Corey Texter has been racing an fz-07 all season. very neat concept bike .but I doubt it will ever make it into production.
I was thinking of buying an FZ-09 and customizing it to be like a street legal flat tracker, I still might do it.
I haven't ridden one yet but I did notice that the suspension components were middle of the road compared to the performance line bikes but better than cruiser bikes. I'm hoping someone will come up with something similar to a Ducati Scrambler only less entry level. Ducati sales have certainly shown a market for the Scrambler type bike... I think their sales improved over 30% and the Scrambler made up most of the improvement.
I own a FZ-09. After spending about $420ish on the suspension, I will not likely be parting with this bike for a long time. The motor is awesome. And now that the suspension is sorted, I couldn't be happier. It's a really good match for the kind of roads we have here.
The suspension isn't awesome now, it's sorted out. Now the bike as a whole, is awesome after fixing the suspension though. All I did was put new springs and heavier oil up front for my weight. I opted to go for a used Kawasaki ZX6R shock since the stock shock is not serviceable and only has rebound and preload adjustment (no compression). I had the shock freshened up by a local suspension guru. And I put a racetech spring on it for my weight. The ZX6R shock is 10 millimeters longer than the stock shock which raises the rear end a little -- negating the need to raise the forks in the triples like so many guys on the FZ forum are doing when sticking with the stock suspension. I also put on a tail tidy since the picture above was taken. I just couldn't look at that hideous rear end any longer
I got lucky in that my dirt biking buddy has one. I got the chance to spend a good hour or two on it in the twisties before deciding to buying one.
Other than the 10 mm longer on the ZX6R shock is it a direct bolt on? I figured I'd try to get some FZ forks from a totaled bike or possibly switch out the internals from something comparable.
The lower clevis had to be drilled out to 12 mm where the lower mount bolt goes. It's 10 mm on the ZX6R. The stock FZ09 shock has no reservoir, so when mounting the ZX6R shock you trim an inch off the battery tray with a razor blade knife to make room for the reservoir. You also can mount the reservoir down, but that's less desirable due to the close proximity to the engine, thus some say that heats it up too much. That's about it.
That's disappointing, if i bought a new street bike that was up there. Was it the motor? Think it would be better on the fz?
Yea for some reason the FJ doesn't seem to be as popular as the FZ. Given what they are charging for the FJ, if I was in the market for that style of bike, I'd be taking a hard look at the new Versys 1000.
Yeah I'm not even in the market for a bike. Just dreaming non stop lol. Like the sport tourers and figured that would be about perfect. Versys are always cool but for whatever reason if i got one of those it woukd have to be the 650
