Archive for the ‘Yamaha motorcycles’ Category

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Test Riding The Yamaha Tracer 9

Monday, July 20th, 2026


This is the Tracer 9 I test rode in Cheyenne.

The notice about the Yamaha demo days event at Cheyenne Motorsports said you would be allowed two test rides per day. I was there specifically to test ride the Tracer 9 so I figured I wanted to ride it twice. Not sure how many people there would be and how many would be interested in the Tracer, I made it a point to be the first to arrive in the morning. That was not hard considering that my motel was just a block away.

There weren’t many people there right away so I asked if it might be possible to get in more than two rides. Maybe. Depends on the crowd.

We got lined up for the first ride. It wasn’t going to be very long–just 9 miles, they said. And this being Cheyenne, they said they found the only two curves anywhere near. Fine. It is what it is.

We started to pull out and I immediately stalled the bike. OK. This clutch is a bit different than what I’m used to. Gonna need to experiment. It turned out I just need to roll on the throttle a little before I start releasing the clutch. The kind of thing that becomes second nature after awhile.

Looking at the bike beforehand I had wondered if the reach to the grips was a bit far. Would I need or want risers? When I bought my Concours that was the very first thing I did and it made all the difference in the world. But in this case, as soon as we headed out I could see that the reach was just about perfect. No mods needed here.

Unlike any bike I’ve had before, this one has a screen instead of an instrument cluster. How readable is that screen in bright sunlight? It turns out, they seem to have solved that glare issue. Even in direct sunlight the screen is totally readable. Nice.

I’m used to riding my V-Strom and it is designed for you to stand up while riding. That means the pegs are down pretty low. That is not the case with the Tracer. How quickly might it become uncomfortable riding with my legs not extended? What can I do about it? Speaking with the dealer later I said I want highway pegs and he said he was sure they can be had. Looking further I found that I would probably need to put a case guard on and then put the highway pegs on it. That’s exactly what I had done with my CB750 Custom and my V-Strom so I’m fine with that. Plus, it’s nice to have the extra protection for the engine.

How was the ride? Really nice. I like this bike. It has tons of acceleration and good brakes. The handling is very light and easy. We got to the two curves they spoke of but there was a slow-going truck in front of us so we didn’t get to take it at any kind of speed. But the bike felt good.

We got back and now there were more people showing up. Could I get on the Tracer again right away? No one else had signed up for it so I did. Great.

Riding it again was a very good thing. For one, I was by now acquainted with the clutch and I had no issue with that. We also had a chance to hit some higher speeds and the engine got a chance to show me what it can do. Let’s just say it can do a whole lot more than the engine on my V-Strom. And we were able to hit those two curves with a bit more speed. Very smooth. I like this bike. I may just have to buy one.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if your boots cost more than you spend on gas in two months.

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Posted in Suzuki motorcycles, V-Strom, Yamaha motorcycles | No Comments »

I’m Convinced I Want A Bigger Bike

Thursday, July 16th, 2026


A stop on the recent Utah trip.

I’m down to only one motorcycle now and it’s the smallest one I have ever owned. This Suzuki V-Strom is a 650cc machine and it has done very well by me. That said, this recent trip to Utah convinced me that having something just a bit bigger and more powerful is desirable.

On the way out we blasted across Colorado on I-70 and the guys up front were running about 10 miles per hour above the limit. The limit is 75. So my V-Strom was working hard. I kept up, there’s never any issue about that. But it was working.

Then we got into Utah and the speed limit went up to 80. So we were doing 90. Or more. Now that little 650 was working hard. But I was keeping up.

Later in this trip we climbed some pretty high mountains, often on some particularly steep roads. That was when I really felt it. There were a couple times when I wasn’t sure we were going to keep up. I had to shift way down low to get the oomph to make those climbs. That was when it really gelled in my head that yes, I do want a bigger bike.

