June 2011 – Page 2 – On The Road with Ian & Louise

One of the major things missing on the VStrom is a gear indicator – well almost, there is one indication – there’s the neutral light. I take it for granted that there’s a gear indicator on my FJR, and I still manage to try to leave from a stop in second or third gear sometimes.

So we tracked down a gear indicator – the GIpro, ordered it a while ago and planned to install it during the FJR Tech Day on May 28. Well, I did manage to get the speed-o-healer installed, but not the gear indicator. So I installed on Sunday May 29.

The installation was really easy with the hardest part running the cable from the dash to underneath the seat. Here it is installed:

GIPro installed on Louse's VStrom

This past Saturday went to the local FJR Tech Day. It’s a day where a bunch of us FJR owners get together at someone’s house and we wrench our bikes. There’s always an oil change or two to do, and sometimes there’s something major like tire changes or swing arm bearing repacks.

I had some electrical things to do to Louise’s VStrom so she came along. We FJR owners aren’t exclusive, we’ll play with other bikes, so Louise and her VStrom were more than welcome. There were a half-dozen FJRs and a couple of V-Stroms

One of the big things to do to a later model FJR is to install the supplemental wiring harness to mitigate the dreaded “ground spider”. I did mine last summer and a fellow FJR owner, Guy, helped me a bit with it. He had mentioned it then that he thought he’s do the same to his FJR, so he ordered up the harness and arranged to install it at Tech Day.

So that was my Tech Day – install the electrical stuff onto the VStrom, help Guy with his harness install, and change the oil in my FJR.

A great day!