My bike before my FZ-09 was a 2009 Versys and I loved that thing until it was totalled by an inattentive aggressive lane changing no turn signal no insurance young punk. The only thing I wished it had was “fuck off” power. Everything else was great: fueling, low rpm torque, 2 up comfort, hard bags and tail bags…

Or do the other it!

Jamie Robinson’s CBR Dionysus - Good suspension, good power, mechanically reliable package, upright ergonomics, and cosmetically rough so you don’t care about riding the piss out of it. What more do you need? Ok ok you may need a second bike that is passenger friendly to keep the lady happy...

I love my FZ-09 and it really is pretty docile in the “B” mode. It can be a bit of a handful in the other modes though

2015 Yamaha FZ-09 in Cadmium Yellow with only 250 miles on her. Just picked her up to replace my 2009 Kawasaki Versys that died just over a year ago at 30K miles after getting cut off on a bridge with no time to stop. Feels so so good to get back on the bike. I’ve owned a 2006 Kawasaki Ninja 500, 94 Suzuki DR350SE,…

Shhhhhhh dammit, I need plenty of pristine replacements out there after I drive my manual GXP into the ground.

I would buy this thing in a heartbeat. Wonder if the V8 from the Tundra would fit...

I read your post and chuckled before I realized that I am “that guy”. My roommate is a service manager and I gave him my old SUV to get an alignment and an AC hose replaced/system recharged since that was the only part of the overhaul I couldn’t do myself. He had the shop do that work gratis as a favor, but I felt bad…

You probably did see a Scrambler, there was a dealer here in the Bay Area, CA that was doing Ducati demos this last weekend and they had a Scrambler in the fleet and I think they had one for sale as well.

It's a good thing he didn't have an M-79, he could have liberated that outpost and then there would have been a bunch of rebels in blue uniforms standing around shooting AK-47s at eagles...

Around 1990 I remember playing multiplayer 2-player MechWarrior 2 over dial-up with my friend. The problem was that we each only had one shared phone line in our houses so we would call each other to coordinate, configure our clients, try to connect... We eventually got it working but it would disconnect often and we…

When I was in Yellowstone a few years ago there was a buffalo just wandering down the center line in the road. He did this for a few miles and traffic was backed up behind him. It was a little nerve wracking when we had to ride within a few feet of him on our motorcycles. We thought we had a scary moment until we saw…

I'm 100% on the same page and a responsible lane-splitting advocate and participant. Unfortunately I am bikeless right now since I was taken out by an uninsured motorist that lane jumped right in front of me while I was using a full lane. Incidentally I may have avoided that accident if I had been splitting, but there…

Here in California the rule seems to be if you drive a luxury brand you can even do this to other cars. I've seen cars try to split lanes between other cars, drive on the shoulder, drive down turn lanes, etc...

Not entirely sure why the red car hit their brakes, but my friend's wife does the same thing. I rode in her car once and every time she would get next to a semi she would slam on her brakes if it even moved slightly within it's lane. She was afraid of passing them so she would do this over and over and end up spending…

Yeah the breakover angles suck, but there are rock rails that protect the undercarriage and make sliding easy. We scraped the bottom many times, but it never prevented us from getting over anything. I was pleasantly surprised with how capable they were. And yes renting was definitely the way to go!

We rented one over thanksgiving in Sedona, AZ, it was the 4 seater RZR 1000 XP4. It was stupid fun and capable off road and we went up some pretty gnarly stuff just in 2wd. It also had no trouble powersliding with the 107 or so hp it had on tap. That said, no matter how fun it was, it's not 22K+ fun, in my mind that…

As a motorcyclist who has owned quite a few bikes, narrowed the stable down to one very capable "do-it-all" budget bike (Kawasaki Versys), then lost that bike to an uninsured, unsignaled lane-changer, I would strongly consider this bike as a replacement. I don't think it's necessarily a great do it all bike, but I bet…

LOL at the lady in the white shirt that thinks holding her shirt over her face would protect her from ebola

Yeah that's possible too and since the picture isn't great it is hard to tell. It still looks to me like the sheet tucks into the gap along the rear edge of the tire which makes it look like the flat part of the flare is pretty short. Guess we will find out for sure soon enough.