The sun’s out and I’mma heading west, way out west, where the temperature increases by 5 degrees and the salesmen are human (well these were anyway).
I was out testing riding again today. This time round I booked a ride on the Yamaha MT09-Tracer. The salesguy figured since I ride a Blackbird he could trust me to go out riding on my own for as long as I wanted. Awesome! Only problem was there wasn’t much fuel in the tank and that feeling of phoning the dealership to tell them I run it dry and was stranded just didn’t take my fancy…lol!
Google maps told me there were a couple of roads that I’d not travelled which had a few bends in them so they would be the perfect testing ground for my test ride.
The tracer ready to go, Luke gives me the run down on the controls and off I go, heading out of Penrith, Emu Plains and up the hill on Old Bathurst Road. The road meanders and the Tracer is loving it, me too!! There’s a few 15km hairpins on this section of road, so it’s nice and steady and the with the width of the bars it makes life a little easier getting round them. Through the little shopping centre at Blaxland and now I had to keep an eye out for the way down. No GPS, what’s a girl who gets lost in a circle to do……cross her fingers and hope for the best!! LOL
Nah, not that bad, I’d remembered a left turn onto Wilson something then followed my nose to find the next new road “Mitchells Pass”. Now if you want to avoid the freeway, this IS most definitely the road to take. It’s mostly one way traffic (which dummy here didn’t realise), nothing is posted and majority of the corners are blind, but still fun. Down in the gears, a bit of juice and the triple sang! A little lean on the bars and I tell you it’s like riding Daisy on STERIODS!! Got to the bottom and thought, I should go back up and do it again but not having much fuel decided best to head back to the dealer.
Back onto the freeway into Penrith and opened it up and before I knew it I was punching out over $1.40…….plenty of power for overtaking long haulers 🙂
Into the dealership and I had a smile on my face. It was so much fun and comfortable.
I’ve made the comment to people when considering another bike “if I could get a Daisy (DR 650) that was comfy for the long distances and was as fun, then I’d be a happy camper”, well I think I have found the winning combination.
The MT09-Tracer delivers on all those requirements as well as being light and nimble with a reasonable fuel range (from stats). For a little more confidence, I would look to lower it to get just a bit better foot to ground. The beauty of this package and it is a package is that it comes with panniers & centre stand as stock, so I would only have to look at a topbox, heated grips, aux lights and crash bars/knobs and I’d be ready to head off on a Long Distance adventure.
MT09-Tracer
Good looking
Great all rounder, just not my colour.
The final bike to test is the F800GT which is proving to be illusive, however I did take a ’09 F800ST for a ride. I got to the bottom of driveway and didn’t like it….open mind Kimmie. Continued to the end of Henry St, Penrith and decided that I was taking it back to the dealership….I hated it!!! There are no other words to describe the ride, it was awful! No photos of this one, it might’ve broken my camera. However, I will still test ride a current F800GT as from 2009 to now things have changed and one can only hope for the best.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!!
