Hello from LA

[dburpee]

Just got the bike a few days ago, put about 150 miles on her so far and cannot get enough. Anyone in Socal want to ride let me know. 
 
 

[12ival]

Welcome! congrats!

[bigdaddybane]

Congrats on your new bike ... she's a beauty!

[go4geoff]

@dburpee Congrats man! You're gonna love the bike in our city! I'll be down to ride when I'm back in town. Pay attention to posts from @asaulo1 @pepzfz @tanner68 and a few others who have done group rides up ACH. I'm trying to get down with them myself after I return

[pepzfz]

Welcome to fz07 world
Will be having a group ride again soon

[i28]

Welcome, buddy!
I may see you around someday.

[motomeek]

Welcome! Where in SoCal are you located?

[Eastern Kayaker]

Welcome! 

[Beemer]

Welcome and congrats on the new bike! How you liking it? Your thoughts? Likes, dislikes?

[ncmx52]

Welcome, I ride LA/Malibu once a month or so. Lmk if you are interested in riding
 

[shogun88]

Hi! Im in Long Beach and ride pretty much all over.

[dburpee]

@dburpee Congrats man! You're gonna love the bike in our city! I'll be down to ride when I'm back in town. Pay attention to posts from @asaulo1 @pepzfz @tanner68 and a few others who have done group rides up ACH. I'm trying to get down with them myself after I return

Will do, thanks for the shoutouts. I am looking to get up to ACH / little Tujunga in the next week or so. 

[dburpee]

Welcome, buddy! I may see you around someday.

Thanks! Feel free to say hello if you do. 

[dburpee]

Welcome! Where in SoCal are you located?

LA / Pasadena area.

[dburpee]

Welcome and congrats on the new bike! How you liking it? Your thoughts? Likes, dislikes?

Thank you! Have a bit over 300 miles on her so far, mostly commuting but a few spirited weekend rides.  
Likes: 
-Torquey 
-Easy to ride, handles well for me so far.
-I love the looks, more than any other fz/mt. 
-Brakes - people complain about the brakes on the fz07 and 09 but I think they feel really nice for the bike, they provide a ton of feel and more power than I think the bike needs unless you are tracking it. I feel like this bike likes to live in the 30-80mph range and the brakes have been excellent to me there. 
-Gauge cluster is actually a lot more than I expected for this bike, it has some nice features. 
 
Dislikes:
-Wind - To be expected with a nekkid but man the freeway is windy. On a perfectly calm day it is not that bad but if there are even small gusts of wind it can get a little unsettling. I will be getting a small windscreen in the near future.
-Gearbox - A bit clunky I thought for a brand new "sport bike." Mine seems to get stuck between 1st and neutral sometimes. I am used to riding a triumph which I had to bang in and out of most gears but sometimes my FZ gets stuck between gears and no matter what I can't just hard shift to get it into gear. I have gotten stuck at a couple of stoplights here and there.
-Suspension. I am not a track rider (yet) nor am I a particularly good or fast rider but I am 6'2'' and weigh 175, not a huge person but even at my weight the suspension just feels a little "unsprung" in corners. It doesn't necessarily feel planted and confidence inspiring. I think some preload adjustment would be a huge improvement on this bike. I will say though that I have absolute confidence the suspension will soak up any bumps in the road going in a straight line. 
-Levers - just me being nitpicky but the standard levers are HUGE. Since this kind of feels like a supermoto / sport bike hybrid I would like if it came with some sportier levers stock. Easy upgrade though. 
 
Overall this bike definitely wants some mods - everybody seems to go fender delete, exhaust, mirrors, signals, etc. At the bike's price point I think that is to be expected and I am not really complaining. Half the fun of owning a bike like this is making it your own with some trick parts. I am loving her so far. I need to get some more time on her in faster corners. I feel like I haven't 100% sorted out how she wants to go around turns at speed. Sometimes I hang off the bike quite a bit and she turns well and other times I stay planted in the seat and she seems to like that too - some more experimentation needed. Maybe some other more veteran owners can chime in here. 
 
Loving her so far, need to get her up into the canyons now. 
 
Cheers everyone.
 
 
 

[dburpee]

Welcome, I ride LA/Malibu once a month or so. Lmk if you are interested in riding

I am always down for a ride, I am up north of LA usually.

[Beemer]

dburpee
 
Yeah, I like the brakes, too. I've only had to incidents where I had to get on the brakes hard. Once to avoid ramming a wild boar crossing the road and the other to avoid rear ending a large SUV that came to an unexpected, quick stop. That happened when I was on the steel grid of a draw bridge that was slick compared to asphalt. I thought at first that I may not stop in time so I steered to go to the side of the truck but it did stop in time after all. I have a lot of confidence in these brakes. 

