Stories to follow on all of that.

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Tags: Yamaha, FJR1300, Iron Butt Association, Ducati Multistrada, motocycle, midlife rider