It was a 6 hour ride home with a few short stops along the way. After the skies opening up and drowning Chandler AZ all through the night, we left the Phoenix area on damp roads and under threatening skies. I got a few raindrops as we left Waffle House at 7:30, but mostly it helped the morning remain cool.
I rode up to highway 93 in Surprise AZ and then through Kingman and into Las Vegas. It was in the 80's leaving the Phoenix area, right at 90 as we jumped on I-40 for 20 miles or so into Kingman, and mid-90's all the way to almost Hoover Dam. Then nearing the dam, temps jumped into triple digits and we knew we were back.
The bike has bar risers on it, but I still felt like the bars were too far away from me. If I wasn't sitting on the very front edge of the seat, my lower back started to hurt from leaning forward. I used an Airhawk2 seat pad that helped a lot with the seat, but even with that, I felt like the seat was too low and too close to the pegs. I rode the last 35 miles or so without the Airhawk seat pad, and it felt an inch lower, and even closer to the pegs. The stock seat is terrible even for those last 35 miles= hard as a rock, reminds me of stock Yamaha dirt bike seats. (hey, maybe the same people make both... )
I was quite surprised that my 2001 Bandit 1200S was more comfortable than the FJR. I have no idea what the seat is set on, high or low, so I'll start sorting out what can be done to make it more cushy. On my ZRX1100, I put lowered pegs on that dropped my feet down a little over an inch, and added a Sargent seat that's taller than stock. I'll look into dropping the pegs a bit, I don't wanna pop big bucks on a seat until I have done everything else to sort it out... don't wanna drop $500 or more and still have the same basic geometry problems between the seat, pegs, and bars.
I had great fun playing with the windshield, altho it shudders a little when it goes up or down. Probably needs some lube and tightening in places.
I also noticed that the top of the stock windshield vibrated noticeably whether up, down, or in the middle. Again, maybe a tightening issue. The windshield could be a touch taller, but not much. I may stay with the stock size but go to a tinted one, haven't looked at what's out there yet.
The glove box latch is broken off and/or missing, so it flies in the open position. I'll need to source parts for that.
I'm thinking Delkevic slip-ons just so I can hear the bike, altho I did enjoy the stealth mode ride today. Not anytime soon tho, first things first, I gotta work on the basics- clean the bike up with some TLC and making the bike more comfortable comes first.
Oh, one more question. I hate the grips, they're probably original OEM grips. The bike has grip warmers. Can I just remove the old grips and put new ones on, or....?
I usually just slice off old grips with a razor knife when replacing them but I don't know what's under there and don't want to slice through the wiring.