Not a lot bigger. I really don’t miss my old Concours. It was 1000cc and it weighed a whole lot. It had the power to carry that weight and on the highway it cruised just as smooth as glass. It was a nice highway bike. But oh man, at slow speeds in a parking lot you better not let it lean too far or there’s nothing on this planet that you can do to keep it from dropping.

So I’ve looked around a bit in recent years and I have identified the Yamaha Tracer 9 as just about the ideal bike. It’s 800cc and weighs around 450 pounds. That’s almost exactly the same as my V-Strom. The Connie weighed 600 pounds.

Weight is not the only thing; there’s also handling. But weight influences handling, particularly at very slow speeds. I’ve mentioned before how when the RMMRC went on a New Mexico/Arizona trip a few years ago I watched all these other guys wrestling their big machines around these tight curves, and meanwhile, on my V-Strom, I was dancing.

But I hate the idea of buying a motorcycle without having ridden one at least once. Last summer I heard that the Yamaha dealer in Cheyenne was hosting a demo days event. I had it on my calendar and a sure thing. Then, a drunk driver altered all my plans for the summer.

There was no Cheyenne demo days event listed on the Yamaha site this year but there was one set for Boise. OK, that would mean a road trip. That works. But then we ended up going to Alaska at that same time. We got home and I looked again, thinking I might need to go on a long trip. But apparently these events get added during the summer. And it turned out there was a demo days at a Denver dealership . . . the day we left for Alaska. Dang!

But then, oh my gosh, there it was: Cheyenne. The very next week. I’m going. And that’s the answer to the question you may have had, why was he going to Cheyenne?

Biker Quote for Today

I couldn’t find the right man, so I settled for a motorcycle. I’ve never been so happy.

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Posted in Kawasaki, motorcycle clubs, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club, Suzuki motorcycles, V-Strom, Yamaha motorcycles | No Comments »

Off To Utah On 5-Day Ride

Monday, June 1st, 2026


Stopped to catch a view in Utah.

Five of us with the RMMRC headed to Utah last week on a 5-day ride. On the BMWs were Dave, Lindsay, and Tom. Gene was on his Yamaha and I was on my Suzuki.

We met out at the Phillips 66 in Morrison and the first order of business was to link our communicators. We failed and headed out with only two linked, Tom riding lead and Gene riding sweep. It was a chilly morning destined to get a lot colder before it got warm.

Our destination on Day One was Green River, Utah, which is about 330 miles. We were doing it all on I-70, just to get there. We ran up from Morrison past Red Rocks, got on I-70, and blasted west.

The first point of interest came at the foot of Floyd Hill. At that spot I-70 comes down a steep incline and then makes a hard turn left into Clear Creek Canyon. That hard left makes the turn a bit of a hazard. The state has been working for a couple years now to straighten out the bend and generally improve that stretch of road but all that has been visible all this time has been some earth-moving as they cut into the hillside a bit.

That has changed. Down at the bottom you now see tall pillars with a short slab of what will be highway indicating the route of the new flyover they’re putting in. Around the bend you see more pillars indicating that they are raising the highway leading to the curve and you can see where the lane will go right through a notch they have cut in the hillside. Very interesting.

We climbed on up toward the Eisenhower Tunnel and by now my fingers were getting numb and I was cursing my failure to wear my electric vest. I had it with me but it wasn’t doing me any good in my bag. We got through the tunnel and headed down to Silverthorne and as it didn’t get much warmer down there I knew I was going to be cold all the way to Vail.

Up from Silverthorne, past Frisco, past Copper Mountain, and up Vail Pass. Just over the top of Vail we encountered more major highway construction. Apparently they are widening the road on that side and there is already a high median barrier in place. However, we were heading west on the eastbound side of that new barrier because they’re just in the process of building the highway on the westbound side. Also, up at the top of Vail Pass, there was a brand new rest area to replace the old one that has been closed for a couple years. Your tax dollars at work. Probably good expenditures.