[dburpee]

dburpee 
Yeah, I like the brakes, too. I've only had to incidents where I had to get on the brakes hard. Once to avoid ramming a wild boar crossing the road and the other to avoid rear ending a large SUV that came to an unexpected, quick stop. That happened when I was on the steel grid of a draw bridge that was slick compared to asphalt. I thought at first that I may not stop in time so I steered to go to the side of the truck but it did stop in time after all. I have a lot of confidence in these brakes. 

Yeah I actually think the squishy suspension is much more prohibitive to good braking than the actual brakes themselves. I have found that you really need to preload the front to get good traction from the front tire under hard braking. For this reason it seems that if you need to stop in a hurry it actually helps quite a bit to ease on the brakes and then once the front squats down to really get on them rather than just grabbing the brake hard right away. Just playing around in the parking lot I have gotten the front to kind of sputter and slide awkwardly if I grab the front brake too fast but if I preload it first you can really give em a good squeeze. I think you would endo before the front washes out but I'm not trying to find out. 

[motomeek]

Dislikes:
-Wind - To be expected with a nekkid but man the freeway is windy. On a perfectly calm day it is not that bad but if there are even small gusts of wind it can get a little unsettling. I will be getting a small windscreen in the near future.
-Gearbox - A bit clunky I thought for a brand new "sport bike." Mine seems to get stuck between 1st and neutral sometimes. I am used to riding a triumph which I had to bang in and out of most gears but sometimes my FZ gets stuck between gears and no matter what I can't just hard shift to get it into gear. I have gotten stuck at a couple of stoplights here and there.
-Suspension. I am not a track rider (yet) nor am I a particularly good or fast rider but I am 6'2'' and weigh 175, not a huge person but even at my weight the suspension just feels a little "unsprung" in corners. It doesn't necessarily feel planted and confidence inspiring. I think some preload adjustment would be a huge improvement on this bike. I will say though that I have absolute confidence the suspension will soak up any bumps in the road going in a straight line. 
-Levers - just me being nitpicky but the standard levers are HUGE. Since this kind of feels like a supermoto / sport bike hybrid I would like if it came with some sportier levers stock. Easy upgrade though. 

Windscreen - That will definitely help a bit. After a while, you'll get to use to it. 
Gearbox - I felt the same way, but I don't mind it's "clunk" anymore. As for the sticky issues, hopefully that will be resolved once your 600 miles service is done. 
 
Suspension - Hopefully getting it dialed in to your weight will help, but most have stated that the stock suspension is made best for those in the 150lb range. Many of upgraded, which you will find on a lot of resources on the site. 
 
Levers - Haha, that's OEM levers for ya. There's also a bunch of threads regarding compatible levers if you need any references. 
 
 
 

[dburpee]

Dislikes: -Wind - To be expected with a nekkid but man the freeway is windy. On a perfectly calm day it is not that bad but if there are even small gusts of wind it can get a little unsettling. I will be getting a small windscreen in the near future.
-Gearbox - A bit clunky I thought for a brand new "sport bike." Mine seems to get stuck between 1st and neutral sometimes. I am used to riding a triumph which I had to bang in and out of most gears but sometimes my FZ gets stuck between gears and no matter what I can't just hard shift to get it into gear. I have gotten stuck at a couple of stoplights here and there.
-Suspension. I am not a track rider (yet) nor am I a particularly good or fast rider but I am 6'2'' and weigh 175, not a huge person but even at my weight the suspension just feels a little "unsprung" in corners. It doesn't necessarily feel planted and confidence inspiring. I think some preload adjustment would be a huge improvement on this bike. I will say though that I have absolute confidence the suspension will soak up any bumps in the road going in a straight line. 
-Levers - just me being nitpicky but the standard levers are HUGE. Since this kind of feels like a supermoto / sport bike hybrid I would like if it came with some sportier levers stock. Easy upgrade though. 

Windscreen - That will definitely help a bit. After a while, you'll get to use to it. 
Gearbox - I felt the same way, but I don't mind it's "clunk" anymore. As for the sticky issues, hopefully that will be resolved once your 600 miles service is done. 
 
Suspension - Hopefully getting it dialed in to your weight will help, but most have stated that the stock suspension is made best for those in the 150lb range. Many of upgraded, which you will find on a lot of resources on the site. 
 
Levers - Haha, that's OEM levers for ya. There's also a bunch of threads regarding compatible levers if you need any references. 
 
 

Yeah I will definitely be checking out some of the aftermarket options soon. Thanks for the info!