Yamaha XJ900F

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June 13, 2009, 71,500km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:10:00 +0000

Sold the XJ for 200 euro! After adding a bit of fuel the XJ started, after more than half a year standing still, with one press on the starter button. Good bikes, those XJ's.
I hope its new owner will make a nice bike out of it again. Since he's read this blog he knew exactly what he bought, so the state of the bike will not surprise him.
That leaves me with an empty space in my garage... Hmmmmmm...

THE END

January 31 2009, 71,500

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:09:00 +0000

My little finger has finally healed and I wanted to awaken the XJ from its wintersleep. Very hesitantly and with aid of my car it finally started. To stop running after a little while. As it turned out the fueltank had been leaking and the tank was completely empty. I guess the bike had been running on a little gas left in the carburators. A leaking fueltank is one of the weak spots of the XJ900F, and now it happened to mine. This, together with the extra hole in the exhaust, made me decide to buy another commute bike. I had already been looking for a follow up for a little while and found the BMW R850R a worthy replacement. I knew one that met my demands almost completely: heated grips, ABS, windscreen, hard cases, low mileage.

A small testdrive convinced me even more: nice throttle response, very flickable, comfortable (so far as being noticable in a short ride), stable, gear change quite good. Only negative thing I could find was the rather weak frontbrake. I told this to the shopowner and he promised me he would change the breaking oil and replace the pads. That should suffice. After a week or so I can pick it up.

So the venerable XJ is for sale. Any takers?

January 1 2009, 71,500

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:50:00 +0000

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

December 12 2008, 71,500km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:09:00 +0000

As it turned out my little finger still hasn't healed and riding a motorcycle will be impossible for another 6 weeks. That means that I won't be riding a bike anymore this year :(

November 11 2008, 71,500km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:37:00 +0000

Using my car now for 2 weeks instead of the XJ to go to work. It's getting boring so I've begun a cdrom course Spanish while crawling in the traffic jam. Now I'm for the time being condemned to be a cager I can observe the lane splitting bikers very well too. I always notice them rather late, most of the time they're already within a few meters of my car. And that while I'm more or less on the look out for them. It doesn't matter if they have extra bright lights (xenon) of have a loud pipe: they're invisible until being quite close. I always thought using the blinkers as alarmlights was rather useless, but I experience now that it does help a little bit to notice the biker a bit earlier. Valuable lessons for me when I -at last- can use the bike myself again: as biker you're hardly noticed no matter you do, so stay alert and drop your speed.
On the other hand a lot of my fellow cagers (grrrr...) do try to make way when they notice a biker but some are blind for everything and will block the bikers unintentionally.

October 28 2008, 71,500km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:42:00 +0000

Darn, tore a tendon(?) in my little finger while playing volleyball. I don't think I can ride a motorcycle now for about 6 weeks :( I'll have to take the car to work and endure the traffic jams, jealously looking at the motorcyclists lane splitting.
The XJ was still going strong. A bit noisy with the extra hole in the exhaust, but for the rest it's fine.

August 16 2008, 69,090km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:28:00 +0000

Checked the exhaust. It seems the left muffler is leaking where it's connected to the collector. Dunno how to fix this. I'll let it be until the next servicing. That'll be in about 10,000km. Hmmm, I hope it'll keep that long...

August 13 2008, 68,000km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:43:00 +0000

Found a 3 years old pic of the XJ of the day I first got it. The bike looks very clean and shiny and now I feel a bit guilty because I've more or less neglected the bike all this time. There's rust everywhere and the bike is very filthy now.

Can't promise I'll better my life, but I'll try to take more care of this reliable bike.

July 23 2008, 68,800km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:45:00 +0000

Exhaust is leaking somewhere from the collector...

July 5 2008, 68,100km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:59:00 +0000

Nothing much to report actually. Added some air and oil, as usual. Bike is still going strong.

May 31 2008, 66,707km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:08:00 +0000

Finally fixed the speedo, after almost 3 months. Can't say I've missed it, since I do mostly lanesplitting where the speed is just above falling over. :)

May 22 2008, 66,707km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Thu, 22 May 2008 17:09:00 +0000

Still haven't found the time (or mind) to fix the speedo.
Lately I'm using the iPod for some music during commuting. I like it a lot and I find it not too distracting.

March 28 2008, 66,707km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:09:00 +0000

The bike got a new rear tire (Metzler 120/90-18 Lasertec RTL, 110 euro). The previous tire held about 15,000km, not too bad.
The mechanic had a look at the speedo too and saw that the stuffies inside the frontwheel were broken. The ordered some new stuff (50 euro) and I think I will fix it myself when it arrives.

March 26 2008, 66,707km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:12:00 +0000

The rear tire went flat this morning. I guess one of the 3 (...) patches gave in. I had to wait for an hour and a half before the autoclub finally came. They brought me home and I took the Pan to work. I think I'll have the rear tire replaced and not have it patched again ;)

March 25 2008, 66,707km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:32:00 +0000

Winter still won't budge. Because of snow, frozen roads and lousy public transport I decided to take the day off today. It's expected to be better tomorrow.

March 17 2008, 66,707km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:26:00 +0000

Hmmm, speedo still isn't working. So it wasn't the cable ;)
I now suspect the construction in the front wheel. But for the time being I don't feel like taking that stuff apart, so I'll use the rev counter as speedo for now :)

March 15 2008, 66,707km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:19:00 +0000

Replaced the speedo cable (12 Euro). Removed the GPS stuff (wiring and ram mount) since I don't think I will be using this on the XJ anymore.

March 7 2008, 66,707km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:30:00 +0000

The squeeking has suddenly stopped, and at the same time the speedometer stopped working. Can't be a coincidence, can it? ;) Now I've got to buy a new speedometer cable.

March 6 2008, 66,666km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Tried the last few days the new Shoei Multitec helmet. I like it a lot: very comfortable and much less windnoise than from all of my previous helmets.
There're coming some strange sounds from the front wheel of the XJ. Seems like it's coming from the front brakes, but I can't find anything wrong with them. Maybe a dragging brake pad?

February 25 2008, 66,100km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:11:00 +0000

Today I tested the Oregon Scientific ATC2K camera I've bought a while ago. After some experimenting I found a nice spot for the camera on the left handlebar. During the commute to my work I recorded all of my events. Which were about zilch. It resulted in a very boring vid of about 40 minutes and 1.5 GB. When I've downscaled it to acceptable proportions I'll post it here or on YouTube. Could be another YouTube hit :) The quality of the vid is, by the way, not so great. You get what you paid for... On top of this post you'll find a teaser of the complete video ;)

February 15 2008, 65,530km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:49:00 +0000

Wanted to have the rear tire replaced today, but the garage didn't have one in stock. So they repaired the two leaks, which was a lot cheaper than a new tire: 22 Euro ;).

February 9 2008, 65,000km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 14:27:00 +0000

Hmmm, seems I've got a puntured rear tire again. Tire pressure was way too low and I saw 2(!) pieces of metal in the tire. This time I'm gonna have the tire replaced since there not much thread left anyway.

February 8 2008, 65,000km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:33:00 +0000

It felt like spring today. Very nice.
Can't tell if the yellow headlight bulb has any effect on my visibility. But it can't hurt.

February 2 2008, 64,600km

noreply@blogger.com (Jeroen) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:59:00 +0000

Installed the yellow bulb. The light is now exactly as I want it to be. I should be better noticed now when lane splitting...