Tom was setting an aggressive pace the whole way and after we got down and through Vail he bumped it up another notch. We stopped for lunch in West Glenwood and headed on toward Grand Junction. We had discussed where we would need to get gas and we all agreed we could make it to Fruita. But at this blistering pace–80 to 90–my gas mileage was suffering badly. We got into Debeque Canyon and I was down to just one bar on my fuel gauge and it was flashing red. I had no helmet communications but Gene, just behind me, did and I waved him up. I pointed to my gas tank and he got the idea. He told Tom I needed to stop for gas so Tom pulled off at Palisade. I really don’t think I would have made it to Fruita.

Off we went again and once we got into Utah we were truly blasting. That stretch of I-70 has an 80 mph speed limit and we were going the obligatory 5 to 10 mph faster–or more. And the wind was blasting us in the face. Google says from Palisade to Green River is 113 miles. My fuel gauge was showing three bars of five when we got there. Normally I get about 140 on my first two bars.

So now we were in Utah. The slog portion of the trip was over. Tomorrow the real fun begins.

Biker Quote for Today

The bike is an extension of my being; we ride as one.

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Posted in BMW motorcycles, Colorado motorcycle rides, motorcycle touring, Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Riders Club, Suzuki motorcycles, V-Strom, Yamaha motorcycles | 2 Comments »

Seriously?

Monday, September 22nd, 2025

I was out walking to Target and Ace Hardware Saturday because Judy is away for a few days and I’m under doctor’s orders not to drive. Besides, I like to walk and it wasn’t that far.

Who rides on a tire like that?

One reason I like to walk is because you see so much more than you do when you drive. Like this bike. First it was like, oh, a motorcycle. A Yamaha.

Then I noticed there was no windshield, no instrument cluster, no headlight. OK, so this guy is presumably not driving it at this time–it’s just parked here.

But then I noticed the tire. Look at that tire. The rest of the trashed front end presumably happened in some mishap, but that tire only got that way by being ridden. Ridden long after it should have been replaced. Who rides a tire down to the cords and then keeps riding it? Maybe someone prone to doing something careless that ends up with the front end smashed up.

I can understand the smashed up front end. My Honda got smashed up in front, too, and all I was doing was sitting on it. But that tire!

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycling is the safest dangerous thing you can do, or the most dangerous safe thing you can do.

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Posted in Motorcycle Safety, Yamaha motorcycles | No Comments »

How About A New CB750?

Thursday, August 7th, 2025

The new Honda CB750 Four.

My friend Nick, from Chicago, is keeping close tabs on my recovery from my June 29 crash and he also knows I intend to buy a new bike. He texted me the other day with the startling news that Honda intends to bring back the CB750 in 2026. I had to check this out.

Calling it the CB750 Four, this new bike is styled very much like the old CB750–like the one I rode for nearly 40 years before it got smashed on June 29. While I loved that bike I will admit I was not in love with the old tech. So the ability to get a very similar bike with the most modern tech available is extremely inviting to me.

I had already begun looking for a Yamaha Tracer because that is a bike I identified a couple years ago as something I would like to have. There are not many left on the dealers’ floors but when you can find one they go new for $12,600. All the bags and everything else are extra.

This new CB is supposed to be priced at $9,000, with bags extra. Of course, that’s before Trump’s tariffs kick in. I was talking with a sales guy at Vickery the other day and he said the only info he has as yet is that dirt bikes will go up in price about $1,500. He said he expects street bike prices to go up by double that. So who knows what the CB will actually cost.

Meanwhile, it gives you a pretty good incentive to either buy new from what is already in the country or else buy used. I would seriously consider picking up a new Tracer now but I hate buying a bike I have never ridden. Fortunately there will be a Yamaha demo days event in Cheyenne in early September. And considering that I’m currently constrained from riding as I recover from the crash, that may prove to be very good timing.

As for the CB750 Four, certainly I will want to climb on one and see how it feels but if there is one motorcycle I have extreme familiarity with it is this new one’s ancestor. If I swing my leg over the new one and it feels like the old one I really don’t think I’m going to need to ride it to make my decision.

