(March 96 - November 98)
(24,600klms)
This was a great bike. Tough, reliable and always there for me if and when I screwed up.
The FJ is a good bike to look after, particularly when fitted with a Scottoiler (which I did shortly after buying mine), very easy to maintain, and it helps when you've got an expert FJ mechanic like the guy I use for all my servicing. The engines are bullet proof, and will go for over 120,000klms easily before even thinking about needing any work.
I rode my FJ pretty hard, maybe not as hard as one has ever been ridden, but people who rode with me couldn't believe how hard I rode it. In the process of riding with bikes like the Ducati 748, the Yamaha YZF1000 Thunder Ace, and the Kawasaki ZX7-R, I found that I was scraping all sorts of things, from the pipe, to the centre stand, and eventually even the lower cowling was wearing through to the engine casings. And never mind what happened when you hit a bump two up cranked over in a high speed left hander!! So it didn't have enough ground clearance for my liking.
I also found the handling was very sloppy and the bike was very heavy. When these two things combined, it made me a very tired person at the end of the day. That being said, I had made no suspension adjustments other than having added Progressive front springs and a heavier weight fork oil. Perhaps if I had out-laid the AUD$1,500 odd dollars on an Ohlins rear shock plus an Ohlins front end, I might have found a distinct improvement in handling, but as it was, almost stock, I found it a messy ride.
Despite the sloppiness of the suspension, it would always stay on the road and recover well, it just felt like I was piloting a boat sometimes, and gave me more than one heart stopping moment under brakes, due more to it's weight than anything...
When I had this bike out at Eastern Creek I loved every minute of it. I actually much preferred having the FJ out on the race track to having the ZX9 out there. I felt right at home on it.
You will note that some of the pictures I've got posted here at the moment are of the bike after a "motocrossing" incident down an embankment. That's a whole other story ;-)
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