| Yamaha2009 FJR1300AE |
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They talk about the immediacy of the Internet, but sometimes good ol’ City Bike has that system of tubes beat. For instance: just last Thursday (if you’re reading this the week of Novemebr 16th), I was riding home on a Yamaha FJR1300AE, and here you are reading an actual print story about it. You tsee, I thought it’d be a good idea to drop off a scooter I reviews for another publication and then ride home on an FJR1300AE, ostentiably because Dirck wrote about the Connie and Bob Stokstad did his story on the BMW GT, and I thought it’d be good to review not one but three sport-tourers in a regional moto-mag, but also because sometimes it’s good to be a geeky little moto-journalist and ask for a $16,290 bike to ride around for a month. Works for me, but how useful it is to you, CB-er, may be questionable. That’s because Yamaha is no longer selling the electric-shift AE model that I spent 6 hours riding in sub 60-degree temperatures. I had a well-worn 2009 testbike, but Yamaha does have some of these left to sell: a far cry from the early years of the FJR, when prospective buyers had to put down a deposit, sight unseen. The FJR was truly the shizzle, enough to bring middle-aged men to blows with sales managers when they realized they couldn’t haggle over the price. It won shootouts and rave reviews from the moto-mags, and a fervent community grew up around the bike. It’s easy to see why. The basis of the FJR is a sportbike-styled twin-spar aluminum frame, a first on a sport-tourer back in 2003. There’s shaft drive, adjustable front and rear suspension, linked ABS brakes equipped with Yamaha’s monobloc four-piston calipers (yeah, that’s right, Yamaha had monobloc calipers way back before they were cool...) and an engine mounted as a stressed member for maximum stiff-iosity. That engine is a big mother, a 1298cc liquid-cooled, 16-valve dohc Four. Back in 2002, a 1300 really meant something, even though everybody has that now. It puts about 122 hp into the rear Metzler touring radial, with a broad spread of torque that doesn’t dip below 60 ft.-lbs. (max is about 90) anywhere between 2500 and 9500 rpm. For 2009, the five-speed gearbox gets a redesign, with new mapping in the infamous Y-CCS electric shifting mechanism for better response. What’s Y-CCS, you ask? It’s essentially a little electronic hand that modulates the clutch and works the shifter for you. You can row through the gearbox with either a foot shifter or a little lever under the left handlebar switchpod. The bike gets completely wrapped in plastic bodywork. That’s festooned with a luggage rack (a top box is an accessory), locking hard luggage, an electrically adjusted windscreen and a 6.6-gallon fuel tank. The seat and bars are adjustable, and heated grips, complete with a rheostat like the Concours 14 has is standard. A 12-volt socket resides in a small storage bin to charge your cell phone or power accessories. Everything you’d expect from a luxury sport-tourer. Riding the bike is pretty much like you’d expect. At 5’6”, the lower position on the seat seemed just right for me, making the bike seem lighter than its 650-pound claimed wet weight. The first thing you have to do when riding the AE is to figure out the Y-CCS. It’s actually easy, once you learn its foibles and realize it works almost as well as a real clutch hand. Shifting is slightly jerky, and low-speed modulation is not its forte, but...it does work. And it is nice not having to work the clutch on a big bike when you’re rolling through town. It even automatically downshifts when you’re lugging the motor, and works as a speed shifter when you’re working up to cruising speed or exiting corners. Again, not the smoothest experience, but I’m starting to like it after 500 miles.  The motor is almost everything you’d want out of a luxury bike like this: laden with torque, nicely fueled, and with enough top end to mostly justify the ridiculously vast speedometer dial (180 mph, Yamaha? Really?). It’s also a little more rough and buzzy than I expected, but not objectionable. Handling is also good. You’ll never be fooled into thinking the bike is a middleweight sportbike, or even an overweight Sportster, but it can dance when it needs to, with lots of cornering clearance and well-calibrated suspesnion. Keep the pace to seven-tenths and it will hustle. Long-distance comfort is also about what you’d expect. The seat is soft and wide, wind protection is good (the screen does get noisy and buffets at the high setting, and even the lowest setting caused a lot of turbulence around my helmet), and heated grips are swell. It’s easy to burn up a full tank—I ran it down to reserve and was only able to get just over five gallons in it—about 200 miles worth at a steady indicated 85 mph in a sitting. That meant L.A. To Oak-land in just under six hours, counting one fuel stop. Annoyances? Well, there’s the rough engine, the windscreen that always returns to the low position when you switch the bike off, and the slightly wonky Y-CCS. It’s clear that this bike needs a major or total redesign to keep up with the more refined products from Kawasaki and BMW we’re testing in this issue, but if you’re looking for a sport-tourer with electric shifting, and you don’t want the new Honda VFR1200F, snapping up one of the last FJR-AEs might be your only hope. -Gabe Ets-Hokin |