Biker Quote for Today

Your motorcycle is a discovery; your bike is freedom. It doesn’t matter where you are when you’re on the bike; you’re taken away.

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Posted in Honda motorcycles, Yamaha motorcycles | No Comments »

Learning Basic Motorcycle Riding

Thursday, October 31st, 2024

Think of all I would have missed if I’d never learned to ride a motorcycle.

I wasn’t born knowing how to ride a motorcycle. I had to learn. Neither were you? What a coincidence. Eventually I did learn, however. You did, too? Good for us.

I did not learn by taking a class. Heck, I’m not sure I was even aware back then that classes like that were offered. If I had been I wouldn’t have taken one because I was poor. I was so poor, in fact, that I had to borrow money from my parents to buy my first motorcycle, although I never let them in on that secret till many years later.

Before I bought that bike, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom, I had ridden motorcycles occasionally, although not recently. I had friends when I was younger who had bikes who occasionally let me ride, but it was only good fortune that kept me from crashing them. I didn’t know how to steer properly.

When I bought my Honda, a friend who had ridden scooters as a kid told me he assumed I understood about counter-steering. Nope. Never heard of it. He didn’t know how to explain it, other than you push the bar right to go left, so I was still none the wiser. But I now understood there was something I needed to learn more about.

Whenever I’m new to something I dive in and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, mostly by reading. John’s first bike (as an adult; he had a scooter as a kid) was an old Gold Wing that someone gave him. (Nice, huh? Would like this free Gold Wing? Oh gosh, I don’t know. Sure, I’ll take it.) That was a bit too big a bike for him right off the bat but he rode some with another teacher at his school. Then when that guy died unexpectedly his widow asked if John would like to buy his Virago at a very low price. So John got rid of the Gold Wing and bought the Virago.

Along with the Virago, the widow gave John a bunch of her husband’s motorcycle magazines. These he shared with me. The first issue I ever saw of Rider magazine was the one with the newly introduced Honda Pacific Coast on the cover. I read those magazines cover to cover, including the ads, soaking up every bit of knowledge I could. Soon I was subscribing to Rider and Cycle and passing them along to the guys after I had read them. I still do that.

This–along with practice on the road–was where I learned about counter-steering. Along with a whole lot more.

I also learned about traction management. I’m talking about how you have the most traction when the bike is completely erect and the farther you lean the less available traction you have, right up to the point where you lose traction altogether and go into a low-side crash.

First John got a bike, then I did, then Bill did. We rode together a lot. One thing I quickly noticed was how both of them were able to go faster in the twisties than I could. I initially attributed this simply to the fact that they had both had scooters as kids and so were more experienced than me. Later I also figured out that both of their bikes had lower centers of gravity than mine, which just simply made it easier for them. (It’s funny to think of my Honda as having a high center of gravity. My two other bikes, a 1999 Kawasaki Concours and a 2006 Suzuki V-Strom 650 are both very tall bikes and I have long come to consider the Honda as the low one.)

Trying to learn to ride better, and to keep up with them, I took to sitting up straight and leaning my Honda way over. I did not understand the risk that entailed as opposed to leaning my body to the inside of the curve and keeping the bike as upright as possible. But I never crashed and eventually I learned the ins and outs of maintaining traction.

Most of my friends to this day have never taken a riding class. Eventually I was no longer poor and I did take riding classes–a whole bunch of them ultimately. By then I could ride competently and what I ended up learning were some finer points that I had still missed. It may surprise you but even an experienced rider can learn something from a riding class.

I did learn to ride. And I like to think I eventually got pretty darn good at it. So here’s a thank-you to everyone–writers, teachers, other riders–who helped me get to this point. I don’t think I would have gotten this good without you.

Biker Quote for Today

On the bike, time stretches, and I glimpse moments of forever.

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Posted in Honda motorcycles, Kawasaki, Suzuki motorcycles, V-Strom, Yamaha motorcycles | No Comments »

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