Yamaha Fjr1300
YAMAHA FJR1300
Long-Term Wrap-Up
FAST TIMES ON THE LONG HIGHWAY
SOMETIMES, LONG-TERM BIKES
really are long-term. Other
times, the odometer just never
stops rolling and bam!, it's over
before you can say "Iron Butt."
This FJR1300 is one of the latter, rip-
ping though its 10,005 miles in only a matter of months. Sure, Yamaha asked for a speedy return of the bike, but it wouldn’t have taken much longer than it did even without the deadline.
This is simply because the FJR begs to be ridden far and fast, and once you get some seat time, you beg to ride it far and fast. It also helped that during our stint, we had no mechanical issues that kept the bike from its intense tour of duty. It just ran, the same, all the time. We flogged it at high speeds, penned it in through heavy city traffic in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Salt Lake City, rode it over mountain passes and through desert lowlands. It just burned fuel and used tires. We still were more than 12,000 miles away from the first scheduled valve adjustment. Which for us, with this bike, was maybe two weeks away...
Quotes from the logbook
Corey Eastmi Overall, I like the FJR a lot. It’s sporty, yet very practical, and is the sort of bike I should probably own. The FJR is great on the freeway, has tons of power, handy saddlebags and decent wind protection.
David EdwardsHard to argue with handling and power in one neat, mile-eating package. My complaints about this bike-no ABS, no fairing storage, small windscreen-have been addressed for *04. Now, what do we do about radiated engine heat?
Mark HoyerI never tire of this burly, burly powerplant. So smooth, so powerful, so refined. I know the FJR is heavier, has shaft drive and not as much horsepower, but this Yamaha is the Hayabusa of sporttourers, the bike I want to roll on the throttle and never roll off.
All kidding aside, what’s not to like, right? Well, engine heat, for one: Nearly every FJR-owning reader who wrote in commented that heat was a bad, bad thing. Some even went so far as to install under-tank insulation and air-diverting rubber. Nobody said they were able to eliminate it.
The other main complaint concerned helmet buffeting. The stock adjustable windscreen seemed to cause most folks trouble no matter at what angle it was set. We fixed this with Yamaha’s larger accessory screen ($95), which worked much, much better. Highspeed cruising comfort with the screen in the low position was improved, and “tuning” the flow with the electric adjustment allowed riders to find a sweet spot of stillish air.
The FJR1300 lured me away from BMWs after 14 years. I rationalized that I could keep my R1100GS and buy a new FJR for the same cost as buying another “oilhead,” but I’ve hardly ridden the GS since, so I recently sold it. The FJR is the best allaround motorcycle I’ve ever owned. -Brian Horais, Oakton, Virginia
It made those long rides all the more enjoyable, because one could then concentrate on what really matters: the engine. The 1298cc inline-Four made a big impression on us from the beginning. In fact, one logbook entry simply read, “Motor!” At the end of the test, our FJR made 127 rear-wheel horse-
power and 90 foot-pounds of torque, an increase of 6 bhp over our initial reading.
Friend-of-the-magazine Ray Nierlich took the FJR on a two-up trip with his wife Carla to San Francisco. Said Ray, “I love the engine. It’s all about that whoosh factor. And I was glad I wasn’t paying for the rear tire!”
This is a very nice, comfortable, good-performing touring bike. One problem: Thanks to Yamaha ads that describe it as a “Super Sport Touring” bike, insurance companies (I tried several) rate the FJR as a sportbike. No way! This is a touring bike. -Stephen Pierce, Austin, Texas
On the latter point, we got fewer than 5000 miles out of the first set of Metzeier MEZ4s, but were doing better with the Bridgestone BT020s with which we replaced them. The ’Stones definitely lightened the steering response at low speed, too.
Carla, who generally prefers to ride her own motorcycle, liked the passenger accommodations: “Very nice. Enough room that I wasn’t bumping up against Ray the whole time, and the seat was nice and wide.”
I really like everything about this bike: excellent handling for its size, right at home around town, on the interstate or twisty backroads. I didn’t think I’d use the adjustable windscreen as much as I do-wouldn’t be without it now. For those in line for an ’04, it’s worth the wait! -Rick Schroeder, Neenah, Wisconsin
That pretty much sums it up. It’s good in the front seat, good in the back seat. Toss in great luggage, sporty styling, good comfort and long range (as much as 270 miles between fill-ups), and you’ve got a great way to cover 10,000 miles in a matter of months. Think of it this way: The engine alone is worth the price of entry. The rest is just a bonus. □
SPECIFICATIONS
$11,499
Okay, so the control module mostat for the Yamaha acce heated handgrips ($246) isn exactly pretty, and the left gi is cooler than the right than fo the lack of insulating thro lie tube, but none of that wil matter when it’s cold out and your hands aren’t.
