DavidEBSmith
Member
I’m new to FJR ownership, but not entirely new to the FJR world. I know many of you from the LD riding community. I’ve logged over 250K miles on BMW R1100RTs, including 3 Iron Butt Rallies (2 finishes, 1 DNF), 2 Butt Lites as a rider, 4 Butt Lites as co-rallymaster, and more recently rallymaster for the TeamStrange Grand Tours, including this year’s Butt Lite Grand Tour.
So why an FJR? A few reasons. After 250K miles and 24 years on the same model of bike, I was getting a little sour about it – as Marie Kondo says, it was not bringing me joy - and was looking at alternatives. I was really getting tired of having to take a running start to get my leg over the stratospheric BMW seat. It didn’t help that the RT died on the road this spring and has been in the BMW shop with the motor apart ever since.
I spent most of this summer riding my BMW F650 Funduro (not a long distance bike, not even a medium distance bike for a guy my size) and pondering what was available. I sat on a FJR at a shady local dealer and it felt pretty comfortable.
What I ended up with (not from the local shady dealer or the local shady guy selling bikes out of a storage unit but from a local guy who was enthusiastic about the bike but had to reduce his motorcycles-to-children ratio) was a very clean 2007 AE with 24,000 miles. I’ve put about 1500 miles on it including a trip from Chicago to the UP.
So far so good. It's top-heavy but not particularly more than the RT. It's warm but doesn't seem that bad to me. The riding position is a little bit more forward lean than the RT and seems to work a little better for me. The power and smoothness, the RT doesn't come close.
The YCCS wasn't something I went looking for, and it's required some learning (or maybe un-learning), but sitting in a Chicago traffic jam without my left hand cramping up is brilliant.
So why an FJR? A few reasons. After 250K miles and 24 years on the same model of bike, I was getting a little sour about it – as Marie Kondo says, it was not bringing me joy - and was looking at alternatives. I was really getting tired of having to take a running start to get my leg over the stratospheric BMW seat. It didn’t help that the RT died on the road this spring and has been in the BMW shop with the motor apart ever since.
I spent most of this summer riding my BMW F650 Funduro (not a long distance bike, not even a medium distance bike for a guy my size) and pondering what was available. I sat on a FJR at a shady local dealer and it felt pretty comfortable.
What I ended up with (not from the local shady dealer or the local shady guy selling bikes out of a storage unit but from a local guy who was enthusiastic about the bike but had to reduce his motorcycles-to-children ratio) was a very clean 2007 AE with 24,000 miles. I’ve put about 1500 miles on it including a trip from Chicago to the UP.
So far so good. It's top-heavy but not particularly more than the RT. It's warm but doesn't seem that bad to me. The riding position is a little bit more forward lean than the RT and seems to work a little better for me. The power and smoothness, the RT doesn't come close.
The YCCS wasn't something I went looking for, and it's required some learning (or maybe un-learning), but sitting in a Chicago traffic jam without my left hand cramping up is brilliant.
