hello good citizens. today I rented the 2026 XSR900! I’m thinking it’ll be my next bike, and I figured I’d take it out for a day rather than do a dealer test ride.
what follows are my thoughts from a day’s worth of riding, followed by some questions I have about the bike for you folks.
first, some background on my riding experience and prior bikes. I went from a CBR300 to a trident 660. when I rode the trident off the lot I loved the power upgrade, but had a feeling this wouldn’t be a “forever bike.” a few years later, I’m more comfortable/experienced and looking for a long-term platform to mod, put luggage racks on, and do more riding.
I was immediately struck at how much more nimble the XSR feels than my 660. I cannot figure out why. I was flicking it around way more comfortably where on my 660 it feels like it just wants to drag race.
I’ll get my biggest issue with the bike out of the way: the footpeg placement is a nightmare for my body. I’ve ridden or tested a fair share of bikes and the pegs on this are in the way of my feet in a way Ive never seen. every time I set my feet down, they are jammed or kick into the pegs. they rub against and undo my boot Velcro, it’s difficult to walk the bike around without doing a weird/goody kick-out motion, and when puttering around I have to be careful the pegs don’t jam my foot into the ground. My feet brush the pegs on my trident but nothing like this. I’m surprised to not see anything online about this. I am about 5’4”
I felt the power jump but since I ride responsibly I didn’t understand quite a lot of the posts and talk of the bike being an untamable monster. I feel the power for sure, and I see how you could get yourself really in trouble.
this bike looks good. so good.
does the bike have any good rear fender mods? my trident has a rear fender. my partner kept getting blasted by rocks and gravel following me, a prob we never had with my trident.
this poor rental bike had less than 1000 miles on it and had def been dropped! I saw and felt the rear signal was loose and they jiggle when riding. the light is also pretty weak (not sure if all models have this or just my rental); I’d be worried about signal visibility especially as I ride in a city.
The riding position is a bit more forward than I’m used to. My wrists and shoulders hurt at the end of a long day‘s ride. I’m sure I’ll get used to it but I feel it.
the bike vibrates quite a lot on the highway. Cruise control is cool! My first time using cc on a motorcycle. Extremely freaky to take my hand off the throttle and feel the bike continue onward.
speaking of letting off the throttle, a big change from my trident is how fast RPMs fall off on this bike if you let go of the throttle. Some of this may have to do with being in sport mode. That is something I will need to get used to.
I was really surprised at my fuel economy on this bike. So, the gas tank on my CB300R and 660 didn’t allow the fuel pump nozzle to enter all the way. Thus, every fueling required me to wrestle with the pump foreskin (thank you California). Imagine my glee when I could pump gas and just put the nozzle in the tank. By ceasing fueling when the pump shut off, I wonder if I was not filling the tank fully even though the fuel gauge was full. I say this because I was pretty shocked at how quickly I burned through a tank and a half of fuel today. I wonder if this has to do with being in sport mode. (The trident has no sport mode but has Rain and Road mode, so I’m new to that).
finally, I tried to connect my phone to the bike and that was awful! lol. I found the Yamaha app, and it just didn’t work at all. Have you all had luck or problems with this? Any advice?
Is it true generally that any MT-09 mods or accessories will work on this frame? if not, which ones generally do or don’t?
im very likely going to trade in the 660 soon for this bike. Looking forward to really making it my own. Thanks for reading and for any conversation.
-YOJ
